Freethinking Blog

Terry Pratchett and assisted dying

2011-06-14T15:48:00.053+01:00

Last night’s documentary (featuring Terry Pratchett) graphically illustrated the plight of some desperate people whose serious and unremitting illness consigns them to a drastically diminished and suffering-filled future, and who want help to end the lives that they now find unbearable. Currently unable to be legally assisted to die in the UK in the way that they would like, the only hope for some is to go to Dignitas in Zurich to end their lives in a strange and sterile place (although, it has to be said, Dignitas appear to do their best on this front), and earlier than they might otherwise choose, as they know that they must go while they are still able to travel. This is not how things ought to be; and a rational, informed, and compassionate society would arrange things differently.

We know that many people who are terminally ill would choose to stay alive as long as they can, and perhaps choose to enter a hospice when they are close to the end. As autonomous rational people, they should be free to make these choices, and we ought to help them where appropriate. However, compassion dictates that we ought to help those other autonomous rational people who are terminally or unbearably and incurably ill, and for good reasons don't want to enter a hospice or have palliative care but would instead freely choose to end their lives (because they feel that they no longer have any kind of quality of life left, and know that things will only get worse), but lack any reliable and humane means to bring this about themselves. And we shouldn't forget that we might find ourselves in that position one day, and might then wish to be shown such compassion ourselves, and so it is rational for us to agree to have the option available so long as it can be safely legislated for - which it can.

In light of this, assisted dying (where the person is assisted to self-administer the agent that will cause death) ought to be legal in cases where an expert assessment panel is happy that these three criteria are met:

1) The person is certified by two independent doctors to be either terminally ill, or to have a serious and incurable illness that will cause them unbearable suffering with no hope of recovery.

2) The person is certified to be of sound mind.

3) It can be shown beyond all reasonable doubt that the person is properly informed on the matter, has an enduring desire to end their life, and is not being coerced into this by others.

Surely it is not beyond human ingenuity to create such panels (probably as part of the NHS) consisting of medical, legal, and ethical experts, operating under proper oversight, to meet and consider each application for assisted dying on a case by case basis, to carefully weigh up all of the actual relevant evidence on the matter, and to reach sound decisions on such cases based upon the criteria above? And the likely existence of ambiguous cases (on which we probably ought always to err on the side of caution) does not demonstrate that there will not be many more clear-cut cases on which the panel could arbitrate (any more than the fact that it would be difficult to say whether some particular men would be classified as bald or not entails that there are no clear cases of men who either are or are not bald).

And, to dispose of an oft-cited red herring, the person assisting the death need not necessarily be a doctor, and hence this need not conflict with the Hippocratic Oath. We might decide that it could instead be assisted by someone specially trained and certified to carry out this task - as A.C. Grayling suggests, a new medical speciality of thanatology.

As to the slippery slope arguments that say that if we legalize assisted dying we will inexorably slide down a slope to a point at which the sick and vulnerable will get coerced into agreeing to die, or will sometimes just be murdered, they are unsound in principle unless the appropriate causal connections can be demonstrated to exist such that accepting some (reasonable) proposition (e.g. that we ought to legalize assisted dying under certain strict conditions) logically entails a slide into accepting some (unreasonable) proposition (e.g. that some vulnerable people should be killed against their will). Moreover, there is no good reason to suppose that we cannot just dig our heels in and say ‘this far and no further’, by framing sound laws accordingly, to prevent us from sliding down the slope.

It might be then argued that, whilst a slippery slope is not logically inevitable in principle, nevertheless the world is such that the slope will be slippery in practice. However, when we look at the actual facts from places where assisted dying or euthanasia have been legalized (such as Oregon, Belgium, and the Netherlands), the consensus of expert opinion (when formed by a reliable method) is that there is just no good evidence for the sorts of abuses of the vulnerable that the existence of a slippery slope would entail; and nor is there any good evidence for an increase in non-voluntary euthanasia (in fact, there has generally been a decrease), or of an increase in assisted dying beyond what would be expected due to greater public awareness and improved reporting by GPs. So, the existence of such a hypothetical slope is effectively refuted in this case both in practice and in principle (see, for example, here, here, and here; and for additional supporting statistics that the vulnerable are not at risk under such laws, this, and this).

Moreover, after the Dutch passed the law in 2002 legalizing assisted dying and euthanasia, several different governments have held power there, but there has been no serious suggestion in government that the law is leading to abuses. Furthermore, Belgium and Luxembourg have since enacted their own similar laws, after studying the effects of the law in Holland - which would be highly unlikely if there was good evidence of abuses taking place there. The situation is similar in the US states of Oregon and Washington. In fact, By contrast to the purely hypothetical slippery slope, the existence of people who are terminally or unbearably and unremittingly ill, and would freely choose to be helped to end their lives, is not hypothetical at all.

Whilst killing is normally and rightly considered to be a great harm (as it thwarts an autonomous rational agent's desire to go on living, terminates all of their future plans and chances for happiness, might cause them suffering and fear, and might cause distress and fear in others), there are cases in which the greater harm is to compel people to continue to live with unbearable suffering, and to withhold the help that could be given to such ill people to release them from a prolonged, hopeless, and miserable life. What if an autonomous rational agent desires not to continue living, but to die instead? And what if the suffering entailed by continuing to live greatly outweighs any suffering that would be caused by being killed? And what if, rather than causing the agent and others fear, the possibility of death brings comfort as they know that they have a relatively painless and humane way out if life is unbearable due to incurable or terminal illness? Surely, under such conditions, the reasons for the death of that person to be considered a great moral harm are no longer present, and the moral situation is actually reversed. We should remember that a life only has value to the person living it to the extent that they want to continue living, and are able to do so relatively free from pain and suffering.

If you doubt the above, then imagine (as a thought experiment) that you happen upon a car that has been in a terrible accident, and the occupant is screaming as they burn alive. Now imagine that you know beyond any reasonable doubt that the occupant cannot get out of the car (either on their own or with anyone else's help), but that you have to hand the means to kill them reliably, quickly, and painlessly (a gun, say), and that you would not be prosecuted for doing this. And imagine further that the occupant knows this and is pleading for you to put them out of their misery. So, squeamishness aside, ought you to kill them swiftly as an act of mercy so that they suffer no more; or ought you to do nothing, ignore their pleas for mercy, and let them suffer terribly and then eventually die anyway?

If you think the former then you must agree that there can be greater harms for a person than death alone (and the act of killing that would cause that death), and that merely living for a bit longer isn't always valuable for the person whose life it is, or would be desired by them. And if your objection to assisted dying was based upon the inviolable sanctity and intrinsic value of life (no matter how little value that life holds for the person living it), then to be logically consistent you ought now to change your mind about this objection. Alternatively, if you would let the person burn to death, for the same reason that you object to assisted dying, then you are at least being logically consistent in your reasoning. However, I would argue that in this case it might be that some false beliefs that you have about the world are misleading you into acting immorally (see the next section for more on this). Or, if not this, then you ought to consider whether you would want to be put out of your misery if you were the person burning to death in the car, and, if so, reflect upon exactly how you could then morally justify treating someone else in a way that you would not want to be treated yourself in similar circumstances.

And those who would declare, on religious grounds, that life is not ours to take under any circumstances (including, perhaps, our own life), or who would offer some theological justification for people's continued suffering, are first required to prove to us the existence of their god; to then prove that their god has decreed this to be so; and to then demonstrate why we all ought to obey such commands anyway, rather than just rejecting them on justifiable moral grounds when it would be too cruel to do otherwise. Good luck with that, but in the meantime we need give no greater weight to such beliefs than to any others based upon such unreliable and non truth-seeking methods as mere speculation, hearsay, desire, wishful thinking, tradition, delusion, and other ungrounded assertion (i.e. what some religious people collectively call 'faith', and consider to be a virtue); and to not allow such people to claim an unwarranted monopoly and authority on moral truth, or to have a disproportionate and unwarranted influence in the making or changing of relevant law on the matter (or on any other matter, come to that). As the number of false beliefs vastly outnumbers the number of true ones, and as false beliefs can be and have been transmitted just as easily as true ones, an unreliable, non truth-seeking method such as the method of faith is almost certain to select false beliefs. As such, the method of faith doesn't produce actual knowledge at all, only unwarranted belief (as opposed to a reliable method, such as the method of science). And it is exactly as we should expect that such a method has produced endless confusion and disagreement amongst believers, with the predictions made by its propositions routinely failing to transpire, and a myriad of inconsistent and mutually contradictory beliefs. Of course, to select any one subset of these beliefs as being true, whilst rejecting others, would be purely arbitrary and just special pleading. It's far worse than that for people who base their beliefs on such methods though, as we actually have very good reasons to suppose their beliefs to be not just unproven and highly improbable, but manifestly false.

Of course, some people who believe primarily on religious grounds that assisted dying should not be legalized do not actually choose to argue on these grounds, but instead use one of the secular arguments (often the 'slippery slope') as a fig leaf for their true reasons. Such people are at best disingenuous, and lose credibility as a source of reliable knowledge on the matter. If they really think that the religious reasons for their beliefs are warranted, then, if they are genuine truth-seekers, they ought to submit these reasons in the court of informed public debate. And, if not, then to base such strong belief upon unwarranted reasons would be irrational. Furthermore, if any such people start with a strong prior commitment to some conclusion or other (e.g. that assisted dying is morally wrong, based upon the religious sanctity of life), and do nothing but try to fit evidential data (rejecting or just ignoring any data that doesn't fit) to different hypotheses that would also tend to entail the same sort of action (e.g. that a slippery slope is inevitable), then they are not honestly, objectively, and reliably seeking the truth, but are instead performing some sham version of scientific or philosophical enquiry in order merely to persuade others and perhaps achieve some agenda or other (similar in that regard to the sophistry of intelligent design, where rejection of the theory of evolution on religious grounds is hidden behind specious scientific arguments). It is just not a virtuous way to try to acquire actual knowledge. Whilst such particular arguments as the slippery slope ought to be assessed on their own merits (as we are genuine truth-seekers), we have good reasons to doubt the credibility of people who would argue in the way that I have described as sources of reliable knowledge, and we ought therefore to be highly suspicious of any claims that they make. For a pertinent example of a religious person (the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams) being challenged when arguing this way, see this eloquent and well-argued letter from someone who has personal experience of assisted dying (and a further reply to the Archbishop's response, here).

Those who would disagree with me about assisted dying legislation are, I believe, mistaken about certain facts (e.g. that God exists and has decreed human life to be sacred, that properly formulated and operated assisted dying and euthanasia legislation has led to proven cases of abuse elsewhere, or that palliative care can ameliorate all unbearable suffering and indignity in the dying); are employing fallacious or otherwise faulty reasoning (e.g. that all slopes are slippery ones, or that death is always the greatest harm for a person); or are otherwise acting irrationally. Autonomous and rational agents should be legally and morally free to choose to end their lives, and, under strict legal guidelines and criteria, there ought to be assistance available to help them. If we were rational, logical, and cognizant of all of the relevant facts, then we would legislate to allow such acts of compassion to end unnecessary and unwanted suffering, and would want to be shown such compassion ourselves if we were in those dire circumstances.

Protests and political theory - a dialogue

2010-12-07T17:19:00.167Z

This is an imaginary dialogue inspired by the recent student protests against increases in tuition fees. Whilst it focuses on the student protests issue in particular, it also covers a good deal of background political philosophy that is of more general interest.

Mary awoke, slightly disorientated, and it took her a few seconds to remember that the sleeping bags around her contained the fellow protesting occupiers of one of the university common rooms. She was about to close her eyes and go back to sleep again when she heard a voice. She looked to her side and saw a heavy-set, bearded, and bald man whom she recognised vaguely to be a professor from the Philosophy Department.

Professor: “Hello Mary. How is the occupation going?” he said.

Mary: “Uh…very well. Thanks.”

Professor: “And what are the goals of the occupation? What are you hoping to achieve?”

Mary: “Well, we want the University to agree to our demands – including opposing any increase in student tuition fees, fighting against any cuts to education and other public services, and fighting for free education for all. Once it agrees to these demands then we will end the occupation. This is just a small part of a much larger campaign of direct action across the country against university fee increases.”

Professor: : “Interesting, but I have some concerns about the occupation in terms of both strategy and principle. From a strategic point of view, if you want to achieve your goals, as you rationally should, do you think that the approach that you have taken is the one most likely to succeed? And, in terms of principle, do you believe that your actions can be justified morally, particularly if we bear in mind that they are probably illegal? Of course, morality and legality are not entirely coincident, and nor should they be. The law ought not in general to legislate against all immoral actions, such as lying; nor to enshrine some religious code of morality - as happens in theocracies. And, conversely, the law that stipulates on which side of the road we are to drive, for example, does not reflect some underlying moral truth of the matter. Nevertheless, the decision to wilfully and forcefully occupy somebody else's property should require proper justification. That Locke's justifications of private property rights (including his labour-mixing one) ultimately fail does not mean that no other good justifications are available. In fact, a societal agreement, enshrined in law, to allow and respect legitimate private property ownership is something that we all ought rationally to consent to, as it is generally in our own long-term self-interest to do so as long as others reciprocate. And, if the state does rationally formulate such laws, then we are entitled to use them to protect ourselves and our property against those who would choose to reject such laws. Furthermore, those who do reject such laws are required to make their case for change by means of proper reasoned argument, rather than by mere force.

In terms of strategy, if the university management is broadly sympathetic to your goals, do you not think that this occupation will be more likely to alienate the very people with whom you could otherwise have worked constructively in pursuit of these goals - thus making it irrational and self-defeating? And, in terms of principle, if the university management broadly disagrees with your goals, do you not think that attempting to coerce them into acquiescence is morally wrong? In either case, don’t you think that reasoned and civil debate and discussion with the university management prior to and instead of any occupation would have been the more rational and just course of action, as opposed to demanding that they negotiate with you only after you have already taken occupation of the room? Moreover, if the education cuts do go ahead as planned then the University could hardly be blamed for choosing to increase its tuition fees, as it would have little choice but to replace the lost revenue stream somehow if it is to remain a financially viable entity. So, on that basis it would probably be irrational for them to oppose tuition fee increases on principle, as you would probably like them to do.”

Mary: “Well, some forms of direct action, including this occupation, may possibly be legally wrong, but they are morally right - as we are just exercising our right to free speech and peaceful protest, and anyway the ends are a vital good that justifies the means. Furthermore, we are not using violence or destroying property – although these might be acceptable in some other cases of direct action. I’m sure the university will agree in the end that we’re right, and we’re prepared to wait as long as it takes for them to see sense and negotiate with us.”

Professor: “Do you believe that a right to free speech entails a duty upon others to provide you with a particular platform, other than those platforms that are already open to members of society in general? And do you believe that a right to peaceful protest entails a duty upon others to allow you to occupy their property? If so, do you have sound justification for those beliefs? Apart from considerations of justice, isn’t human nature such that these methods will tend to turn the University management against you, even if they might initially have been sympathetic to your cause? If so, then wouldn’t you be acting irrationally? And isn’t it just begging the question to say that the ends are so good that they justify the means, as whether the ends are such is a large part of what is disagreed upon here? Don’t you first have to demonstrate this by means of sound argument based upon evidence and reason, rather than just assuming it? And if the ends weren’t the good that you assume, then wouldn’t direct action be unjust? Following your logic, wouldn’t other groups – say the BNP or the EDL, or even anyone who decided to fight for fee increases – be equally justified if they chose to use direct action in order to force a change in law or policy? And if they were allowed to succeed, wouldn't your actions set a dangerous precedent that could be emulated by such groups, and thus irrationally encourage anarchy over civil society?”

Mary: “They wouldn’t be justified, where we are, because our ends are right and theirs are wrong.”

Professor: “So you say, but I’m sure they would equally passionately insist that they are right wouldn’t they? But in the absence of good supporting arguments, your and their cases would be equally little more than mere assertion, so how can I as a dispassionate observer know that you and your ends are right, where others would be wrong? You haven’t demonstrated it to be so, have you?”

Mary: “Well…I do have some good arguments that I can give to you that will show we’re right. Do you want to hear them?”

Professor: “So, you do believe then that good arguments are required in order to show that you are in fact right - that you can’t just assume it?”

Mary: “Yes, I would say that. And I do have some, so I’m not just assuming that I’m right.”

Professor: “If you have good arguments, as you suggest, then why are you and others choosing direct action instead of putting all of your efforts and energies into perfecting these arguments and communicating them as effectively as possible to the University, the government, and to the general public so that they can recognise and agree with the rightness of your case and that of the student protesters in general?”

Mary: “We’ve done some of that, but direct action is so much more effective at getting our message into the media and in forcing government to change policy and law. It’s worked before, and it can work again. By contrast, peaceful protest has little effect - look at what happened with the demonstrations against the war in Iraq.”

Professor: “But don’t you think that direct action, whilst certainly getting your message out and getting backing from those who already sympathetic to such means, will tend in general to alienate political and public sentiment, and therefore be self-defeating and irrational? After all, why should they be sympathetic to your case if they haven’t agreed with or perhaps even heard these supposedly strong arguments of yours? Maybe you’re not communicating them widely or effectively enough, or maybe they’re just weak or unsound arguments. In this latter case, how would you even know yourself that you are right? And, moreover, even if direct action is effective in forcing changes in policy and law, do you think that law and policy should be made and changed this way in a democracy such as ours? Do you think those who can muster the greatest force or numbers should determine policy and law by those means alone, or should they not instead be based upon deliberation using the best evidence and the strongest arguments?

You mentioned that the large-scale marches in London and elsewhere in Europe against the involvement in the Iraq War that failed to bring about a change in policy. However, even on a majoritarian view, if a million people marched against the invasion, then many more millions didn’t. And, in fact, polls at the time showed a majority of people in Britain in favour of our troops taking part in the invasion – notwithstanding the presence of the marches against this. However, more fundamentally than this, laws and policy in general should be based upon deliberation, evidence, and reason in an attempt to gain general assent and to best determine moral and political truth, not upon mere force of numbers holding the respective views.”

Mary: “Well, I suppose it might alienate some people. And I agree that we could probably put more effort into getting our arguments right and communicating them effectively. But in the meantime I don’t see why we shouldn’t use direct action to try to get what we want. We know we’re right, so direct action is justified. What we need is mass civil disobedience - it worked with Gandhi, it worked with Martin Luther King, it worked with Nelson Mandela, and it can work with us.”

Professor: “We live in a democracy – even though it is one that contains many flaws. As such, there are legitimate legal means available to people to attempt to change law and policy, and these have been shown to work in the past – for example, political lobbying, public debate, peaceful protest and, ultimately, how we use our electoral vote. In such circumstances, isn’t direct action just irrationally choosing anarchy over civil society? If one lives in an autocratic or totalitarian regime, or is part of some permanently disenfranchised minority, and one can thus play no legitimate part in the political process in one’s country, then civil disobedience and direct action can certainly be justified – as in the cases that you mentioned. And if the regime is sufficiently tyrannical and corrupt, then even revolution might be justified and rational. But do you honestly believe that you are being excluded from playing any legitimate part in the political process, and that mass civil disobedience and direct action is justified in your case?”

Mary: “I don’t think that I’m exactly being excluded in that way, but the means for changing policy and law that you mention are so slow and inefficient. If we want things to be changed, which they must be, then direct action and civil disobedience are the best ways of doing it.”

Professor: “You may think you’re right, but you have so far failed to convince a majority of our political representatives of this (and even this wouldn’t prove that you’re right, just that you have got general agreement, which is not necessarily the same thing, but is at least what is required in a democracy), and your direct actions may in fact do more harm than good to your cause in this regard. For example, there is some evidence that the general public is indeed alienated by violent or destructive direct action, so it is plausible to suppose that this would be reflected amongst political representatives too. Whilst you should be entitled in a democratic civil society to voice your opinions and arguments freely in public, so long as they are not direct incitements to violence and harm, and to seek agreement from others in order to effect changes in law and political policy, don’t you agree that if you fail to convince people by these means then you should not be entitled to then coerce them into agreement instead? That’s part of what it means to live in a democracy. You can’t just impose your will upon others in society without first achieving some sort of democratic political agreement. To do so would be to act as tyrants by using force to get what you want. And if you could do it, then so could anyone else. Do you think that you would be right to seek to impose your will like that, and to thus reject civil society in favour of anarchy?”

Mary: “Well, what’s so great about democracy and the way that law is made and changed in it? And what do you mean about anarchy, and why would that be such a bad thing anyway?”

Professor: “Changes in significant law and policy should, in general, be carefully considered and debated and overall agreement from the people or their political representatives should be sought. Moreover, any such changes should be based upon evidence and reason, as these are the best ways in general of converging upon political and moral truths (and truth in general). And given the facts about human psychology and the world in general, incorporating the evaluative premises that the most essential moral and political goals ought to be happiness and flourishing, and realising that there are empirically better and worse ways of achieving these goals, then I believe such moral and political truths do in fact exist. If people know that there is a way for them to influence and change the law, however slow and flawed in might be, then they can agree to live by some laws that they don’t agree with, whilst seeking legitimately to change them. That is, as John Rawls argued, in a democracy where all people have a voice the strains of social commitment will be minimal. And if changes in law are based upon evidence and reason, then they are more likely to be right, truth will be more likely to prevail, and society will be more likely to progress. Certainly, such high ideals are often not met in practice, but this is not reason to at least aspire to and try our best to achieve them.

To base changes in law instead upon mere force would be anarchy, and to base them upon mere numbers would be majoritarianism. The former is an irrational rejection of civil society, and the latter would practically guarantee that minorities would be ignored and perhaps oppressed. We all might find ourselves in a minority position on some issues, and we would hope that the majority would not just ride roughshod over us, but would instead consider our views, and be swayed by them if they are rationally persuasive enough. Therefore, it is rational that we should accord others the same consideration. Moreover, such a method will be more likely to be truth-seeking. In fact, if people are to be truly free, then they must be given liberties that allow them to go against the will of the majority, constrained only by being compatible with those same liberties for others.

Yes, it’s, slow, flawed, open to abuse, and almost certainly not the best possible system of government, but liberal democracy - probably representative rather than direct - is the best general system of government yet devised by humanity in terms of realizing individual human happiness and flourishing, as it gives citizens extensive freedoms and rights, and gives them all a say in who shall rule and what laws shall be made. Of course, those who choose not to participate will have their political decisions made for them by others. Moreover, giving government just the power that it requires to maintain a civil society, rather than being able to impose some moral view or other, allows it to devote more time to solving real problems, and reduces the opportunities for abuse of power and oppression of its citizens by the current or any future government.

Plato argued for a system of benevolent dictatorship by those selected and trained to be the wisest and most knowledgeable, instead of by the citizens in general (which he thought of as mob rule, and likened to allowing drunken passengers instead of the captain to navigate a ship), but human nature and frailty are such that it would lack the necessary omniscience, would be too prone to corruption and self-interest, and would then be difficult to remove if the citizens found that it was not in fact acting in their best interests. Even apart from this, the strains of social commitment would tend to be greater in a society in which those being ruled have no political say, even if the manner of that rule actually is in their own long-term best interests, and it would thus ultimately be a less stable and flourishing society. And autocratic and totalitarian regimes of all stripes have always promoted human misery by their often brutal restrictions upon personal and public freedom, their personality cults, and by their misguided beliefs about human nature and the world in general.”

Professor: “And you asked why anarchy would be a bad thing. Well, notwithstanding the ingenious arguments devised by those who support it, the overwhelming evidence shows that in the absence of a functioning state with a legitimate monopoly on violence people (more often men) will compete violently over precious resources, including mates, seeing others as mere obstacles standing in their way; they will employ pre-emptive aggression against neighbouring groups as they fear that if they don’t then they will be attacked first – known as a Hobbesian trap; and they will act violently to protect their honour, or else they fear that others will perceive them as weak and attempt to exploit or kill them. Pre-state tribal societies and those where the state is out of reach or has disintegrated almost always have vastly higher levels of violence than in ours – in fact, tens or hundreds of times higher. Anthropologists, historians, and social scientists have given us ample actual facts that demonstrate Rousseau, amongst others - with his belief of peaceful and selfless pre-state humans, and the corrupting influences of civilisation leading to violence and greed - to be dead wrong."

Mary: “But aren’t humans naturally altruistic and cooperative, and isn’t there even lots of evidence of cooperation in the animal world, as Kropotkin said? Maybe humans are naturally good and it is society that has corrupted them, and political anarchism would then create a less violent society?”

Professor: “Reciprocal altruism, compassion, group loyalty, and empathy are parts of human nature, as they were evolutionary adaptive behaviours in certain circumstances, and they are at the root of our intrinsic moral sense. However, the so-called noble savage is an enduringly popular myth - violent, aggressive, xenophobic, and ruthlessly selfish tendencies are also evolved parts of our human nature, and the evidence strongly shows that in the absence of a state, these latter tendencies will tend to predominate when dealing with those outside of our moral circle of family and immediate group, and that this would probably be in our best interests anyway, as others will probably be acting that way towards us. Cooperation requires trust, and trust of strangers would be largely non-existent in the absence of a state. Whilst iterations of Prisoner’s Dilemma scenarios show that mutual cooperation is ultimately in the best collective interest of people generally, without the existence of a state with its legitimate monopoly on the use of violence to enforce laws and contracts, deter aggression, and punish wrongdoers it is almost impossible in practice to achieve this large-scale mutual cooperation as people will distrust others and tend to act only in their own short-term interests.

Almost without exception, when the state doesn’t exist or is taken away, then inter-group violence spirals; and where there is a functioning state it falls dramatically. In light of this overwhelming evidence of a correlation between functioning state and reduced violence, and vice versa - with good reasons to explain this correlation - then to maintain that anarchy would instead actually tend to lead to more happiness and less violence is highly implausible. Human nature renders the anarchists’ dream of unregulated mutual harmony as utopian self-delusion. Therefore, it is in all of our best interests in general to have a civil and democratic state, and there is every reason to believe that political anarchy would entail anarchy in the colloquial sense, and so it would be irrational for us to encourage it. What we need to decide is exactly how to organise the state for all our best interests, not whether one is necessary at all. Don’t you agree?”

Mary: “Perhaps, but why would our actions tend to encourage anarchy at the expense of civil society?”

Professor: “Because by using such direct means as occupations, destruction of property, and, in certain circumstances, violence in order to get your way you are attempting to force a change in the law by coercion in the absence of democratic political agreement. However, if you do this and it is successful then you are setting an example to others of how to shortcut the democratic political process in order to get the law and policy changes that they want by force. Thus, by this dangerous precedent, would the seeds of destruction for the democratic state be sown.

Mary: “Perhaps, but why should I agree to obey the laws of the state, when I never agreed to those laws, or even to the existence of the state in the first place?”

Professor: “In a nutshell, because it’s in your long-term best interests to do so, as the alternatives would be far worse for you. Read Hobbes’ Leviathan. His solution of an absolute ruler – whether a monarch or otherwise - is a bad one that would most probably entail unacceptable consequences in terms of freedom and autonomy. However, his arguments about the ‘state of nature’ and why we should aim to avoid it are still powerful today. And, the argument to the best explanation based upon the evidence we have is that political anarchy would in reality converge upon something akin to this Hobbesian state of nature - even if the way that it was cited by Hobbes was actually a historical fiction. Actual facts about human nature and the world dictate that the types of freedoms and liberties worth having require a state and its enforcement of democratically agreed laws.

So, if we knew all of the relevant facts, and reasoned correctly based upon these facts, then we would probably freely and rationally choose to agree to live under a democratic and liberal state, and to generally obey its laws, whilst as the same time seeking to improve them where evidence and reason dictates this, as there is every reason to believe that this is the type of political arrangement out of any that we know that is most likely to enable us to lead a happy and flourishing life. This is not the same as the utilitarian justification for the state - that we should agree to it because it is the solution that maximises the happiness or preferences of the population as a whole. Nor is it the same as the contract justification for the state - that we have all tacitly agreed to it already, or at least would do so hypothetically. If we all desire to lead happy, contented, and flourishing lives - as we rationally ought to do - then, given the facts that we know about human psychology and the world in general, we can all probably best achieve this goal by living under the general framework of a liberal and democratic state, and by generally following its laws [and this accords with my view of morality, discussed here, with politics being the subset of moral behaviour that relates to power and government]. Of course, some people might still mistakenly believe that a state is not justified, and so will refuse to live by any of its laws that conflict with their short-term interests - even whilst perhaps benefiting from its protection and so on. However, we, the majority, would then be justified in using in self-defence the state's legitimate monopoly on violence in order to restrain such people if necessary.

Whilst even a democratic and civil state will inevitably place some restrictions upon our liberty to act as we please when this would harm others, these restrictions ought not be too onerous, as the power of the state should be limited to only that which is needed to maintain a civil society, and not to impose some moral order upon the population - as totalitarian states attempt to do. Nor should it otherwise needlessly restrict our freedom by, for example, limiting free speech or assembly, stopping us from voting or running for political office, forbidding purely self-directed harm, preventing ‘experiments in living’, or being otherwise oppressively paternalistic. So long as the state maintains a universal set of political liberties for all, including autonomy, equality, and justice, then people should in general be free to live as they wish within that framework, limited only by them causing direct harm to others. As John Rawls said, “each person is to have an equal right to the most extensive scheme of equal basic liberties compatible with a similar scheme of liberties for others.” We ought to agree to the authority a state that necessarily reduces some of our freedoms, because it is in our rational self-interest to do so, whilst working by rational deliberation of actual evidence of what works and what doesn't in order to make our actual state more closely approximate the ideal above."

Professor: “So, moving on, if we can agree that your case should be based upon reason and evidence, rather than upon force or mere numbers, then please tell me some of your good arguments for why you think you are right.”

Mary: “Well, firstly Nick Clegg and the other Liberal Democrats made a pre-election promise that they would oppose and fight against any fee increases. They have now broken this promise, which is wrong. Secondly, university education should be a right for all. Thirdly, university education should be free, and should not be treated as an economic transaction. And, lastly, those arguing for fee increases themselves had free university education, so they are hypocrites.”

Professor: “Firstly, making promises that one knows that one cannot or will not keep, or breaking them out of self-interest alone is probably morally wrong in general. As such, it may be that Nick Clegg and co should be made an example of if they acted in this way. However, breaking promises cannot always be opposed on principle alone. They probably did make that promise based upon the condition that they formed a government, as opposed to merely being a minor partner in a coalition, where they have only limited influence over policy. Also, Nick Clegg and Vince Cable might have evidence that they didn’t have when they made that promise, or have re-evaluated their arguments against fee increases and corrected them where they erred, and now honestly believe that the proposed fee increases are generally in the public’s best interest. Or, perhaps they had no ability to stop the education cuts, and saw the tuition fee increases as being the fairest way forward given that precondition. Or maybe they believe that there is ultimately greater instrumental value in conceding this particular fight, as by doing so the coalition can remain viable and its more minor Liberal Democrat component can continue to influence government policy by softening the Conservative line and winning concessions from them. If they were right in this, then breaking their promise would probably be the lesser evil, at least from a utilitarian point of view. I wonder if you and the other protesters would similarly object on principle to broken promises if the Conservatives decided to scrap the proposed fee increases?

As I said earlier, law and policy should be based upon evidence and reason, and if these pointed to the fee increases being more to the public good, then they would probably be justified. The fault would then be in having made the promise originally, not in having broken it. And, ultimately, it does look as if that keeping that promise was untenable, and it therefore should never have been made. Don’t you agree? I’m not stating that this is in fact the case, but that its hypothetical possibility renders your argument unsound.”

Professor: “Secondly, you say that university education is a right. I’m not sure if by this you are implying that university places should be available to all students who want them, regardless of merit or cost? In any case, I would ask where this so-called right come from? It seems somewhat mysterious to me as its existence is not self-evident, and you haven’t demonstrated it. The onus should be on you to do so, don’t you think? If it is a right, as you insist, then this entails a duty upon others to provide it, which amounts to a form of forced labour as people would be required to serve others in order to supply this right. Don’t you agree? There would therefore be a heavy burden of proof that you would need to meet before it would be justified.”

Professor: “Thirdly, when the politicians who now call for fee increases were at university the proportion of university students was much smaller than it is today, and the nation’s financial situation was probably far less dire. Yes, it smacks of hypocrisy, but decisions should be based upon the current real-world circumstances, and not upon delusion or facts that were once true but are no longer so. And if that means that it is rational for some previously existing state funding to now be withdrawn then so be it.”

Professor: “And, lastly, I think we come to one of the core issues in this debate. University education most certainly isn’t free, as somebody must pay for the necessary resources in terms of people, buildings, materials, and so on. At the moment this is paid for partly by the state (i.e. the taxpayers, amongst other sources), partly by the students, and partly by the universities themselves (where there is a shortfall from the other two sources of funding). As such, it most certainly is an economic transaction, and to suggest otherwise is a form of economic naivety. Since university education isn’t free, its continued existence entails that somebody will have to pay for it – the question, and at the crux of the whole issue here – is who will pay?”

Professor: “So Mary, who do you think should pay, and why?”

Mary: “I think that the students themselves certainly shouldn’t pay, as this would put off certain students from going to university, and leave those who do go with huge debts. I think the government should partly pay, as it is quite happy to pay for other far more expensive and less valuable things, such the Trident nuclear missile replacement. I think that corporations and banks should also contribute, as it is their greed that has led us to being in this situation in the first place.”

Professor: “Firstly, you haven’t demonstrated that students probably would be put off from applying to university by the prospect of a higher debt, as this prospect didn’t appear to stop people from getting big mortgages for property, for example, and their education can also be seen as an investment; or why putting off some students from applying would be an intrinsically bad thing anyway. Furthermore, you haven’t shown why those who will be the primary beneficiaries of this education should not be expected to pay, as they will have to do so for their houses in later life, for example. As it stands, these are unsubstantiated assertions."

Mary: “Well, the prospective students say that they would be put off, so why shouldn’t we believe them? And to ask students to pay large fees for their education and end up in so much debt isn’t fair.”

Professor: “People think and say a lot of things that are wrong, for all sorts of reasons. And as Niels Bohr once said, prediction is difficult, especially about the future. We need a more reliable predictive measure then just what people say they will or won’t do, or else it becomes highly speculative and open to error. And fairness is a very slippery word. Most people would say they want what is fair, but it’s just that people disagree vehemently about what acting fairly and justly actually means. For example, when it comes to distributing income and wealth, power, duties, rights, and honours should society be trying to maximise overall welfare, to respect freedom, or to encourage virtue? Each of these approaches might give a different answer as to whether the proposed fee increases and their likely implications for students are fair and just or not. I’m not saying that it is fair that students should pay more – only that you haven’t yet demonstrated the opposite, and it can’t just be assumed, as this would be to beg a very big question.

Professor: “Secondly, you haven’t justified why the state should consider university education to be as worthy a recipient of state funding as some other things, such as the Trident replacement that you mention. It may, for example, have good reasons to consider it to be significantly less valuable to society than things that it does currently fund; or, alternatively, consider that it is as valuable, but believe that the money to pay for it ought to come primarily from non-state sources.”

Mary: “But what about the banks and corporations paying? Don’t you think that they should do this as a form of punishment or recompensement?”

Professor: “As for banks and corporations contributing as some sort of punishment, the situation is not clear cut in the way that some believe. Many of us benefited from economic boom times that the banks and corporations were at least partly responsible for creating, but we didn’t suggest giving any money back to them then in gratitude, and weren’t much objecting then to any supposed ‘greed’ on their part. In fact, it was a ‘win-win’ situation then, showing that self-interest need not be inherently bad and that zero-sum isn’t the only game in town. They were certainly trying to make money, but this is part of their raison d’être in a market economy, so why shouldn’t they do so – especially at it was benefiting society in general in terms of economic prosperity?

Mary: “But don’t you think they’re morally responsible for causing the Credit Crunch?”

Professor: “Well, the banks and other financial companies that were using the elaborate financial instruments that are implicated in the eventual Credit Crunch (e.g. credit default swaps) were largely basing their decisions upon accepted economic theory of rational investors – which turned out to be flawed, as investors are often irrational, herd instincts often predominate, and fraud is sometimes a temptation. In hindsight, markets in capital and assets should have been better regulated (as opposed to markets in goods and services, which shouldn’t), and government policy shouldn’t have been encouraging bad lending risks. However, at the time virtually none of the economic models in use at the banks or elsewhere was predicting a bust, and neither were most governments, so the banks cannot really be held morally responsible as they have a good excuse for their actions. As such, a punishment would be difficult to justify since moral blame would be difficult to prove. Incompetence is a charge that could more reasonably be levelled, but the net would then have to be cast so widely across financial institutions, economists, regulatory bodies, governments, and even, dare I say it, consumers who borrowed irresponsibly, so I would argue that pragmatism and fairness demand not a punishment but that economic theories are corrected based upon the new evidence, that oversight and regulation are increased in appropriate areas, that governments and individual people do not borrow excessively, and that the recovery be managed prudently and rationally.

It’s possible that a case can be made for banks and corporations to make more of a general contribution to government funds, as they benefit from the existence of a civil society, but it should not be an irrational retributive punishment.

Mary: “The bigger problem is with capitalism in general, which produces large inequalities and boom and bust cycles.”

Professor: “I think that we should be careful about demonising capitalism in general here. One can make a good case based upon the evidence that a modified liberal free-market economy, with justified regulation and protection for the poorest in society (as opposed to pure laissez-faire capitalism), is the economic model from those tried that is most likely to promote human prosperity, happiness, and flourishing. By contrast, all large-scale attempts at top-down planned economies (such as those in communist countries) failed due to a lack of the necessary omniscience and omnipotence on the part of the state in attempting to determine supply, demand, and pricing in the absence of market signals; a lack of incentive for people to work hard or at all if this will not bring them any additional reward; a lack of competitiveness, with its consequent negative effects upon price and quality of goods; burgeoning black markets; and the brutal restrictions upon freedom required to forbid any type of capitalist transaction and to prevent any naturally arising differences of income or assets. Whilst a planned economy may seem in theory to be more rational and to give more opportunity for its citizens to lead happy and flourishing lives, the real-world experimental results falsify this theory. It might be counterintuitive to believe that a fundamentally chaotic and self-interested thing such as a free market can be in people’s best interests generally, but because it works in harmony with a self-interested human nature, as Adam Smith noted, and allows supply, demand, and pricing to be determined by what people actually want, it works much more efficiently than any planned economy ever has and brings people greater prosperity in general. And because people’s freedom is not severely restricted in a misguided attempt to conform to some ideologically-driven social theory, they have more opportunity to flourish.

The Marxist-Leninist economic theories are based upon false beliefs about human nature - for example that people are born blank slates and that they are not fundamentally self-interested - and the world in general, and inexorably lead to brutal oppression in order to enforce collectivist property laws, and then stagnate into poverty anyway. As E O Wilson, a biologist and expert on ants, said about communism, "Great idea, wrong species." Furthermore, there is no good reason to believe that such mass restrictions in freedom would ultimately produce more freedom, because people don’t know what their real interests are and need to be 'forced to be free' and to become their true and higher selves through some process of self-realisation. Government power in such matters should be limited to promoting civil society, and not imposing some sort of moral worldview upon its citizens, as there is too much scope for this worldview to be wrong, and the resulting loss of freedom is antithetical to a happy and flourishing society anyway. Even with boom and bust cycles, modified capitalism creates far more prosperity and flourishing than Marxist-Leninist policies ever have, and restricts freedom far less. Even if people were to choose from behind a veil of ignorance, there is good reason to believe that some sort of liberal democratic society based upon modified capitalist lines is what they would tend to choose.”

Mary: “But what about the huge wealth inequalities produced by capitalism? That can’t be fair?”

Professor: “One can actually make a case, as Robert Nozick did, that large inequalities in wealth are just, so long as they arise from a starting position that was initially just (however you wish to define that), and were brought about by free exchange amongst consenting adults. Under such circumstances, it would then arguably be unjust for goods to be taken from those who had earned them this way in order to give them to others in an effort to create a more equal wealth distribution or one based upon need (however we define that). Voluntary donations to charity might be encouraged, but forced redistribution would be viewed as an unwarranted infringement of people’s freedom. Whilst one can certainly argue against this position, one cannot just assume that wealth inequalities are inherently unjust.

If a society’s wealth and resources were, in the words of Nozick, like ‘manna from Heaven’, or if the government had a centralised pot from which all resources were distributed to the citizens, then we might decide that an equal distribution, or one based upon need, might be the most just. However, it’s not like that in reality. Rather, in a free market people and companies buy from and sell or give to each other, including people selling their own labour to their employers, and people thus acquire and expend resources accordingly. As such, if we wanted to adhere to some patterned distribution of wealth, then we would either need to control or forbid the free exchange of goods and labour, and forbid people from saving wealth or passing it to others; or else confiscate some of the acquired goods to pass them to others (in the form of taxes). In the former case, which is more akin to the way things worked under communism, such restrictions on freedom would be hugely detrimental to societal happiness, as well as largely unworkable in practice, and any mooted good arising from having a more equal distribution would be vastly outweighed by the harm in attempting to maintain it. In the latter case it is not at all clear why the state would be justified in taking people’s legitimately obtained goods and distributing them to others, even if others do need them more.

And, as far as slogans such as "from each according his means, to each according to his needs" are concerned, the same principle if followed strictly would entail that I have a duty to donate one of my kidneys, for example, to somebody who would die without a kidney transplant. Most of us would balk at the existence of any such duty, however. One could try to salvage the slogan by modifying it to only entail a redistribution duty so long as it is not too onerous, but not only does this then become a more complex and ambiguous principle, but it could still be argued against based upon it requiring an element of forced labour upon those who must discharge this duty. Again, there are more arguments that can be made - on both sides - both what one cannot do is to just assume that one side is self-evidently true.

And in response to the argument that a meritocratic market society distributes economic goods and opportunities according to morally arbitrary factors (such as some innate ability or other that just happens to be economically valuable in a particular society), we might say that this is not necessarily unjust. If the properly informed and autonomous members of that society freely agree to a form of this arrangement, then there is a contractual argument for considering it just. Of course, in reality there is always going to be disagreement within that society on this, and some would not agree to such a contract - particularly those who would end up at the bottom. However, if the members of that society would, if entirely rational and fully informed of all of the relevant facts, choose some form of that arrangement because it gives the best chance for them to realize their own happiness and flourishing within that society (wherever they happen to find themselves within the society), then they ought to agree to it - whether they might actually think so or not. It then becomes normatively and objectively true that such an arrangement would be 'just' in the sense that we are using the word. Rawls' Difference Principle might superficially appear to be more just in this sense, but it might actually be that a society run along such lines would, due to facts of human psychology, amongst others, be a less happy and flourishing (economically and otherwise) one than a society that is run as a meritocratic market one, but has a safety net in place to ensure that everyone has a sufficient social minimum to give an acceptable standard of life. This is to a large extent an empirical question (that social scientists might address, for example), and not one that can be answered purely from the armchair.

There is also a good utilitarian argument based upon much empirical evidence to show that capitalism generally raises overall prosperity within a society, and that the poorest benefit from this too due to a trickle-down effect and because the overall wealth pie is larger. Because of people’s innately different abilities and inclinations, some valued more highly by a society than others, a free-market will inevitably create more inequality of outcome – which some would argue is an evil in itself – but the empirical evidence from the 20th century attempts at planned economies run along Marxist-Leninist lines shows that whilst they may have produced something closer to equality for their citizens (with the notable exception of the Party leaders), this equality was one of grinding poverty and very little freedom. Those people who had a viable opportunity to choose between these totalitarian systems and the alternative more capitalist systems tended to vote with their feet e.g. in Germany after the fall of the Berlin Wall. And having a capitalist system does not entail that it has to be a purely laissez faire one. If we do incorporate some sort of sufficient welfare provision for those unable to provide for themselves, and introduce the concept of public goods that all citizens contribute to, then we significantly improve the chances of creating a flourishing society. In terms of equality, what is more important here is a minimum provision of equality of opportunity, together with all citizens being treated equally before the law and having equal citizenship."

Professor: "In general, I think it's important that we don't fall into the trap of just blindly subscribing to some package deal of ideas from either the political left or the right, as both sides have their share of bad as well as good ideas. Rather, we should use evidence and reason to build up a consistent and moderate political worldview that pulls together just the good ideas from all sides of the political spectrum. That is the most rational approach."

Professor: “So, overall your suggestions appear to have some potentially serious failings, wouldn’t you agree?”

Mary: “Maybe – but I haven’t heard any better suggestions from you Professor! Who do you think should pay?”

Professor: “Well, now we come to the $64,000 dollar question, so to speak. I would contend that there is actually a rational, evidentially-based, and justifiable answer to the question of who should pay for university education. As I said earlier, I believe that some form of democracy is probably the best form of government yet devised. It has instrumental value (with intrinsic value being merely a disguised redux of some other instrumental value), in that it can tend to make better decisions than a dictator, monarchy, or autocracy; and it gives its citizens more autonomy, equality, and fairness than other systems. People will be more likely to agree to abide by laws they disagree with if they have been given an equal vote in deciding what these laws will be - albeit indirectly through election of political representatives. And, at least in theory, a representative democracy should tend to be instrumentally better than a direct one, as those making the day to day policy decisions should have the relevent facts to hand, and should deliberate in order to reach the most reasonable and evidentially supported solution. Of course, the practice can be significantly at odds with this ideal, but it is still probably instrumentally better than putting each and every policy decision in the hands of a somewhat ignorant and uninterested populace.

In fact, there might be a good case for an instrumental improvement by instead selecting suitably qualified (by some agreed criteria) representatives from the general public using a lottery, in the way that happened in ancient Athens. This would help to counter the tendency of political representatives putting themselves up for election for mainly venal and self-interested reasons, and would give a more proportional representation of minorities.

By definition, whether a representative or more direct type of democracy, a government of the people, by the people, and for the people gives the people a large say in what policies and laws are made. And, with reference to the instrumental value of democracy that I mentioned earleir, an ignorant, uncritical, and irrational populace will tend to make poor decisions, based upon no or poor evidence, and using faulty arguments. They will tend to choose representatives and policies based upon irrelevant factors and for largely selfish motives. As such, truth and wisdom will not generally tend to prevail, and the society will be unstable, less productive, and less happy and flourishing. Taken to its limits, an extremely ignorant, misguided, or uncritical populace might freely choose to vote to have all of its freedom and liberty taken away if given the chance. This is more than a theoretical possibility in some societies that are given a democratic vote after living for many years under an unenlightened dictatorial regime. Such socieites might actually be better off going through a transition period with a benign dictator, if such a thing was possible.

The way to resolve this is not to legislate some general will from the top down, as Rousseau suggested, because this is not a truth-selecting method for generating reliable knowledge, it takes away personal autonomy and freedom, and is overly paternalistic. Of course, taking into account people's preferences must be part of the process of government in a democracy, and a good democracy requires such public participation. However, in this case, if a significant proportion of the populace is ignorant and uncritical, then a democracy will probably tend to make bad decisions. So, if we are going to stay with a democracy, as I believe we rationally should, then what can be done about this? One way to help to ameliorate the problems of an ignorant and irrational populace is to better educate them. A better educated populace should be more capable of making better decisions, as in general they will know or have access to more of the true and relevant facts of the matter - be they scientific, statistical, economic, psychological, or historical - and be better at thinking critically and making reasoned decisions. Furthermore, a better educated populace should be less guided by short-term self-interest in their political decision making, as they will be aware that it is generally in their long-term interests to act less selfishly.

And, finally, a better educated populace should boost the economy – from which everyone gains.

If we want facts and truth to prevail, people to cooperate and make wise decisions, and thus to have a more stable, productive, happy and flourishing society, then education is a key factor. If public decision making could be made sufficiently reliable by these means, then society could benefit from Condorcet’s theorem by greater public involvement in some aspects of decision making, as their will would then be more accurately represented, and better overall decisions would be possible. Of course, to help achieve these aims, school education would need to change focus too, so that it includes the methods as well as the facts of basic science, statistics, economics, law, critical history and its methods, philosophy and critical thinking. Though less vital, the arts would have a place too, as they teach us about other humans and their lives and emotions, and add to the pleasure in being alive.

Mary: “So, how does that tell us who should pay for university education?”

Professor: “This analysis helps us with the answer to who should actually pay for university education. I believe that there is a good case for university education being a public good, for the reasons that I gave earlier, and this gives a proper justification for why the state should contribute towards it. Based upon this, I believe that a strong and rational case can be made for the state contributing up to say 50 – 75% of the costs for university education - to the extent that it will ultimately benefit society in terms of producing informed, rational, and economically valuable and useful citizens (decided by some criteria matrix to be determined). The student would pay for the portion not paid for by the state, probably by repaying some sort of government loan once their salary reaches an agreed threshold so they can afford to do so. There would be appropriate measure in place to try to ensure that suitably able students from poor backgrounds are not disproportionally deterred from going to university based upon cost grounds, as them reaching their educational potential and helping to promote a prosperous and stable society is just as important as with those who come from more wealthy backgrounds.

Why would the state not pay for 100% of the costs? For two reasons. Firstly, although I am arguing that university education should be regarded as a public good, in that everyone in society benefits from having an informed and critical populace, this is nevertheless a public good that some benefit from more than others. Although everyone gets the overall societal benefits, some are excluded from going to university as they are not academically strong enough. Accordingly, I believe that it is fair that those who are able to and do go should pay an additional premium for this privilege. Secondly, human psychology is such that asking students to still make some contribution to their education would encourage them to value it more, and thus to probably work harder – which is ultimately in their and society’s interests. Humans don’t tend to value things given to them for free. The actual percentage that the state would contribute to each student’s university education would then depend at least in part upon how valuable that course of study will tend be to society in general. Students who wish to study subjects that are more valuable to society for economic, social, and cultural reasons would ultimately pay less, as the state contribution would be higher, and vice versa.

Mary: “So, how would you decide how much the state would contribute to each type of subject area?”

Professor: “It would be based upon what would tend to be more valuable to society. And what would be more valuable to society? Firstly, subjects that produce employable and economically valuable citizens are good, as it is not in the interests of society to have a large proportion who are out of work. Furthermore, overall economic prosperity tends to be good for people in general, helping to produce a happier and more progressive society. A non-exhaustive list of these subjects might be engineering, economics, law, science, business, foreign languages, and some vocational subjects.

Secondly, subjects that equip people with knowledge and techniques to better understand society, the political process, history, ideas, and critical thinking in general allow them to play a more informed and active part in shaping how society should evolve and structure itself, and in the political process in general. They should thus help to promote a better and more stable society, which is in almost everyone’s interest. Examples of these subjects might be sociology, history, philosophy, psychology, law, economics, and politics.

Thirdly, certain subjects have great instrumentally social value to society. Medicine would be a prime example of this.

And, lastly, cultural subjects have value in teaching us about other human lives, helping us to explore our emotions and creativity, and in just appreciating beauty and making us happy. Examples of this might be English literature, art, and music.

In order to then calculate the state contribution to the cost of the university course, an overall value for the course would be calculated by some matrix that includes all of the above criteria, with some agreed weightings. How this would be put into practice would of course need to be worked out in some details, but these are at least the basic principles.

With this way of thinking, we now have the rational justification that was lacking before for who should pay for university education, and we can say why the state (and thus the taxpayers) should pay some or most of these costs – i.e. it is ultimately in its and their best interests to do so. There is also a rational justification for how we might decide (in principle at least) to what extent the state would pay for this education. People should be able to choose to study what they want from what is available, but it is fair for the state to only be expected to contribute to the costs of such courses of study to the extent that they will have instrumental value to society in general.

Of course, there would still be many practical and logistical problems and decisions to deal with and make here, but I am merely laying out at this stage the overall principles of what I believe to be right and justified in this matter.”

Mary:

Professor: “What do you think of that Mary?”

Mary: “I’ll get back to you!”

Postscript:

In answer to the comment about the reasons why an independent and largely privately-funded university system might achieve my goal more efficaciously, here are a few notes:

In the last section of my previous post I was attempting to show that there actually does exist a strong argument that can be used to justify the state funding a significant proportion of university education. This argument is based upon the instrumental value to democratic and civil society of having an informed and critical populace and, because university education in general and certain subjects in particular can help to promote this, it deems university education to be a public good that should be subsidized by government funding to the extent that it benefits society in general. If we accept the principle of state funded public goods at all, then I believe that this argument is sound.

I won’t look at the question of how we might justify state funded public goods in general (the typical answer being that state funding is the best way to ensure that free riders don’t avoid paying for things that everyone benefits from, thus leaving others to pay more or possibly rendering the good in question unviable), but will look at higher education in particular. Why not have a system of privately funded and independent universities instead of a state funded one (or some sort of hybrid)? This would have a couple of notable benefits in particular. Firstly, it would enable universities to charge a market rate for their services, allowing them to be better resourced and thus to improve services and compete more equitably with private universities elsewhere (particularly, in some case, with the Ivy League universities in the States). Secondly, it would remove, or at least minimize, government interference in their internal policies. This latter benefit is the one that the commenter mentioned in his response to my post.

However, each of the aforementioned advantages has a corresponding disadvantage. Based upon empirical evidence of the state of affairs with private universities and colleges in the US, and of market dynamics in general, it is plausible to suppose that an entirely private and independent university system would result in university fees being higher right across the board (as there would no longer be any state subsidy, and the institutions would need to make a profit in order to remain financially viable), and that fees would be significantly higher for the best universities (e.g. Oxbridge, Imperial College, UCL etc.) and for certain courses. In general, fees in all cases would tend to be as high as the market will bear. And without any government loans (in order for the system to be truly private and independent), students would either have to pay for these fees up front or else take out a commercial loan for them. The best universities and courses would then probably become financially out of reach of any students from more modest backgrounds. So, such prospective students would tend to either not go to university at all, or else go to any institutions that they could afford, which would likely be of poor quality since they would need to keep outgoings down to a minimum in order to charge low fees (which is a fair representation in general of the cheap private colleges in the US).

With regard to independence from government policy, whether this would be beneficial or not obviously depends to some extent upon whether the government policies in question are just and reasonable or not. Some government policies towards higher education have clearly been misguided, incoherent, or inconsistent, and so universities would probably be better off without them. However, other policies – specifically to remove unjustifiable discrimination in the selection of students and to improve access to people from poorer backgrounds are probably justified both instrumentally and inherently. In the absence of such laws, there would be nothing stopping universities during the application procedure from blatantly discriminating against female applicants or those from minority ethnic backgrounds; or of favouring the children of the rich, friends, or alumni over other more academically qualified and promising candidates, for example.

As an aside, what I would argue would not be justified would be to positively discriminate in favour of minorities in order to encourage ethnic diversity, a more equal balance of the sexes across all subjects, or to remedy past wrongs. I would argue that the telos, or purpose, of higher education establishments ought to be to promote scholarly excellence, rather than some sort of civic duty to promote such things as diversity. At the very least, their essential nature is to do with education, so they should not be free to define their mission exactly as they or government pleases. Therefore, they should select based upon academic merit and promise, to the extent that they have places available, rather than upon some form of affirmative action that is not directly related to promoting scholarly excellence.

I believe that one can justify some amount of positive discrimination in favour of students from poor backgrounds who go to modest state schools, as one could reasonably expect such students to achieve lower A-level exam grades than students of equal ability and promise who are from more affluent backgrounds and go to better schools. However, I would contend that positive discrimination with the aim of achieving ethnic or other diversity, an equal balance of the sexes across all subjects, or remedying past injustices is wrong. Universities should be selecting students based upon academic merit and promise, regardless of their ethnic background, sex etc.

In order to justify positive discrimination to achieve more ethnic diversity, one would need to demonstrate firstly why diversity per se is inherently or instrumentally valuable, how this value outweighs the injustice done by discriminating against those who are not from this ethnic background (and of course who had no choice about their own background), and why discriminating on non-academic grounds can be fair at all when this ought not to be related to a university’s purpose, and so ought to be irrelevant in the selection process.

Trying to achieve an equal balance of sexes has the same problems as above, with the additional one that there is good empirical evidence from biological and psychological research to suggest that the sexes are not equally interested in all areas of study, and so one would reasonably expect certain subjects to get a far higher proportion of applicants of one sex - as is in fact the case. Moreover, based upon the evidence, the most plausible and parsimonious explanation for this variation in interests is that it is primarily due to biological rather than environmental factors (and this is perfectly compatible with equity feminism, which is itself based upon reason and evidence, but not with gender feminism, which isn't). Therefore, to get an equal balance of the sexes studying mechanical engineering, for example, one would probably have to reject large numbers of suitably qualified male applicants in order to select from the relatively few suitably qualified female applicants. In order to justify this, one would be required to show why artificially creating an equal proportion of male and female students in each subject area would be intrinsically desirable, given that males and females are not in general equally interested in these areas, and how this justifies the necessary discrimination against suitable male applicants (when being male or female should in general be irrelevant to the selection process, and is obviously something that people are not responsible for).

Positive discrimination in favour of people from groups that have been discriminated against in the past (through slavery, for example) suffers from the same problems of discriminating against people based upon things that they are not responsible for (e.g. being white), and that should be irrelevant anyway, given the purpose of universities. Moreover, the people who would be discriminated for and against are also probably not the same individuals who were wronged in the past or those responsible for these wrongs respectively.

A radical libertarian might argue that freedom dictates that universities should be able to select whoever they want, even if it does involve blatant discrimination on non-academic grounds. However, I believe that this would tend to reduce the happiness and flourishing in society, and as such a restriction upon the freedom of universities in such cases is probably justifiable.

So, based upon the foregoing, I would argue that, on balance, a system of privately funded universities that are entirely independent of government interference would probably be a bad thing rather than a good one. It is an empirical question, and we don’t have enough evidence to make a definitive judgement, but I think that the probable result would be far fewer people going to university, and of those that do go many would go to poorer quality ones. The result would then be a less critical and informed populace than could be achieved through the state funded option that I described in my post, and so I believe that my proposed option better achieves my goal. I believe that the benefits from the state funded option would outweigh the benefits from the independent private one, and vice versa. Having said that, there is a good case for avoiding any unwarranted government interference in the way that universities operate, along with an attempt to ensure that they are run as efficiently as possible so that public money is not wasted.

Morality - what it is and what it ought to be

2010-11-26T16:41:00.002Z

In this rather technical post I will discuss secular morality with reference to the book Value and Virtue in a Godless Universe, by Erik J. Wielenberg. I will explain why I believe this book ultimately fails in its goal, and then discuss what I think morality actually is and ought to be.

Does Wielenberg answer Moore's Question?

G.E. Moore advanced his Open Question Argument in order to demonstrate the indefinability of the term ‘good’ as it is used within ethical theories (although the argument can also be applied outside of ethical theory). Many ethical philosophers have tried to prove some of their ethical claims by analysing the meaning of the word ‘good’. Moore, however, held that ‘good’ is an example of an ontologically simple thing that is incapable of definition in terms of any simpler concepts. Instead, he believed that any proposed definition of goodness will fail to fully capture its meaning. At the same time, he still believed that we intuitively recognise examples of ‘goodness’ when we see it, even though the concept itself is incapable of definition. He gave ‘pleasure’ and ‘yellow’ as other examples of such things .

In order to identify such cases, and in particular to demonstrate that goodness is one of these, Moore proposed that we ask an identity question of the type: “is it true that X is Y?” If this can be questioned by a conceptually competent person, then it is deemed an open question, or else it is a closed question. If the identity between X and Y forms an open question, then Moore supposed that the definition of X as Y fails to fully capture the meaning of X. In particular, if X is ‘good’ then Moore held that any Y (where Y is some set of natural properties) will fail to capture the full meaning of X, and hence any subsequent analysis will err. The type of argument that attempts to define a simple, non-natural, and indefinable property in terms of natural properties was supposed by Moore to be a formal fallacy -one that he termed the Naturalistic Fallacy .

In order to apply the Open Question Argument, we take any definition of ‘good’ – ‘good(ness) is X’ and see whether it makes sense to ask whether goodness really is X, and whether X really is good. For example, if we say ‘goodness is pleasure’, does it makes sense to ask, ‘is goodness really pleasure?’, and ‘is pleasure truly good?’ If it does indeed make sense to ask such questions of the proposed definition of good, then it is an open question in the sense that Moore intended. Moore held that any attempt to define ‘good’ in terms of natural properties will be an open question, as the definition in question will always fail to capture the full meaning. As such, according to Moore, any ethical theory that attempts to define what is good will commit the Naturalistic Fallacy. By contrast, take the statement: ‘a bachelor is an unmarried man’. In this case, it makes no sense to ask: ‘yes, but is a bachelor really an unmarried man?’ or ‘but is every unmarried man really a bachelor?’ The reason it doesn’t is that the full meaning of ‘bachelor’ is captured by ‘unmarried man.’ Therefore, in Moore’s terminology, this is a closed question.

In the book ‘Value and Virtue in a Godless Universe’ (hereafter referred to as VaV), Wielenberg doesn’t explicitly refer to, much less answer Moore’s question. Furthermore, I can find no implicit reference to Moore’s question. Although Wielenberg does mention Moore a couple of times, this is in relation to a discussion about intrinsic versus extrinsic values, rather than to his Open Question Argument.

Now, from what Wielenberg says in VaV - specifically in chapter 3 when he discusses the reasons to be moral – I believe that he subscribes to Kant’s metaphysical system of ethics. As Moore’s Open Question Argument is most commonly used as an attempted refutation of naturalistic ethical theories (such as Utilitarianism), Wielenberg may say (if asked) that his system of ethical beliefs is not vulnerable to the Open Question Argument, as Kantian ethics does not define moral facts in terms of natural properties. However, Moore’s discussion of the Naturalistic Fallacy does also cover metaphysical theories of ethics, such as Kant’s . According to Moore, if such ethical systems attempt to define the good, as Kantian ethics does (in terms of duty ), then they are committing the Naturalistic Fallacy too. The Naturalistic Fallacy should perhaps more correctly be called the definist fallacy, as it is really about mistaking the non-synonymous for the synonymous, and has nothing to do with the distinction between the natural and the non-natural per se (as this is normally understood).

According to Kant, in the first formulation of his Categorical Imperative, we should “Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law without contradiction.” However, as mentioned, Moore specifically addresses this in his Principia Ethica, and decides that ‘this is good’ is not identical to ‘this is willed’, and hence Kant’s first Categorical Imperative is an open question . Now, whether Moore is right in his analysis here is a moot point (that I will address below). However, by failing to address this possible objection at all, Wielenberg has left himself open to the criticism that his thesis is fundamentally flawed.

We may profitably ask at this point if Moore’s Open Question Argument is a valid argument at all. In order to justify his argument, Moore’s line of reasoning might take the following syllogistic form:

[A]

A1: If a proposed definition for a word can be questioned by a conceptually competent person [i.e. one who understands the conceptual terms of the definition], then that definition fails to fully capture the word’s meaning [i.e. it will be an ‘open question’ in Moore’s terminology]

A2: All proposed definitions for a word that are not ontologically simple a priori ones [i.e. they are what Moore terms ‘complex’] can be questioned by a conceptually competent person

A3: Therefore, if a proposed definition for a word is not an ontologically simple a priori one, then that definition fails to fully capture the word’s meaning

From this, Moore might then argue:

[B]

B1: If a proposed definition for a word is not an ontologically simple a priori one, then that definition fails to fully capture the word’s meaning [i.e. A3 from above]

B2: Any definition of a word in terms of natural properties is not an ontologically simple a priori one

B3: Therefore, any definition of a word in terms of natural properties fails to fully capture the word’s meaning

And then with goodness in particular:

[C]

C1: If a putative ethical theory defines goodness in a way that fails to fully capture its meaning, then any subsequent analysis of goodness in that theory will err

C2: Any ethical theory that defines goodness in terms of natural properties fails to fully capture its meaning (from B3 above)

C3: Therefore, with any ethical theory that defines goodness in terms of natural properties , any subsequent analysis of goodness in that theory will err

From this conclusion C3, Moore would then conclude that Ethical Naturalism must be false.

Now, I believe that the arguments above fall at the very first hurdle, as I think that A1 is not self-evidently true, and is in fact demonstrably false. In order to falsify A1, all I need to do is to produce one counterexample where a proposed definition of a word can be questioned by a conceptually competent person, but still fully captures the word’s meaning. In that case, it would be an open question by Moore’s definition of it, but the word’s meaning would still be fully captured. I believe that ‘goodness’ falls into this category, in which case Moore’s Open Question Argument would fail, as a conceptually competent person could question the definition, but it would still fully capture the word’s meaning. I will come to that later, but will look at another example first. If A1 is false then argument A is unsound. If argument A is unsound, then B1 is not shown to be true, and argument B is therefore unsound. From that, it follows directly that argument C is also unsound, as C2 is not shown to be true.

In order to falsify A1 above, I will look at a particular example i.e. water. Now, scientific investigation of water has found it to be is a chemical substance that consists of molecules composed of two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom that are bonded together. This we denote symbolically as H2O . So, once we understand this concept, we can say that water is [the chemical substance that we denote symbolically as] H2O. However, we only know that this identity is true because we have acquired all of the relevant facts of the matter, and have analysed these facts in a cognitively accurate way. By such means we have determined a posteriori that water and H2O are synonymous. Nevertheless, this identity cannot be deduced from the concepts alone, as it requires us to know additional facts about the world, so it could be questioned by a conceptually competent person i.e. the question: ‘this is water, but is it true that it is H2O?’ is an open one according to Moore’s definition. So, water = H2O is a definition that can be questioned by a conceptually competent person (i.e. a person who is familiar with water, and who understands the symbolic concept of H2O), but that definition still fully captures the word’s meaning. Hence, A1 is falsified by this counterexample.

Now I will consider Moore’s argument in relation to morality. Moore argued that moral truths are intuitive, in the sense that they are supposed to be recognisable as being self-evidently true. In this regard, Moore suggested that ‘goodness’ is analogous to the quality of ‘yellowness’, which we can recognise and agree upon when we see it, but which he believed to be indefinable in terms of ‘natural’ properties. This raises some difficult questions as to exactly what this moral intuition or ‘sense’ is, how it works, and how we might adjudicate in any case of disagreements over the results that it produces. After all, we use our vision and brain in order to recognise the property of something being yellow, but by what analogous means could we recognise ‘goodness’ when we come across it? I will say a little bit more about this later.

By using this analogy, Moore is supposing that ‘yellow’ is something that we can intuitively recognise when we see it, but which we could not define in a way that would not be an open question – as he supposes to be the case with goodness too. Moreover, he rules out a complex definition of yellow (and of goodness) because he supposes that any such definition would be an open question, and would therefore fail to fully capture the word’s meaning. However, I have already shown this line of reasoning to be fallacious, as a definition being an open question does not entail that said definition fails to capture the full meaning of the word i.e. argument A above is unsound. In the case of yellow, if we were able to investigate a posteriori what it normatively means to us, then we would probably find that it is identical with the subjective experience of some set of human brain states (or some common property in the intersection of the properties of these states) that obtain when light within a range of wavelengths hits the eye of a person with normal visual function (as per the theories of optics , and the Identity Theory of Mind – which is a plausible, parsimonious and evidentially well-supported theory ). In any case, there probably exists some true definition of yellow in terms of natural properties of the universe (including our minds) that fully captures the meaning of the word.

So, if we knew all the relevant facts of the matter, and were cognitively accurate in the analysis of these facts, then we could probably provide the definition for yellow that Moore supposes that we can’t. It would still be an open question, as it could not be derived from the concepts alone, but I can see no good reason why a complex a posteriori one in terms of natural properties would not be valid in this case. Conceptually competent people might still disagree with this definition, but this would either be due to them having a mistaken or incomplete knowledge of the facts of the matter, or of having made logical errors in their reasoning based upon these facts (or both).

I believe that ‘good’ is analogous to these previous examples (and, ironically, Moore thought so too in the case of yellow), in that there exist definitions of it that, whilst open questions in Moore’s terminology, are true nonetheless. Moreover, I believe that we are probably in a position to establish at least one a posteriori complex definition, and others are possible too. This definition goes back to Moore’s original idea of some inscrutable moral intuition, so I will consider goodness only in terms of this intuition. My argument will take the following form:

P1: X = Y

P2: Y = Z

C: Therefore, X = Z [an example of a transitive relationship]

Specifically:

P1: Goodness is the property of some human act that we intuitively recognise as being self-evidently good [from Moore]

P2: The property of some human act that we intuitively recognise as being self-evidently good is the altruistic property of a particular set of evolved adaptive behaviours towards others

C: Therefore, goodness is the altruistic property of a particular set of evolved adaptive behaviours towards others

Evolutionary psychology and sociobiology have provided theories of how human morality evolved that are plausible, parsimonious, and have good explanatory power and scope. Furthermore, research has produced much evidential support for their explanations that our ‘moral intuition’ (altruism, compassion, empathy etc; as well as emotions to enforce this group morality, such as revenge, shame, and guilt) is a biological evolutionary adaptation that came about because acting in these ways was in the best evolutionary interests of our ancestors in their small social group environments. Although these behaviours may have had short-term disadvantages to the humans acting in these ways (e.g. giving up resources and time, and possibly putting themselves in danger for others), the advantage of others reciprocating gave a greater overall evolutionary advantage – which is why these traits were selected for. Moreover, precursors of this type of moral behaviour have been observed in apes – for example in the research of Frans de Waal - adding further weight to the idea that our intuitive morality is an evolutionary adaptation.

So, from the foregoing, if we are using morally ‘good’ in the sense of that which we intuitively recognise as being self-evidently so, in the way that Moore supposed (e.g. including such things as compassion, integrity, altruism etc.), then we can probably define it in a way that makes it a closed question i.e. something like: goodness is the altruistic property of a particular set of evolved behaviours towards others. Whilst the exact definition is moot, that there is some definition along these lines that forms a closed question is probably not. For, if the current theories of evolutionary psychology and sociobiology relating to the evolution of morality are largely true (as they probably are), then the property of an act that we intuitively recognise as good just is this altruistic property present in this set of evolved behaviours. Furthermore, the emotional urge to act in these ways, and the consequent emotional payoffs, are associated adaptations too – as they reinforce the behaviours. So, our moral intuition becomes fundamentally egoistic (but not usually in a conscious and calculating way), as we have an emotional urge to act in ways that would probably give us an evolutionary advantage if we were living in the small and primitive human groups of our ancestors.

There could be disagreement about a definition of goodness of this type, as it is not a simple a priori one. However, as with the previous examples, if we were in possession of all of the relevant facts of the matter, and were cognitively accurate in the analysis of these facts, then there would be no disagreement.

So, in conclusion, I think that Moore was correct in his assertion that any putative moral theory that analyses goodness should be able to define what it means by good in a way that makes it a closed question. However, I believe that Moore was wrong in his belief that only an ontologically simple a priori definition would be admissible in such a case. Furthermore, at least one such definition of goodness is possible if we make use of Moore’s idea that we possess an intuitive moral sense that allows us to recognise goodness when we see it. Note that other equally valid complex but closed-question definitions may also be possible if we approach morality from the perspective that it is normatively true that the fundamental human desire is for happiness (which was, non-coincidentally, historically largely coincident with being in a situation or performing an act that had some evolutionary advantage). In that case we can derive a definition for good as being, for example, ultimate human happiness.

Later I will derive a different but related definition of goodness that I believe is rationally justified, and not just based upon our moral intuition.

Does Wielenberg answer Hume's Question?
The so-called is-ought problem , as articulated by the philosopher David Hume in his ‘A Treatise on Human Nature’ (1739) highlights the logical error that people make if they attempt to deduce some moral ‘ought’ conclusion from factual ‘is’ propositions alone. For example, we could construct arguments such as the following:

P: Gay sex can never result in pregnancy

C: Therefore, one ought not to engage in gay sex [i.e. it is morally wrong]

Or,

P: Fox hunting causes physical and mental suffering to foxes

C: Therefore, one ought not hunt foxes [i.e. fox hunting is morally wrong]

Or,
P: Giving money to charity leads to an increase in overall human happiness

C: Therefore, one ought to give money to charity [i.e. giving money to charity is morally good]
In each of the above cases we are moving from a statement of something that ‘is’ the case to a conclusion about what ‘ought’ to be done or not done. However, in these and other similar cases the arguments are not logically valid - regardless of whether or not one accepts the truth of the propositions - as no evaluative conclusion can be deduced from purely factual premises. In each of the above cases, and in general, one would need to include a suitable evaluative premise. For example, in the first case we would need to revise the argument as follows:

P1: One ought not to engage in sex that can never result in pregnancy

P2: Gay sex can never result in pregnancy

C: Therefore, one ought not to engage in gay sex [i.e. it is morally wrong]
Now, in this revised version of the first argument even if P1 (or P2) is false the argument itself is at least formally valid and there is no longer an ‘is-ought gap’.

Now, in VaV, Wielenberg doesn’t address Hume’s question directly. However, if he was asked, I think that Wielenberg might respond by saying that he endorses Kantian ethics and that these are not vulnerable to Hume’s argument, as moral ‘ought’s’ are not deduced from factual ‘is’ propositions alone in this ethical system. Instead they are supposedly deduced by means of pure reason by means of Kant’s Categorical Imperative. More formally, based upon Kant’s Categorical Imperative we could say:

P1: If some maxim X cannot be universalized without resulting in a logical contradiction, then one ought not to act by maxim X

P 2: Maxim X cannot be universalized without resulting in a logical contradiction

C: Therefore, one ought not to act by maxim X [i.e. it is morally wrong, and in Kant’s words we have a ‘perfect duty’ not to act by it]

A particular example could be:
P1: If theft cannot be universalized without resulting in a logical contradiction, then one ought not to steal

P2: Theft cannot be universalized without resulting in a logical contradiction

C: Therefore, one ought not to steal [i.e. it is morally wrong, and in Kant’s words we have a ‘perfect duty’ not to steal]

I will not analyse here whether P1 and P2 in the above cases are actually true, but the argument itself is formally valid and doesn’t attempt to deduce some evaluative conclusion from factual premises alone, and so is indeed not vulnerable to Hume’s question. Wielenberg might have been wise to spell this out explicitly, but assuming that this would be his answer then I don’t think that it could justifiably be said to be a failing of his entire book.
Does Wielenberg provide any reason to be moral?

In chapter three of VaV, Wielenberg analyses and rejects three answers to the ‘why be moral?’ question that each attempt to show that morality and self-interest always or generally coincide i.e. William Lane Craig’s conception of divine justice, Aristotle’s theory of virtue ethics as described in his Nicomachean Ethics , and Hume’s alternative concept of virtue ethics (a traditional axiology as opposed to Aristotle’s revisionist axiology) as developed in his An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals .
Wielenberg then goes on to propose an alternative reason to be moral – the idea that a given action is morally obligatory is itself a reason for performing that action, regardless of whether doing so is in one’s interest. This is Kant’s position, and is the one that Wielenberg himself endorses. However, Wielenberg fails to properly justify why certain actions are morally obligatory, or how we might decide which actions these are, so his argument as presented is little more than the unsubstantiated assertion that we should be moral because we are obligated to be so. His assertion immediately begs the question of exactly why we are so obligated. It is not self-evidently true that certain actions are morally obligatory (or how we might determine which actions these are), and Wielenberg provides no real justification for his claim. Therefore, I think that Wielenberg has failed in VaV to provide sufficient warrant to be moral, which I think is a fairly significant failing in a book that attempts to make a case for the existence of ethical truths in a Godless universe.
Kantian Ethics and its Flaws

Having said that, as Wielenberg states that he is endorsing a Kantian view of morality, he might reply that the justifications for the theory of morally obligatory actions can be found in Kant’s own work, and that any reader requiring such justifications should refer to that material. I think that this would be a weak argument, as such an important part of Wielenberg’s case for why we should be moral in a Godless universe should really have been demonstrated explicitly in his own book. However, in order to determine if Wielenberg’s case can in fact be justified by reference to Kant’s theories or not, I will now analyse what Kant had to say on the matter of moral obligations.

At the core of Kant’s moral theory are the three formulations of his so-called Categorical Imperative, from the Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals. These are as follows:

First formulation: “Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law without contradiction”

Second formulation: “Act in such a way that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, always at the same time as an end and never merely as a means to an end”

Third formulation: “Therefore, every rational being must so act as if he were through his maxim always a legislating member in the universal kingdom of ends.”

The first formulation is the most fundamental one, with the second and third formulations supposedly having been derived from the first (although there is some debate as to whether they can be so derived, or whether they are instead independent of the first formulation). Kant stressed that the three formulations of his imperative are not hypothetical (e.g. if you want some result X, then you ought to act in some way Y), but are an absolute, unconditional requirement - whatever the consequences of the action for ourselves or others (e.g. you ought to act in some way Y, regardless of the result). That is, they are categorical.

Kant believed that moral rules should be absolute and should apply to everyone equally, including to ourselves. In order to make moral rules inescapable in this way, he sought to make a case that rationality demands that we act morally; that acting immorally would equate to acting irrationally, and that morality would become as obligatory for us as is rationality. Kant believed that human beings are (in general) rational agents with moral autonomy. He further believed that rationality entails that when we, as rational agents, act in a certain way then we are implicitly saying that any other rational agent may act in the same way in similar circumstances i.e. we are legislating universally. He reasoned this, as he believed that we could not hold ourselves up as some kind of moral exception, as we are all similarly rational agents with moral autonomy, so rational consistency demands that any moral rule that applies to others should equally apply to us too in the same circumstances. Moreover, he held that any maxim that would result in a contradiction if universalized would be an immoral maxim. As such, Kant believed it would actually be irrational for us to act in a way that we would not want others to be able to do too, or that would become self-defeating if everyone so acted. So, for Kant, universalizability is actually an essential part of rationality. From this idea, he derived the first formulation of the Categorical Imperative. In Kant’s terminology, we have a perfect duty not to act by maxims that we would not want everyone to act by in similar circumstances, or that would result in logical contradictions if we attempt to universalise them.

In syllogistic form, Kant’s argument for the validity of the first formulation of his Categorical Imperative can be represented as follows:

P1: We have a duty to act rationally [as rational agents]

P2: Acting rationally entails that we act only according to maxims that are universalizable

C: Therefore, we have a duty to act only according to maxims that are universalizable [from which we can derive the first formulation of the Categorical Imperative]

I believe that this argument is unsound, with premise P2 not being self-evidently true, and in fact being probably false. Premise P1 might also be open to challenge, but I will not analyse that one any further here. I will now explain why I believe that premise P2 is false.

• Firstly, Kant seems to have redefined rationality in an idiosyncratic way in order to suit the requirements of his argument. Most people would not understand acting rationally in the way that Kant wants us to, and he is not at liberty to just redefine it at whim. The proper definition of a word is fixed by how that word is used is practice, and Kant’s definition does not satisfy this criterion. Acting rationally is typically taken to mean acting in a way that is in one’s best interests by maximising the chance of satisfying one’s preferences, desires, or goals (or, more formally, to maximise one’s personal utility ). In order to do this we should endeavour to obtain all of the true and relevant facts of the matter, and reason upon these facts in a logically valid way to deduce what will best satisfy one’s preferences etc. Of course, preferences, desires, and goals can themselves be irrational, as they might not be things that maximise our personal utility, since they themselves could have been based upon false knowledge or faulty reasoning, or might entail some negative consequences for us that outweigh the positive. For example, if one of my goals is to meet a friend for dinner on Tuesday evening, then it would be irrational for me to decide I know today is Tuesday because I picked that day of the week at random from a hat containing a strip of paper for each day - as that is not a reliable way of getting knowledge about the world. It would also be irrational for me to think that today is simultaneously Monday and Tuesday (assuming that I understand the meaning of the words ‘Monday’ and ‘Tuesday’), as this involves a logical contradiction (X and not X).

• Secondly, whilst rationality does entail acting in a logically consistent way in relevantly similar circumstances, it is not at all obvious that this type of logical consistency entails that I should only act by maxims that I would want everyone else to act by. Consistency in terms of logical thought and consistency in terms of how I would like to act and how I would like others to act (which might be called moral consistency) seem to be different types of consistency, with the former not necessarily entailing the latter. After all, I have much more interest in my own welfare than that of others, so why should there not rationally be an asymmetry between how I would like to act and how I would like others to act if this is in my best interests? To give an example, if I believe that I could fiddle my taxes without being found out, how does this rationally entail that I want others to be able to fiddle their taxes too? That me doing so entails that I think others should be able to do so too is not self-evidently true, and has not be demonstrated to be so, so it can’t just be asserted to be true. It might ultimately not be in my best interests to fiddle my taxes, but that is not what Kant is interested in, as he wants the rule to be absolute regardless of the consequences and interests for me or others.

• If we look at some specific hypothetical examples of what Kant’s definition of rationality entails, then we can get some very implausible results. For example, according to the typical definition of acting rationally it might be rational for me to tell a lie in certain circumstances if doing so would be in my best interests (by helping me satisfy some preference, desire, or goal etc). But according to Kant’s definition of rationality, it would actually be irrational for me to lie under any circumstances, as according to Kant lying cannot be universalized without contradiction . If I imagine a scenario in which I am a Jew attempting to evade capture and probable death by the Nazis during the Second World War, then Kant would say that it would actually be irrational for me to lie about my identity if stopped by a member of the SS, even if telling the truth would probably lead directly to my death. This is a highly implausible conclusion, and one that shows that something is probably wrong with the theory. We might attempt to rescue the theory by moving way from an absolute prohibition on acting by maxims that are not universalizable, and allowing exceptions where we would be happy to allow the same exceptions to others in similar circumstances, but this would be at the expense of taking consequences into account and losing the inescapability that Kant was seeking.

• We can end up with conflicting maxims depending upon an action is framed. For example, imagine that premise P2 entails that lying is deemed irrational, but that it also entails that not trying to protect my friends from harm is irrational. Now imagine that the Jew being sought by the Nazis is my friend. Do I truthfully reveal that he is hiding in my house (as lying is irrational), or protect him by lying about his whereabouts (as not doing so would be irrational)? As another example, if I am in a hurry to get to an appointment on time, and see a child drowning in a pool, should I rescue it or not? If my maxim is ‘help others in need’ then I should rescue the child. However, if my maxim is ‘arrive on time for appointments’ then I should not rescue the child if doing so will make me late. So, I can get contrary and conflicting results depending upon how I frame my maxims, and there is no obvious way to determine which way of framing is the ‘correct’ one.
So, in summary, I believe that premise P2 is an idiosyncratic definition of acting rationally that would not be understood by people in general. It also appears to rely upon unjustifiably equating different types of consistency; and it can lead to implausible, ambiguous or self-defeating results. So, I conclude that it is most probably false.

I think that Kant failed in his mission to make moral rules as inescapable as rational ones by attempting to make morality part of rationality by means of his concept of universalizability. Therefore, not only does Wielenberg fail to give sufficient warrant for being moral in VaV, but I believe that the foundation of the moral theory that he endorses (i.e. Kantian ethics) also fails to give sufficient warrant for being moral.

Why Should we be Moral?

In contrast to Wielenberg and Kant, I don’t believe that there exist absolute moral rules that it is our duty to follow regardless of the likely consequences for ourselves and others. I agree with Wielenberg that William Lane Craig’s idea that morality and self-interest coincide (over the long-term) because God sees to it that they coincide is false – primarily because I think belief in God’s existence is unwarranted (although there are also various other problems with Craig’s theory). However, I believe, for the reasons explained above, that Wielenberg’s solution to Karamazov’s Thesis is also false. In fact, I endorse a variety of the view that Wielenberg rejects – namely that morality and self-interest do (generally) coincide, and therefore we should be moral because it is generally in our best interests to be so. I think that there are two separate but related questions that are pertinent here: what is our moral intuition or sense; and how we ought morally to act? I think that it is instructive to have an answer to the former, as it will have implications for our answer to the latter.

In answer to the first of these questions, I believe that the relevant theories of evolutionary psychology and evolutionary biology provide the best explanations (in terms of plausibility, parsimony, and explanatory scope and power) for what our moral intuition is and why we have it. According to these theories, morality was an evolutionary adaptation that gave humans an advantage in small group societies, as those who acted in a reciprocally altruistic way, for example, were more likely to survive and pass on their genes since these acts were repaid in kind by others in the group (rudimentary forms of this sort morality are also visible in some primates). Accordingly, I believe that humans evolved reciprocal altruism, and the emotions of compassion, empathy, guilt, shame, and righteous anger etc. that help to enforce it as this gave them an evolutionary advantage. By considering human social interactions within small group societies as repeated iterations of the Prisoner’s Dilemma , biologists have provided good explanations of how and why reciprocal altruism (one of the core elements of what is normally considered to be morality) might have evolved . In general, Prisoner’s Dilemma type situations occur whenever people’s interests are affected not only by what they do but by what other people do too; and when everyone (including us) will end up worse off if they solely pursue their own individual interests. It is probable that such evolutionary considerations explain the emergence and ubiquity of the so-called Golden Rule in humans, and our moral intuitions in general.

As would be predicted by these evolutionary theories of our innate morality, the results of large-scale cross-cultural experiments where moral dilemmas are posed to people show that our intuitive moral feelings are remarkably universal and similar. Whilst it is the case that some particular manifestations of morality are culturally specific, these are usually due to some (often forgotten and archaic) environmental pressure (e.g. prohibitions on eating some foodstuff that might once have been toxic), or to some unwarranted beliefs about the world (e.g. religious ones).

Some philosophers argue that there are a number of reasons why the above explanations of our moral intuition are either false or incomplete. They argue that such explanations makes morality all about egoistic self-interest calculations, which is antithetical to what morality is all about; that it is overly reductive and fails to capture acts of compassion or kindness; that counter-examples show that we don’t always act from self-interest; or that they are nonsensical or abhorrent. However, I think that such philosophers make a number or errors in their reasoning.

Firstly, they confuse ultimate with proximate reasons for action. The ultimate reason that our intuitive moral sense urges us to act in certain ways is that this was to our evolutionary advantage. If we consider the Prisoner’s Dilemma again, a better result is obtained for all in a society (including us) if we cooperate so long as others do too, rather than everyone acting in a purely selfish way. This latter way of acting would lead to the Hobbesian dystopia described in his book Leviathan . The best result for us would of course be if others cooperated with us, but we did not reciprocate i.e. if we were free-riders . However, this situation is risky and unstable in practice, as our lack of reciprocity will in all probability be exposed sooner or later, at which point others will likely refuse to cooperate with us – leaving us in a worse position than we would have been in had we all cooperated. In fact, the best result in Prisoner’s Dilemma simulations comes from adopting a variety of tit-for-tat strategy , which is closely analogous to our general intuitive moral feelings of kindness and compassion towards others in our social group (much more towards those we know, and who are thus in a position to reciprocate), but with urges to punish and shun those who fail to reciprocate or act badly towards us.

The proximate reason for acting in ways that accord with this moral sense is that we feel compassion and altruism towards our fellow humans and want to help them, and so act accordingly. When we have such feelings, we are not (generally) consciously calculating what actions are in our best interests, and then acting accordingly. And even though acting in these ways often makes us feel happy and gratified, we are not generally doing so purely to elicit these feelings. It is a fallacy that acting in a way that is ultimately in our best interests entails that we are doing so out of purely selfish and conscious self-interest calculations, and are therefore not acting morally. If we were making such purely selfish calculations, then this probably wouldn’t accord with what is usually regarded as acting morally, but since that is not what I am describing then it is irrelevant. In other words, acting in one’s own interests is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for acting in a selfish and egotistical way.

Secondly, I think that they make an error analogous to that made by people who attempt to dismiss the identity theory of mind because they think that conscious experience just doesn’t seem at all the same thing to them as electrical and chemical states within the physical brain. Even if they are not dualists, these people still believe that there must be something ‘more’ involved than just brain states, as this is an overly reductive way of looking at things that fails to fully capture what they think consciousness is. However, just as I believe that the best explanation of consciousness is that it just is identical with brain states (but viewed from a first person instead of third person point of view), I believe that the best explanation of our intuitive moral sense is that it just is identical with certain evolutionary adaptations that urge us to act in certain ways (that we often call moral) that are ultimately in our best interests in a social setting (in general). Moreover, I think that denying this identity relationship might be an example of the masked man fallacy . I believe that apparent counter-examples, such as the urge to give aid to strangers who can never reciprocate, are just straw men. The urge towards altruism and compassion evolved in situations when our ancestors were living in small groups, so those that we acted altruistically towards would be in a position to reciprocate. Very recently in evolutionary terms the sphere of humanity that we can interact with has expanded globally, but our evolved moral intuition has not had time to catch up (assuming that there would be any evolutionary pressure to do so anyway), so we can easily feel a strong emotional urge to include people within our moral circle even if they would never be in a position to reciprocate our acts of altruism towards them.

One last type of objection that some philosophers make to the type of explanation that I gave for our intuitive morality is one based upon either gross misunderstandings of the theories involved, or of fallaciously conflating evolutionary psychology and sociobiology with aspects of social Darwinism and eugenics. Combining this with the belief that any egoistic theory of morality must be false by definition, they then advance unsound arguments that attempt to falsify this evolutionary view of morality. Well known examples of this occurred when the philosopher Mary Midgley argued against straw man versions of the theories in Richard Dawkins’ book The Selfish Gene ; and when Steven Rose, Leon Kamin and Richard Lewontin argued against E.O. Wilson’s book Sociobiology: The New Synthesis . I will not discuss this any further here, but Jeremy Stangroom gives a good overview .

If our intuitive moral sense is indeed an evolved one, then this exposes a further confusion amongst some philosophers of ethics, who often use these moral feelings as an arbiter of whether a result from some putative ethical theory or other (e.g. utilitarianism) is valid or not. Whilst a disagreement with our intuitive moral sense is probably worthy of further analysis, such a disagreement should not necessarily lead to a putative theory being ruled out, as all it shows is that the theory in question does not lead to the same result that would historically have been to our evolutionary advantage. Some philosophers are careful to note this type of fallacy in some circumstances – for example that the intuitive yuck factor that people feel when considering such things as incest should not necessarily make it morally wrong (e.g. if pregnancy can be ruled out through birth control etc.) However, in other cases they still refer back to intuitive moral feelings as being the ultimate judge of what is really right or wrong. I think that our intuitive moral sense should be taken as merely a sort of quick and dirty moral rule of thumb, and not the final arbiter of what we actually ought to do, as we are now capable of reasoning our way towards the best answer from the relevant and true facts of the matter – which may be a different answer to the one that our moral intuition would give.

On that note, I will move onto the second of my questions: how ought we to act morally? From my earlier discussion about Kantian ethics, I believe that it is rational for us to act in ways that are generally in our best interests (that maximise our personal utility). And from the discussion of the Prisoner’s Dilemma earlier, I believe that what is generally in our best interests is acting towards others in an altruistic and compassionate way (for example) - so long as they agree to abide by the same rules. Conversely, acting towards others in a selfish and unfeeling or a harmful way (for example) is generally not in our best interests, as people will tend to then act in the same way towards us (as well as there being legal consequences for some types of these actions). More formally, I would argue the following:

P1: We ought to act in ways that maximise our chances of achieving our primary desires and goals [as to do otherwise would be irrational and self-defeating]

P2: Our primary desire and goal is for happiness and flourishing [for evolutionary reasons]

C1: Therefore, we ought to act in ways that maximise our chances of achieving happiness and flourishing

P3: We maximise our chances of achieving happiness and flourishing by acting in certain ways towards others (‘moral’ ways e.g. altruistically and compassionately) and not in other ways (‘immoral’ ways e.g. selfish and harmful ways), as long as they agree to abide by the same behavioural rules [from Prisoner’s Dilemma considerations]

C2: Therefore, we ought to act in certain ways towards others (‘moral’ ways – e.g. altruistically and compassionately) and not in other ways (‘immoral’ ways e.g. selfish and harmful ways), as long as they agree to abide by the same behavioural rules [combining C1 and P3]
Premise P1 should be self-evidently true, as to act otherwise would be irrational and self-defeating. Anybody who would want to act in such irrational and self-defeating ways would probably be out of the scope of our moral considerations anyway.

Premise P2 is debated by philosophers, but is an empirical question. I would argue that our emotions have evolved as they have ultimately as they help to maximise our survival and reproductive success. Our level of happiness is closely correlated with us being in a physical and mental state, and a physical and social environment, that maximise the chances of us surviving and reproducing successfully with the best mates. As survival and reproduction are primary goals for all animals, including humans, and happiness is probably directly correlated with this, then achieving happiness is probably also a primary goal. In any case, sufficient evidence from biology and psychology should be able to confirm or refute this. Even informally, when we think about what we want and why we want it, eventually it always comes down to desiring to act in ways that make us happy (in a broad sense, not merely in terms of pleasure) - so the premise is very plausible, even before we take into account the empirical evidence from biology and psychology.

Premise P3 is also an empirical question. If our interactions with others in society can be effectively modelled by repeated iterations of the Prisoner’s Dilemma, as research strongly suggests, then the most successful strategies (in terms of maximising our personal utility) for us (and others) to adopt is that of acting altruistically towards others so long as they act the same way in return. As long as the majority of people act this way, then it will be in our interests to adopt this strategy too. Not only will it be in our interests as others will tend to reciprocate, but also our evolutionary development has provided emotional payoffs for acting in these ways – so we win twice. Although it might seem tempting to be a free-rider (i.e. taking advantage of the altruism of others but not acting that way towards them), such a strategy is inherently risky. We might believe that we will get away with such actions, but when others discover that we are acting this way (as they probably will eventually), then they will refuse to cooperate with us from that point onwards. From iterations of the Prisoner’s Dilemma, this is shown to not be a winning strategy. Similar considerations give the reason why we should tend to keep our promises, rather than just breaking them whenever it seems to be in our short-term interests to do so. Of course, in a society that agrees to abide by these rules, there would be legal penalties for certain types of bad behaviour (e.g. murder, theft etc.), which would make acting in those ways even more risky and self-defeating. In any case, sufficient evidence from the fields of sociology and game theory should be able to confirm or refute this, but in the meantime it is at least highly plausible.

So, in a nutshell, we ought to act in certain ways and not in other ways towards others (as long as they agree to abide by the same rules), as this will ultimately increase our chances of leading happy and flourishing lives. The ways that we ought to act towards people we call ‘moral’, and the ways that we should not act are called ‘immoral’, and these are open to empirical investigation. These are normative, as all people ought to act in these ways if they want to lead happy and flourishing lives, which all rational people should desire. This theory explains why we should be moral (i.e. it is ultimately in our best interests); when we need not treat other people morally (i.e. when they do not treat us morally); and what are the limits of morality (i.e. we need not rationally agree to act in a morally heroic way if others would be unlikely to reciprocate).

Some people will intuitively balk at this sort of egoistic theory of morality. However, as I have shown, this theory just builds upon our already existing innate moral sense. So, it gets the advantages of generally recommending ‘moral’ acts that we would be intuitively inclined to think of as such anyway (compassion, altruism, empathy etc.), and opposing those that we wouldn’t be (selfishness, lying, killing etc.), but then improves upon that sense by acquiring relevant and true facts of the matter and then reasoning accurately based upon these facts.

Back To Moore and Hume

Now, having given an outline of why I believe that we should be moral, I will return to Moore’s Open Question Argument and Hume’s is-ought gap.

Firstly, the Open Question Argument. Is moral goodness identical to acting in ways that maximise our chances of achieving happiness and flourishing? Now, from an a priori perspective these are not identical, as it can be questioned by a conceptually competent person. So, my definition would appear to fail the Open Question Argument. However, I believe that this definition of goodness is relevantly similar to the case of water being identical to H2O that I discussed in my answer to the first question earlier. From my syllogistic argument above, I believe that we can determine a posteriori that moral goodness and acting in ways that maximise our chances of achieving happiness and flourishing are synonymous. Nevertheless, this identity cannot be deduced from the concepts alone, as it requires us to know additional facts about the world, so it could be questioned by a conceptually competent person. So, I believe that my definition passes Moore’s argument (although he would have classed it as failing, as it is a complex definition, but I explained in question 1 why I think he would be mistaken).

Now, does my argument fail Hume’s is-ought gap? From my argument above, premises P2 and P3 are factual premises that are either objectively true, or factually false. In either case, they will be justified or refuted by reference to empirical data. However, I am not moving from purely factual premises to an evaluative conclusion, as premise P1 fulfils the evaluative premise requirement. Moreover, even though it is an evaluative premise, I would argue that premise P1is nevertheless normatively true, as it can only be denied at the risk of irrationality. Therefore, I believe that my definition of moral goodness does not fail Hume’s is-ought gap argument.

So, in summary, I believe that contrary to Wielenberg I have provided a definition of morality that passes both Moore’s Open Question Argument and Hume’s is-ought gap argument, and provides warranted reasons for us to be moral.

Where conspiracy theories go wrong

2009-10-11T18:18:00.004+01:00

Introduction

When it comes to such things as whether or not the US administration was behind the 9/11 attacks, if there is a global Zionist conspiracy, whether the moon landings were faked or not, and so on, then there exist objective truths of the matter. If we were in full possession of all the relevant facts, and were cognitively accurate in our analysis of these facts, then we would have no doubt as to what these truths are. The problem arises because we usually don’t have access to all of the relevant facts, and our analysis of the facts that we do have can err in a number of ways. Nevertheless, there are still better and worse ways of getting to the truth.

If we wish to form warranted beliefs about these and other matters, then we first need to establish as many well-grounded and relevant facts as possible, and then use a good method to form our beliefs based upon these facts. To be deemed a good method, it should exhibit predictive success (which is what we really mean by something being true), and convergent accumulation of consistent results. That is, we should expect it to routinely produce propositions that have predictions that match reality, and continue to do so if we investigate them from different angles. The methods of reason and science have proven to be the preeminent methods for learning about the world.

Conversely, if we start with few well-grounded facts, or supposed facts that are actually false, and then use a poor method in order to form our beliefs from these facts, then our beliefs will likely be false. In the worst case, if we form our beliefs based upon nothing more than hearsay, desire, and speculation, then they are almost guaranteed to be false. The reasons for this are firstly that false beliefs are just as easily propagated as true ones; and secondly that the number of false beliefs will always vastly outnumber the number of true ones, so any arbitrarily chosen belief that is not well-founded (i.e. not based upon evidence and reason) will almost certainly be false. Based upon these thoughts, here are a number of ways in which conspiracy theories go wrong:

1. They get their facts wrong

If we start with incorrect facts, then any conclusions deduced or inferred from these ‘facts’ will be unwarranted. For example, some 9/11 conspiracy theorists believe it is a fact that mobile phones do not work in airborne planes, and then deduce from this ‘fact’ that the phone calls from the passengers and crew aboard the hijacked planes must have been faked. However, some of the calls made from the hijacked planes were made from air phones, not mobiles, so the objection is immaterial in that case. Moreover, it is not actually true that mobiles don’t work at all in planes that are airborne. A mobile phone will in fact often work when a plane is closer to the ground during the climb and the descent, and even sometimes when the plane is at cruising altitude if it is flying in the vicinity of a strong signal from a phone mast.

Another example of a mistaken fact is that the explosion in one of the tube trains on 7/7 came from underneath the floor – suggesting that a bomb had been planted there earlier (as part of a conspiracy by the government/security services, we are supposed to infer). However, this ‘fact’ is also incorrect. It came originally from an early report from one eyewitness aboard the tube train in question, and was then widely disseminated on the internet. However, later eyewitness reports – including those from passengers who were much closer to the explosion – made it clear that the source of the explosion was the terrorist’s backpack, and not somewhere underneath the train.

An oft-repeated claim made by 9/11 conspiracy theorists is that around 4000 Jews stayed away from work at the World Trade Centers on September 11th. However, this ‘fact’ is also false. Estimates from the 1700 dead based upon the religion listed put the number of Jewish at 270. Another estimate based the last name of victims put the total number of Jews at up to 400. A survey of 390 victims who worked for Cantor Fitzgerald found that 49 were Jewish. This accords well with New York State’s population in general, in which 9% are Jewish.

Fake Moon landing conspiracy theorists point to many supposed impossibilities or inconsistencies with the evidence. One of these is the ‘fact’ that a flag cannot wave in a vacuum, but that the American flag was seen to wave in the film footage from the Moon. However, in one photo that is often cited, the flag is ‘waving’ because the pole to which it is attached is being rotated by the astronaut. The fact that there is no atmosphere is irrelevant in this case. In other cases, the flag gives the appearance in photos of waving because the horizontal rod from which it is deployed was not fully extended, so the flag was not fully unfurled. Much more about this here: http://www.badastronomy.com/bad/tv/foxapollo.html.

There are innumerable other examples where conspiracy theorists have failed to get important facts correct. Of course, they could assert that their facts are correct, and that the generally accepted facts of the matter are actually all part of the conspiracy. However, they would further sacrifice the plausibility and parsimony of their theory if they were to take this approach. For more on this, see below.

2. They make errors of reasoning

One very prominent error of reasoning that usually features in conspiracy theories is a form of cui bono, in that they look for who might benefit from the conspiracy (often the US or other government), and then deduce that this agent is therefore responsible for the act in question. For example, 9/11 conspiracy theorists argue that the Bush administration had much to gain from perpetrating the attacks and blaming them on Al Qaeda, as this would give them an excuse to go into Iraq and Afghanistan, thereby getting rid of an uncooperative Sadam Hussein, getting control of some of the region’s oil, and distracting the electorate from other of the administration’s policy failures at home etc. However, we are not entitled to deduce logically from the existence of these benefits (even if we suppose them to be true) to the US government being responsible for the attacks. It is a logical fallacy of the form:

P1: X would benefit if event Y was to happen
P2: Event Y happened
C: Therefore, X caused event Y to happen

A simple counterexample should suffice to show the fallacy:

P1: My local pizza takeaway would benefit from a Credit Crunch (as more people would then buy pizza)
P2: The Credit Crunch happened
C: Therefore, my local pizza takeaway caused the Credit Crunch to happen

In response to this, one could argue that the US administration had the means, as well as the motive, to carry out the 9/11 attacks and then cover it up, whereas my local pizza takeaway didn't. However, as I will argue below, whether it actually had the means to do this is part of my disagreement with conspiracy theorists - so that response would beg the question. Moreover, even if we were to grant, for the sake of argument, that the agent in question has both the motive and the possible means, I can give a new counterexample as follows:

P1: John would benefit (financially) if his wife's parents were to die
P2: John's wife's parents are killed in an apparent accident
C: Therefore, John caused his wife's parents to be killed (and made it look like an accident)

Whilst it's possible that John did indeed arrange to have his wife's parents killed, the mere fact that he had both the motive and conceivable means doesn't lead to that conclusion - the argument is a non-sequitur. That he had motive and possible means might cause the police to question John, but if there was overwhelming evidence that he didn't commit any crime, then means and motive alone would carry little weight. So, we cannot legitimately deduce from identifying who would benefit from the occurrence of some event to the conclusion that the agent in question caused the event to happen (even if the agent in question might have the means to cause the event).

Some may attempt at this point to rescue the weak motive and means argument above by adding that we have prior experience of the type of agents under consideration (typically some Western government, or State or military body) carrying out similar acts, and therefore they should come under strong suspicion whenver something like this happens. However, it is precisely because we don't have any good precedents for such large-scale, audacious, and often ruthless conspiracies that they are the stuff of conspiracy theory at all (although small-scale and mundane conspiracies have been exposed many times). If they were the type of commonplace event that would lead us to rationally suspect the US administration (or whoever) when something like 9/11 happened (or whatever conspiracy theory du jour is under discussion), then their potential guilt would be discussed and investigated widely and openly, and not just confined to the conspiracy theorists on the fringe. So, even this fails.

Another reasoning error that conspiracy theorists make is that they refuse to accept any evidence that would refute their theory, but are then extremely credulous of any prima facie evidence that would be expected on their theory. In other words, they are just looking to verify their theory, and adopt totally different bars with regard to supporting and contrary evidence – with any supporting evidence being accepted almost without question, and any contrary evidence being rejected out of hand or explained away by the introduction of some ad-hoc element (e.g. that apparently contrary evidence has been planted by the conspirators etc). In addition to the problems of confirmation bias, this strategy effectively makes the conspiracy theories unfalsifiable, as no evidence whatsoever would ever be accepted as refuting them. To hold such a belief is irrational, as it could just as easily be false as true, but there would be no way for you to ever tell, as no evidence would ever convince you of its falseness. As Karl Popper said, a theory that explains everything explains nothing.

Conspiracy theorists also err by imbuing the conspirators with omnipotence and omniscience, in that they are supposed to have almost limitless knowledge and power to plan, commit, and then cover up their conspiracies. They believe this despite abundant evidence for the widespread incompetence and ignorance of government, security services, and other agencies, the general fallibility of human beings, and the fact that even small-scale conspiracies are often bungled and uncovered by the mainstream media.

Another error of reasoning that conspiracy theorists make is to argue “possibly, therefore probably”. Yes, it is possible that the US administration was behind the 9/11 attacks, that the Moon landings were faked, that the AIDS virus was created artificially in order to kill black people (or homosexuals), or even that the world is secretly run by a secret cabal of giant lizards or that the previous pope was a robot etc. However, the fact that something is theoretically possible does not mean that it is at all probable, or that it is anything like the best explanation for the facts at hand.

In general, when we are faced with multiple hypotheses that would all predict some set of observations (as we will always be in the real world), then if we are looking for the truth we need to look for the best explanation for the observations. We could test hypotheses formally using Bayes’ Theorem (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayes%27_theorem), but, less formally we should apply abductive reasoning. This methodology (which can be demonstrated using Bayes’ Theorem to be valid), calls upon us to compare possible explanations for some set of observations by looking at their plausibility, parsimony, explanatory scope, and explanatory power. In the case of conspiracy theories, they fail primarily in terms of plausibility and parsimony.

For example, if we look at the 9/11 attacks, we are supposed to believe that there was some vast conspiracy involving the Administration, the security services, and the military. Furthermore, either the passengers on the planes were taken into hiding, or else killed. The terrorists would either have been planted, or else would be just patsies. All of the evidence pointing to Al Qaeda would have been manufactured. And with all of this, we are to believe that either the mainstream media is also involved in the conspiracy, or else that the (notoriously inept) government and its agencies managed to keep all of the incriminating evidence secret from the media. Of course, small conspiracies have come to light in the past (such as the Watergate and Contra scandals) but, despite being much less ambitious in scale, they notably were still exposed. We have no precedent for such large-scale and audacious conspiracies as would be required to fake the 9/11 attacks, or to create and release some virus and then convince health organisations, doctors, and worldwide media that it arose naturally. As such, the existence of such a conspiracy is inherently implausible (even if not actually impossible).

By contrast, we have lots of examples of terrorist attacks – including large-scale ones from Al Qaeda. Although this one was more audacious than previous ones, there is nothing inherently implausible about it, as it required nothing more than some planning and the involvement of some Muslims who were capable of learning some very rudimentary flying skills and willing to die for their beliefs. We have lots of examples of planes being hijacked, and lots of examples of Muslim fundamentalists carrying out suicide attacks – so there is lots of precedent. And, contrary to some other speculations, experts agree that only basic flying skills were required in order to fly the planes into the Towers and Pentagon. So, on balance, this explanation is far more plausible than the conspiracy alternative. Similarly, we have lots of precedent for viruses arising, mutating, and spreading naturally (just think of previous flu epidemics, for example). So, again, this is inherently more plausible than the alternative explanations. The only way around this is to presume that all of these precedents were themselves conspiracies, in which case the theories would gain plausibility at the expense of parsimony – see below.

When we examine a theory’s parsimony, we are applying Occam’s Razor (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam%27s_razor). That is, when we have two or more theories that both predict the observations, then the simpler one is to be preferred. Or, to put it another way, we should not multiply assumptions and entities beyond necessity. For example, if we were to find a crime scene in which there was a single bullet hole in the window of house, and one bullet lying on the carpet inside, should we rather presume that just one bullet was involved, or that multiple bullets were fired through the same hole and then all but one removed from the inside of the house? Occam’s Razor would lead us to choose the former explanation, as it posits no more assumptions or entities than are needed to explain the observations. This is a good methodological rule of thumb, as it prevents us from going beyond what is supported by the evidence (and can be shown by application of Bayes’ Theorem to increase the probability that the explanation is true).

Now, in addition to their general lack of plausibility, conspiracy theories are usually for more complex and far more ad-hoc (incorporating assumptions and entities into the theories that are not themselves independently justified) than are the generally accepted explanations. Instead of just some fanatical Muslims hijacking planes and then into the Towers and the Pentagon, we have to invent some huge complex of interrelated explanations for what actually happened, how and what we were led to believe happened, and why none of this has been exposed (other than to a few diligent conspiracy theorists). Every time we think of a way that it could go wrong (eyewitnesses telling the true story, any of the hundreds or thousands of people involved could go to the press with damning evidence, or some other incontrovertible evidence coming to light), then we are forced to add some additional ad-hoc element to our theory in order to explain this away (eyewitnesses killed, the media are part of the conspiracy, all other evidence planted or changed etc). Hence, the application of Occam’s Razor would lead us to reject the unnecessarily complex conspiracy theory in favour of the much simpler explanation that explains the same observations with far fewer unproven assumptions.

Conclusion

In conclusion, conspiracy theories generally contain important factual mistakes and commit a number of errors of reasoning. They tend to move from some agency having something to gain from a particular state of affairs to the unjustified conclusion that therefore said agency actually brought about that state of affairs. Furthermore, they are overly sceptical of any evidence that goes against their theory, and overly credulous of any that supports it. By adding ad-hoc elements to the theory to explain away apparently contradictory evidence, they actually render the theory effectively unfalsifiable. They also tend to assume practically unlimited power and knowledge on the part of the conspirators. Whilst they might in principle be true, possible doesn’t mean probable, and conspiracy theories are, in general, far less plausible and parsimonious than the ‘official’ explanation.

Although small-scale and mundane conspiracy theories do of course take place all the time - and are regularly exposed as such - there is little reason to suppose that the sort of large-scale and hugely elaborate conspiracy theories beloved by conspiracy theorists are actually happening around us. Certainly the burden of proof is on the conspiracy theorists to provide the extraordinary evidence for such extraordinary claims, as they are the ones challenging the accepted and (at least prima facie) evidentially supported view – but this is a burden they have singly failed to meet so far.

How cutting-edge physics supports Naturalism

2009-10-11T18:01:00.005+01:00

Introduction

In this (quite technical) post I will consider some of novel theories of cutting-edge physics. I will discuss how, if they are true, they would support Naturalism, and then present some arguments in their favour. By naturalism I am referring specifically to metaphysical naturalism, as opposed to methodological naturalism. Metaphysical naturalism is a philosophical worldview that supposes that nature is all that exists, and that the supernatural is therefore non-existent (some versions of methodological naturalism are agnostic on the existence of the supernatural, but rules it not amenable to scientific investigation). By the supernatural, I mean pure or reductively uncaused mental entities[i]- which include such things as gods, spirits and the like. Furthermore, naturalism attempts to explain and account for all phenomena and values by strictly natural means, and supposes that nature is amenable to investigation by the natural sciences.
Now I will list and briefly describe some of the cutting-edge theories under discussion.

The theories

1. String Theory[1]

In theoretical physics, string theory is a mathematical theory which posits that the elementary particles are actually vibrations of tiny (Planck length, i.e. about 10^-33 cm) one-dimensional extended objects known as strings. These strings are posited to move in ten spacetime dimensions, in which the six unobserved dimensions (beyond the three of space and one of time) are rolled up into complex shapes (i.e. compactified).
String theory has now moved on to encompass a set of five related superstring theories (known as ‘super’ because they incorporate supersymmetry), and M-theory. This last theory unifies the five superstring theories as limits of a single 11-dimensional theory in which strings are really special cases of objects of various dimensions, collectively known as branes[2], moving in this 11-dimensional spacetime. 2-dimensional branes are known as 2-branes (or membranes) and, in general, p-dimensional branes are known as p-branes - where p is any whole number less than 10. According to M-theory, these branes may grow to be as large as the universe itself.
String/M-theory is so far the best candidate ‘grand unified theory’ (or GUT) that unifies the fundamental forces and particles, including gravitation. Prior to string theory, attempts to incorporate gravitation into a GUT had failed because a never-ending series of infinities plagued the equations, due to the mathematical nature of point particles. String theory also explains the features of the Standard Model, which couldn’t be explained prior to string theory. String theory posits that the electrons and quarks within an atom are not 0-dimensional objects, but 1-dimensional strings. These strings can move and vibrate, giving the observed particles their flavor, charge, mass and spin.

2. Supersymmetry[3]

In particle physics, supersymmetry is a symmetry that relates elementary particles of one spin to another particle that differs by half a unit of spin (known as superpartners).

3. Symmetry Breaking[4]

Symmetry breaking in physics describes a phenomenon whereby fluctuations acting on a system crossing a critical point decide a system’s fate, by determining which branch of a bifurcation is taken. Of particular relevance here is Spontaneous symmetry breaking[5], which describes the case where the laws are invariant but it appears the system isn’t because the background of the system, its vacuum, is non-invariant.

4. Quantum Fluctuations[6]

In quantum physics, a quantum fluctuation is the temporary change in the amount of energy in a point in space, arising from Werner Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle.

5. Cosmic Inflation[7]

In cosmology, cosmic inflation is the theory that, within the first second after the Big Bang, the nascent universe went through a phase of exponential expansion driven by a negative pressure vacuum energy density. During this inflationary phase the universe is proposed to have doubled in size every 10^-34 s, with the rapid inflation decaying away after 10^-32 s. As the scalar field slowly relaxed to the vacuum, the cosmological constant went to zero, and space began to expand as we see it in the observable universe.
Cosmic inflation explains why the universe appears flat, homogeneous and isotropic, and also explains the origin of the large-scale structure of the universe (with the magnification to cosmic size of quantum fluctuations in the original microscopic inflationary region acting as seeds for the galaxies, etc).

6. Eternal Inflation[8]

Eternal inflation is an inflationary universe model in which our universe is just one ‘bubble’ of expanding space among many (possibly an infinite number), and other big bangs occur throughout the wider superstructure. These bubbles, or pocket universes, emerge spontaneously from this eternal background space-time ‘foam’ due to quantum fluctuations, and then inflate exponentially. This inflation will tend to decay, as in the case of our universe, but will occasionally increase (as the strength of the inflation field will fluctuate randomly and spontaneously from place to place and time to time). Although in the minority, these regions of increasing inflation would dominate in terms of volume of space.
It is postulated that the particular characteristics (fundamental constants and physical laws) of each ‘universe’ freeze into place during the first moments of the universe’s existence due to spontaneous symmetry breaking (and are therefore probably random).

7. Multiverse[9]

The multiverse (or megaverse) is the hypothesised infinite assemblage of bubble or pocket universes produced by some universe-generating mechanism such as Eternal (or Chaotic) Inflation (another is Smolin’s fecund universes theory), of which our ‘universe’ is but one infinitesimal part. This multiverse is itself embedded in inflating space that exists without end. According to calculations based upon inflation theory, our observed universe would be embedded in a region that is approximately10^10,000,000,000 km across (by comparison, the observable universe is 10^23 km). Beyond the edge of our region, space would still be inflating by doubling in size every 10^-34 s, as other regions of space that are still in their inflationary phase (unlike ours) would dominate, so the gaps between the regions are growing much faster than are boundaries, meaning that the pocket universes won’t intersect. Some proponents of the multiverse argue that it has always existed (hence, ‘eternal’ inflation).

8. String Landscape[10]

In string theory, calculations show that there is a huge number of possible ways in which the additional unobserved dimensions may be compactified. Altogether probably an infinite number, but at least 10^500 variations may be cosmologically stable, producing metastable vacua.[ii]
Some scientists (e.g. Leonard Susskind, Andrei Linde, and Martin Rees) propose that each of these string theory solutions corresponds to a possible universe within an overall multiverse If this is true, then Eternal inflation would give a mechanism for populating all of the possible solutions within the string landscape. Each type of compactification would then produce a different universe consisting of the non-compactified dimensions. In these possible universes the fundamental physical constants, types and sizes of the forces and particles, the nature of the physical laws, and even the number of observable dimensions would vary (even though some variations might be tiny e.g. a variation in the 5th decimal place of the mass of the electron). Each of these corresponds to a solution in the string landscape and, due to the quantum mechanical nature of the universe-generating mechanism, the solution is hypothesized to be ‘chosen’ at random.
As I will explain later, this synthesis of the String Landscape and Eternal Inflation provides a possible solution to the so-called fine-tuning problem (it should be noted that Smolin selection and Eternal Inflation even without the string landscape may also do this).

How might these theories support Naturalism?

In this analysis I will focus upon the String Landscape and its synthesis with Eternal Inflation, and attempt to show how Naturalism would be supported if these theories are true. Henceforth, I will refer to the conjunction of these particular theories as SLEI.
One might intuit that the truth of SLEI would add weight to the case for Naturalism but, in this analysis I would like to put this intuition on a more rigorous footing. Therefore, I will make use of Bayes’ Theorem (but will not attempt to justify the use of the theorem itself, which has already been formally proven). This is a mathematical formula used for calculating conditional probabilities.[iii] It is particularly useful as a means of calculating posterior probabilities given a set of observations. The particular form of Bayes’ Theorem that I will use is the following:

P(h/e&b) = P(h/b) x P(e/h&b) / ([P(h/b) x P(e/h&b)] + [P(~h/b) x P(e/~h&b)])

Where:

h = the hypothesis under consideration (in this case, that Naturalism is true)
b = the entirety of our relevant background knowledge
e = the entire collection of evidence that is directly relevant to ‘h’
P(h/e&b) = the probability of h given e and b
P(h/b) = the probability of h given only b
P(e/h&b) = the probability of e given h and b
P(~h/b) = the probability of (not h) given only b [the complement of P(h/b) i.e. P(h/b) + P(~h/b) = 1]
P(e/~h&b) = the probability of e given (not h) and b [NB. independent of P(e/h&b)]

So, in this particular case, P(h/e&b) is the probability that naturalism is true given the entirety of our relevant background knowledge, and the entire collection of evidence directly relevant to this hypothesis. Now, I will not attempt to insert values for any of the terms in order to calculate P(h/e&b) directly. Rather, I will instead demonstrate that the truth of SLEI would increase the value of P(h/e&b) – whatever its actual value is – by determining what would happen to the value of P(h/e&b) if we vary some of the other terms in the equation accordingly.
I will now look at each of the terms in Bayes’ theorem for the hypothesis that naturalism is true, and evaluate how the truth of these theories would affect them.

1. Prior Probability

Firstly, P(h/b). In our case, it is the probability that naturalism is true given the entirety of our relevant background knowledge, and before we examine any specific evidence for the truth or otherwise of naturalism – also known as the prior probability that naturalism is true. Now, every cause that has ever been investigated and established by a reliable, truth-finding method (e.g. science) has turned out to be a purely natural one. Moreover, such reliable methods could establish that a supernatural cause exists, if such a cause does in fact exist, and is open to investigation. However, not once have such reliable methods ever shown a cause to be supernatural. So we have:

[A1]

P1: If reliable methods have only ever proven natural causes to exist in our world, then probably every cause in our world is natural.
P2: Reliable methods have only ever proven natural causes to exist in our world.
C: Therefore, probably every cause in our world is natural.

As this is an inductive argument, it does not establish the certainty that there exist only natural causes in the world. Rather, it makes it merely probable. Hence, P(h/b) is high – certainly higher than 0.5 (in order for it be considered probable). It follows that its complement, P(~h/b) [the probability that not naturalism (but supernaturalism) is true given the entirety of our relevant background knowledge] is necessarily low – certainly lower than 0.5.
Now, for the purposes of this analysis I will decide to bracket the non-overlapping sets e and b such that SLEI (if true) is part of the set b and not part of the set e. That is, I will consider that SLEI is a subset of our background knowledge, rather than being a subset of the evidence that is directly relevant to h. This would have the following effect upon the terms within Bayes’ Theorem:

P(h/b) will be higher. One reason for this is that the argument [A1] above is given greater weight, because a reliable method (i.e. science) would have shown even more causes in the world to be natural. Moreover, these causes are particularly important ones, as they explain how our universe came into existence, with its particular physical properties, including microscopic ones.
Another reason why P(h/b) would be higher is that the truth of SLEI would defeat some potential defeaters for h. For example, it would falsify the fine-tuning (or anthropic) argument for the existence of God (of the standard Judeo-Christian variety). According to this argument, the mere fact that the universe allows life to exist in the first place is evidence of intelligent design. For instance, for life as we know it to evolve, it is supposed that there must be an unlikely combination of just the right initial conditions and just the right values of the fundamental physical constants (so-called anthropic coincidences). According to the argument, if any one of the values of up to 26 dimensionless fundamental physical constants[11] from the Standard Model wasn’t extremely close to the actual value we find, then life would not be possible in our universe. Martin Rees reduces this to just 6 dimensionless constants whose values he deems fundamental to present day physical-theory and the known structure of the universe[12].

In either case, the apparent extreme unlikelihood of the universe forming by chance with just the right conditions to allow life is presented as evidence that those conditions were actually set by an intelligent designer in order to produce life. This cosmic intelligence is usually supposed to be God, although it should be noted that the argument doesn’t lead to the designer being any particular god, or even a god at all. It might instead be a team of gods, some other demiurge, a highly advanced universe-creating alien, or any of an infinite number of other possibilities. More formally, we have:

[A2]

P1: If the probability is small enough that our universe is life-bearing by chance alone, then it is more probable that our universe was intelligently designed to be life-bearing.
P2: The probability is small enough that our universe is life-bearing by chance alone
C: It is more probable that our universe is intelligently designed to be life-bearing.
Corollary: The intelligent designer in question is God.

Now, there are a couple of points that should be mentioned with regard to this argument. Firstly, in order to apply the argument in practice, some probability threshold would need to be determined below which we could agree that it is more likely that our universe is intelligently designed to be life-bearing, rather than being so by chance alone. One possible candidate for this threshold might be the Dembski threshold of 1 in 10^150[13]. Although the choice of threshold is moot, unless design can be shown to be impossible (and we should note that science hasn’t ruled out the possibility that our universe was designed by aliens[14], for example), then there must be some threshold below which it becomes more probable that our universe was designed to be life-bearing.

Secondly, with regard to P2, it has not been proven that the fundamental physical constants are in fact so improbably ‘fine-tuned’, or that they needed to be so for our universe to be life-bearing. It may be that there are really only one or two truly fundamental physical constants, and/or the values that these constants could take are constrained to a small set of possibilities. In that case, the total number of possible universes would be relatively small, with at least one of these possibilities being life-bearing (ours). Whether this is or is not the case, we may find that some sort of life would still have been possible in the universe even if the fundamental physical constants were significantly different to those that we find. Victor Stenger has argued along these lines[15].

However, even if we were to accept that our universe is indeed precisely and improbably fine-tuned for life, then we still need not invoke design as the explanation. If SLEI is true, the existence of a multiverse in which all possible combinations of fundamental physical constants (as well as forces, mathematical laws, etc.) will eventuate in some universe or other as part of the string landscape, means that it is guaranteed that a life-bearing universe will come to exist by chance alone (possibly an infinite number of times). This is because every possible solution from the string landscape will come to exist (if the selection is random, as, due to its quantum mechanical nature, it is proposed to be), and our universe is a possible solution within the string landscape that leads to a life-bearing universe. Thus P2 would be false, and the argument [A2] would fail.

One further point worth mentioning is that even if our universe is all that exists (i.e. there is no multiverse), and it is fine-tuned for life, we still cannot legitimately infer a supernatural source. In fact, as Michael Ikeda and Bill Jefferys showed[16], the fine-tuning would actually count against a supernatural origin for our universe. The argument that if a universe fine-tuned for life is improbable on naturalism, then the fact we find ourselves in a fine-tuned universe implies that naturalism is improbable is a confusion of two different types of conditional probabilities. In particular, the fact that an outcome is highly improbable does not imply that the hypothesis that generates that outcome is itself improbable. You need to actually compare the probabilities of obtaining the observed outcome under all hypotheses, and look for the ones that are more probable. Whilst naturalism may still turn out to be improbable on fine-tuning, it may actually be the most probable hypothesis – certainly far more probable than supernaturalism of the standard Christian variety (which is rendered improbable because we would expect God to sustain life without any need for the universe itself to be fine-tuned for life). Secondly, we must do the calculations based upon the evidence that we actually have. This includes the fact that we know our universe contains life, so the possibility of a naturalistic universe with no life is purely hypothetical.

As an aside, this is a particularly egregious example of a corollary that doesn’t follow necessarily or even probably from the conclusion, but which is often tacitly assumed to by Christian proponents of the argument. At the very least it is supposed by them to do a lot of work towards establishing the existence of God, which I think it manifestly fails to do, as getting from the existence of some inscrutable designer to God is actually the hard bit, as the claim for a supernatural designer with all sorts of the amazing and specific powers of God is a much more extraordinary one and thus requires much more extraordinary evidence. This is analogous to Christians thinking that if they can show that certain people or places mentioned in the story of the resurrection of Jesus actually existed, then this does a lot of work toward establishing that the Resurrection actually happened. However, again it is the leap to the supernatural that is the giant and extraordinary leap, and establishing some other mundane historical details in the Bible does virtually nothing to help bridge that gap. For example, if I tell you that I have a friend called John who can levitate at will, then just showing my friend John to you (not levitating) does nothing to prove that John can actually levitate. The mere existence of a friend called John is not at all extraordinary or contentious. The levitation part of my claim is the part that is contentious, and that requires the robust supporting evidence.

Another possible defeater for h is the Cosmological Argument i.e.

[A3]

P1: Everything that begins to exist has a cause
P2: The universe began to exist
C: Therefore, the universe has a cause
Corollary: This cause is God

This is another example of a corollary that doesn’t follow from the conclusion. Moreover, if SLEI is true, then the universe in question would just be our particular universe (as just one part of the multiverse) and the cause in question would be some quantum mechanical universe-generating mechanism. Hence, there would indeed be a cause, but it would be a completely natural one, and the corollary would be falsified. And if we have a multiverse that is eternal (as part of SLEI), then P2 would be false, and the conclusion would not follow (and P1 may be false anyway, even if the multiverse is not eternal, as all we know is that everything we have observed to begin within our universe has a cause, which doesn’t necessarily mean that this concept is meaningful when talking about the beginning of the multiverse as a whole).
Of course, if SLEI is true, we may still be left with no explanation for why the multiverse exists at all, or where the quantum mechanical universe-generating mechanism came from, or why string/M-theory and its universe generating mechanism are as they are. In such a case, we may just have to take this as a brute fact—something that exists necessarily and has no explanation. This is no worse than the God explanation though, where God is taken as the brute fact, and is actually far more plausible and parsimonious.

Since there remains no sound or valid argument for design, P(~h/b) will be lower than P(h/b). This follows from P(h/b) being higher, as P(~h/b) is its complement. In this analysis, P(e/h&b) and P(e/~h&b) will remain unchanged, as I have bracketed b and e such that SLEI (if true) would be part of the set b and not part of the set e.
Now, let’s go back to our formulation of Bayes’ Theorem and determine what effects this will have on the probability that naturalism is true given the entirety of our background knowledge and evidence directly relevant to this i.e.

P(h/e&b) = P(h/b) x P(e/h&b) / ([P(h/b) x P(e/h&b)] + [P(~h/b) x P(e/~h&b)])

I won’t derive this in general, but will instead substitute some sample (and very rough) values into the equation. So, just for the sake of argument, assume that without Greene’s novel theories:

P(h/b) = 0.95
P(~h/b) = 0.05
P(e/h&b) = 0.9
P(e/~h&b) = 0.3

So:

P(h/e&b) = 0.95 x 0.9 / [(0.95 x 0.9) + (0.05 x 0.3)]
= 0.855 / [0.855 + 0.015]
= 0.983 (3dp)

If that were the case, then with Greene’s novel theories, something like the following would result:

P(h/b) = 0.99 [i.e. higher than it was before]
P(~h/b) = 0.01
P(e/h&b) = 0.9
P(e/~h&b) = 0.3

So:

P(h/e&b) = 0.99 x 0.9 / [(0.99 x 0.9) + (0.01 x 0.3)]
= 0.891 / [0.891 + 0.003]
= 0.997 (3dp)

Hence, with these particular values, the truth of SLEI would increase the probability that naturalism is true given the entirety of our background knowledge and evidence directly relevant to this. This is what we would intuitively expect, and is what I was trying to establish, but I won't derive it in general. However, it is at least plausible this is true generally.
This analysis might be repeated by bracketing the non-overlapping sets e and b such that SLEI (if true) are part of the set e and not part of the set b (or even part in b and part in e, if that could be done). I have not done this, but I would expect the results to be similar.

What arguments could be advanced now that those theories are more probably than not true?

Some physicists believe that these cutting-edge theories are more probably than not true because they are powerful and elegant. String/M-theory, for example, combines quantum mechanics and general relativity into a quantum theory of gravitation, and can also incorporate the standard model of particle physics. As such, it is a good candidate for a theory of everything. I think that there is something in this intuition, as the concepts of power and elegance or beauty (as physicists and mathematicians use it) actually encapsulates the idea of explaining a great deal of data with a relatively small set of assumptions.
However, to put this on a firmer footing, I would suggest that the theories are more probably true than not for the following reasons:

1. They are plausible. That is, they follow from and don’t contradict known facts and other good theories of how the universe is. String theory, for example, is quantum mechanical, Lorentz invariant, unitary, contains Einstein’s General Relativity as a low energy limit, and can incorporate the standard model of particle physics. Eternal inflation follows from the theory of cosmic inflation, quantum fluctuations, and symmetry breaking.
2. They are parsimonious. That is, they don’t require us to make up too much out of whole cloth, i.e. there are few completely ad hoc assumptions. Postulating the existence of strings or branes themselves is ad hoc, as is the assumption of additional compacted dimensions, but not much else needs be made up (as opposed to the God theory, which requires masses of ad hoc elements, including the existence of a supernatural God, with all sorts of characteristics and desires, the most powerful mind possible, and all sorts of manoeuvrings to explain away the lack of fit of prediction and evidence). Eternal inflation requires few ad hoc elements, and none is physically implausible.
3. They have good explanatory scope. That is, they predict many facts about the universe that we actually find to be true (and have not made any predictions that have so far been proven to be false). Eternal inflation explains the size, age, evolution, and macroscopic and microscopic structure of the universe, and its apparent fine-tuning for life. By contrast, God exists doesn’t really predict much about the universe; and what you might expect it to predict is not actually found when we look at the evidence.
4. They have good explanatory power. That is, they make the facts that they predict highly probable.

From the scientific point of view, testing predictions that could falsify these theories or otherwise is very difficult, as the energies required to test string theory are huge (but may well be available to us in the future), and finding any direct evidence of other universes in the multiverse is likely to be impossible.

However, there might be indirect ways of testing them. For example, there is some suggestion that one or more of the fundamental constants may have changed during the evolution of our universe[17]. If the fundamental constants can change over time in our own universe, then they are clearly not fundamentally invariant. Since this is a requirement for Eternal inflation, amongst other multiverse theories, then this offers some support to these theories. Another type of indirect support for SLEI is that, if the fundamental constants and other fundamental properties of our universe (e.g. forces, particles, physical laws) are a random selection from what is possible, then we would expect our universe to be only just barely life-bearing, rather than strongly so. An analogy would be a lottery in which only 3 correct balls from 6 are required in order to win a prize. If we pick a random winner, then we would expect them to have only just won a prize (i.e. to have 3 or possibly 4 correct balls), rather than getting all 6 balls correct. When we look at the values of the fundamental constants and other things (such as dark energy) in our universe, it does indeed appear to be the case that the universe is no more bio-friendly than it needs to be.
So, overall, we may have some indirect evidence that SLEI is correct. In addition to this, SLEI also satisfies the criteria usually taken for being a good explanation (plausibility, parsimony, explanatory scope and power).

[1] See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/String_theory

[2] See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brane

[3] See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supersymmetry

[4] See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symmetry_breaking

[5] See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spontaneous_symmetry_breaking

[6] See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_fluctuation

[7] See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmic_inflation

[8] See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_inflation

[9] See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiverse

[10] See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/String_landscape

[11] See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dimensionless_physical_constant#The_Standard_Model

[12] See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dimensionless_physical_constant#Martin_Rees.27s_Six_Numbers

[13] See, for example: http://richardcarrier.blogspot.com/2009/05/statistics-biogenesis_01.html

[14] See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fine-tuned_Universe#Alien_design

[15] See: http://www.colorado.edu/philosophy/vstenger/Cosmo/FineTune.pdf#search=%22Fine%20tuned%20universe%22

[16] See: http://bayesrules.net/anthropic.html

[17] See, for example: http://arxiv.org/abs/0810.1356

[i] As per Carrier’s definition in “Defending Naturalism as a Worldview: A Rebuttal to Michael Rea’s World Without Design” (The Secular Web: 2003), www.infidels.org/library/modern/richard_carrier/rea.shtml.
[ii] As calculated in Raphael Bousso & Joseph Polchinski, “Quantization of Four-form Fluxes and Dynamical Neutralization of the Cosmological Constant,” High Energy Physics (Theory) 18 Apr 2000, http://arxiv.org/abs/hep-th/0004134v3; and Michael R. Douglas, “Basic results in Vacuum Statistics,” High Energy Physics (Theory) 20 Sep 2004, http://arxiv.org/abs/hep-th/0409207.
[iii] See http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/bayes-theorem/.

The Sye delusion

2008-07-30T17:47:00.012+01:00

There has been a great deal of debate on Stephen Law’s blog recently. A presuppositional apologist called Sye Tenb has a website that claims to offer a proof for God’s existence. Stephen’s comments on this ‘proof’ opened the floodgates, and the ensuing battle that raged between Sye and his critics ran to 254 comments, and has since spawned numerous additional posts from Stephen. In this post I will briefly explain why I think Sye has failed to make his case.

Sye’s unsound argument

In a nutshell, Sye’s argument is as follows:

P1: The existence of logic presupposes the existence of the Christian God.
P2: Logic exists.
C: Therefore, the Christian God exists.

This is a valid deductive argument, but it will only be sound if both premises are actually true i.e. we agree to accept that they are self-evidently true, or else they are the conclusion of some other sound logical argument. Of course, both of these possibilities can be contentious, for what are we justified in taking as self-evidently true, and where do we finally stop in our chain of justifications if each premise is the conclusion from some other argument? Ultimately, it turns on the concept of properly basic beliefs (beliefs that require no further justification), as this is where the buck finally stops if you do not believe that there is an infinite chain of justifications, or that we can have circular justifications. However, Sye has not provided a sound argument (or series of arguments) to justify his P1. Nor has he asserted, much less attempted to justify (which would be impossible to do anyway, in my view), that his P1 is a properly basic belief. Therefore, I will accept that P2 is true, but as P1 is not self-evidently true, and is not justified as the conclusion of a further deductive argument, I will not accept it. Hence, I conclude that his argument is unsound as it stands.

Sye has not admitted that his argument is unsound, as he doesn't seem to think that his P1 is in need of any further justification, although he never explains why this should be the case. Perhaps he doesn't understand the structure of a deductive argument (a conclusion that is logically entailed by a set of premises), or perhaps he thinks that his P1 is a properly basic belief? Anyway, along the way, he has informally presented a number of subsidiary arguments, so I will look at these next.

Sye’s attempts to rescue his unsound argument

Sye has tried a number of approaches to rescue his unsound argument, but each fails. Here are some of his attempts:

Sye attempts to justify P1 from the above argument with the following argument:

P1: Logic cannot be accounted for on any atheist worldview
P2: Sye’s Christian worldview is not an atheist worldview
C: Therefore, logic can only be accounted for on Sye’s Christian worldview

However, this argument is even worse than his original one. Firstly, his new P1 is also not self-evidently true, and is left unjustified – so the argument is not sound. Secondly, even if we grant his new P1 (which we don’t), his argument is not even valid, as it is a false dichotomy. At best, all that it could ever prove is that logic can only be accounted for on some non-atheistic (i.e. theistic) worldview – not necessarily the one that Sye subscribes to. It could just as easily be one in which God is omni-malevolent, or entirely uninterested in humanity, or one that posits a multitude of gods.

Sye has also tried the following argument:

P1: If nobody has yet proven that logic can be accounted for on any atheist worldview, then logic cannot be accounted for on any atheist worldview.
P2: Nobody has yet proven that logic can be accounted for on any atheist worldview
C: Therefore, logic cannot be accounted for on any atheist worldview.

Whilst formally valid, this is a clear example of a logical fallacy: argument from ignorance. Firstly, the people commenting on Stephen’s blog form a very small subset of humanity, so their inability to ‘prove’ this cannot be taken to entail that ‘nobody’ can produce such a proof. Secondly, it is possible that one of more of the people on Stephen’s blog can actually provide such a proof, but they have so far chosen not to do so. Thirdly, even if nobody in the whole world can produce such a proof, or will ever be able to produce such a proof (an assumption that we are not justified in making), the first premise is still false as it stands, as our inability to prove a proposition does not render it false. The first premise would only be true if we presuppose that at least one of Stephen or his commenters is omniscient, and that they would have provided such a proof if they knew it. This assumption is unjustified.

Another variation on the same theme is this attempt from Sye:

P1: If Sye’s Christian worldview is correct then the laws of logic will exist
P2: The laws of logic exist
C: Therefore, Sye’s Christian worldview is correct

However, this argument is an example of a formal fallacy known as affirming the consequent. Even if God’s existence entails that the laws of logic will exist, the converse is not true unless we can show that the laws of logic can exist only if God exists (in which case P1 would become: If and only if God exists then the laws of logic will exist). However, this is not self-evidently true, and Sye has not justified it, so the argument is unsound as it stands.

Sye tried a different approach with this next argument:

P1: People who do not believe that logic can only be accounted for on Sye’s worldview are not entitled to use logic to construct their own arguments
P2: Stephen and some of his commenters do not believe that logic can only be accounted for on Sye’s worldview
C: Therefore, Stephen and some of his commenters are not entitled to use logic to construct their own arguments

However, P1 is not self-evidently true, and Sye offers no good justification for it, so the argument is unsound as it stands.

There is a general theme that runs through Sye’s arguments: his worldview accounts for logic (due to God), so his worldview should be taken as being true unless we can produce a better alternative. However, in general, this is a bad way to argue. Even if we were to grant that it really is the case that there is only one known explanation for some observation (and it is not instead that the arguer is just ignorant of the alternative explanations - as with Sye), then we are still unable to say whether this explanation is a good or bad one without doing some more work. That it is the only explanation doesn’t in any way entail that it is not a bad explanation. Julian Baggini wrote an article about this point.

In fact, Sye's assertion is even stronger than just taking his worldview to be true by default. He asserts that it is actually impossible for any other worldview to account for logic. Moreover, he believes that the onus is upon those who disagree this claim to prove him wrong by proving that their worldview can account for logic, rather than upon him to substantiate his impossibility claim. However, it is clear to all other than Sye and his ilk that the burden of proof rests upon those who make the claim - particularly if this claim disagrees with the consensus view, and even more especially if this claim is contrary to a vast amount of evidence about how the universe actually works. In this case, by asserting that it is impossible for logic to exist without the existence of some supernatural agency (when we have no good evidence that the supernatural exists at all), then Sye has his work cut out. For a good discussion on the burden of proof, see this.

In fact, for a variety of reasons, I would suggest that Sye’s ‘God explanation’ is a very bad explanation – and should therefore be rejected, even if we have no alternative explanation to hand (which isn’t actually the case). In order to validate his theory, what Sye is doing is focusing on one apparently confirmed prediction made by his God theory - that logic exists - and ignoring all of the other failed predictions. Moreover, as we already know about the existence of logic, it looks suspiciously as if God has just been defined in such a way that logic is entailed – as opposed to actually predicting it and finding this prediction met. In any case, if we are really seeking the truth, rather than just indulging in self-delusion, then we cannot focus solely on successful predictions from our theory, and ignore the failures. What Sye should instead be doing is looking to see if his theory can survive his and our best attempts to falsify it. Moreover, to be properly falsifiable, his theory should make clear, unambiguous, and bold statements that can be compared empirically against reality. If his theory’s predictions are vague and equivocal, then it will be difficult to falsify, since it is not clear what would constitute a failed prediction. Equally, if his theory merely predicts things that we already know to be true (such as the existence of logic), then we have no good reason to favour his theory over any other that merely predicts the same observations.

In fact, I would argue that the God theory (based upon the core Christian beliefs) is a bad one, as it is implausible, lacks parsimony, and has little explanatory scope or power. In order to explain the existence of the physical universe, it posits some unseen and inscrutable supernatural realm ruled by a universe-creating superbeing. Since we have no independent proof that anything other than the physical universe actually exists, this makes the theory inherently implausible. As such, its extraordinary claims require a correspondingly high standard of supporting evidence. Do we have such evidence? Theists will typically resort to the evidence in the Bible, to what their religious leaders (or other people) tell them, or to their own perception of religious experience.

Firstly, the Bible. In general, I would contend that forming empirical beliefs about the world based upon statements contained in ancient historical documents is liable to be unreliable. Due to the many known examples of misplaced credulity, exaggeration, and fabrication in historical documents, and to the lack of knowledge of the world possessed by people in these ancient times, we must be very careful about granting too much credence to the contents of these documents. Descriptions of events are always questionable unless they can be corroborated by relevantly similar descriptions in other sources – preferably those already known to be reliable. Additionally, in the case of contentious elements (miracles and suchlike), we need to consider whether it is more likely that the events or things described actually happened, or that (as a minimum) the supernatural elements of such descriptions are false. In the particular case of the Bible, we have a number of serious problems:

1) We have accounts that were written many years after the events themselves were supposed to have happened
2) We have inconsistent and contradictory descriptions of the same events
3) We have little or no corroboration in any other sources
4) We have methods that are known to introduce unreliability - word of mouth, geographically dispersed multiple authors, editing and compilation that is arbitrary or that has an agenda, elements that were revealed in dreams etc.
5) On top of all of this, we have a number of extraordinary metaphysical claims about supernatural entities (including God) and events. Some of these claims are in opposition to our current reliably formed knowledge about how the universe actually works.

In light of this, I would argue that the Bible clearly does not constitute the necessary extraordinary evidence for the extraordinary metaphysical claims made about the existence of God and a supernatural realm.

Appeal to religious leaders or other people fares no better than appeal to the Bible as a source of the requisite extraordinary evidence. The first problem when it comes to relying on such testimony is that the set of statements made by such people is partially or wholly contradictory, so choosing to believe any particular statement or set of statements on this basis alone would seem to be purely arbitrary. Generally, we can accord some measure of reliability to testimony if the statements come from someone who has demonstrated that they are an expert on the topic concerned. However, in the case of religious leaders, the statements are usually vague metaphysical ones that offer no means by which their truth or falsity may be determined. We have no independent yardstick against which to judge the reliability or otherwise of their metaphysical statements, so no determination can be made. Hence, we have no good reason to judge this as a reliable truth generating mechanism, and plenty of other reasons to judge it otherwise (some statements contradict reliably formed knowledge, and many statements are in contradiction with each other etc.). So, this also fails to meet the necessary high standard of evidence.

How about people’s religious experience – does this provide the necessary evidence? I would argue that the simple answer is no. Firstly, any divine messages and revelations that people claim to have received by such means are culture-specific, inconsistent and contradictory. Secondly, any such messages seem to consist of nothing more than banalities or vague and unverifiable metaphysical notions. No new and verifiable scientific or mathematical knowledge is ever produced, for example. Thirdly, we are aware of many more plausible and more mundane alternative explanations for such feelings of the transcendental – dreams, hallucinations, power of suggestion, psychotic episodes, delusions etc. Are we justified in taking such experiences at face value (as basic beliefs), in the same way that I would do when I perceive an object in front of my eyes? No, as the difference between the two cases is that we have no evidence that religious experiences reliably generate true belief, whereas we have lots of mutually-reinforcing evidence of the reliability (most of the time) of our senses. Furthermore, as the beliefs acquired through religious experiences are often contradictory, we know that some or all of them must be wrong. Hence, it is clearly an unreliable mechanism for generating true belief, and can be discounted as a way of acquiring the necessary extraordinary evidence for God’s existence.

What’s more, even if we were to grant some supernatural communication (which we have no good reason to do), neither we nor those communicated with have any way to establish that the message comes from God – as opposed to it being a deception from some evil demon, for example. Even God, if it exists, would have no way to determine if it was actually being deceived by some evil demon into thinking that it is the creator and ruler of the universe (since, if it is being deceived in this way, then it is not actually omniscient and omnipotent at all – this is merely part of the deception).

Attempts have been made to prove the existence of God by analytic means alone – for example, the Ontological Argument. However, this argument is open to a number of objections, and few philosophers are convinced of its soundness. Theists might also resort to one or other of the cosmological or teleological arguments for God’s existence. However, all of these arguments have been convincingly rebutted, and most can anyway only argue for some inscrutable universe-creating entity as opposed to the specific Judeo-Christian God.

So, in conclusion, there is no good evidence, much less extraordinary evidence, that God and his supernatural realm exist at all.

Furthermore, when we examine the predictions that the God theory makes, we find that it predicts a very different universe from the one that we find ourselves in. We would expect it to be far smaller, more congenial to our type of life, contain far less suffering, and contain clear and unambiguous evidence of God’s existence. What we actually find is that the universe is very old, very big, almost entirely lethal to our type of life, and that life evolved by some meandering and haphazard process. Why? Moreover, why does God need a universe at all? Surely we should all be in Heaven (or Hell) already, as an omniscient God must know how we will choose to act (even if we were to grant the existence of free will).

What's more, our world contains far more suffering (both natural and man-made, ours and that of other animals) than is reconcilable with the concept of an omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent God. Why would God create a world containing so much suffering, when he surely had an infinite number of other possible ways that he could do it? And, if he did knowingly create the universe this way, is he not morally responsible for all of this suffering?

In addition, why would God’s existence be unknown to billions of people who have lived, or are alive today? Why wait until the last few thousand years, and then only reveal it to a handful of people in Palestine? If we need to believe in God’s existence in order to enter Heaven, as many Christians believe, then God has knowingly consigned billions of people to eternal suffering (or, at best, they will not enter Heaven). Why?

Yes, the theory can be patched up by the introduction of a plethora of entirely ad-hoc elements (e.g. necessity of human free will, benefits of suffering, God’s mysterious plan etc.). However, by such means we could justify any theory. To proceed this way is intellectually dishonest, as it renders the theory unfalsifiable. Whatever criticism is levelled at the theory, the theist will just introduce some additional ad-hoc element to explain it away. Therefore, Ockham’s razor would rule against such a theory in favour of some more plausible and parsimonious natural explanation for the world. For much more on this, I would recommend the following essay (which Sye, in particular, would do well to read and ponder).

Conclusion

Anyway, back to Sye’s original ‘laws of logic’ argument. At several points in the discussions, he gives the game away by saying that he knows that God exists, as he has had an ‘objective revelation’. So, it seems that even he isn’t really convinced by his own argument (as well he shouldn’t be), or else he would not need to justify his belief in God by reference to this ‘objective revelation’. What this ‘objective revelation’ is he never explains. Until he is prepared to spell it out in detail, I cannot evaluate it one way or the other, so I will ignore it.

Sye has repeatedly asked for an explanation of how the laws of logic can exist on an atheist worldview. As I have explained, the absence of such an explanation in no way helps Sye’s case. Nevertheless, I will point him in the right direction with the links below. In the meantime, he needs to answer the following question – which he has repeatedly and conspicuously failed to do. Until he does, then his arguments amount to nothing.

Sye: Please demonstrate, by means of a sound logical argument, that logic can only be accounted for in your worldview.

http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/michael_martin/logic.html

http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/michael_martin/induction.html

http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/richard_carrier/reppert.html

Free will and punishment

2008-07-24T10:45:00.009+01:00

Do we deserve to be punished when we break the law? Many people would say yes, and there is some philosophical justification for this view. Kant, for example, argued for a retributivist theory of punishment. He reasoned that people in general are rational agents who choose their own actions, and should therefore be held morally responsible for them. With reference to the first formulation of his moral imperative, Kant argued that, by acting badly, criminals bring the punishment upon themselves – since by punishing them we are acting towards them as they are acting towards others. Moreover, he took this one stage further, by suggesting that the severity and type of punishment should fit the crime (the Biblical lex talons). For this reason, he argued that capital punishment was justified for (at least some) cases of murder. Kant felt that the sole justification for punishment was that somebody had behaved criminally. Whilst he accepted the utilitarian arguments that punishing people might increase overall societal happiness, deter other would be criminals, and possibly help to rehabilitate existing criminals, he nevertheless believed that these reasons could never be used as the justification for punishment. At best, they would be merely positive by-products of punishment. To do otherwise, he reasoned, would be to treat people as means to an end, rather than as ends in themselves (i.e. punishing the criminal would be the means to achieve the end of deterring other would be criminals, and punishing criminals would be the means to achieve the end of improving overall societal happiness). Kant argued that we should never do this.

However, Kant’s concept of retributive punishment presupposes that those being punished are rational agents who are able to freely choose their actions and make their own decisions, and are thus morally responsible for them. For this reason, Kant held that animals, babies, or the severely mentally impaired shouldn’t be punished for their actions. But, are we responsible for our actions in the way that Kant’s theory of retributive justice requires? Do we freely choose our actions? Could we have chosen otherwise? In other words, do we have free will? If not, then this theory of retributivist punishment does not apply to us, as it is unreasonable to hold people morally responsible for the consequences of actions that they were constrained to make. For example, if I was forcibly pushed out of a window, and landed on a pedestrian, then I could hardly be held morally responsible for any injury I caused them, as it was out of my control. Whether we are able to morally justify retributive punishment or not has clear implications for the way that we judge and punish criminals. As the possession of free will seems to be essential to assigning moral responsibility for actions, I will examine it in some detail.

Intuitively it does seem that we do (in general) possess free will, are rational agents, and should therefore be held morally responsible for our actions and decisions (on Kant’s theory). However, the existence or otherwise of free will is open to a great deal of metaphysical debate, and this calls into question our moral responsibility. This metaphysical debate first splits into those who accept determinism and those who don’t. Determinism is the theory that, given the state of the physical universe at any specific time, together with the laws of nature, the state of the physical universe at any other time (in the future or in the past) is uniquely determined. In particular, if we assume that our cognitive activity is entirely dependent upon physical processes within our physical brains (I will consider alternatives later), then our future cognitive activity (which governs our future decisions, actions etc.) is already uniquely determined by the state of the universe now, together with the laws of nature. So, on determinism, free will seems to be an illusion, as every one of my future decisions and actions is already uniquely determined. But, is determinism true?

According to classical theories of physics (e.g. Newtonian dynamics), the universe is, in principle, perfectly deterministic. However, on the subatomic level, there is some debate as to whether quantum events are deterministic or not. If indeterminacy is inherent in quantum events, as current theories suggest, then this would clearly rule out determinism (although, it should be noted that the effect of a certain amount of quantum indeterminacy might be limited at the macro level). However, it could be that events at the subatomic level are actually perfectly deterministic, but that the provisional nature of our current quantum mechanical theories doesn’t allow us to determine this. Nevertheless, even if there is some indeterminacy inherent in the quantum world, this might be irrelevant as far as moral responsibility is concerned – as we shall see a little later. So, determinism is at least a plausible theory that has some evidential support. Perhaps it is the argument to the best explanation.

Note that fatalism is not the same as determinism, and is not entailed by it. Determinism does not say that the future will be the same whatever course of action we choose, in the way that fatalism does. Rather, it says that there is only one possible future, and all of our future actions are already determined by the current state of the universe together with the laws of nature.

Those who reject determinism are known as libertarians. Some libertarians have supernatural beliefs that cause them to reject determinism, and others not. In the former camp are those who believe that we possess a non-physical mind or soul that somehow enters into the causal chain in the physical world leading to physical actions. According to supernatural libertarian theories, whilst the physical universe might be deterministic, the non-physical mind or soul can override the physical and allow us to retain free will. However, the proponents of this theory have yet to give any satisfactory explanation as to how a non-physical entity can have a causal effect upon a physical one (e.g. the physical brain). They have yet to produce any good empirical evidence that such non-physical objects actually do cause such effects (even if we don’t know how they do it). Moreover, they have yet to produce any good empirical evidence or compelling arguments that such non-physical entities exist at all. Thus, such theories lack plausibility, have little evidential scope and power, and require the positing of various ad-hoc entities and mechanisms. We could invent an infinity of such theories, and have no reliable way to discriminate between them in terms of likely truth. This is a very unreliable way of getting at the truth.

In the latter camp are those libertarians who reject determinism for naturalistic reasons e.g. by appeal to quantum indeterminacy to create some ‘elbow-room’ for free will. Whilst such theories at least have the benefit of plausibility, they would appear to achieve nothing more than allowing that some events in the brain are random (due to the random nature of some quantum events). However, this wouldn’t give us genuine free will. One could no more be held morally responsible for the consequences of random events in the brain than for the results of actions constrained by a lack of free will. So, whilst some of these non-supernatural libertarian theories are feasible, it is not at all clear how they can entail the free will that is necessary for moral responsibility.

Amongst the determinists, there are those that believe that determinism is incompatible with free will, and those who believe that the two are actually compatible (i.e. not mutually exclusive). The former are known as hard determinists, and the latter as compatibilists. The compatibilist argues that we retain free will so long as we are not actually forced to make a particular choice (by having a gun to one’s head, for example). They further argue that possession of free will under this definition entails moral responsibility. Hard determinists argue that compatibilists are wrong to base their definition of free will upon the everyday usage, rather than on causal necessity, in order to give them a basis for moral responsibility. They argue that we might feel that we have free will, but that determinism entails that this is an illusion. The hard determinist also notes that only certain constraints would remove free will in the sense that the compatibilist employs it. Being physically restrained or hypnotised might do it, but having a gun to one’s head would not, since one can still freely make the choice to be shot.

More importantly, the hard determinist would argue, why does the compatibilist think that certain causes are compatible with free will (determining ones), and others not (constraining ones)? Is this distinction not arbitrary? For example, imagine that someone is hypnotised to always choose a particular flavour of ice cream over others, but is unaware that they are hypnotised (this example is based upon one given by Stephen Law). As far as they are concerned, they are always freely choosing chocolate rather than anything else but, in reality, they are under the control of the hypnotist. The compatibilist would probably agree that this person no longer has free will, as they cannot make any other choice but chocolate (or whatever). But, what is the relevant difference between this situation and the one under determinism? In both cases the choice is constrained, as no other choice is actually possible, but the person still has an illusion of free will. Moreover, the onus is on the compatibilist to explain why we retain moral responsibility under one type of constraint (the deterministic type), but not under another (the everyday sort). Why should a person be morally responsible for an action that they were powerless to avoid?

For example, on determinism, it might be an absolute certainty (from the state of the universe now, together with the laws of nature) that a particular person will be born tomorrow, and that this person will go on to commit a murder thirty years later. This future is the only one possible. However, as this future is uniquely determined already, how can we be justified in eventually holding this person morally responsible for this action, even though it is something that they cannot avoid doing (any more than we can hold morally responsible the person who is pushed out of a window and lands on a pedestrian)? We can further motivate this concept by comparing it with the past – which is similarly invariant on determinism. Imagine it is a fact that somebody committed a murder yesterday. Further imagine that we can time-travel into the past to witness this murder. Would we say at the moment of committing the act of murder that the person involved has the free will to choose not to do it – despite the fact that we know that the murder will be committed (as we have come from the future, where it is a recorded fact that this murder was committed)? Since we already know the outcome, we know that the person involved must commit this act. It is hard to see how we could defend the argument that the person has the free will to choose not to commit the murder, as free will seems to entail that one could choose to act differently.

Perhaps we can defend the idea that free will doesn’t require choice? One thought experiment that is used to motivate compatibilism (courtesy of Harry Frankfurt) asks us to imagine a person who intends to rob a bank. Unbeknownst to this person, a bank-robbery loving demon is watching him, and will step in to force him to rob the bank should he choose to call off the robbery. However, the demon’s intervention is not required, as the person does not change his mind. In this case, it seems intuitively that the person freely chose to rob the bank, even though no other choice was actually possible (because of the demon). Moreover, from his personal perspective, he retained a feeling of free will. From this we are supposed to conclude that free will does not require that we actually have more than one possible choice – free will is compatible with this constraint. However, the hard determinist could argue that the situation under determinism is closer to the hypnotism thought experiment above, rather than to the bank robbery one – which is a subtle but important difference. Frankfurt’s thought experiment, they would argue, leads our intuition astray, as it makes us feel that the robber initially has a perfectly free choice, and that the demon will only need to enforce one particular choice if the robber makes the wrong one. However, on determinism, there is never a time when the choice is free – as the choice is already determined before the person makes their choice (in fact, from the beginning of the universe). They are constrained just as the hypnotised person is. So the case that free will doesn’t require choice is not made.

The compatibilist says we are free if our actions come from our character and desires without coercion. However, on determinism, our characters and desires are caused by forces outside our control – we did not choose our characters or our desires. This is a serious problem for the compatibilist. This objection actually applies to the supernatural type of libertarianism as well. In that case, our actions come from our character and desires, as well as our soul (either acting independently, or influencing our character and desires). The only difference from the compatibilist case is the introduction into the equation of a supernatural soul. However, the design and properties of our soul were not within our control either – they were designed and given by God (or some other supernatural agency). Even if our soul changes according to our (supposedly free-willed) life choices, then the rules governing any such changes were created by God (or whatever). So, this is out of our control as well, and free will becomes incoherent on this theory too.

So, where does each of these metaphysical possibilities leave us with regard to moral responsibility? Of the varieties of libertarianism, only the supernatural variety would seem to allow any room for genuine free will (and that’s open to debate, as the theist’s concept of free will may be incoherent). So, on this theory moral responsibility might exist (notwithstanding the implausibility of the theory itself).

Of the theories of free will that admit determinism, only one might be compatible with free will, and hence moral responsibility – compatibilism. However, in order to rescue free will, the compatibilist has to explain why it is that free will might be removed by some physical constraint (handcuffs, hypnotism etc.), but not by determinism (without equivocating between relevantly different concepts of free will). Furthermore, they must explain why the concept of free will is not incoherent. Hard determinism does not allow for genuine free will. The non-supernatural variety of libertarianism allows for a certain amount of randomness, but this doesn’t seem to entail that we have genuine free will.

So, where do we stand when we return to Kant’s theory of retributive justice? Kant argued that it should apply to rational agents who are free to choose their actions. Under these circumstances, such agents are morally responsible for their actions and, if necessary, should be punished accordingly. However, if we are not free to choose our actions because such actions are uniquely determined by the state of the universe, together with the laws of nature, then retributive justice should not be applicable. As we have seen, hard determinism dictates that we do not have genuine free will so, on this theory, retributive justice would be inappropriate. Furthermore, whilst compatibilists and those who subscribe to some non-supernatural variety of libertarianism wish to allow for free will, it can be argued that they have so far failed to successfully make their case – at least in a form that would entail moral responsibility. So, on both of these theories, retributive justice would also seem to be inappropriate. The only theory of free will that I have examined that might allow for genuine free will is the supernatural type of libertarianism (and this theory is implausible for a variety of reasons).

If we reject free will, and hence moral responsibility, then it would seem that retributive justice (at least as formulated by Kant) is untenable. In this case, should we still be in favour of punishing those guilty of crimes? Perhaps there is a way of reconciling determinism or libertarianism with free will, and this retributive justice but, regardless, we can still justify punishments, including the removal of freedom, on Utilitarian grounds. If a criminal is removed from society, then they are no longer able to commit such crimes – which tends to improve the overall happiness and well-being of the rest of society. Furthermore, such punishments plausibly act as a deterrent against the committing other crimes (if you think not, then try to imagine a society in which there was no legal consequence for law-breaking). One problem with the utilitarian approach, as opposed to the Kantian one, is that it doesn't inherently entail that we punish the criminal himself, rather than some innocent scapegoat (it also does not entail that we match the severity of the punishment to the severity of the crime). If this latter approach resulted in an increase in societal happiness, then why shouldn't we do this on utilitarianism? However, the utilitarian can counter this objection. Firstly, it would not prevent the real criminals from committing more crimes, as they would still be at large - so any increased societal happiness would probably be short-lived. Secondly, the arbitrary punishment and removal of liberty that this strategy entails would indirectly lead to less happiness and societal well-being, as people would justifiably fear that it might happen to them. So, on a more sophisticated version of utilitarianism, I think that we can actually derive the rule that only the real criminal should be punished.

Whilst the end results of punishment on retributive justice and on utilitarian grounds might have similarities, it is likely that they would diverge in many ways. Under hard determinism, we could no longer justify punishment in terms of being ‘an eye for an eye’ (although such an act might arguably psychologically benefit the victims of crime, which could form a utilitarian justification for retribution in particular cases). Instead, it would perhaps need to be justified on utilitarian grounds as maximising the overall happiness of the rest of society. By contrast, if we were to accept that we do have genuine free will, and we do not reject retributive justice for some other reason, then we could easily justify beating violent criminals, and executing murderers, for example (with no thought to any benefits from deterrence and societal happiness). Without retributive justice, such justifications become much more difficult (but perhaps not impossible). Our justice systems include elements of retributive and utilitarian theories of punishment. If we do have genuine free will then, arguably, retributive justice could be given much more focus. Conversely, if we do not possess genuine free will, then any elements of retributive justice should arguably be removed altogether from the legal system. In this latter case, we can still say that somebody is bad, but allow that this was totally outside of their control. In a sense, they are just unlucky. Nevertheless, as part of our implicit contract with the state, we agree to hand over much of the responsibility for our protection, on the understanding that the state will take this role. That carrying this out will involve restricting the liberty of people who might have had no choice but to behave as they do is unfortunate but unavoidable, as it is better than any of the other options. If the state did not do this, then the inevitable resulting rises in crime would increase the total sum of misery, and people would inevitably start to take matters of justice into their own hands, probably leading to the eventual breakdown of the state.

As human beings, we are drawn to retributive justice, as it was adaptive behaviour when enforcing social contracts. However, we need to consider if such behaviour is still appropriate. If determinism is true, as I believe it to be, then perhaps we could still attempt to rescue retributive justice by appeal to the Social Contract theory of morality, although there would be some serious obstacles to overcome. In any case, we should care about our conclusions, as the nature of our justice system affects us all in some way or another, whether directly or indirectly.

Addendum

What follows is a slightly different take on the above issues. Where it differs with the foregoing, then it should be considered to supercede it. In particular, I now believe that a broadly compatibilist position on free will is the most defensible one.

Introduction

In this post I will discuss the metaphysical concept of free will by analysing four particular theories of free will. In the course of this I will explain what these theories propose and what differentiates them; examine each theory and determine what would be the effects upon me and upon society in relation to the criminal justice system if this theory was true; and demonstrate how these effects follow from the tenets of these theories.

Definitions

Firstly, I need to explain some terms that will be used throughout this essay.

Free Will

A minimal definition of free will is the capacity of rational agents to freely choose their actions. However, there are two semantically different concepts of what it is for an action to be freely chosen.

1. On the first concept, an action is freely chosen if and only if one could have chosen otherwise in the very same circumstances (where ‘circumstances’ means the state of the universe immediately prior to the choice of action).

2. On the second concept, an action is freely chosen so long as this choice is caused by one’s desires and is uncoerced (i.e. it is voluntary).

Moral Responsibility

An agent is said to be morally responsible for an event or state of affairs only if they are the appropriate recipient of moral praise or moral blame for that event or state of affairs

Retributive Punishment

Retributive punishment is a theory of justice that holds that a proportionate punishment is a morally acceptable response to a crime, regardless of whether the punishment causes any tangible benefits (e.g. rehabilitating the criminal, deterring others from committing the crime, improving overall societal happiness etc.) Kant provided a philosophical justification for retributive punishment.

Utilitarian Punishment

A utilitarian punishment is one that aims to maximise (or at least increase) the overall utility. The utility has been defined in this context as happiness or pleasure. Others have defined it as the satisfaction of preferences. According to this analysis, increasing the overall utility is a necessary and sufficient condition for a punishment to be considered a morally acceptable response to a crime.

Determinism (causal)

Determinism is the philosophical thesis that every event in the universe is the inevitable result of antecedent causes. An alternative wording is that, on determinism, given the state of the universe at any specific time (where the ‘state of the universe’ subsumes the so-called laws of nature), the state of the universe at any other time (in the future or in the past) is uniquely determined (which doesn’t entail that we can actually predict this past or future state of the universe).

Fatalism

Fatalism is a philosophical doctrine emphasizing the subjugation of all events or actions to fate or inevitable predetermination.

Hard determinism

Hard determinism is the conjunction of determinism with the first of the definitions of free will.

Determinist compatibilism

This is the conjunction of determinism with the second of the definitions of free will.

Libertarianism

This is the theory that claims that some actions are exempt from the causal laws. It is split into Supernatural Libertarianism and Natural Libertarianism. The former posits that a non-physical mind or soul that overrides physical causality; and the latter that there is some level of physical indeterminacy present in the universe (for example, due to random quantum events), so that casual determinacy is not universal.

Justify

To justify is to demonstrate or prove to be just, right, or valid; or to show to be reasonable, or to provide adequate ground for.

Morally acceptable

An action is said to be morally acceptable if it is not in accordance with the ‘bad’ as determined by some mutually agreed moral system. Therefore, it might either be neutral, or in accordance with the ‘good’ as determined by that system.

Rational agent

A rational agent is one that is able to reason based upon knowledge of its environment in order to freely choose actions that will maximise the chances of it achieving its goals

Four Metaphysical Theories of Free Will

1) Hard determinism

As previously mentioned, this is the conjunction of determinism with the first of the definitions of free will. This first conception of free will is not compatible with determinism, for those ‘circumstances’ in the definition of free will determine everything that happens afterwards, including the choice to perform that particular act and the subsequent action. In other words, on hard determinism (basic argument for hard determinism):

P1: If everything we do is the inevitable result of antecedent causes, then we do not have free will (using the first definition of free will)
P2: Everything we do is the inevitable result of antecedent causes (from the definition of determinism
C: Therefore, we do not have free will

[NB. the premises of this argument will be referred to again in subsequent sections]

I will go down one more level to derive P1, as it is not self-evidently true (I could go further than this, but I think that this is sufficient for these purposes):

P3: If everything we do is the inevitable result of antecedent causes, then we could not have chosen to act otherwise in the very same circumstances (as our choice is causally determined)
P4: If we could not have chosen to act otherwise in the very same circumstances, then we do not have free will (from the first definition of free will)
C: Therefore, if everything we do is the inevitable result of antecedent causes, then we do not have free will

So, hard determinism, by accepting both determinism and the first definition of free will, entails that we do not possess free will.

2) Determinist compatibilism

This theory accepts determinism, but rejects the first definition of free will in favour of the second (and therefore rejects P1 from the basic argument for hard determinism). So, on compatibilism, as one can choose an action based upon one’s desire and free from coercion, and that choice of action still be the inevitable result of antecedent causes, compatibilism and the second definition of free will are compatible. In other words, on determinist compatibilism:

P1: If some thing does not coerce us into choosing a certain action, then this thing is compatible with our free will (from the second definition of free will)
P2: Determinism does not coerce us into choosing a certain action
C: Therefore, determinism is compatible with our free will

Whilst determinism entails that all our choices are the inevitable result of antecedent causes, we are nevertheless not coerced in the usual sense of the word (which is how the compatibilist uses the word).
So, as determinist compatibilism uses the second definition of free will, the acceptance of determinism does not prevent us from possessing free will i.e. free will and determinism are compatible. This contrasts with hard determinism, in which free will and determinism are not compatible.

3) Supernatural libertarianism

This theory rejects P2 from the basic argument for hard determinism, but may accept P1 (depending upon the exact kind of supernatural libertarianism). Using this definition does not rule out free will though (as with hard determinism), as it posits that we possess non-physical minds or souls that can override physical causality – meaning that not everything we do is the inevitable result of antecedent causes. This non-physical mind or soul is often supposed to have been given to us by God. More formally, on such a variety of supernatural libertarianism:

P1: If [the standard Christian] God exists then he would desire us to have free will (so as to not be mere automata, and to be capable of choosing to do good or bad), and would be able to create us in any way that he desired (being omnipotent and omniscient he can do anything that is logically possible, and free will is assumed to be logically possible)
P2: [the standard Christian] God exists
C: Therefore, God created us with free will

Moreover, God is supposed to have realised his desire for us to have free will by equipping us with a non-physical mind or soul that can override physical causality and allow us to make completely free choices. So, supernatural libertarianism approaches the subject from a different angle – making our free will one of God’s design aims when creating humans.

4) Natural libertarianism

As with supernatural libertarianism, natural libertarianism also rejects P2, but may accept P1. By positing some quantum indeterminacy in the universe, including in our brain, it says that not everything we do is the inevitable result of antecedent causes. So, natural libertarianism:

P1: If not every event in the universe (including those in our brain) is the inevitable result of antecedent causes, then there is some ‘elbow-room’ that may allow us to have free will
P2: Due to quantum indeterminacy, not every event in the universe (including in our brain) is the inevitable result of antecedent causes
C: Therefore, then there is some ‘elbow-room’ that may allow us to have free will

By utilising the concept of the randomness of quantum indeterminacy, natural libertarianism is seeking to create some ‘elbow-room’ to allow for free will. As it stands, this argument doesn’t establish that we do have free will, merely that free will is not ruled out for deterministic reasons.

Implications of each theory for the punishment of criminals

I will now consider whether the truth of the previously described metaphysical theories of free has any implications for the punishment of criminals. In order to do that I will first need to need to briefly describe four main moral justifications given for punishment, and then explain what moral responsibility is and how it relates to punishment, as the subsequent discussion is closely bound up with these concepts.

Four justifications for punishment

Arguments that seek to justify punishing those who break the law typically proceed along one or more of the following lines:

1. Retribution - proportionate punishment is a morally acceptable response to a crime, regardless of whether the punishment causes any tangible benefits

2. Deterrence – punishment is a morally acceptable response to a crime if such punishment acts as an effective deterrent against the committing of similar crimes in the future

3. Incapacitation – punishment is a morally acceptable response to a crime if such punishment prevents the offender from committing a similar offence (e.g. by incarcerating them)

4. Rehabilitation – punishment is a morally acceptable response to a crime if it includes work to reform and rehabilitate the wrongdoer so that they will not re-offend.

Note that numbers 2, 3, and 4 are (at least partly) utilitarian arguments for punishment, as they seek to maximise the overall utility.

Moral responsibility

I will discuss this in rather more detail, as I think that the implications of each theory for the punishment of criminals ultimately turn on part of the concept of moral responsibility.

Whatever type(s) of punishment is proposed for some criminal act, both retributive and utilitarian theories of justice presuppose that the person being punished is morally responsible for the event or state of affairs in question. That is, the person being punished is the appropriate recipient of moral blame for that event or state of affairs. Even though the moral frameworks, crimes, and punishments vary between these theories of justice (e.g. some may appeal to divine command, others to utilitarian arguments; some include punishment for ‘crimes’ such as blasphemy and heresy, and others not; some apply mainly retributive methods, and others not etc.), it is nevertheless acknowledged that the punishing of those not considered to be the appropriate recipient of moral blame is unreasonable and morally unacceptable. So, moral responsibility for some event or state of affairs is regarded as a necessary condition for punishment. It may not be a sufficient condition, however. Perhaps the act in question is not deemed to be sufficiently serious to warrant punishment, for example. Of course, cases exist of people being punished when they are not the appropriate recipient of moral blame, but these are seen as being problematic exceptions that are not morally acceptable. For example, justice systems (at least in the US and the UK) go to great lengths to avoid such punishments.

I would like now to formalise the concept of moral responsibility a little by listing what I think are its three necessary and sufficient conditions. An agent is morally responsible for an act if the following necessary and sufficient conditions are met:

1. That the agent committed the act

2. The act is held to be in some sense wrong

3. The agent had no relevant and sufficient excuse for committing the act (e.g. it was not a mistake, an accident, due to coercion, due to ignorance, due to some mental problem etc)

A justification for these conditions being a necessary condition for a morally acceptable punishment is rather lengthy, so I have moved it to the appendix, where I also give a little digression on the evolutionary roots of a punishment/reward system. For now I will just take these conditions to be plausibly true.

Implications on each metaphysical theory of free will

So, if we now take my conditions for moral responsibility to be necessary prerequisites for a morally acceptable punishment, are there any implications on each metaphysical theory of free will? I will examine each in turn, and attempt to draw out any such implications. As I will show, the implications of each theory turn largely on the third of my conditions for moral responsibility.

1) Hard determinism

As previously discussed, hard determinism entails that we do not possess free will (where free will in this case is the first of my definitions). Now, when it comes to assigning moral responsibility for some event or state of affairs on hard determinism, the first two of my moral responsibility conditions are not contentious. However, when considering the third condition, the hard determinist would argue that the agent who committed the act in question does in fact have a sufficient excuse for committing it, as they did not possess free will, and this lack of free will means that they could choose no other action. Hence, on hard determinism, condition 3 of my moral responsibility definition is not met, and the agent cannot be held morally responsible for that act – so any punishment for that act would be morally unacceptable.

So, on hard determinism:

P1: If one has a relevant and sufficient excuse for committing an act, then one should not be held morally responsible for that act (from the third moral responsibility condition)
P2: An agent who does not possess free will has a relevant and sufficient excuse for committing an act
C: Therefore, an agent who does not possess free will should not be held morally responsible for an act

Corollary: If an agent is not morally responsible for some act, then it should not be punished for it (as moral responsibility is a necessary condition for punishment, as discussed in the appendix)

So, on hard determinism it is not morally acceptable to punish an agent for some event or state of affairs, as the agent can never be morally responsible for that event or state of affairs, and moral responsibility is a necessary condition for morally acceptable punishment.

How about the conjunction of hard determinism and utilitarianism? For a utilitarian, the justification for not punishing an agent who is not morally responsible for some act is itself a utilitarian one (as I discuss in the appendix). However, when we look back at the four types of punishment that I listed earlier (i.e. retribution, deterrence, incapacitation, rehabilitation), then a utilitarian could also argue that it is morally acceptable to apply the last three types of punishment in response to some criminal act if doing this will maximise the utility. So, the utilitarian has an apparent conflict. However, they do have a possible way out of this conflict, as they might be able to determine whether, in the absence of complete moral responsibility (i.e. moral responsibility condition 3 not being satisfied), it will maximise the utility to punish the agent or not. They might, for example, determine that so long as the agent committed the wrong act then, even in the absence of free will, it will still maximise the utility to punish the agent in a way that deters, incapacitates, or rehabilitates.

The retributionist also has a conflict on hard determinism, as the retributive theory of punishment (or, at least Kant’s version of it, which is what I am using here) is unconcerned with the consequences of the punishment, but does require that the person being punished is a free and rational agent. But, if the agent does not have free will, then they can hardly be classed as a free agent (I discuss this in more detail in the appendix). Unlike the utilitarian, the retributionist has no way out of this conflict, and must agree that a retributive punishment is morally unacceptable.

So, on utilitarian punishment we have:

P1: If an agent committed a wrong act without possessing free will, then it would still be morally acceptable to respond to this act by punishing them in such a way that it deters, incapacitates, and rehabilitates so long as doing this will maximise the utility
P2: An agent committed a wrong act without possessing free will
C: Therefore, it would still be morally acceptable to respond to this act by punishing them in such a way that it deters, incapacitates, and rehabilitates so long as doing this will maximise the utility

On retributive punishment we have:

P1: If an agent is not free and rational, then it is not morally acceptable to punish them retributively (from Kant’s theory of retributive justice)
P2: An agent without free will is not free and rational
C: Therefore, it is not morally acceptable to punish them retributively

So, to summarise, the conjunction of hard determinism and utilitarian punishment is superficially incompatible, but we might be able to overcome this incompatibility by determining the course of action that will maximise the utility. The conjunction of hard determinism and (Kant’s theory of) retributive punishment is incompatible (in fact, as an aside, if we refer to Kant’s Categorical Imperatives then the truth of hard determinism would rule out any punishment at all, as a utilitarian punishment would go against the imperative to not use a rational agent purely as a means to an end). Unlike the utilitarian case, (Kant’s theory of) retributive punishment cannot be morally acceptable on hard determinism.

2) Determinist compatibilism

As mentioned earlier, this theory accepts determinism, but rejects the first definition of free will in favour of the second (and therefore rejects P1 from the basic argument for hard determinism).

Again, when it comes to assigning moral responsibility for some event or state of affairs, compatibilism finds the first two of my moral responsibility conditions to not be contentious. However, when considering the third condition, the compatibilist would disagree with the hard determinist, and argue that the truth of determinism does not grant the person committing the act a relevant and sufficient excuse. They would argue that we do in fact possess free will so long as we can choose an action based upon our desires and free from coercion. The fact that this choice is the inevitable result of antecedent causes is irrelevant to free will, as the compatibilist is using a different definition of free will to that used by the hard determinist. Hence, the truth of determinism does not imply a lack of free will, with the resulting lack of moral responsibility. So, as the moral responsibility conditions can be satisfied, there is no conflict between the conjunction of determinist compatibilism and either utilitarian or retributive punishment. So, on determinist compatibilism:

P1: If an agent commits a wrong act and does not have a relevant and sufficient excuse for committing that act, then the agent should be held morally responsible for that act (from the moral responsibility conditions
P2: An agent that commits a wrong act is not given a relevant and sufficient excuse by the truth of determinism alone (as the conjunction of determinism and free will is possible)
C: Therefore, such an agent should be held morally responsible for that act

Or, worded a little differently:

P1: If a rational agent can knowingly and freely choose to commit a wrong act (based upon their desires, and without coercion), then the agent should be held morally responsible for that act (from the moral responsibility conditions)
P2: A rational agent can knowingly and freely choose to commit a wrong act (based upon their desires, and without coercion) (as free will is possible)
C: Therefore, such an agent should be held morally responsible for that act

So, determinist compatibilism is compatible with both utilitarian and retributive theories of punishment, as the necessary moral responsibility conditions can be met.

3) Supernatural libertarianism

As mentioned earlier, this posits that we possess non-physical minds or souls that can override physical causality – meaning that not everything we do is the inevitable result of antecedent causes. Therefore, supernatural libertarianism proposes that we do possess free will.

Again, supernatural libertarianism takes no issue with the first two of my moral responsibility conditions (although its definition of a ‘wrong’ act may be different to that under non-supernatural theories if it is based upon divine command). However, with regard to the third condition, as determinism is rejected then it cannot be cited as a reason for us to not possess free will, and hence as a relevant and sufficient excuse for committing some act. So, on supernatural libertarianism, we can possess free will under both of its definitions, and so moral responsibility is possible.

So, on supernatural libertarianism:

P1: If an agent commits a wrong act and does not have a relevant and sufficient excuse for committing that act, then the agent should be held morally responsible for that act (from the moral responsibility conditions)
P2: An agent that commits a wrong act is not given a relevant and sufficient excuse by citing determinism (as determinism is false)
C: Therefore, such an agent should be held morally responsible for that act

Or, worded a little differently:

P1: If a rational agent can knowingly and freely choose to commit a wrong act (based upon their desires, and without coercion), then the agent should be held morally responsible for that act (from the moral responsibility conditions)
P2: A rational agent can knowingly and freely choose to commit a wrong act (based upon their desires, and without coercion) (as free will is possible)
C: Therefore, such an agent should be held morally responsible for that act

So, supernatural libertarianism is compatible with both utilitarian and retributive theories of punishment, as the necessary moral responsibility conditions can be met.

4) Natural libertarianism

As mentioned earlier, natural libertarianism posits some quantum indeterminacy in the universe, including in our brain, and says that not everything we do is the inevitable result of antecedent causes. So, on natural libertarianism, free will is held to be possible.

Natural libertarianism takes no issue with the first two of my moral responsibility conditions. However, with regard to the third condition, as determinism is rejected then it cannot be cited as a reason for us to not possess free will, and hence as a relevant and sufficient excuse for committing some act. So, on supernatural libertarianism, we can possess free will under both of its definitions, and so moral responsibility is possible.

So, on natural libertarianism:

P1: If an agent commits a wrong act and does not have a relevant and sufficient excuse for committing that act, then the agent should be held morally responsible for that act (from the moral responsibility conditions)
P2: An agent that commits a wrong act is not given a relevant and sufficient excuse by citing determinism (as determinism is false)
C: Therefore, such an agent should be held morally responsible for that act

Or, worded a little differently:

P1: If a rational agent can knowingly and freely choose to commit a wrong act (based upon their desires, and
without coercion), then the agent should be held morally responsible for that act (from the moral responsibility conditions)
P2: A rational agent can knowingly and freely choose to commit a wrong act (based upon their desires, and without coercion) (as free will is possible)
C: Therefore, such an agent should be held morally responsible for that act

So, natural libertarianism is compatible with both utilitarian and retributive theories of punishment, as the necessary moral responsibility conditions can be met.

Summary

So, of our four metaphysical theories of free will, only hard determinism is incompatible with some punishments, as it deduces that free will is impossible, and thus determines that an agent cannot be held morally responsible for some wrong act. Specifically, it cannot be reconciled with the Kantian theory of retributive punishment, but may in theory be reconciled with utilitarian punishment. The other three metaphysical theories are all compatible with both retributive and utilitarian punishment, as they allow for the existence of free will, meaning that moral responsibility is possible.

Appendix

Justification of my Moral Responsibility conditions

In this appendix I will give the justification for the conditions for a morally acceptable punishment. Here they are again:

1. That the agent committed the act

2. That the act is held to be in some sense wrong

3. That the agent had no relevant and sufficient excuse for committing the act (e.g. if the act was a mistake, an accident, due to coercion, due to ignorance, due to some mental problem etc.)

How would we go about trying to justify punishing only the person who committed the act in question, as opposed to just punishing some innocent scapegoat? And, how about the other conditions? Well, we might analyse these conditions using one or more moral theories of punishment, as I will now do. Here I will restrict the justification to just utilitarian and retributive theories, although I could extend this to additional moral theories (Social Contract, Virtue etc.). I will not seek to justify the moral theories of punishment themselves, but just use them to help justify the conditions above.

The first of these conditions is usually just assumed to be self-evident. However, it is actually possible to formulate a utilitarian argument for punishment that avoids this condition. Utilitarianism’s rationale is to achieve future social benefits (by maximising the utility) so, for example, punishing an innocent scapegoat, might in itself act as a deterrent, or might (at least temporarily) increase overall societal happiness (if, for example, people believe that a murderer has finally been apprehended). Nevertheless, this is generally seen as a problem for utilitarianism, and one that should be overcome by using a more sophisticated formulation of utilitarianism, not a problem for the concept that a morally acceptable punishment requires that one should have committed the act.

On a more sophisticated utilitarian analysis of punishment, we can say the following:

P1: If a form of punishment will lead to a decrease in overall utility, then it is not a morally acceptable response to a crime (from the definition)
P2: Knowingly punishing innocent people will lead to a decrease in the overall utility (as people will fear the possibility of being punished when they have committed no crime; and also because people will reason that they may as well just commit crimes anyway if there is no direct link between being guilty and being punished - which will in itself lead to a decrease in overall utility)
C: Therefore, knowingly punishing innocent people is not a morally acceptable response to a crime

So, the utilitarian analysis supports the first of my conditions listed above.

On a (Kantian) retributive analysis, we may say the following:

P1: If a rational agent chooses to treat people in a certain way, then they decree that in their judgement this is the way that people are to be treated (from the first formulation of Kant’s moral imperative)
P2: A criminal (who is a rational agent) chooses to treat people in a certain way
C: Therefore, a criminal (who is a rational agent) decrees that in their judgement this is the way that people are to be treated

Furthermore:

P1: If we treat a rational agent in a relevantly similar way to the way they decree that people should be treated, then we are respecting their judgment as rational agents [as we are treating them in the way that they decree people should be treated]
P2: We treat a criminal (who is a rational agent) in a relevantly similar way to the way they decree that people should be treated (by punishing them proportionally to their crime)
C: Therefore, when we treat a criminal (who is a rational agent) in a relevantly similar way to the way they decree that people should be treated, we are respecting their judgment as rational agents

So, on a (Kantian) retributive analysis, we are justified in punishing a criminal who is a rational agent and whose action(s) has caused harm to others, for we are merely treating them as they decree that others should be treated. However, Kant’s analysis of retributive punishment clearly presupposes that we are punishing the guilty party, or else we wouldn’t be treating them as they treat others. So, again, the first of my conditions is supported.

It would be possible to do a similar analysis of punishment on other moral theories (Social Contract, Virtue etc.), but I think that we already have reasonable grounds for supposing that the first condition is valid, so I will not pursue it any further (although I think that the same conclusion would be reached on other theories).

How about the second condition – that the act must in some sense be wrong? On a utilitarian analysis, we might say the following:

P1: If a form of punishment will lead to a decrease in overall utility, then it is not a morally acceptable response to an act (from the definition of a utilitarian punishment)
P2: Knowingly punishing people for acts that are deemed to be morally acceptable will lead to a decrease in the overall utility (as people will tend to perform fewer such morally acceptable acts and, conversely, will perform more morally unacceptable acts if these are not punished) [this assumes that morally acceptable acts tend to increase the overall utility and vice versa]
C: Therefore, knowingly punishing people for acts that are deemed to be morally acceptable is not a morally acceptable response to an act

On a (Kantian) retributive analysis, punishment is a justifiable response for the committing of an act that causes harm to others, as we are treating the criminal in the way they decree we should treat others. However, this does exclude punishment for ‘victimless crimes’, as nobody is actually harmed (other than perhaps the person committing the act). So, to the extent that a ‘wrong’ act causes harm to others, then retributive theory holds that punishment is reserved for acts that are in some sense wrong. So, on the (Kantian) retributive analysis:

P1: If a rational agent freely chooses to act in a certain way, then we should treat them in a relevantly similar way
P2: A rational agent who freely chooses to act wrongly causes harm to others
C: Therefore, we should treat a rational agent who freely chooses to act wrongly in a relevantly similar way by causing them harm (i.e. by punishing them)

So, again I think that we have reasonable grounds for accepting the second of my conditions for a morally acceptable form of punishment.

This brings us to the third condition. On a utilitarian analysis, we can say:

P1: If a form of punishment will lead to a decrease in overall utility, then it is not a utilitarian punishment (from the definition)
P2: Punishing people who have a good excuse for the criminal act will lead to a decrease in the overall utility (e.g. if the act was a mistake, an accident, due to coercion, due to ignorance, due to some mental problem etc.)
C: Therefore, punishing people who have a good excuse for the criminal act is not a utilitarian punishment

Now, P2 is certainly not self-evident as it stands. However, I think that we might seek to justify it as follows:

P3: If people are punished for wrong acts committed when they are not rational agents, were not aware of the consequences of their actions, were not aware that the act was wrong, committed the act accidentally, or were not free to choose (as opposed to being rational, informed, and able to choose freely), then this will lead to a decrease in the overall utility [as any of us might conceivably commit a wrong act under such circumstances, and knowing that we would still be punished would lead to a decrease in overall societal happiness]

P4: People who commit a wrong act when they are not rational agents, were not aware of the consequences of their actions, were not aware that the act was wrong, committed the act accidentally, or who were not free to choose have a good excuse for that act

C: Therefore, punishing people who have a good excuse for a wrong act will lead to a decrease in the overall utility

The type of things that I have in mind when I say that people might have a good excuse for committing a wrong act are, for example: running over a child who darts out in front of the car you are driving in a careful and lawful manner; being forced at gunpoint to open a safe; poisoning somebody because, unknown to you, the bottle of water you give them has been tampered with; being clinically insane etc. By contrast, if you made a free, rational, and informed choice to commit a wrong act, then you would not have a good excuse.

On a (Kantian) retributive analysis, we reach the same conclusion:

P1: If a rational agent does not make a free, informed, and intentional choice to treat people in a wrong way, then they do not decree that in their judgement this is the way that people are to be treated
P2: A rational agent who has a good excuse for a wrong act does not make a free, informed, and intentional choice to treat people in a that way
C: Therefore, a rational agent who has a good excuse for a wrong act does not decree that in their judgement this is the way that people are to be treated

However, as it is a condition of (Kantian) retributive punishment that the rational agent committing the act is in effect decreeing that this is how we should treat others, then the lack of any such implied decree renders the punishment inappropriate.

So, I have provided reasonable grounds for thinking that my three conditions are necessary, as the absence of any one of them makes punishment morally unacceptable on both utilitarian and retributive theories of punishment. However, I have not yet shown that these conditions are sufficient. I will not attempt that here, due to lack of time and space, but this is not critical as the metaphysical discussion turns on my condition 3. So, even if other conditions are needed, condition 3 is the one of particular relevance to this discussion.

Am I a brain-in-a-vat?

2008-05-30T17:48:00.003+01:00

The brain in a vat hypothesis is an example of radical scepticism, and is a contemporary reworking of Descartes’ evil demon argument. It may have no practical significance for me (even if true), but it does challenge us to consider and justify what we think we know about the external world, and so is a useful exercise.

The sceptic’s challenge is that, for all I know, I might exist only as a disembodied brain floating in a vat of nutrients. The brain is connected to a supercomputer that is producing electrical impulses that are stimulating it in an identical way to those that would arise from normal perception. So, when I currently think that I am sitting in my office typing on my computer, I actually exist only as a brain that is sitting in a vat and being fed the inputs for all of my perceptions of the world around me. Is there any way that I can answer the sceptic’s challenge?

Firstly, we should note that arguing that I cannot be a brain in a vat, as I can experience the external world in all of its rich texture (and I have detailed memories of it) gets me nowhere, as the hypothesis states that the inputs to my brain are identical to those that it would receive from my senses if I was really experiencing the external world, and therefore the two scenarios are indistinguishable to me.

One possible solution is to say that the hypothesis is an empty one. If I am actually a brain in a vat, but have no way to ever verify this, then it makes no difference to me, so it is as if I really do exist in the world. In this sense, it is a bit like having an invisible and intangible elephant in my garage – it is no different to having no elephant at all. However, there is a crucial difference here that makes the analogy false. At the moment the brain in a vat hypothesis makes no difference to my existence, but if it is actually true then there is the possibility that it might make a difference in the future (the inputs might be changed radically, or stopped completely, for example). So, in that sense, the brain in a vat hypothesis is not an empty one.

Another solution might be attempted by appeal to Occam’s razor. I might venture that the hypothesis that I am a brain in a vat is less parsimonious than the hypothesis that I really do experience the external world as I believe it to be. However, my idea of which hypothesis is the more parsimonious is based upon my experience of the world. If this experience is illusory, and the external world doesn’t exist as I seem to experience it, then my real world hypothesis may be the less parsimonious one. Having said that, there is an intuitive sense in which the brain in a vat hypothesis contains more ad-hoc elements. In this scenario, my experiences need to be based upon something – either upon some reality within the world in which my brain is en-vatted, or else pure fabrications (or some combination of the two). If the former, then some version of the world that I experience does exist somewhere but, for some unknown reason, I exist in it purely as a brain in a vat. If the latter, then it would seem to require a great deal of effort in order to fabricate an internally consistent world of the complexity that I experience, with no obvious reason as to why this should be done at all (note though that the simulation needn't be of an entire universe, as I don't actually experience the entire universe - only a very small subset of it). In both cases, intuition suggests that these options are less parsimonious than the hypothesis that the real world just exists with me in it.

A number of semantic responses have been attempted (by Putnam and others) along the following lines:

P1: If I am a brain in a vat, then my word ‘tree’ does not refer to trees.
P2: My word ‘tree’ refers to trees. So,
C: I am not a brain in a vat

However, all such responses appear to beg the question. The whole point of the sceptic’s argument is that I don’t know that my perception refers to anything in the real world, so P1 and P2 above are not both true (and might be both false). My word ‘tree’ may or may not refer to actual trees, if they exist, but I cannot deduce anything significant from that. For example, imagine that the brain in a vat world is identical to our world, with the exception that the expertise and technology exists to put brains into vats and feed them inputs that are indistinguishable from external perception in the BIV world, and that ‘I’ am one of those brains. In this case, there is a sense in which my word ‘tree’ does refer to trees (the stimulation of my brain is identical to the stimulation that would come from perceiving a real tree, as real trees do exist in the BIV world). In that case, P1 is false, and P2 is true, so the conclusion does not follow. There is also a sense in which my word tree does not refer to trees, since I have never actually seen a ‘real’ tree. In that case, P1 is true, but P2 is false, so again the conclusion does not follow.

In the end, I think that I am warranted in believing that I am not a brain in a vat - even though I cannot prove it. The most parsimonious explanation for all of the evidence that I observe is that I actually do exist in the real world. Any other 'fake world' hypothesis, including the brain in a vat hypothesis, requires me to posit some inscrutible other world in which some agency or agencies exist that have the means and motivation to create a fake world for me. This has to be less parsimonious than the real world hypothesis.

Furthermore, based upon my experience of my world (whether real or fake), the most rational course of action is to attempt to achieve my goals (happiness, for example). Whether my world is real or fake, this course of action is the same. There may be no way, even in principle, for me to determine whether I am a brain in a vat or not, but since the course of action is the same in both cases, it makes no difference to me now (although that might change in the future).

Do some people know the moral rules by which God wants us to live?

2008-05-27T13:55:00.002+01:00

Some theists believe that God has laid down a set of moral rules detailing how we should live our lives and, further, that they know what these rules are (I will restrict this discussion to the Judeo-Christian god). This idea that morality is dependent upon God is known as the Divine Command Theory of Morality (as opposed to Divine Essence Theory, which I will not be discussing). But do these people really know what they claim to know? They might believe what they claim, but do these beliefs count as (propositional) knowledge? This is an important question for, if we have good reason to think that the beliefs are true then we should all wish to know this, as the belief system entails that eternal suffering (or, at least, the failure to achieve eternal happiness) may await those who don’t accept these beliefs and live by these rules. Apart from that, if such a wise moral system exists, then we should all wish to live by it. Conversely, if we have good reason to think that the beliefs are false, then the believers should wish to know this, as they otherwise risk spending their lives striving towards bad goals, and not striving towards good goals (by good goals, I mean the goals that they would strive for if they had the correct factual knowledge about the universe, and acted rationally based upon this knowledge; by bad goals, I mean goals that they would not strive for if they had the correct factual knowledge about the universe, and acted rationally based upon this knowledge).

How might we determine whether these beliefs can be described as knowledge? We need to determine the necessary and sufficient conditions for something to be classified as knowledge, and then establish whether the beliefs in question meet these conditions. Most epistemologists would agree that knowledge requires at least true belief. So, for example, for me to ‘know’ that the Earth orbits the Sun, then I must believe this proposition and, further, it must also be true. However, whilst belief and truth are necessary conditions for knowledge, they are not usually judged to be sufficient conditions, as this would otherwise allow lucky guesses to be included as knowledge. Intuitively, it makes sense that we should need some reasonable justification for our true beliefs in order for them to qualify as knowledge. There is a sense in which acquiring knowledge, as opposed to mere true belief, requires some work or achievement on our part. For example, if I believed in advance that a tossed coin will come up heads, and it did, then I could not legitimately claim this as knowledge, unless I could somehow justify my true belief (for example, if I knew that the coin was a biased one that was almost guaranteed to come up heads).

However, this tripartite definition of knowledge as justified true belief has a serious flaw, as pointed out in the notorious counterexamples of Edmund Gettier. I might believe some true proposition, and I might be able to justify my belief, and yet it might still not be real knowledge. For example, in the coin toss case I mentioned above, if I think that a biased coin is being used, and therefore have a justified true belief that the coin will come up heads, then I would seem to have knowledge. However, it could be that unbeknownst to me somebody switched the coin for an unbiased one, which came up heads by chance alone. In this case, I could not really be said to ‘know’ that it would come up heads.

The definition of knowledge as justified true belief also has an additional challenge, in that it needs to answer a regress problem in the series of justifications for a true belief. If I believe some true proposition P, and I justify it by means of justification X, then what belief justifies X, and so on? The three possibilities are that we have an infinite series of justifications; that some of our justifications are circular (i.e. they are used to justify each other); or that we finally reach a point in our series of justifications where we have basic beliefs that are in need of no further justification. Each of these possibilities presents its own particular difficulties. It is hard to see how an infinite or circular set of justifications can be used as a solid foundation for knowledge, and it is not at all clear that we can have any basic beliefs that are at once indisputably self-evident (e.g. 2+2 =4) and yet can act as a foundation for all other knowledge. For example, Ayer postulated in his book Language, Truth, and Logic that from tautologies we can deduce only other tautologies, and that there is no such thing as a true a priori synthetic statement (we can only attempt to verify it by observation).

I believe that the way around these objections is to accept that there are properly basic synthetic beliefs that act as a foundation for all of our empirical knowledge. These beliefs are those of our direct experience - since it is undeniable at those moments that we are experiencing some cognitive sensation, even if we might be wrong about what that sensation is. From these properly basic beliefs, we can create our chain of justifications for the rest of our empirical knowledge. The other required element in our theory of knowledge is that each justification in our chain should be the result of a reliable process. That is, knowledge is justified true belief where each justification is the result of some reliable (i.e. truth-conducive) mechanism (and our chain of justifications ultimately rests upon foundational properly basic beliefs). So, for example, I can be said to know that there is a computer in front of me if this belief is true and if I can justify this by some reliable mechanism (e.g. if I can see it, and I can justify the general reliability of my visual perception through a series of justifications that ultimately rest upon my properly basic beliefs). I thus avoid the need to produce an infinite or circular series of justifications for this belief. Now, reliabilism, as this concept of using reliable mechanisms is called, is open a range of possible objections, including Gettier ones, but it still seems to be the most promising of the possible alternatives.

So, armed with our definition of knowledge, we can now look at the Divine Command Theory beliefs of the theists (note that there are a number of objections to this theory, including Euthyphro’s dilemma, which I will not examine here). If we unpack the Divine Command Theory of morality, then we have the following propositions:

1. God exists (and is usually defined as being omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent, immaterial, the uncreated creator of the universe, and having a particular interest in humans).
2. God has a set of moral rules that humans are required to obey.
3. God has communicated these rules to humanity.

Note that propositions 2 and 3 are dependent upon the truth of proposition 1, as they each assume God’s existence (or, at least, that God has previously existed and communicated his moral rules to humanity) – if this is false, then propositions 2 and 3 are necessarily false. What are we to make of these? Ayer would suggest that these propositions are literally meaningless, as they fail his Verification Principle. He would maintain that the proposition that God exists is not true by definition and, further, its truth or falsehood cannot be determined (even in principle) by any observation. However, if we ignore this objection for the moment, and grant that the proposition that God exists is meaningful, then what can we say about these three propositions?

Making use of the analysis of knowledge given earlier, can the belief of these three propositions be considered to be knowledge? In this case, and unlike my example of the coin toss (where I might have a lucky true belief), the actual truth of the beliefs is not known, so we haven’t necessarily satisfied the truth requirement of knowledge. All we have so far is belief. However, since the reliability criterion itself will tend to maximise true beliefs whilst minimising false ones (assuming the validity of inductive reasoning), can we at least determine whether these beliefs have been reached by some reliable mechanism? If so, then this will point towards their truth or, if not, then towards their falsity. Furthermore, if the mechanism can be shown to be an unreliable one, then these beliefs will not count as knowledge, even if they might be true. In that case, they would at most be mere true belief, and would thus lack the stability of real knowledge.

Attempts have been made to prove Proposition 1 by analytic means alone – for example, the Ontological Argument. However, this argument is open to a number of objections, and few philosophers are convinced of its soundness (even if it is difficult to pin down exactly where it goes wrong). Theists might also seek to establish the truth of proposition 1 by means of one or other of the cosmological, teleological, or moral arguments for God’s existence. However, all of these arguments have been convincingly rebutted, most can anyway only argue for some inscrutable universe-creating entity as opposed to the specific Judeo-Christian God, and none successfully supports the additional elements of propositions 2 and 3 . In particular, since we are interested in determining the reliability of the theists’ belief-creating mechanism, it should be noted that few theists form their beliefs based upon these arguments anyway (although they may trust that some of these arguments are sound). Rather, in order to establish propositions 2 and 3, theists will typically resort to the evidence in the Bible, to what their religious leaders (or other people) tell them, or to their own perception of religious experience. I will examine each of these in turn to determine if they constitute reliable, truth-conducive mechanisms.

Firstly, the Bible. In general, I would contend that forming empirical beliefs about the world based upon statements contained in ancient historical documents is liable to be unreliable. Due to the many known examples of credulity, exaggeration, and fabrication in historical documents, and to the lack of knowledge of the world possessed by people in these ancient times, we must be very careful about granting too much credence to the contents of these documents. Descriptions of events are always questionable unless they can be corroborated by relevantly similar descriptions in a other sources – preferably those already known to be reliable. Additionally, in the case of contentious elements, we need to consider whether the events or things described seem plausible. In the particular case of the Bible, we have a number of serious problems:

We have accounts that were written many years after the events themselves were supposed to have happened

We have inconsistent and contradictory descriptions of the same events

There are other supposedly revealed religious texts that differ in significant ways from the Bible, and yet God's message is held to be universal and revealed the same to everyone

We have little or no corroboration in any other sources

We have methods that are known to introduce unreliability - word of mouth, geographically dispersed multiple authors, editing and compilation that is arbitrary or that has an agenda, elements that were revealed in dreams etc.

On top of all of this, we have a number of extraordinary metaphysical claims about supernatural entities (including God) and events. Some of these claims are in opposition to our current reliably formed knowledge about how the universe works.

In light of this, to take the word of the Bible when it comes to extraordinary metaphysical claims about God and his supposed moral rules for humanity would clearly seem to be an unreliable mechanism for generating true beliefs.

Appeal to religious leaders or other people fares no better than appeal to the Bible as a reliable mechanism for generating true beliefs. The first problem when it comes to relying on such testimony is that the set of statements made by such people is partially or wholly contradictory, so choosing to believe any particular statement or set of statements on this basis alone would seem to be purely arbitrary. Generally, we can accord some measure of reliability to testimony if the statements come from someone who has demonstrated that they are an expert on the topic concerned. However, in the case of religious leaders, the statements that they make generally have no means by which their truth or falsity may be determined. We have no independent yardstick against which to judge the reliability or otherwise of their metaphysical statements, so no determination can be made. Hence, we have no good reason to judge this as a reliable truth generating mechanism, and plenty of other reasons to judge it otherwise (some statements contradict reliably formed knowledge, and many statements are in contradiction with each other etc.)

How about people’s religious experience – is this reliable? Does Calvin and Plantinga’s hypothesised sensus divinitatis constitute a reliable mechanism through which to acquire true beliefs? I would suggest that the simple answer is no. Firstly, any divine messages and revelations that people claim to have received by such means are culture-specific, inconsistent and contradictory. Secondly, any such messages seem to consist of nothing more than banalities or vague and unverifiable metaphysical notions. Thirdly, we are aware of many alternative explanations for such feelings of the transcendental –dreams, hallucinations, power of suggestion, psychotic episodes etc. Plantinga would have us take such experiences at face value (as basic beliefs), in the same way that I would do when I perceive an object in front of my eyes. However, the difference between the two cases is that we have no evidence of the reliability of the sensus divinitatis, as it is unverifiable, whereas we have lots of mutually-reinforcing evidence of the reliability (most of the time) of our senses. Furthermore, as the beliefs acquired through the supposed sensus divinitatis are sometimes mutually contradictory, we know that some or all of them must be wrong. Hence, it would clearly seem to be an unreliable mechanism for generating true belief. This also confutes the idea that such a hypothesised sensus divinitatis could produce properly basic beliefs.

Based upon the foregoing, I would conclude that the theistic belief that God has communicated to us a set of moral rules by which we must live has been generated by unreliable mechanisms. Unreliable mechanisms tend to produce false beliefs, so this belief is likely to be false. However, even if it is true, this belief does not constitute real knowledge, but mere true belief. As such, it lacks the stability and robustness of real knowledge.

Moral relativism

2008-03-16T14:29:00.002Z

Moral relativism is a stance that is popular in some (particularly academic) circles, but a little thought demonstrates how problematic a position it is to defend. According to moral relativists, there is no objective moral truth, only truths relative to social, cultural, historical, or person circumstances. However, the moral relativist now has to swallow some pretty unpalatable conclusions, or else explain why they cannot legitimately be deduced from the premises of moral relativism. For example: slavery was morally right in the American Deep South; killing Jews was morally right in Nazi Germany; the Stalinist purges were morally right in Communist Russia; the inclinations of certain US leaders to impose their views upon other countries by force is morally right for them; oppression of women in Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Afghanistan is morally right for them.

In fact, if we dig a little deeper here, we can expose some more problems with moral relativism. Firstly, how exactly do we determine the society, culture, or group that the morality is true for? For example, we might suppose that oppression of women is moral in Iran, but how about the women being oppressed – don’t they count in our calculations? In fact, culture and state is a transient and mutable thing – a set of traditions, religious and political ideologies, and individual, tribal and group power struggles. If a culture or state is oppressive, patriarchal, or tyrannical, there is no reason why its citizens should be forced to endure it. We are defining the correct morality for that society based upon what the powerful wish to impose upon the less powerful. It should be further borne in mind that nobody chose to be born into a particular culture and state. It was purely chance that governed where they were born, and they shouldn’t be condemned to a miserable life under some totalitarian regime because of this.

Following on from this, defining the correct morality in terms of the society or culture has the effect of rendering morally wrong anybody fighting for moral change within that society. So, according to this view, the (slavery) abolitionists were wrong since they were fighting against the accepted societal morality, and the suffragettes were wrong, as they were fighting against accepted societal morality etc. In fact, it would seem that only a non-relativist can be truly tolerant, since they can hold it as an objective property of any good morality that tolerance must be enshrined. By contrast, the relativist has little choice but to accept intolerance as moral for any society in which it is normative. A point usually lost on relativists is that if our morality is such that we wish to impose universal freedom and equality upon other societies, then that morality is true for us.

I think that these examples expose moral relativism for the absurdity that it is. As a system of ethics, I don't think that it gets off the ground. The moral relativist and I would concur that there is no absolute moral truth. However, I would go on to reject the idea that moral truth exists in a relativistic sense either. Nevertheless, in the absence of an absolute moral truth, I believe that, under almost any rational definition of morality, it is still possible to say that some moral systems are better than others. Hence, our task is to discriminate between the possible candidates, and try to determine what characteristics a moral system should possess in order to be a good one. Oppression, intrinsic inequality, and support for wholesale slaughter of the innocent are unlikely to be part of any such good system, and should not be excused because they are present in some other society or culture.

In the past, Westerners have tried to impose upon others by force systems of morality that have left much to be desired (they have usually been religious moralities). This was wrong, but it doesn't mean that we are now wrong to judge bad moral systems in other societies.

The Divine Command Theory of Morality

2008-03-16T14:26:00.002Z

I think that the divine command theory of morality suffers from a number of problems that, cumulatively, render it fatally flawed:

Does God exist?

A serious objection to the divine command theory of morality is that it assumes God’s existence. If God’s existence can be questioned, then the argument for a divine command theory of morality is undermined. In fact, I would contend that not only are we entitled to doubt the existence of God, but that we can go much further and argue that the case for the existence of God (with all of its very particular properties and desires), is very weak – although I won't elaborate upon that any further here.

If God doesn’t exist, then we have no mandate to follow the moral rules attributed to God for that reason alone. We might still decide to incorporate some of them into our moral framework, but they must stand or fall upon their own merits, not because they are supposed to be commands issued by God.

What makes God’s commands morally good?

If, for the sake of argument, we assume that God exists, then we are entitled to ask why the morality commanded by God is good. When considering this question, we might usefully refer to Plato’s famous Euthyphro dilemma: is what is moral commanded by God because it is moral, or is it moral because it is commanded by God?

In the former case, then we can just help ourselves to this morality without reference to God at all, as it makes God just the passer-on of a morality that exists independently of him. It also leads to a number of further questions that the theist needs to answer. For example, where did this morality come from in the first place, if not from God? Did it exist before the universe? If so, does it make any sense to conceive of some abstract or idealised concept of morality existing before the universe? If this morality is somehow independent of God, then how does God know that it is necessarily good, if he has no absolute moral yardstick against which to measure it?

Alternatively, the theist may take the second option. In this case, God could have commanded murder to be morally good, for example, and it would be so - since the command comes from God. In this case, the theist then has two further options. They may just bite the bullet and accept that murder would indeed have been morally good had God commanded it so. However, few are willing to subscribe to this view, as it contradicts our most basic concepts of what constitutes moral behaviour. On the other hand, the theist may contend that God would never have commanded murder to be a moral rule as God, being perfectly good, would only command what is good. However, this is just circular reasoning, and doesn’t deal with the dilemma, as we can rephrase it to deal with this objection i.e. is God good because to be good is just to be whatever God is, or is God good because God has all the properties of goodness? We are back in the same situation again with goodness either being arbitrary, or existing independently of God.

Why should we obey God?

Again, if for the sake of argument we assume God’s existence, then why should we obey God’s commands anyway? If God was to command us to torture and murder others, then would we be obligated to obey such commands, even though they go against our common moral sense?

Of course, the theist may contend that God would not command us to do such things, as God is perfectly good. However, there are at least two problems with this reasoning. Firstly, there are plenty of examples in the Bible of moral atrocities supposedly being commanded by God, so the precedent clearly exists. Furthermore, some of the moral rules attributed to God would seem according to our common moral standards to be cruel and disproportionate in that they specify a penalty of death for such supposed crimes as blasphemy, picking up sticks on the Sabbath, being a witch, and talking back to one’s parents.

Of course, some Christians might object that the New Testament gives a far kinder message, as preached by Jesus, and describes the new covenant between God and man. However, the New Testament still contains various odious rules and strictures, a command to still obey the rules of the Old Testament, as well as the introduction of the concept of eternal punishment for a variety of supposed sins. Moreover, in some Christian worldviews, the avoidance of hell comes by accepting Jesus as one's saviour - which therefore bars entry to heaven to all those who existed before Jesus lived, who don't hear his message for any other reason, or who have heard his message but have chosen to reject it in favour of some other belief system or of none. Moreover, the whole concept of the New Testament preaching a kinder message implies that God's personality or teachings have changed from those described in the Old Testament, or that he has changed his mind. But surely this cannot be so, as this would imply some sort of moral development or improvement on God's part, but he is by definition omniscient, omnipotent, and morally perfect. As such, how can he improve, and for what reason could he ever change his mind, since he already knows all there is to know?

Secondly, how can we ever know that something is good just because it is commanded by God, since we can never know that God is perfectly good? We cannot take God’s word for this, as it merely begs the question. And just defining God as perfectly good doesn’t settle the matter either, as I would contend that God’s existence and characteristics are synthetic propositions, not analytic ones, as we are dealing with aspects of the real world rather than just formal logic.

Furthermore, if somebody alleges that God has given them some moral command or other, or detailed a list of commands that we should all follow, then this too is highly problematic. How are we to know that this person is not deluded or lying? Moreover, assuming that the person in question truly believes that God has given them this moral command, then how can they themselves ever know that they were not just imagining it? Furthermore, even if they did actually receive some genuine communication, how can they or we ever know that this communication emanated from God, and not from some other entity – supernatural or otherwise?

For the foregoing reasons, I don’t think that anyone is entitled to evade moral responsibility for their actions by arguing that they are merely following a command from God, even if this were actually true.

What are God’s commands?

The moral and ethical guidelines in the Bible are often contradictory, and are open to multiple interpretations. So, how are we to determine exactly what morality is espoused therein? In light of this, I think that we might also ask why such supposedly important messages for humanity were not communicated in a clear and unambiguous fashion - one that is not open to multiple and often conflicting interpretations?

Of the moral guidelines that are more clearly expressed in the Bible, some deal with matters that would seem to be unimportant or neutral when it comes to a moral life. For example, rules to not eat shellfish, and to not wear clothes of mixed fibres.

Theists might attempt to gloss over the multiple inconsistencies in God’s moral law, as detailed in the Bible, and interpret it in order to render it more agreeable to our current moral sensibilities. However, if we decide to ignore or interpret certain of God’s moral rules (killing blasphemers, Sabbath breakers, witches, disobedient children; not eating shellfish, and not wearing mixed-fibre clothes etc.), but to follow other rules, then we have either made an arbitrary choice or else, more probably, we are making our choice based upon some other moral yardstick that is independent of the Bible. If it is the former, then it would seem to be a rather unreliable way to build a moral framework. If the latter case, then we might as well reason our way to this independent morality without reference to the Bible at all.

Are God’s rules necessary for a moral society?

One might argue that, even if we doubt God’s existence, society should still adhere to religious morality, as it will lead to greater moral health. However, it is rather conspicuous that many societies have or have had ethical systems that are not based upon some divine command theory, without them having any consequent morally bankruptcy. For example, the Ancient Greeks had a very well developed secular ethical system (they condoned slavery, but then so did Christian societies). Even though the Greeks had their own gods, these Gods apparently did not concern themselves with dictating moral laws.

Further, there is very good empirical data that shows a strong positive correlation between a society’s level of religiosity and the prevalence of all sorts of ills – crime, illiteracy, mortality rates etc. For example, many Western European societies are amongst the least religious in the World, but they can be seen to have a good moral health by almost all of the relevant markers. This doesn't necessarily imply a causal relationship, but it does undermine the theory that a society’s moral health is dependent upon it being religious.

Some theists argue that modern Western society is in moral decline, and correlate this with an increasing lack of religiosity. However, this is a fallacious argument. By almost any marker, Western societies are more moral than they ever were when they were more religious. They are freer, more equal, less violent, more compassionate, and so on. What the theists are doing when they make this type of argument is to confuse such societal tendencies as greater consumerism (which I would argue can be morally negative, neutral, or positive, depending upon the specifics), with a moral decay.

The theist may also assert that atheists or secular societies that they would consider to actually be moral are only so because they are living off the moral capital built up by a previous religious tradition. However, this argument seems to be an entirely ad hoc one, with no good supporting evidence ever being produced.

Who is the more moral?

We might reasonably ask who the more moral person is. The one who acts morally out of a selfless desire to treat others decently and compassionately, or the theist who is doing it in blind adherence to divine laws, or for prudential reasons, in order to gain a reward, and avoid a punishment from God?

Where does morality come from?

So, if morality doesn’t come from God, then where does it come from? I think that we have an innate sense of morality, and that this is derived from our evolutionary heritage. Our cultures and intellects have given us additional moral drivers, and modified existing ones, but I think that the roots of our morality are evolutionary. When our primitive ancestors started to form groups, their chances of survival were increased by acting in certain cooperative ways, and decreased by acting in others. Clearly, those who acted in those ways conducive to survival were more likely have offspring and to pass on their genes. Hence, tendencies towards such things as reciprocal altruism were selected for by evolution.

For example, the so-called Golden Rule clearly has a survival advantage for each member in a group if all group members adhere to it. In fact, it has been demonstrated in game theory that the principle that gives the best result for individual group members is one in which a member will initially cooperate with another member, but will henceforth copy the last action of the other member in a tit-for-tat fashion – either cooperating or not. The theory behind this is known as the Prisoner’s Dilemma. Lo and behold, examples of this type of behaviour are indeed witnessed in nature, and can quite clearly be seen to be precursors to our own morality.

That our innate morality is based upon our evolutionary heritage doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t seek to improve upon it. Science helps to explain what is the case, but not what ought to be the case. For this, we need to apply the methods of reason.

Can we have a secular morality?

If we are to dispense with religious morality, then what can we put in its place? Three major types of secular morality have been devised: Virtue Ethics, Kantian Ethics, and Utilitarianism. Each takes a different approach - emphasising virtue and flourishing, duty, and consequences of actions respectively, and each has its own strengths and weaknesses. Perhaps none is sufficient to take as a complete moral framework, so we may need to attempt to combine the best aspects of each in a way that doesn’t lead to contradictions and internal inconsistencies.

One big advantage that all of these secular moral systems have over the divine command theory is that none inherently entails a dogmatic and blind adherence to its moral strictures. Each offers a set of moral objectives or meta-rules but, as they were arrived at by means of evidence, reason, and reflection, they are theoretically open to revision and improvement. By contrast, divine commands are intrinsically dogmatic, since they were supposedly handed down by God, and they are thus strongly resistant to change. The result of this is that such moralities still incorporate many ancient rules that reasoned analysis would now class as either morally neutral (e.g. eating shellfish), or as unenlightened and bad (such as enshrining the inequality of women).

Furthermore, in light of the previously discussed flaws with the divine command theory of morality, I think that stipulating death for victimless crimes like the breaking of trivial ad hoc rules or for professing unbelief in God is in itself immoral. So, I would argue that for these reasons alone any of the secular moralities mentioned above is better than the divine command theory.

Conclusion

I would argue that some of the supposedly divine moral commands are merely parasitic upon our innate sense of morality, whilst others are at best irrelevant to a good morality and, at worst, in direct opposition to it.

I would further argue that the case for a divine command theory of morality is rendered fatally flawed because God’s existence is in clear doubt, because any such system of morality would either be arbitrary or independent of any God, because we should not just blindly follows such rules, and because the rules are ambiguous and inconsistent anyway.

I don’t think that any absolute and true divine system of morality exists (or any other absolute moral system, for that matter), so we don’t have the misplaced certainty of the theist. Instead, we need to build upon our innate sense of morality by devising a secular morality through the investigation of evidence and the application of reason. This task will not be easy, and much more work needs to be done, but I think that this is the best way forward in the quest for a good morality, as morality does not depend upon God.

Induction problem and God

2008-03-07T17:36:00.004Z

We use inductive reasoning when we reason from a few examples to a generalisation. For example:

· We have observed 1000 swans to be white
· Therefore, all swans are probably white

Or

· The sun has risen every day throughout recorded human history
· Therefore, it will probably rise tomorrow morning.

However, there is a fatal flaw in this type of reasoning, as the philosopher David Hume pointed out in the 18th century. We can never know for sure that a conclusion reached by inductive reasoning is true. In the first of my examples, we would have to observe every swan in the world in order to be completely sure of the validity of the conclusion. In fact, black swans do exist, so the conclusion is actually false. In the second and more interesting case, we can only draw this conclusion by insisting that the laws of nature will remain the same tomorrow as they have in the past (I am here ignoring the possibility that the sun will be destroyed by some event consistent with current natural laws). But, how can we know this? The natural answer is that they have always been the same in our experience, so it makes sense that they should be the same tomorrow as well. However, this in itself is an inductive argument – reasoning from observations in the past to those in the future. We can’t justify induction by recourse to induction can we, as this is just circular reasoning?

So, we seem to have a predicament. According to Hume’s problem with induction, we have no rational reason to believe that the sun will rise tomorrow just because it has always done so in the past. This is not making the weak claim that the sun will probably rise tomorrow, but there is a small probability that the laws of nature might suddenly change so that it will not. Rather, Hume is saying that we cannot conclude that it will rise tomorrow based upon previous observations of it rising - as there is no reason at all to suppose that the laws of nature will not suddenly change. This is a particularly acute problem for science in general, as it relies heavily on inductive reasoning to generalise from a few observations to theories and laws of nature.

How might we attempt to resolve this problem? A.J. Ayer held (in his book Language, Truth, and Logic) that the problem of induction was actually a fictitious one, as there is no solution, and all genuine problems are at least theoretically capable of being solved. According to him, if we take it to be a tautology, then we cannot deduce from this matters of empirical fact. On the other hand, if one approaches it empirically, then one assumes what one is setting out to prove.

It seems to me that we have no entirely satisfactory solution to this problem, but we may attempt solutions along the following lines. Firstly, we might say that we have no choice but to take induction as an epistemic practice that is in need of no further justification. A slightly more satisfying solution comes from utilising the ideas of reliability that I discussed in the previous question. We might say that we are justified in using induction because induction is a reliable way of forming true beliefs, in the same way that my perception is a reliable way of my forming true beliefs. Of course, this then becomes a circular argument, as its reliability up until now doesn’t guarantee its reliability in the future, unless we assume inductive reasoning is valid.

Karl Popper attempted a solution based upon his idea of falsification. He proposed that science does not in fact evolve by means of inductive reasoning but, rather, by means of the falsification of theories. Popper held that, to be considered properly scientific, a theory must be capable of being falsified. Under this scenario, we can avoid inductive reasoning by relying instead upon modus tollens (e.g. if all swans are white then we will not find any black swans; we have found black swans; therefore, not all swans are white etc). Critics would say that science does not in fact evolve this way, relying instead upon inductive reasoning.

Another possible solution is by recourse to Occam’s razor. We might reason that the hypothesis that the laws of nature will change in some way such that they invalidate our previous conclusions based upon inductive reasoning is a less parsimonious hypothesis than the one that they will just remain the same, as it involves the introduction of additional ad-hoc elements. This approach also seems to be applicable to Nelson Goodman’s idea of grue, in which something is grue if it is observed to be green before time t, and blue thereafter. This seems less parsimonious than the idea that it would just remain green – not because we are defining grue in terms of green and blue, which seems intuitively less simple, but because we are specifying some arbitrary change in one of its properties at time t, as opposed to no change at all.

In the end, perhaps the least unsatisfactory solution is a pragmatic one. Even though we perhaps lack a complete justification for inductive reasoning, it is still (at least indirectly) rational for us to continue to use it, as we want to form true beliefs about the world and, of any method of inference, induction is the one that will maximise the number of true beliefs about the world that we will obtain and minimise the number of false ones.

An interesting question I saw raised is whether this has any implication for arguments to disprove the existence of God. If they rely upon inductive reasoning, are they equally vulnerable to the problem of induction?

Well, perhaps, but fortunately many of the arguments against God’s existence rely upon deductive reasoning, which is entirely different. These are arguments of the form: all dogs are mammals, Rover is a dog, therefore Rover is a mammal etc.

In deductive reasoning, there is a distinction between a valid deductive argument, and a sound one. A valid deductive argument is one that is correctly formed so that the conclusion follows inevitably from the premises. There is no necessity for the premises to actually be true, merely for the conclusion to follow logically from them. For example:

Premise 1: all dogs are three-legged animals
Premise 2: all three-legged animals are from Mars
Conclusion: therefore, all dogs are from Mars

This is a valid deductive argument, despite the fact that both premises (and the conclusion) are clearly false.

By contrast, a sound deductive argument is one in which we have the additional constraint that the premises are true. For example:

Premise 1: all dogs are mammals
Premise 2: no mammals are animals with scales
Conclusion: therefore, no dogs are animals with scales

How about deductive arguments to disprove God’s existence? Can I formulate one that is sound? Theists in particular might say that the premises in any such argument are false, as we don't have a clear-cut situation as in my examples above. However, in the end it comes down to plausibility and degree of reasonableness. Can I construct valid deductive arguments that disprove God's existence, and which are plausible? Well, for example, I would say that this argument is valid and plausible, but not necessarily sound:

Premise 1: if the Christian God exists, with the usual properties of omnipotence, omnibenevolence, and a particular interest in human beings, then he would not allow any more than the absolute minimum amount of evil possible (natural and man-made) to exist in the world (this follows from God's properties)
Premise 2: the amount of evil that exists in the world far exceeds this absolute minimum (from the empirical evidence)
Conclusion: therefore, the Christian God doesn't exist

Here is another one:

Premise One: If a merciful and compassionate God wants us all to be saved (as many Christians believe), then he would provide clear and unambiguous information about his message to all humans, as this is necessary for salvation (by definition).
Premise Two: This clear and unambiguous information is not provided to all humans (from the empirical evidence).
Conclusion: Therefore, such a God does not exist.

These are valid deductive arguments, and I would further contend that they are plausible ones too. Of course, whether they could be classified as sound depends very much upon one's worldview. This is a consequence of the fact that we know of no knockdown argument to disprove God's existence (but the same applies equally with the arguments for God's existence). It all turns upon degree of plausibility and reasonableness, and I find the valid arguments that seek to disprove God's existence to be far more plausible and reasonable than those that seek to prove it. The weight of plausible arguments against God's existence also forms a cumulative case.
Now, one may take issue with either or both of the premises in my arguments above, but they are nonetheless valid deductive arguments. That is, if we accept the premises, then the conclusions must be true. Moreover, any argument that attempts to disprove the existence of God by deducing what predictions are entailed by the God hypothesis, and then finding these predictions unfulfilled, has proceeded by falsification. It is therefore a deductive argument that doesn't suffer from the induction problem.

Reductionism

2008-03-07T17:31:00.002Z

I think that one of the problems many people have with the attempt to explain the world using science is the issue of reductionism. Many see reductionism as an attempt to take all of the emotion, beauty, and mystery out of the world, and replace it by cold, mechanical, and simplistic scientific explanations.

To answer this, I would like to draw a distinction between useful or good reductionism, and useless or bad reductionism. For the scientific endeavour, reductionism is essential, as the natural world is far too complex for us to fathom otherwise. We need to attempt to reduce complex systems of interactions to simpler or more fundamental things, create hypotheses based upon these simpler explanations, deduce and test the predictions of these hypotheses etc. Without reductionism, science would be too difficult for us to do. So, where reduction allows us to make progress in the scientific endeavour, I would classify it as good reductionism.

By contrast, we might try to understand the causes of Islamic extremism by reducing everything to the interactions of fundamental particles. This would clearly be a hopeless task, and would be highly counter-productive. Whilst I think that all macro phenomena probably can be reduced to the micro (notwithstanding the mooted issues with emergentism ), there are many cases when this makes no sense at all, as it adds nothing to our understanding, and makes the task more difficult instead of less. When analyzing some aspects of the world, such as the societal, religious, and ideological drivers that lead to extremism, we do much better to stick to macro explanations.

So, we have different levels of explanation that are appropriate in different circumstances. Having said that, I think that we are often not in an either/or situation with regard to reductionism. For example, when looking at the human emotion of love, I think that the reductionist approach (by looking at evolutionary and biological aspects of human emotion), and the non-reductionist approach (experiencing love, reading romantic novels, poems, sonnets etc.), actually complement each other. That is, I think that the greatest understanding of love comes from looking at all the useful levels of explanation, and not just concentrating on one. Generalizing this, I think that we need to know when reductionism is useful in understanding the world, and when it is not, and seek enlightenment accordingly.

Art appreciation and evolution

2008-03-07T17:06:00.003Z

The pre-requisites for evolution are reproduction, mutation, and competition for limited resources. Most mutations will be deadly, and will therefore not be passed on to offspring. However, occasionally a mutation will occur that will confers some advantage upon the organism in question. This advantage will make the organism better able to compete for resources (food, mates etc.), and therefore give it a better chance of producing offspring.

In evolutionary terms, advantage is often conferred by a greater awareness of one's environment through sensory apparatus, and an increased ability to reason about and act upon this sensory data. Even a slight improvement in these areas will likely give some survival advantage to an organism, and increase the chance that this will be passed on. After millions of years of trial and error, and incremental increases in the brain's ability to interpret and reason about sensory inputs, evolutionary pressures finally led to a complex brain with a feedback loop - i.e. it became self-aware. This seems to have gone hand-in-hand with the development of language, and the two developments may have fed off each other. In fact, the development of language may be an essential component in the development of consciousness.

What is certain is that this development of consciousness and language gave us a huge evolutionary advantage - which is how it evolved in the first place. We now have far greater flexibility to move beyond our genetic programming, to reason and reflect, and to communicate our thoughts and ideas to others. We can therefore work together on problems, and build upon the thoughts and ideas of our ancestors and contemporaries. This has led to an exponential increase in our knowledge and understanding of the world.

But, how is all of this relevant to our appreciation of art? Well, I would suggest that the appreciation of beauty did in fact evolve in animals as it conferred them with an advantage. Furthermore, it seems to me that the precursors of this are still likely to be found in lower animals today. For example, I would speculate that there is a sense in which a bee finds a flower to be 'beautiful'; female birds find the songs, displays, or nests of the best males to be beautiful; and giraffes find a verdant landscape with lots of edible foliage to be beautiful. These responses exist as they attract animals to the best environments and food for survival, and to the most promising mates. The same types of responses exist in us too.

Of course, our greater intelligence, language, and social nature led us to develop cultural artefacts and diversity that go way beyond anything found in other animals. As part of this, we have developed many different ways in which to stimulate and extend our innate appreciation for beauty. I believe that art and music are two of the offshoots of this mixture our evolutionary and cultural heritage. As with many aspects of our current behaviour, I think that the roots are most likely to be evolutionary, but that our cultural development has built upon these roots in ways that sometimes make the original evolutionary drivers far from obvious.

Of course, art (including theatre, film, music, painting etc.) includes far more than just beauty. Nevertheless, I think that most works of art aim to stimulate or provoke some emotion or other in those viewing it, and those emotions arose in the first place as they gave an evolutionary advantage.

For example, I think it’s fairly obvious that anger would give animals an advantage when fighting over a mate or territory; fear would give them an advantage when confronted with danger; passion draws them to a mate, and love helps to keep the pair together for the benefit of the offspring; inquisitiveness and adventurousness would help them look for new and better places to live, and ways of doing things; feelings of friendship, empathy, altruism, camaraderie etc. are good survival traits for group animals such as ourselves, and so on.

We clearly get enjoyment and stimulation from suspending disbelief and invoking these emotions through artificial means, as evolution has honed us to respond strongly to emotional triggers. Furthermore, in more recent times I think that there would likely have been other survival advantages accrued from passing on important information through stories, songs, paintings etc.

I don't think that a bit of art appreciation that gives an adaptive advantage. Rather, I think that art appreciation is a side-effect of our emotions in general, and our attraction to 'beauty' in particular (and the full gamut of art in general is a cultural outgrowth of this). It is the possession of these emotions that give an incremental evolutionary advantage, and is the reason that we possess them today.

Here is an interesting article on this subject:

http://steamthing.com/artistic1.html

Is Astrology a Science?

2008-03-07T15:19:00.005Z

How might we go about deciding what constitutes a science and what doesn’t? The philosopher of science Karl Popper wrote the following about how to demarcate science from non-science (including pseudoscience):

[T]here is another special kind of boldness – the boldness of predicting aspects of the world of appearance which so far have been overlooked but which it must possess if the conjectured reality is (more or less) right, if the explanatory hypotheses are (approximately) true. It is this special kind of boldness that I have in mind when I speak of bold scientific conjectures. It is the boldness of a conjecture which takes a real risk – the risk of being tested, and refuted; the risk of clashing with reality.

Thus my proposal was, and is, that it is this second boldness, together with the readiness to look out for tests and refutations, which distinguishes ‘empirical’ science from non-science, and especially from pre-scientific myths and metaphysics.

I will call this proposal (D): (D) for ‘demarcation’. (Karl Popper ‘The Problem of Demarcation’)

At the heart of Popper's proposal is the concept of falsifiability (he also saw this as the way around the problem of induction). He thought that the demarcation between scientific and unscientific theories should be based upon whether the theory in question is falsifiable or not - with falsifiable theories being considered scientific, and non-falsifiable theories unscientific. Popper's proposal excludes from the domain of science not unfalsifiable statements, but whole theories that contain no falsifiable statements.

Moreover, to be properly falsifiable, a theory should make clear, unambiguous, and bold statements that can be compared empirically against reality. If the theory’s predictions are vague and equivocal, then it will be difficult to falsify, since it is not clear what would constitute a failed prediction. Equally, if a theory merely predicts things that we already know to be true, then we have no good reason to favour this theory over any other that merely predicts the same observations.

For example, Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity predicts that the Earth will orbit the sun in an elliptical orbit. But this was already predicted by Newton’s theory of gravitation, so we have no reason to prefer Einstein’s theory over Newton’s existing one. However, Einstein’s theory also predicted that massive objects bend light – something that Newton’s theory does not predict, and which had not previously been observed. This bending of light was duly observed during an eclipse in 1919, and the fact that relativity’s bold prediction was not falsified counted strongly in its favour.

It should come as little surprise that physics, for example, would be classified as a science according to Popper’s proposal – since Popper no doubt formulated it with this in mind. Theories in physics generally make plenty of clear, unambiguous, and bold statements that are open to falsification. Whilst attempts would be made to rescue theories in the light of anomalous observations, these attempts would often make the theory even more falsifiable, not less. Theories that consistently make false predictions would be rejected in favour of better theories that don’t.

Now let’s have a look at what Popper’s proposal would have to say about astrology. Would it qualify as a science? Popper himself gave this as an example of something that clearly failed his falsifiability criterion. There are two problems with falsification in astrology. Firstly, the predictions that it makes are often sufficiently vague or ambiguous that it is very difficult to establish what would constitute a failed prediction. For example, tests have been carried out in which professional astrologers have been asked to cast a horoscope for a specific person. This reading has then been given to a large and disparate group of other people, purporting to be a reading done for them specifically. In almost all cases, the subjects who were given the horoscope rated it as highly accurate for them. This is because the types of statements made in such horoscopes are sufficiently ambiguous and open to interpretation that they can be made to fit many diverse people.

Secondly, if we do somehow manage to pin down astrological predictions sufficiently unambiguously to carry out a rigorous empirical test in an attempt to falsify it, then failed predictions don’t seem to be accepted as such by the astrologers in general. It might be reasonable to ignore or explain away a certain amount of anomalous data, as science does, but the astrological community seems prepared to accept nothing as constituting a falsification of their theory. So, it is also unfalsifiable in practice.

Let’s look at an example. Imagine that I am a Sagittarius, but that I don’t have typical Sagittarian personality traits. Would this qualify as a means of falsification? I think that astrologers would give little weight to this counter-example, as they would likely say that one’s birth sign gives nothing more than a tendency to have certain personality traits. There will always be cases of people not following that tendency, they would say. So, I think that this example is a very weak one, and really counts for little. Astrological theory allows for this kind of anomalous data, so it would certainly not be accepted in the astrological community as constituting some sort of a falsification.

How about a much stronger example? Astrological theory says that the accuracy of its predictions increases dramatically when we consider the personalities and lives of people born at almost the same time. Accordingly, there was a well-known and rigorous study done of 2000 people born within a few days of each other (70% born within 5 minutes of each other), in which their personalities and lives were analysed statistically to look for the types of correlations that would be predicted by astrology. However, no such correlations were found. A sure falsification you might think? No such thing I’m afraid – the astrological community ignored or attempted to explain away the findings by ad hoc means. Within the vague and equivocal framework of astrology, I can think of no more clear falsification of astrological theory than this (although there are plenty of other studies with similar results), but the astrological community refused to accept it as such. So, even when it is possible to pin down the types of vague and ambiguous predictions made by astrology, and show them to be failed, falsification is rejected. Therefore, falsification is impossible in practice within astrology.

So, to summarise, we have two problems with falsification in astrology. Firstly, the theory is sufficiently vague and imprecise that it is difficult to frame clear, unequivocal, and bold tests that would allow us to falsify astrology. Secondly, any reasonable attempt at such a falsification, as in the study cited above, will not be accepted as a falsification. So, in practical terms, astrological theory has been rendered unfalsifiable. This is in clear contrast to science. Whatever science’s epistemological limitations, scientific theories do almost always make clear and unambiguous predictions that can and do allow for their falsification. For example, as the biologist J.B.S. Haldane said, evolution would be disproved by the finding of "Fossil rabbits in the pre-Cambrian". This is a little simplistic, as scientists would naturally and justifiably look for alternative explanations for this anomalous data (justifiable in this case as evolutionary theory is supported by a huge amount of data, unlike astrology). However, there would come a point at which scientists would just admit that their theory is wrong. Nothing analogous ever seems to happen in the world of astrology.

Whilst scientists might and do resist such falsifications, the history of science shows countless examples of scientific progress through theories being falsified and replaced by better ones. So, the scientific method is a truth-seeking one that progresses despite the limitations of individual scientists and of other epistemological debates. By contrast, astrological theory has remained almost set in stone since Ptolemy’s day, despite huge problems with its methodology (no proposed physical mechanism for these supposed planetary influences, problem of the precession of equinoxes etc.) and its predictions. So, to summarise, astrology would clearly fail Popper’s criterion of falsifiability, and would therefore not be classed as a science.

But, at this point an interesting question to ask is whether falsifiability alone is sufficient to allow us to demarcate science from non-science. One problem with this idea is that science often seems to progress by verification, rather than falsification - scientists aren’t always looking to falsify theories but, rather, to verify them.

Nevertheless, I think that it is a fundamental part of the scientific method that physical theories should be falsifiable - even if this is not what physicists are inclined to do. Of course, physicists will we wedded to their preferred theories, and will look to verify these theories, and try to avoid any possible falsification - to the possible extent of ignoring or 'fudging' anomalous data. However, this is a human failing, and not a failing of the idealised method of physics, in which I think that properly constituted theories should offer some means of falsification, and falsification should be attempted. I think that one important aspect of the scientific method here is that, whilst physicists might seek to avoid falsification of their pet theories, other physicists will be attempting to achieve that very falsification, in order to push alternative theories i.e. we have peer review.

Of course, the theories might not falsifiable yet e.g. with the proposed existence of the Higgs boson as predicted by the Standard Model. However, even such esoteric cosmological theories as Turok and Steinhardt's colliding branes offers some means of falsification - the detection of gravitational waves from the creation event would falsify it, for example. I think that most physicists would not consider a theory to be a properly scientific one if it offered no way of ever being falsified, even in principle.

Of course, scientists are not just going to discard a theory when some anomalous data turns up. They will try to introduce some additional, possibly ad hoc, element in order to explain away the mismatch between theory and observation. This happened with the discrepancy between the observed orbit of Uranus and what was predicted by Newton’s theories. Scientists got around this discrepancy by proposing the existence of another, unknown, planet that was influencing Uranus. This actually turned out to be correct, and was the planet Neptune. So, you might ask, what is the difference between a scientist doing this and an astrologer (or creationist etc.) doing it? Well, the difference is that in the case of science, these ad hoc elements introduced to explain away a mismatch will likely make the theory more falsifiable, not less. Also, science doesn’t always do this, whereas pseudoscience seems to do nothing but introduce ad hoc elements into their theories in order to explain away discrepancies. By doing this, the pseudosciences are rendering their theories effectively unfalsifiable.

In the final analysis, I think that Popper was on the right track with his concept of demarcation based upon falsification, but I think that there is more to it than this. I believe that falsification is a necessary but not sufficient condition for a theory to be considered properly scientific, and I think that we need to add some criteria in order to properly demarcate between science and pseudoscience. For a theory to be considered scientific, I would suggest that we would wish it to have most or all of the following properties: consistency, parsimony, falsifiability, grounding in empirical evidence, reproducibility, tentativeness, and correctability.

A good reason to be happy

2008-02-22T14:20:00.005Z

I realised today that I have a very good reason to be happy. No matter what other misfortune I experience, the fact that the Judeo-Christian god almost certainly doesn't exist is a cause for great cheer. This might seem a strange thing to say, but the Bible describes the character of this god in some detail, and it is not one of absolute goodness. Rather, God is portrayed as belligerent, bloodthirsty, vengeful, jealous, and megalomaniacal. Those who doubt this should read the texts for themselves. It is disingenuous to attempt to define God as omnibenevolent, when the contrary evidence in the Holy books is there for all to see. Words can have no use if we can just redefine to suit our own tastes.

If such a god existed, and was present in our daily lives, then there is every reason to think that life in this theocracy would be similar to that in a totalitarian state. If we go by what the Bible tells us, then there would be no democracy, no freedom of speech and movement, no equality of sexes or races, slavery would be acceptable, blatant homophobia would exist, and death would be meted out for a large range of supposed crimes. Moreover, it would be totalitarian to an extent only dreamed of by leaders such as Stalin, Mao, and Kim Il-sung. As God knows your very thoughts, the level of surveillance and control would be absolute. You can’t even escape through death, as eternal punishment awaits you.

Of course, we might say, contrary to all of the evidence, that God is not like that, and would not institute such a system. However, such Christian luminaries as Augustine, Aquinas, Calvin, and Luther paint a very different picture, with their support for blasphemy and other imaginary crimes being punishable by death. Some Christians might object that the New Testament gives a far kinder message, as preached by Jesus, and describes the new covenant between God and man. However, the New Testament still contains various odious strictures to hate one's family and abandon it (Matt. 10:35-37, Matt. 19:29, Mark 10:29-30, Luke14:26 etc.), and to kill disobedient children (Matt. 15:4-7, Mark 7:9-10). Furthermore, the second coming will see the destruction of any who do not accept Jesus (Matt. 10:14-15, Luke 10:12, Matt. 24:37, 2 Pet. 3:7,10). And God promises further death and destruction (Rev. 6:8, 8:7, 8:10-11, 9:13, 17-18 etc.).

However, the worst aspect of the New Testament is that it introduces the abhorrent concept of eternal punishment in Hell (Matt. 7:13-14, 13:42, 25:41, Luke 3:17 etc.) - which tells us much about God's personality. In some Christian worldviews, the avoidance of hell comes by accepting Jesus as one's saviour - which therefore condemns to hell all those who existed before Jesus lived, who don't hear his message for any other reason, or who have heard his message but have chosen to reject it in favour of some other belief system or of none. Some other Christians subscribe to the idea of predestination, in which entrance to heaven is down to God's personal whim, with those he rejects for his own inscrutable reasons being consigned to eternal damnation. Some Christians at least preach that entry to heaven is based upon the deeds of one's life, but it is still absurdly harsh to commit sinners (including those whose only 'sin' is a very rational lack of belief) to eternal punishment.

Moreover, the whole concept of the New Testament preaching a kinder message implies that God's personality or teachings have changed from those described in the Old Testament. But surely this cannot be so, as this would imply some sort of moral development or improvement on God's part, but he is by definition omniscient, omnipotent, and morally perfect. As such, how can he improve, and for what reason could he ever change his mind, since he already knows all there is to know?

For further evidence of God's character we need only look around us. What kind of an all powerful being, given an infinite amount of time, would come up with our world with all its attendant suffering? For most of human history, the majority of people have led short, brutal lives, and have died in pain - being killed by other humans, natural disasters, animals, hunger, thirst, or disease. Every day millions of people suffer and die horribly for no apparent greater reason, and no obvious benefit to themselves or others.

The whole of the natural world is so engineered that animals must compete for finite resources, and must kill and eat each other in order to survive. Sure, it might all be for some mysterious greater reason that only God knows about, but that type of ad-hoc reasoning could be used to justify anything. And trying to justify all of this suffering by recourse to the benefits of human free will, as a means of spiritual or moral growth, or as a test fail dismally too. The existence of human free will is a moot topic in the first place, with determinism and compatibilism arguing that it is fully or partially illusory, but is irrelevant anyway when considering suffering caused by natural disasters (earthquakes, floods etc). Furthermore, an all-powerful God could surely have created a system in which we had free will, but made it a law of nature that we could do no harm to others.

And, when it comes to moral development, surely God could have created humans to be virtuous and morally good in the first place, without any need for self-improvement. Even if some amount of suffering is necessary in order to allow for such virtues as compassion and heroism, the vast quantity of suffering present in the world hugely outweighs any supposed benefit. Was all of death and suffering of the concentration camps justified so that a few people would have the opportunity to be saintly? Further, some good people suffer terribly, whilst other bad people do not suffer at all. Why is that? Also, much suffering goes unseen by others. How is this beneficial to the sufferers?

The idea that our actions and our choices to believe in God and Jesus or otherwise are some sort of test is equally absurd. What need does God have of tests since, being omniscient and omnipotent, he must by already know what the outcomes will be? As he does know these outcomes, to choose to create human beings who he knows will fail his tests, and thus be consigned to hell, is the work of an horrific sadist.

Is the creator of all this the type of being whose rule we would want to live under, and who we should praise?

No, I for one am very happy that such a god almost certainly doesn’t exist

Why privilege reason over faith?

2008-02-22T13:56:00.003Z

I would suggest that reason is a logical and rational way of justifying a belief. As such, it is a sort of methodology, and so is quite distinct from evidence – although evidence does play a key role when we are reasoning about the real world. It works by utilising such logical tools as deductive reasoning (e.g. all cats have 4 legs, Felix is a cat, therefore Felix has 4 legs), inductive reasoning (e.g. water has always been observed to freeze at zero degrees Celsius at sea level , therefore water always freezes at zero degrees Celsius at sea level), and abductive reasoning.

This last method attempts to find the best explanation for some phenomenon or other by considering which of the proposed explanations simultaneously best fits the available evidence, best predicts what we should expect to find if the hypothesis is true, is not falsified when we search for evidence that we would not expect to find if it is true, and is the most parsimonious (i.e. does not introduce unnecessary ad hoc assumptions). Mere consistency with the evidence is not sufficient, since I could invent an infinity of beliefs that are consistent with the evidence, but they would all be wrong.

In addition to this, the method of reason takes care to avoid a number of known fallacies and other errors of thinking or arguing that can lead to mistaken conclusions – begging the question, non sequitur, equivocation, anecdotal evidence, false dichotomy, argument from authority, ad hominen etc. When we don’t take care, we are liable to fall into one of many possible traps in our reasoning.

As to why we should hold reason in high regard, and privilege above other methods of enquiry, I would answer that it is the most consistently reliable way we have found of determining the truth. Whilst there are issues involving subjectivity, biases, cherished theories etc., these are human failings, or limitations in the evidence that we can obtain, and not a critical failing of the methodology itself. Over time, the application of reason does seem to lead to the discarding of false beliefs and a gradual homing in on the truth. There are still unresolved issues with the methodology concerning such things as the problem of induction, and what we can ever really know without reason or justification (brute facts), but nevertheless the method of reason has proved to be incredibly successful in advancing our knowledge of the world.

Some contend that faith, revelation, and spiritual introspection are more reliable ways of seeking the truth and justifying a belief, but I don’t think that this is borne out by the evidence. Beliefs generated and held by revelation and faith cover a multitude of conflicting theories about the creation, evolution, structure, and future of the universe and ourselves, and of morality. However, as they contradict each other in fundamental ways, they must necessarily all be wrong with the possible exception of one of them. But, since they are held to be absolutely true by means of faith, and are off limits to reason, how can we ever investigate and determine which, if any, of these ideas is true? This method of truth seeking therefore seems to lead to a huge variety of conflicting ideas, with no agreed way of confirming or rejecting them, and believers of each rejecting all the others - an impasse. Whilst we might be missing out on some great truth here, the fact that the religious landscape is one of confusion and contradiction means that we have no reliable way of knowing which this true revelation is, if any.

By contrast, when we hold a belief based upon reason, we can explain why we think the premises to be true based upon our evidence, and demonstrate that the argument is a sound one. The appearance of new evidence would perhaps cause us to revise or reject our argument, and hence our belief. Others can examine our evidence, and our reasoning, and either agree with the conclusion, or explain to us why we have gone astray. Hence, this way of seeking the truth is open to revision, and is therefore error correcting.

Some may argue that intuition is a reliable way to seek the truth. However, this is contentious. It does seem that, under certain circumstances, the processing that the brain does behind the scenes when we intuit leads to rapid and correct judgements. Also, our intuition may sometimes give us with a good direction in which to take our more formal reasoning. However, our intuition can also be highly unreliable. For example, studies have shown that the face to face interview is a poor predictor of how well an employee or student will perform. Computer programmes can do far better than this when they choose based upon a set of fine-tuned preferred criteria and a large range of relevant candidate data. Psychologists such as Richard Wiseman and Stuart Sutherland have studied and written about this at length.

Of course, this does leave open the question of why we should seek the truth at all. I think that there is probably no knockdown argument for this, but there a few possible answers. Perhaps having true beliefs helps us to improve the lot of humankind? After all, the advances that have happened in medical science have helped to prevent and relieve a huge amount of suffering. Before this, we really had no reliable way to deal with illness. Furthermore, if one has unjustifiable beliefs (either metaphysically or morally) then perhaps one is more open to committing or supporting the committing of atrocities. I think that Voltaire said: "Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities".

So, in general, I am inclined to think that cherishing and seeking truth (or, at least, belief justified by reason) about the universe, ourselves, and the human condition tends to lead to an improvement in conditions for humanity. Beyond that, there is the rather more tenuous idea that we find ourselves at large in a mysterious universe, so perhaps we have some sort of an obligation to try to understand it. Having said all of this, I think that one can make a good case that there is some knowledge that might be so dangerous that we would be better of not knowing it.

For example, I think that one could make a persuasive case that the knowledge of how to make nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons is so dangerous that we might have been better to have never acquired it.

One could object to this assertion in the following way:

1) This knowledge has also given us very useful and benign spin-offs that have been beneficial to humanity.
2) It was inevitable that we would acquire this knowledge anyway.

However, if this knowledge causes humanity to wipe itself out (as well as most or all of the other animals on the planet), as it may yet do, then I think that this would qualify as knowledge that is so dangerous that we would have been better off not knowing it.

I think it is clearly the case that humanity's inquisitiveness, ingenuity, and intelligence have enabled our knowledge and technology to increase at an exponential rate. However, any corresponding reduction in our belligerence, territoriality, xenophobia, irrationality, and our desire to control and dominate others has been far less marked, or perhaps negligible. This might yet be a deadly combination for humanity. To paraphrase Sam Harris, I think that humanity is approaching a bottleneck, and it is not at all clear that we will get through it.

Is God the simplist explanation?

2008-02-17T18:36:00.005Z

Occam's razor is a very useful rule of thumb, or working methodology, to employ when we are attempting to adjudicate between competing explanations for something. It states that theoretical entities are not to be multiplied beyond necessity when attempting to explain observations. An alternative, broader, formulation is that, other things being equal, we should prefer a simpler explanation. That is, if we have two explanations that explain all the observations, then we should favour the simpler of the two. It is used extensively in science, but needn't be limited to that sphere.

We must be careful not to be misled by the notion of simplicity in Occam’s razor. Simplicity is not usually taken to be a metaphysical implication from the razor. That is, we are not presuming that the universe is inherently simple, and that therefore only simple explanations can be correct. Furthermore, we need to be careful to properly consider any implicit assumptions in our hypotheses.

When we examine the first formulation of Occam’s razor, we are really saying that we cannot assert what we don't know - we only assert what we actually have some proof for. Hence, if you do not need a particular entity to explain all that we observe, then you cannot claim observations support that entity's existence. For example, if I consider the theory of powered flight, I might say that it is explained by our current theories of aerodynamics. Alternatively, I might hypothesise that it requires one additional element: the assistance of invisible, intangible angels to help support the wings. However, this latter explanation falls foul of Occam’s razor, as I am asserting the existence of some entity for which I have no proof, and which is not required to explain the observations, as they are explained fully by our current theories. So, the razor cuts away these superfluous entities.

If I look at the second formulation, then another example might be hearing a knock at my door and, upon opening it, finding the postman standing there with a package for me. Given this, I might reasonably deduce that it was the postman who knocked at my door. However, it is possible that somebody else knocked at my door, but then ran away before I opened it. In the meantime, the postman arrived, but didn’t have chance to knock. However, this latter explanation, whilst possible, is far less parsimonious, and requires the introduction of additional ad-hoc elements for which I have no independent proof. Hence, Occam's razor would favour the first explanation.

These examples illustrate the reasons for the application of Occam’s razor: pragmatic ones. Firstly, if I am to introduce additional ad hoc elements to some explanation, then I could invent an infinity of competing explanations for some observation or other. I could concoct a huge number of explanations for the knock at my door by introducing ad hoc elements. However, only one is the simplest and requires no unprovable additional elements. If I do not give preference to this explanation, then I am in a hopeless position: a countless number of competing explanations that all account for the observations, with no way to discriminate between them.

In addition, we should prefer simpler explanations as these are the easiest for us, as humans, to deal with. They are more amenable to testing, and easier to model. Again, this does not mean that the simplest explanation is necessarily the correct one. In reality, this is often not the case, but we should only proceed along the route to complexity when it is called for by the observations.

Now, I believe that we can apply Occam’s razor to the question of the existence of God. If I can show that belief in God requires the introduction of more entities and assumptions than does a purely naturalistic explanation, then Occam’s razor will favour the naturalistic explanation.

Interestingly, Occam was able to reconcile his razor with belief in God. However, I think it is likely that he took belief in God to be an exception to his razor, as he considered it to be self-evident, and therefore above consideration.

Following the Christian convention, I am defining God to be:

· Omnipotent
· Omniscient
· Omnibenevolent
· The uncreated creator of the universe
· Specifically concerned with human beings
· Essentially immaterial or non-physical
· A person (hence the 3 persons of the Trinity)

When we consider the origin of the universe, there is superficial sense in which attributing this to God appears to be a parsimonious hypothesis. It certainly seems simpler: God did it much less messy and complicated than all sorts of cosmological and evolutionary theories. However, when we unpack the God hypothesis, it becomes obvious that this initial impression of simplicity is quite mistaken, as it contains many implications and implicit assumptions.

Rather than being parsimonious, the God hypothesis is actually a hugely extravagant and bloated hypothesis. In order to explain the existence of the material universe, which is all we actually know to exist, it posits the existence of some other unseen supernatural realm that includes such entities as souls, heaven, hell, angels, as well as God itself – none of which have any independent proof of existence. This quite definitely falls foul of Ockham’s razor.

In order to reconcile the God hypothesis with the type of universe and world that we actually see, we are forced to introduce a huge number of ad hoc assumptions to our God hypothesis. Why would God make a universe for us that is so big, almost entirely lethal to life, and that took billions of years to evolve? Why not make it all in one go, far smaller, and just right for us? In fact, why create a universe at all – why does God have any need for a universe. We could just be in heaven instead. Again, this falls foul of Occam’s razor, and we need to introduce all sorts of ad hoc elements in order answer questions such as these.

Furthermore, why does an omniscient, omnipotent, and omnibenevolent God allow so much evil in the world (both natural and man-made)? Surely this is not what we would expect from the God explanation? Again, we can attempt to explain this away (theodicy), but it requires the introduction of yet more totally ad hoc elements (necessity of free will, encourages virtuousness and spiritual improvement, all part of God’s mysterious plan etc).

One advantage of positing God as the creator of the universe may seem at first sight to be that it avoids the regress problem, as God is defined as the uncaused creator of the universe (and therefore answers the First Cause argument). However, if God can be defined as existing with no cause, then we can simply say the same of the universe, and dispense with God. The universe becomes our ‘brute fact’, rather than God. This is more parsimonious.

All that we really can say for sure is that there is some ultimate entity that exists without cause, and that led to the creation of our universe. The theistic explanation involves positing some immaterial, ultimately complex intelligence that has always existed, without cause, and has a huge number of very particular human characteristics and desires. By contrast, naturalistic explanations currently on the table (e.g. Chaotic Inflation, Smolin’s Multiverse), propose that a multiverse has always existed. These hypotheses are entirely compatible with everything that we know now about physics, are inferred directly from what we know now, predict the type of universe that we see, and do not involve the introduction of ad hoc entities or elements. They are therefore more parsimonious.

You might think that the multiverse is itself an entirely ad hoc entity, and that it is not at all simple, but this would be a mistake. We are not just pulling the idea of a multiverse out of a hat, as our current scientific theories directly imply its existence, with some other new law of nature being required to limit existence to just the universe that we see. Moreover, the term multiverse is a little bit of a misnomer here, as we are still proposing the existence of just one universe. The difference is that this one universe is split into multiple ‘island’ universes, which are being continually created in ‘big bangs’, and of which ours is but one. Furthermore, the multiverse is entirely natural (matter, energy, space, and time), so it is just more of the same things that we already know to exist. By contrast, we have no experience of supernatural universe-creating entities.

The reason that it makes good sense to use Occam’s razor when considering the origin of the universe is that, with the introduction of suitable ad hoc entities and elements, we could concoct an infinite number of competing hypotheses. All could be made to fit the evidence that we see, and any subsequent evidence that turns up. Hence, we would be in a hopeless position, with no rational way to choose between these rival hypotheses, as they would not be testable. This is the case with the usual formulations of the God hypothesis. However, if we can strip away these ad hoc elements, we would hope to be able to test our theories, and home in on the truth.

So, with regard to God being the creator of the universe, I think that Occam’s razor definitely favours proposed naturalistic explanations instead.

There are perhaps other things that we should consider at this juncture. How about alleged divine revelations or miracles? Does this give credence to the God hypothesis, and perhaps make God’s existence a more parsimonious explanation for the evidence? I think not.

Firstly, we have other, natural, explanations for supposed divine revelation. We know from experience that people lie, hallucinate, delude themselves, and can be deceived. In the cases of people who say that they have communicated with God, no good evidence is ever produced. None of these experiences has ever been independently proved beyond reasonable doubt, and they can always be explained by more mundane, non-supernatural means.

Furthermore, religious experience is present in many different religions, and produces largely contradictory and inconsistent claims. How are we to adjudicate between these competing claims? Most or all of them must be false, as they are contradictory (unless God is deliberately sending out such contradictory messages). It would be special pleading to accept any particular claims in the absence of any other good evidence. And, what would good evidence be? Perhaps currently unknown but testable scientific knowledge, for example. Of course, even if such good evidence was ever produced, there is still no way to confirm that such apparent divine revelation is actually coming from God, as opposed to any other entity – supernatural or not.

So, as all we have is what the experiencers tell us is going on in their heads, and this produces inconsistent and contradictory information, the parsimonious conclusion is that there is no divine revelation going on here.

The situation with regard to miracles is similar. We have no good, verifiable evidence that even one miracle has ever taken place in the whole history of humankind. All contemporary miracles have far more mundane explanations – tricks, lies, self-delusion, hallucinations etc. Many have been exposed as such. When we deal with historically recorded miracles, such as those in the Bible (including the Resurrection), the evidence is far worse. The people alive in Biblical times were ignorant of the workings of the universe, and were far more credulous generally, with alleged miracles being commonly witnessed. Furthermore, miracles were not confined to the Jews or the Christians, but were present in many other cultures too.

Moreover, with historical miracles, we have the additional problem of the veracity and authenticity of the historical documents in which they are recorded. The Bible, for example, is full of inconsistencies and contradictions - as would be expected of a book that is a collection of material written often years after the events described, by many different people who were geographically dispersed, and contained much previously oral material.

I would agree with Hume’s dictum on the subject of miracles:

"When anyone tells me, that he saw a dead man restored to life, I immediately consider with myself, whether it be more probable, that this person should either deceive or be deceived, or that the fact, which he relates, should really have happened. I weigh the one miracle against the other; and according to the superiority, which I discover, I pronounce my decision, and always reject the greater miracle. If the falsehood of his testimony would be more miraculous, than the event which he relates; then, and not till then, can he pretend to command my belief or opinion."

So, to summarise, based upon the evidence of the existence of the universe and us, upon supposed divine revelation and miracles, and the evidence of the Bible, I think that Occam’s razor strongly favours purely naturalistic explanations and dispenses with God.

Is any type of god compatible with Occam's razor? As soon as we start to start to drop some of the characteristics typically applied to God, it becomes easier to reconcile the existence of God with what we see when we look at the world.

For example, the problem of evil is a powerful argument against the existence of an omnipotent and omnibenevolent God. However, if we imagine that God is not all good, then the argument loses its power, since God then has no obligation or desire to remove all evil from the world. Likewise, if we imagine that God is not all-powerful then, whilst he might want to get rid of evil, he is might not be capable of doing this.

The argument from divine hiddenness is another powerful argument against the existence of the standard Christian God. Why would God’s existence be unknown to billions of people who have lived, or are alive today? Why wait until the last few thousand years, and then only reveal it to a handful of people in Palestine? None of the people who have never heard of God, or who choose to accept some other religion or none at all can enter heaven. Why would an all good God punish people for eternity for failing to believe in him? Why would God allow some much confusion over his true message to persist in the world? Is this the behaviour of a benevolent ruler who want us to be saved? But, again, if we imagine that God has no interest in human beings, then the argument loses most of its power, as God has no desire to give us such clear and unambiguous information.

So, once we start dropping the characteristics of omnipotence, omnibenevolence, omniscience, and interest in human beings, then God becomes much more inscrutable. It is difficult to predict what type of universe such a god would create. For example, our type of universe (very old, very big, and almost entirely lethal for us) might be compatible with such a god.

Furthermore, the concepts of the Holy Trinity and Incarnation would seem to be logically incoherent. How can God be at once immaterial, and a person? How can God be three distinct entities and, at the same time, just one entity? How can Jesus have been both God and man at the same time? Christian theologists have wrestled with these types of questions for hundreds of years, and are still in disagreement. However, if we dispense with the idea of the Trinity, of God being a person, and of Jesus being both man and God, then these problems evaporate.
What about divine revelation and miracles? As I wrote in a previous post, I think that reason and evidence leads us to reject these claims anyway. Moreover, a god who has no interest in human beings would probably have little use for such parlour tricks anyway.

How about the idea of god having some disembodied conscious mind? Well, we have a huge amount of evidence that consciousness requires a functioning material brain, and no evidence that a mind can exist without such a brain. Of course, we might speculate that disembodied minds can exist, but this itself falls foul of Occam's razor, as we are introducing an additional entity that is not entailed by the observations.

So, what are we left with after all of this? Certainly not the type of personal interventionist God that most Christians believe in. Rather, what we have after stripping away the typical divine and anthropomorphic attributes is some sort of minimal pantheistic type of a god.

This minimal god hypothesis is certainly far less extravagant and bloated than the Christian God hypothesis, and so is more parsimonious. However, even then I think that Occam's razor would still favour a naturalistic explanation. Just by introducing any god at all, we are postulating some sort of unfathomable supernatural entity in order to explain the existence of the material universe. Moreover, introducing this additional entity really gets us nowhere, since we still don't know what that god exists at all, why it has those properties, why it created the universe, and it still doesn't terminate the regress problem any better than does taking the multiverse to be our brute fact.

Personally, I would reject even this minimal type of a god in favour of our universe being created in a 'test tube' by some highly advanced alien civilisation, or of us living in a computer simulation, although I don't regard these as very likely either. However, they would still seem to be more parsimonious then god, since they postulate only natural entities. So, all things considered, I believe that Occam’s razor still favours the naturalistic explanation.

CFI London - Opening Ceremony

2008-01-23T16:04:00.000Z

On Friday 18th January I attended a very interesting day of events for the CFI London Inauguration ceremony (in association with the South Place Ethical Society). Paul Kurtz spoke at the event, as did Stephen Law, Julian Baggini, Nigel Warburton, and others. Richard Dawkins even did an impromptu Q & A session. I have a few nuanced thoughts on some of the issues raised in the talks, and will elaborate on these here.

Stephen Law – Secularism: a Simple Test

His presentation was interesting and enjoyable - definitely one of the better talks of the day. My thoughts relate to a question that I asked him on the possible objection of the religious that secularism could be objected to on the grounds that it is an imposition upon them. Therefore, at the very least, we could be accused of hypocrisy, since we resist having the views of the religious imposed upon us.

My opinion is that a secular state is the best compromise when you have many competing religious and non-religious ideologies in a society, as it prevents the supporters of one idea from gaining total power and suppressing all other dissenting ideas. I think that a healthy society should allow for a marketplace of ideas, with the (perhaps unrealistic) hope that the better ones will eventually win out, but not by suppressing the others. The only ideas ruled out of court in such an environment would be those that violate people's basic human rights (a slightly slippery topic that I address more here), or the harm principle.

So, for example, intolerance of and discrimination against others based upon their sex, race, or sexual persuasion would not be tolerated, whatever the teachings of the ideology in question might say to the contrary. The reason for this is that these characteristics of a human being have no relevance to the ethical treatment that they should expect to receive from others. In other words, they are entirely arbitrary distinctions, and thus have no moral bearing whatsoever. One might as well discriminate against others based upon the fact that they are tall, have curly hair, or were born in Belgium. In order to justify such discrimination, I would need to do a lot of work to show why possession of any of these particular characteristics makes such people deserving of less moral consideration. I can't just make it so by my own fiat. If we allow people to discriminate against others based upon morally irrelevant criteria, then history shows that we are legislating for mass oppression, and possible genocide. In general terms, we are increasing the total sum of human misery, which is the antithesis of an enlightened morality.

There are, of course, morally relevant criteria for discriminating against others. We discriminate against children by not allowing them to drive, for example. But this is for the very good reason that allowing this would most likely lead to a big increase in road fatalities. We discriminate against convicted murderers by restricting their freedoms of movement. But, again, this is for the very good reason that not placing this restriction upon them very much increases the chances of them killing again. We discriminate against people with no medical knowledge when we prevent them from becoming surgeons but, again, the reasons are obvious and justifiable.

Despite what I have said, some religious people would attempt to justify their treatment of women, homosexuals, or non-believers based upon what is written in their holy books, taught by their religious leaders, or what they just 'know' that their god wants. This strategy fails, however, for the following reasons:

The morality's authority rests upon it being of divine origin. Without that, it becomes just another human creation, with no particular reason to obey it. Unlike a secular morality, for which we can attempt a justification by appeal to reason and evidence, the morality of divine commands rest entirely on the presumption that it is handed down by god. Take this away, and you are left with nothing. However, there are very good reasons for doubting that such a divine lawgiver exists at all. So, there seems to be no reason why I or anybody else who doubts god's existence should unquestioningly follow such a morality, or allow it to be imposed upon us or on society as a whole.
Furthermore, the believer also has no way to know for sure that their god exists. They cannot rely upon philosophical arguments for god's existence, or upon historical evidence of events, miracles or suchlike, since these are all highly contentious. Nor can they rely upon the fact that they are told about god by authority figures in their religion, since these people may themselves be wrong. As to the belief that they communicate with god by prayer or otherwise, they can never know for sure that these feelings are not just a product of their own mind. And the final knockdown argument here is that even if we were to grant, for the sake of argument, some supernatural communication, the believer has no way to ever know that they are not being deceived by some evil demon. If they are being deceived in such a way, then they would have very good reason to not follow the demon's moral commands, since we would expect such commands to be bad. Hence, believers cannot absolve themselves of moral responsibility by thinking that they are just following the commands of their god. They are in the same position as non-believers, in that they must justify their morality by reference to some other moral yardstick.

I list several more reasons for rejecting religious morality here, so I won't repeat myself. Suffice it to say that the case for a divine command theory of morality is very weak.

In the secular society that I propose, free speech would not be curtailed, unless it causes direct harm to others. Moreover, in this context, taking offence does not count as harm. To see why, consider that in any society where a marketplace of ideas is encouraged, people will inevitably take offence at the opinions of others. In particular, different religions make contradictory and incompatible claims about the world, and what we should think, say, and do. Therefore, believers from different religions risk causing offence to each other just by following their own rules. And, of course, non-believers risk causing offence by not following the strictures of any religion. The only way around this is for one religion to gain total control, and force all people to adhere to it - a theocracy. However, this is the worst case scenario for all non-believers and believers of other religions. So, even for the religious, a secular free society gives them the best chance to coexist.

However, by their very nature, many religions are intolerant and crusading, and would dearly like to dominate a society, so we must be very careful in a secular society to not start along the road to appeasement, where we gradually concede our hard-won freedoms. The best way to avoid this is to allow vigorous debate on all ideas. Ideas and beliefs must always be open to criticism and ridicule, for that is part of the process towards winnowing out bad ideas and false beliefs. There is a difference between criticising a person, and criticising their ideas and beliefs, and I have no obligation to avoid doing the latter in order to respect their sensibilities. The reason for this is that beliefs are actions waiting to happen. As Voltaire said: "Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities". The men who flew the planes into the Towers on 9/11 believed absurdities, and committed atrocities. I think that society has an obligation to allow such absurd beliefs to be attacked by others, in the hope that people will see them for the crass and dangerous nonsense that they are. If we tolerate intolerance, then we sow the seeds of our own destruction.

Of course, there is one other way that, in principle, might be better than a secular society. If we imagine for a moment that we are in possession of the truth regarding the universe, morality, politics, human nature etc., and know how to organise, run, and educate a state in accordance with this knowledge. In such a case, should this not trump a secular state - in which competing ideas are allowed? After all, if people are allowed to indulge their false beliefs, then you risk having your progress towards the ideal state retarded or reversed. Under this scenario, it is for the benefit of everyone if they are forced to comply with the ideal. This is what Stalin and Mao thought, and is what many religious fundamentalists think too.

There are, however, two very big problems with this line of thought. Firstly, as history has shown in the case of communist states and theocracies, human nature is such that implementing these ideologies always leads to totalitarianism and oppression. This then becomes self-refuting, since such an oppressive and totalitarian state cannot reasonably be held up as the best one conceivable (unless by some very skewed moral yardstick). Moreover, there is no evidence that sticking with the plan eventually removes the need for totalitarianism. Rather, it seems to become self-perpetuating, with a small ruling elite exercising complete control over the lives of all the other citizens.

Secondly, there is no way to be absolutely sure that one's 'truth' is actually true. This latter statement would be denied by some fundamentalist religious believers, who do feel that they have a monopoly on the truth, and have a (literally) god-given right to impose this on others. Some such people would like to see society run according to their religious rules, with no opposition from competing religious or secular ideas. According to their thinking, it does actually make perfect sense for them to strive for this goal, since their god (who supposedly created the universe, and set up our moral code) commands it. If you are that sure of being in the right, then it must indeed seem that you are on a mission. Such a course of action, though, does necessarily presuppose that one is absolutely sure of the veracity of one's position. Without this, one would be guilty of a terrible injustice.

However, as I have shown, the burden of proof has definitely not been met by the religious apologists. Further, even if one could somehow meet the burden of proof required to support the existence of some inscrutable universe-creating entity (e.g. by using the fine-tuning argument), then it does not in any way follow that this universe creating entity is Yahweh or Allah. A great deal more work needs to be done in order to reach this conclusion.

Many people justify their belief in god by reasons other than the intellectual. They might, for example, believe that they commune with god, through prayer or otherwise, and that these religious experiences offer incontrovertible proof to them of god's existence (coincidentally, almost always this is the god of their local culture). They often say that if we atheists were open to such experiences, then we would also know that god exists. However, there are alternative explanations on the table that cannot be ruled out. As I have already said, perhaps their religious experiences are all in their mind. How might they persuade us otherwise? Perhaps they have knowledge that they could not have acquired from any other source? Perhaps there is good evidence of prayers being answered? If so, then no evidence of this has yet been forthcoming, and intercessionary prayer studies are either negative or inconclusive. And, as I said earlier, they can never actually be sure that they are not being deceived by some evil demon (not that I think these exist either).

Consequently, I believe that for believers to pursue a totalitarian strategy based upon the supposed commands from their god is indefensible, as its premises are so open to doubt. It goes without saying that we atheists need have no confidence that the believers are party to some great cosmic truth, and should therefore resist any such impositions. A secular society is in the best interests of us all, so this is what we should strive to achieve and maintain.

Mark Vernon – A Case for Agnosticism

One of the other presentations at the CFI event was by Mark Vernon, entitled: ‘A Case for Agnosticism’. I have read some of Vernon’s articles on the Guardian’s CIF site, where he seems to imply that he has adopted the intellectual and moral high ground by deciding to be agnostic rather than atheist (he was formerly a priest, then an atheist, and now an agnostic). I was therefore interested to hear what his case would be for this position.

Well, he does come across as an affable enough chap, but his arguments were very weak in my opinion - consisting of little more than non sequiturs, repetitions of the tired old canards about ‘militant’ atheism and scientism, and the need for religion to underpin morality. I don’t have a transcript or recording of his presentation, so I hope that I am not misrepresenting him here, but his arguments for agnosticism seemed to boil down to the following:

The ‘new’ atheists such as Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens etc. are militant and aggressive. Therefore Vernon does not want to be an atheist.

Well, it doesn’t take too much effort to figure out why this is a non sequitur. The belief in the existence of god is a metaphysical position, and its veracity or otherwise is not in any way connected to whether ones likes the people who believe it. After all, Hitler probably believed that London is the capital of England, but the fact that he was a nasty piece of work in no way disproves this belief, or causes me to reject it. For the record, I don't find the so-called militant atheists to be objectionable. Rather, I feel that they are merely attempting to take part in this debate with an honesty and passion that is the norm in political and other forums.

Some religious people are very nice (some nuns in the north of England were mentioned in support of this claim), so Vernon does not want to be an atheist.

Again, this is a non sequitur. Some religious people are kind, altruistic, and selfless. But, so are some atheists. The converse is also true. More importantly, the existence of god cannot be inferred from the existence of some nice religious people – the two are entirely independent of each other. As to Vernon’s implication that religion is needed for morality, I have refuted this ubiquitous fallacy elsewhere.

Atheism requires one to be absolutely sure that god does not exist. The non-existence of god cannot be proved, therefore Vernon's agnosticism is the best option.

This tired old canard is repeated ad infinitum, often in the related form that atheism is a ‘faith’ position too. There are three fundamental problems with this line of thinking. Firstly, atheism does not call for such a proof of god’s non existence. Once we move away from the a priori truths of formal logic, and into the outside world, absolute proof of hypotheses is no longer possible. If absolute proof was required, then atheism would cease to have any meaning at all, as it would be an untenable position. If one has no good reasons for believing in god, and lots of good reasons for disbelieving (which is how I would assess the actual situation), then one can be classified as an atheist. Thus, the atheist does not profess absolute certainty that god does not exist but, rather, believes god’s existence to be so unlikely as to be practically negligible.

If we were to follow Vernon’s example, then we would have to be strictly agnostic about the existence of an infinite number of entities. According to his logic, as long as we couldn't prove their non-existence, then we would need to adopt an agnostic stance. Is he similarly agnostic about the existence of Neptune, Thor, and fairies? I have no good reason to believe that they exist, and plenty of good reasons to believe that they don’t. Therefore, as with the Christian god, I dismiss them as possibilities, even though I cannot prove their non-existence. The discovery of good evidence to the contrary might lead me to revise my position, but for now I am happy to reject their existence.

Secondly, agnosticism is the absence of knowledge, and this implies that we are therefore unable to make any judgement at all. We must adopt a state of complete indecision regarding the hypothesis in question. However, this is generally not the case in practice. When assessing a hypothesis, such as the existence of some supernatural being, we are usually able to make a judgement by weighing up the evidence for and against it, looking at whether we can confirm predictions made by the hypothesis about what we would expect to find and not find, and by examining its plausibility and parsimony. These afford us degrees of certainty about the hypothesis in question (from highly unlikely, such as the belief that Elvis is still alive, to highly likely, such has the belief that the Earth is not flat). Whilst we can never absolutely prove that god exists, or absolutely disprove it, I believe that we can be very confident that it doesn't. Hence, atheism is justified. And, when you think about it, how else can we show that something does not exist than to find no evidence of its existence when we look for it in the expected places?

One final point is that the burden of proof rests with the theist here, since they are postulating the existence of some supernatural entity and realm (a la Russell’s teapot). When physicists postulate the existence of atoms, which we cannot see with the naked eye, they are able to give us highly credible and convincing evidence and arguments to support their claims, that we can check for ourselves. When theists talk about god, they are able to offer us nothing in support of this claim other than some deeply flawed metaphysical arguments, a few highly contentious historical documents, and very subjective and unverifiable feelings of talking to god. This fails to come anywhere near to meeting the burden of proof required.

Scientists do not know how and why the universe began, or even if it has always existed. Because of this great mystery, Vernon chooses to be an agnostic.

As Stephen Law put it very succinctly when he questioned Vernon, Sherlock Holmes may not know who killed the murder victim, but he may nevertheless be able to conclusively rule out the butler. And so it is with god. We may not know the origins of the universe, but I think that we can be pretty sure that it wasn't created by the Christian god. To believe so creates more questions than it answers, and is so arbitrary. Why choose this god, and not one of the multitude of others that have been hypothesised? It seems to be nothing but special pleading.

I should say that I am not really happy defining my beliefs in reference to somebody else's metaphysical framework with which I disagree. Therefore, I prefer to think of myself as a naturalist rather than an atheist. There are an infinity of supernatural agents whose existence I doubt, but I do not define myself in their terms. One further point is that people sometimes tend towards agnosticism as it seems to be the middle ground - neither at one extreme nor the other. So, in some sense it seems more reasonable and less arrogant. However, it should be remembered that sometimes the extreme position is the correct one. For example, if I believe the earth to be round, and you believe it to be flat, the truth is not somewhere in between - the earth's a little bit round. Rather, the truth is one of the extreme positions. Such, I believe, is the case with atheism.

So, to sum up, I found Vernon’s case for agnosticism to be weak and specious, so I am not convinced.

Daphne Hampson – Enlightenment 2008

Perhaps the strangest talk of the day was that by Daphne Hampson – a theologist, feminist, and postmodernist. As one might expect from the confluence of such ideologies, her religious views are far from mainstream.

She believes Christianity to be deeply patriarchal and sexist, and the resurrection of Jesus to be untrue. Therefore she rejects the Christian faith. So far, so good. However, she still believes in some concept of god, the power of prayer, and other supernatural actors and actions. In her words:

"I am a Western person, living in a post-Christian age, who has taken something with me from Christian thinkers, but who has rejected the Christian myth. Indeed I want to go a lot further than that. The myth is not neutral; it is highly dangerous. It is a brilliant, subtle, elaborate, male cultural projection, calculated to legitimise a patriarchal world and to enable men to find their way within it. We need to see it for what it is. But for myself I am a spiritual person, not an atheist. I am amazed at this 'other dimension of reality' in which there is; which allows healing, extra-sensory perception, and things to fall into place. I am quite clear there is an underlying goodness, beauty and order; that it is powerful, such that we can draw on it, while we are inter-related with it. I call that God."

Christians criticize Hampson for privileging Enlightenment values such as reason over Christian orthodoxy. However, her reason seems to be applied rather inconsistently, in that she uses it to reject Supernatural events such as the Resurrection, but fails to apply it to questions of god’s existence, the effects of prayer, and the existence of ESP.

As befits a follower of continental philosophy, Hampson’s concept of god seems to be obscure and devoid of meaning. She defines her god as some fuzzy, nebulous “underlying goodness, beauty and order; that it is powerful, such that we can draw on it, while we are inter-related with it”. This amounts to no more than some vague teleological speculation about some inscrutable other dimension, and is not worth our trouble to analyse any further. Nevertheless, her proposition of some ‘other dimension of reality’ does include such features such as intercessionary prayer and ESP - which are open to empirical testing, and thus falsification. Moreover, when such testing has been done, the results have not supported these claims. See, for example, this article about the results of a large study into intercessionary prayer. When Hampson was challenged by a member of the audience about testing her claims scientifically, she gave a rather waffling and unintelligible answer.

I would suggest that her hypothesis has already been falsified beyond reasonable doubt (although this could change in light of some future evidence), and feel that she is being rather disingenuous if she will not concede this. Perhaps she needs to apply some of her much-vaunted reason in order to correct her erroneous beliefs.

As one final point, I noticed that Hampson mentioned some innocuous word or other (innocuous to me at any rate but, then again, I am a man) that she thought was intrinsically sexist, and this put me in mind of Luce Irigaray – another postmodern theorist. She famously said that Einstein’s equation E=mc2:

“privileges the speed of light over other speeds that are vitally necessary to us. What seems to me to indicate the possibly sexed nature of the equation is not directly its uses by nuclear weapons, rather its having privileged what goes the fastest ... “

I never cease to be amazed at the contrived examples of sexism given by some feminists. But what really dumbfounds me is incredible feat of mental gymnastics evidenced by some liberal-left feminists in being at once hyper-sensitive to imagined sexist transgressions in Western society, but in a state of complete denial when it comes to some of the most egregious examples of genuine sexism. I refer of course to some of the deeply patriarchal and intrinsically sexist Muslim cultures, in which women are routinely subject to genital mutilation, honour killings, forced marriages, severe restrictions on the freedoms of movement, dress, and speech, and chance of an education. Such liberal-left feminists are so blinded by their adherence to the deeply flawed ideology of cultural relativism that they refuse to acknowledge the terrible injustices perpetrated on women in many Islamic cultures.

Such thinking is profoundly fallacious, for a number of reasons.

Firstly, even though we have yet to reach a universal consensus on the best possible morality, any such system is unlikely to include overt sexism, homophobia, oppression, subjugation, and inequality. And yet these constituents feature heavily in the approved morality of radical Islamic countries. Hence, I think that we are entirely justified in judging such moral systems to be reprehensible. I have more to say about morality here.
The United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights is a commendable attempt to formally codify basic concepts of human rights. The treatment of citizens (women in particular) in many Muslim countries routinely breaches their human rights, as defined in this document. For human rights to be universal, they need to be applied universally. Therefore, if we are happy to criticise any breaches of human rights in the Western world, we should be equally prepared to criticise them when they occur elsewhere.
It should be remembered that culture and state is a transient and mutable thing – a set of traditions, religious and political ideologies, and individual, tribal and group power struggles. If a culture or state is oppressive, patriarchal, or tyrannical, there is no reason why its citizens should be forced to endure it.
It should be further borne in mind that nobody chose to be born into a particular culture and state. The misfortune of being born a woman into a repressive, misogynist society should not condemn one to eke out a miserable life under the rule of one’s father, brothers, and husband (arranged), and to have no freedom of dress, movement, and speech. Such women live under the threat of being beaten, or even killed, if they transgress one of the many religious and cultural rules that govern their existence.
I would go as far as to say that such cultural relativism is a form of insidious racism: “we wouldn’t want to live like that, but it’s alright for them as it is part of their culture”.
Such cultural relativism is often born out of misplaced feelings of guilt for being (white)middle-class citizens of countries that are seen as being part of the ‘imperialist’ West. In such a worldview, Muslim states are seen as being victims of the West’s imperialist aggression, and can thus be excused anything. However, it should be remembered that aggression, intolerance, and lust for power are universal human traits, and are not unique to the West. Where we find abuses of human rights, we should condemn them consistently – whether they occur here, or in Muslim counties (or, for that matter, in communist countries). Whilst the West has its own problems with human rights issues, there is no moral equivalency between these and the problems in many Islamic countries (or, for that matter, with those of the current and former communist countries). The residual problems of sexism, racism, homophobia and suchlike still present in our western democratic societies are in no way comparible to that in some Muslim countries, where one can be stoned to death for being gay, acting 'inappropiately' as a women, or the imaginary crimes of blasphemy and apostacy.
It is truly mind-boggling that some sections of the liberal-left, which should be the supporter of such worthy aims as universal freedom and equality, have managed to reengineer their worldview to such an extent that it now condones repressive, patriarchal, racist, and homophobic societies (for a notable counter-example of someone from the liberal-left who condemns oppression and exposes nonesense, see here).

Azar Majedi - Minority Rights vs Citizen Rights

Azar gave an impassioned presentation, in which she argued that we must resist the imperialist ambitions of political and religious Islam, not turn a blind eye to the human rights abuses happening in Muslim countries, and not appease radical Muslims who live in the West.

She has a particular issue with attempts to instigate Sharia Law in the West. In this, I agree with her unreservedly. A recent poll in the UK indicated the 40% of the Muslims questioned would like to see the introduction of Sharia Law into parts of Britain. This is something that we should oppose unreservedly, as by allowing it to be introduced we would be permitting the removal of what we would call basic human rights for those people under its proposed rule. Whilst we can probably do little to remove it in places such as Iran and Saudi Arabia, we should never permit it to exist in the West. The rights of those who would be condemned to death for imaginary or non crimes trump the rights of those who wish to impose such penalties. Benign cultural differences should of course be tolerated in pluralistic societies such as ours, but we must draw the line at the abuse of basic human rights. Sharia Law codifies and enshrines into law the type of barbaric rules found in the Koran and Hadith (similar ones can be found in the Bible as well), such as the inferiority of women, strict limitations on free speech, and penalties of death for apostasy, adultery, and homosexuality. Those in any doubt as to how it operates in practise should read articles such as this.

I have much more to say about Islam here.

Biblical Interpretation - part 2

2007-11-22T12:36:00.000Z

In response to an article on the Guardian Comment is Free site, I made some comments that cover related ground to my previous post. Here they are.

In response to the comment “Fundamentalist Christians and fundamentalist atheists share the same delusion: they take the Bible far too seriously.”, I said:

I agree that Fundamentalist Christians take the Bible far too seriously. However, I would extend this to all Christians. By contrast, I do not take the Bible seriously at all. This is because I believe it to be just a book written by humans, and disagree that it contains any divine message, since I doubt the existence of the Christian God (for the record, I also doubt that the historical Jesus ever existed). However, I am forced to refer to it if I want to debate Christians, since so many of them continue to justify their beliefs and actions by reference to the Bible.

That Christians have felt able to do this has historically allowed them to justify the oppression, torture, and killing of so-called heretics, apostates and other undesirables. Even such Christian luminaries as Augustine, Aquinas, Calvin, and Luther felt justified in sanctioning such atrocious actions by reference to the Bible. Perhaps you feel better qualified then these religious scholars to determine how the Christian faith should be interpreted.

“But you still seem strangely hung up on the letter of the text.”

As I said previously, I am only responding to those Christians who insist on quoting chapter and verse in order to justify their beliefs and actions.

“Most Christians couldn't care less about Leviticus, frankly: they haven't read it, and wouldn't know what to make of it if they did.”

Let’s face it, most Christians have barely read the Bible at all. Rather, their epistemology consists of one of the varieties of Christianity that they have taken as an off-the-shelf package (most likely the one into which they were born), and then made their own unskilled adjustments to.

Beyond that, those people who tend to see the world in black and white terms, and who wish to justify their own tendencies towards intolerance and smiting their neighbours will find plenty of support in the Old Testament. They might further believe that the Bible is the inerrant word of God, will generally ignore the fact that it is full of contradictions and inconsistencies, and will have a faith that is largely unshakable in the face of contrary evidence.

On the other hand, those who see the world in much more grey terms, and who wish to justify their liberal tendencies will find more material in the New Testament. They will probably refer rather less to the Bible, as they are aware that it is a can of worms. However, they work very hard to come up with theological justifications for ignoring whole tracts of the Bible (including most of the Old Testament), and interpreting much of what remains. Nevertheless, when they do find something that they agree with, they will happily quote it – as if it can be used to justify some moral precept or other. This rather ignores the fact that it is rather ridiculous to attempt justify some moral or epistemological belief by reference to the Bible if, at the same time, they are forced to ignore all the passages that flatly contradict what they are saying. It is nothing but cherry picking. Anybody who attempted to do such things in other areas (science, law etc) by reference to other books would be laughed at.

Nevertheless, for atheists and people of other religions, they are far preferable to the first sort of Christian, since they are far less inclined towards oppression, torture, and killing. They are also far more likely to doubt their faith. Fortunately, in the more secular Western societies, this type of liberal Christian is currently in the majority.

Most Christians will then also go through such mental pirouettes as are needed in order to reconcile contradictions such as:

1. They believe that their god is onmibenevolent, but the god of the Old Testament is clearly described as a jealous, vindictive, petty, and bloodthirsty tyrant.

2. They further believe that their god is omniscient and omnipotent, and yet it allows a vast amount of human and animal suffering in the world – both man made and natural. The system created by their god is one in which animals must kill and eat each other in order to survive, and most humans and animals throughout all history have led short, painful, and brutish lives. They attempt to explain this away (theodicy) by appeal to such things as human free will (which, in the face of determinism is likely illusory, but is anyway irrelevant in the case of suffering caused by natural disasters etc.), or the benefits of suffering in terms of encouraging more virtue (an abhorrent idea that is just an entirely ad-hoc excuse, and anyway doesn't come close to justifying the vast quantity of suffering in the World, and its indiscriminate distribution. And, why should the cultivation of virtue or courage be worth all that suffering? Couldn't God just make us virtuous or courageous from the start?).

3. They believe that God wants us to understand his message, and thus to be saved. And yet, he only revealed this message to a tiny number of people in the distant past. Furthermore, this message was, or has become, confused and ambiguous. Moreover, the evidence for his existence is very weak. Hence, millions of people have never heard this message, or have rejected it. They will therefore not be saved, as they either have some other religion, or no religion at all. How could an all-powerful and all-loving god allow this state of affairs to persist?

4. They believe that their god would create a universe that is unimaginably old, huge, and lethal to life just so that one species of lifeform could eventually evolve on a planet orbiting an ordinary star – amongst countless billions of stars in billions of galaxies. The stated purpose of this lifeform’s existence is just to give praise to this god.

5. They believe that they can communicate with their god by means of prayer, but only seem to receive banal, unverifiable, or contradictory messages. For example, some are apparently told to help relieve human suffering, whilst others are told to rape and murder women.

6. To quote Richard Carrier, they believe that there is a "disembodied, universally present being with magical powers; that this superbeing actually conjured and fabricated the present universe from nothing; that we have souls that survive the death of our bodies (or that our bodies will be rebuilt in the distant future by this invisible superbeing); and that this being possessed the body of Jesus two thousand years ago, who then performed supernatural deeds before miraculously rising from the grave to chat with his friends, and then flew up into outer space." This they believe in the complete absence of any remotely compelling evidence.

7. They believe that their religion is the source of human morality, and that without it we should all lose our moral compass. This is despite the fact that such basic moral foundations as reciprocal altruism and prohibitions upon murder are present in almost all societies - primitive or complex, Christian or otherwise (and is even seen in some primate societies). Moreover, the Ancient Greeks had a very well developed ethical system long before the Christians came along. Further, there is very good data that shows a strong positive correlation between a society’s level of religiousity and the prevalence of all sorts of ills – crime, illiteracy, mortality rates etc. This doesn't necessarily imply a causual relationship, but it does completely undermine the idea that morality is dependent upon religion. More on the subject of morality here.

8. In the face of such weak reasons for believing in this god as opposed to any other, or to none, they say that unquestioning belief by ‘faith’ is a virtue. Moreover, those who choose not to believe by means of faith run the risk of everlasting torment in a Hell created by their omnibenevolent god. As St. Anselm of Canterbury said, theology is fides quaerens intellectum (faith seeking understanding). This neatly summarises its baselessness. Furthermore, why should this type of faith (i.e. belief contrary to, or in the absence of evidence) be seen as something that is intrinsically valuable? Why would God wish to cultivate such an apparently counter-productive tendency? Of course, it is very convenient when your central thesis is one that does run counter to the evidence.

“Law, I'm not so sure”.

On reflection, I’ll grant you that. Science is to me much closer to the ideal model for how to seek knowledge. To quote Richard Carrier (by the way, I would highly recommend reading the whole article), this is how it works:

“Long ago, people could make up any theories they wanted. As long as their theory fit the evidence, it was thought credible. But an infinite number of incompatible theories can fit the evidence. We can design a zillion religions that fit all the evidence, yet entail Christianity is false. And we can design a zillion secular worldviews that do the same. We could all be brains in a vat. Buddha could have been right. Allah may be the One True God. And so on, ad infinitum. But since only one of these countless theories can be true, it follows that the odds are effectively infinity to one against any theory being true that is merely compatible with the evidence. In other words, not a chance in hell. Therefore, we cannot believe a theory simply because it can be made to fit all the evidence. To do so would effectively guarantee our belief will be false.

Fortunately, people came up with what we now call the scientific method, a way to isolate some of these theories compatible with all the evidence and demonstrate that they are more likely to be true than any of the others. The method works like this (and this is very important): first we come up with a hypothesis that explains everything we have so far observed (and this could be nothing more than a creative guess or even a divine revelation--it doesn't matter where a hypothesis comes from); then we deduce what else would have to be observed, and what could never be observed, if that hypothesis really were true (the most crucial step of all); and then we go and look to see if our predictions are fulfilled in practice. The more they are fulfilled, and the more different ways they are fulfilled, the more likely our hypothesis is true.

But that isn't the end of it. To make sure our theories are more likely the true ones (as any old theory can be twisted to fit even this new evidence), they have to be cumulative--compatible with each other--and every element of a theory has to be in evidence. We can't just "make up" anything. Whatever we make up has to be found in the evidence. For example, when Newton explained the organization of the solar system, he knew he was restricted to theories that built on already proven hypotheses. Every element of his theory of the solar system was proved somewhere, somehow: the law of gravity had an independent demonstration, the actual courses of the planets were well observed and charted, and so on. Nothing in his theory was simply "made up" out of whole cloth. He knew the data on planetary behavior had been multiply confirmed. He knew there was gravity acting at a distance. The rest followed as a matter of course.”

Of course, science is a human endeavour, so it is inevitably subject to such human failings as jealousy, petty rivalries, deference to authority, dogmatic attachment to one’s pet theory etc. However, and this is very important, science is ultimately self-correcting. That’s what makes the scientific method so useful.

Furthermore, and contrary to what the layman might believe, all of science’s theories and laws are only provisional. No matter how well accepted a theory is, and how many times it has passed rigorous testing, the evidence may still be found to refute it. As Popper said, any proper scientific theory should be falsifiable. Hence, scientists are (or should be) never entirely sure of any scientific knowledge. By contrast, what would it take to falsify your Christian belief and cause you to reject it (if, as I assume, you are a Christian)?

“It's about the sort of person who craves certainty, I suppose”

I suspect that you are alluding to the ubiquitous view amongst theists that atheists are fundamental in the disbelief in God. However, in my case (and of other atheists that I know), I am not certain that the Christian god doesn’t exist. Rather, I believe that the arguments for the existence of Christian god in particular (as opposed to some inscrutable universe-creating intelligence) are very weak. They are either logically flawed, or require the inclusion of huge numbers of entirely ad-hoc assumptions in order to square them with the evidence. This process makes the theory unfalsifiable, since the appearance of more contrary evidence will just be explained away by inventing more ad-hoc assumptions. Moreover, the arguments against the existence of the Christian god in particular are very strong.

Hence, I see no reason to favour the existence of the Christian god over an infinity of other gods (or universe-creating intelligences) that I could make up. So, whilst I am not sure that the Christian god doesn’t exist, I consider this likelihood to be so remote as to be safely discounted as an explanation for the existence of us and the universe. The fact that millions of people believe it to be true makes it no more likely to be so. Since millions of religious people have mutually exclusive ideas of creation, it is guaranteed that millions of them are wrong. I would argue that they are all wrong.

The latest scientific thinking is pointing towards the idea that our universe may be just one in an infinite ensemble of island universes that may have always existed. However, we may never be able to know this for sure. So, questions about the any meaning in the existence in the universe may never be answered. In fact we may never know if asking questions like this make any sense at all. On the small scale, we may never be able to penetrate to the smallest constituents of matter, or even know whether such constituents exist. So, in the face of such uncertainty, I am humble in my lack of knowledge. However, I still think that in the (possibly fruitless) search for answers, the concepts of the universe-creating Christian god can be effectively discounted.

“Hang on a minute. How much oppression, torture and killing have Christians been doing lately? That was years ago. Always with the Inquisition”

I think that history, together with a cursory look around our world today, confirms that any totalitarian regime with a dogmatic attachment to a belief system inevitably leads to the oppression, torture, and murder of certain of its citizens. This was the case with Stalin’s Soviet Union, Mao’s China, Hitler’s Germany, and any number of past and current theocracies. The power of Christianity in the West has been very much reduced during the last few hundred years. However, when it had more power, it used it to enforce conformity to its rules (often under pain of death). Evidence from current theocracies (Iran, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan etc.) suggests that this tendency is still alive and well. Even in the States, whilst a lack of religion won’t get you killed (unless at the hands of some lone fundamentalist), it is used in all sorts of insidious ways to make life difficult for atheists. In a recent survey, atheists were identified as the most hated minority in American society.

What I and other atheists are on our guard for is any evidence of a slide away from a secular society, as that is the route away from Enlightenment values such as equality and freedom of speech. We need to be very careful to preserve an effectively secular state (not atheist but secular), as this gives the greatest freedom for all – religious and non-religious alike. If any one religion achieves too much power, then human nature dictates that it will inevitably attempt to coerce others into adherance to that religion.

By the way, it is a fallacy that the atrocities of the communist states in the 20th century are the inevitable result of atheism. Atheism is not an ideology; it is just the absence of religious belief. What happened under Stalin and Mao were the results of totalitarian regimes that held a dogmatic attachment to communist ideals, and set their leaders up as quasi-gods. What I would propose instead is a secular state that is run along humanistic lines. To paraphrase Sam Harris, nobody was ever killed because we became too reasonable.

“I'm not sure about that either. In the sense that they doubt they have all the answers, certainly”

That is indeed what I mean. It seems to me that some liberal Christians must have an unresolved conflict going on in their minds. They would like to believe in some of the fantastical tenets of Christianity (existence of God, virgin birth and resurrection of Jesus, heaven etc.) despite the lack of any good supporting evidence but, in the final analysis, can only justify doing so by means of faith.

Biblical Interpretation

2007-11-20T15:56:00.000Z

This post is in response to a post on Stephen Law's blog - see here. Stephen was referring to a book called Outrageous Tales From the Old Testament, and somebody left a comment to say that:

"...I would just like to say that I find that Christian fundamentalists and secular fundamentalists read the bible in the same way. How do they read it? Entirely without sophistication, unable to appreciate irony, humor, metaphor, or purposeful moral ambiguity. They leave everything they may have ever learned about literature behind them..."

Comments along these lines are often heard from liberal Christians, who believe that the Bible requires their particular interpretation in order to be understood correctly. Here is my reply:

There are a number of problems with such interpretation in general, including, but not limited to the following:

1) Many Biblical passages containing contradictions, absurdities, atrocities, or intolerance of one sort or another are, on the face of it, explicitly clear in their meaning, and are not really open to any alternative interpretations.

2) It might be someone's opinion that such and such Biblical chapter or verse should be interpreted metaphorically or ironically. However, the onus is surely upon this person to justify why the passage should be interpreted in such a way, and not as it is explicitly written. For example, try to do this with the following Biblical quotes:

"He that blasphemeth the name of the LORD, he shall surely be put to death, and all the congregation shall certainly stone him." -- Leviticus 24:16

"They found a man that gathered sticks upon the sabbath day. ... And the LORD said unto Moses, The man shall be surely put to death: all the congregation shall stone him with stones.... And all the congregation brought him without the camp, and stoned him with stones, and he died; as the LORD commanded Moses." Numbers 15:32-56

"Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live." Exodus 22:18

“If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them.” Lev.20:13

“Whosoever would not seek the LORD God of Israel should be put to death, whether small or great, whether man or woman.” 2 Chronicles 15:13“

“If thy brother, the son of thy mother, or thy son, or thy daughter, or the wife of thy bosom, or thy friend, which is as thine own soul, entice thee secretly, saying, Let us go and serve other gods, which thou hast not known, thou, nor thy fathers; Namely, of the gods of the people which are round about you, nigh unto thee, or far off from thee, from the one end of the earth even unto the other end of the earth; Thou shalt not consent unto him, nor hearken unto him; neither shall thine eye pity him, neither shalt thou spare, neither shalt thou conceal him: But thou shalt surely kill him; thine hand shall be first upon him to put him to death, and afterwards the hand of all the people. And thou shalt stone him with stones, that he die.” Deuteronomy 13:6-10

“If a man have a stubborn and rebellious son, which will not obey the voice of his father, or the voice of his mother, and that, when they have chastened him, will not hearken unto them: Then shall his father and his mother lay hold on him, and bring him out unto the elders of his city, and unto the gate of his place; And they shall say unto the elders of his city, This our son is stubborn and rebellious, he will not obey our voice; he is a glutton, and a drunkard. And all the men of his city shall stone him with stones, that he die: so shalt thou put evil away from among you; and all Israel shall hear, and fear.” -- Deuteronomy 21:18-21

3) It is evident that the Liberal Christian only feels the need to ‘interpret’ those passages in the Bible that do not accord with our current knowledge and morality e.g. those containing absurdities or preaching intolerance or hatred.

4) If we are to allow the text of the Bible to be interpreted in such a subjective and personal way, then how are we to discriminate between what can and can't be interpreted in a way other than it is written?

For example, perhaps the rejoinders in the Bible to do good were meant to be ironic, and not to be taken literally? Perhaps the resurrection of Jesus was only metaphorical? Perhaps Jesus didn't exist at all, but was only a myth that was intended to be symbolic? Perhaps even the whole concept of God himself was meant to be interpreted metaphorically?

5) For me, as an atheist, I have no qualms about ignoring what is written in the Bible, as I consider it a ragbag collection of myths, superstitions, historical events, and often highly dubious morality. However, surely the self-professed Christian does not have this luxury?

For example, if God actually does exist (as the Christian must believe), and did explicitly command that Sabbath breakers (or gays, or witches, or people of other religions) should be stoned to death, and the liberal Christian ignores this injunction (thinking it to be ironic or metaphorical), then surely they are running a terrible risk? For, if this command was not intended to be interpreted or ignored, then the liberal Christian risks spending an eternity in Hell? To rework Pascals' Wager, if the Christian unnecessarily keeps the Sabbath, then they have little to lose. However, if they mistakenly do not keep it, then they risk an eternity in Hell.

Furthermore, if these commands were issued by God, then who do the liberal Christians think they are to presume to know better than an omniscient and omnipotent being?

And, on a lighter note, here is a bit of fun to finish with.