A Quick Note on Autonomy…
Autonomy is condemned within the scriptures:
34 And again, verily I say unto you, that which is governed by law is also preserved by law and perfected and sanctified by the same.
35 That which breaketh a law, and abideth not by law, but seeketh to become a law unto itself, and willeth to abide in sin, and altogether abideth in sin, cannot be sanctified by law, neither by mercy, justice, nor judgment. Therefore, they must remain filthy still.
36 All kingdoms have a law given;
37 And there are many kingdoms; for there is no space in the which there is no kingdom; and there is no kingdom in which there is no space, either a greater or a lesser kingdom.
-(D&C 88)
In order to unpack what this means, we should juxtapose autonomy with heteronomy and tutelage – all three of which are (roughly) Kantian terms.
Tutelage is the pre-modern mindset in which law, legitimacy, justification, etc. come down from above. Each person is given a law from some person above them: a noble, an ancestor, a priest, God Himself, etc. (The word for this legitimation from above is “grace”.) This, more than anything else, is what the Enlightenment fought against.
One of the two alternatives that the Enlightenment presented to tutelage was heteronomy. This is basically what classical liberals and most Americans call “freedom” and is essentially a negative freedom where others are not allowed to legislate our lives for us. Thus, the birth, ordination, coronation, etc. of each and every person is essentially irrelevant to the justification for any course of action.
The second alternative to tutelage is autonomy. This alternative is based in the recognition that heteronomy essentially consists either in 1) optimizing our response to external conditions or 2) slavish obedience to our undisciplined passions. In neither case can this be considered freedom in any deep or morally meaningful sense. Indeed, such modes of living are the very definition of “alienation” – the control of our lives from somebody or something outside of ourselves.
Thus, autonomy consists in our conforming to a moral law that we ourselves dictate for ourselves – it is moral self-legislation. Autonomy thus consists, quite literally, in our becoming laws unto ourselves. To be clear, there are collectivist and (somewhat) individualistic versions of this ideal (think Rousseau vs Kant). That said, whether it is participatory democracy or rational self-determination that is being advocated, the essential core remains the same.
The main point of this post is that the Gospel condemns both heteronomy and autonomy as moral ideals. Tutelage to the Celestial King and His “celestial law” is the only condition under which we can enter His Celestial Kingdom. Those who cry for “autonomy” or against “alienation” within the church are greatly confused on this point.
Yes, but this reference doesn’t reference what you add about the source of the law.
Comment by Martin James — July 8, 2016 @ 8:39 am
You’re right that it doesn’t say it explicitly. However, considering the overall premodern mentality and the use of the word “kingdom”, the source that I posit is strongly suggested.
I guess the question is whether God Himself has autonomy or not…. A question I’d rather not get into.
Comment by Jeff G — July 8, 2016 @ 8:44 am
I don’t want to rehash things, but mentioned it because this part is just a little odd from an authority point of view.
“cannot be sanctified by law, neither by mercy, justice, nor judgment.”
It doesn’t necessarily make law external but does seem to restrict the options of the lawgiver.
Comment by Martin James — July 8, 2016 @ 9:05 am
Interesting. Your (fairly mainstream) interpretation entails that not even God has autonomy
Comment by Jeff G — July 8, 2016 @ 10:14 am
My shaky interpreatation is that there is autonomy within the law but not to change the law. I actually think this agrees with you more than disagrees with you relative to current morality in the culture at large.
Comment by Martin James — July 8, 2016 @ 10:25 am
We probably aren’t all that different. My position is that we are granted autonomy within the boundaries set by the moral sovereigns. In the end, this just is a kind of tutelage.
Full autonomy as sought by the political left insists that we are – all of us and equally – the only moral sovereigns… which is totally contrary to the gospel.
Heteronomy insists that there are no moral sovereigns – only moral laws that “just exist” (if they exist at all) independent of all people. This independence of the moral law of all people is exactly what makes this model heteronomous. (It is in this context that a rationalized “expertise” with regards to those objective laws comes to replace moral author-ity.)
I confess, that lot’s of LDS believe in this third version, but (as you well know) I think this is modern (classical) liberal ideology infecting their views.
Comment by Jeff G — July 8, 2016 @ 12:03 pm
This seems fundamentally wrong as it assumes the laws for each kingdom are exhaustive. Almost certainly there are laws you bind yourself to and are left autonomous for the rest. But in that case how can you possibly say, “autonomy is condemned.” Maybe total autonomy but not autonomy.
The second problem I have with this is how you deal with say existentialist ethics. There one is autonomous but in recognizing ones autonomy and the autonomy of others you recognize moral laws. As de Beauvoir says, in recognition of my radical freedom I need others. This leads to working for the material and spiritual needs of others. Even if you reject her ethics there’s the notion of the demand of the other in the existential ethics of say Levinas or others.
In this scheme becoming a law for oneself would be denying the freedom of others. That is you do violence to others.
I’m not saying de Beauvoir or Levinas are right (although I’m more sympathetic to them than most ethical writers). However I think it’s quite possible to read D&C 88 & 93 along existential lines and come up with something quite different than you do.
Comment by Clark — July 10, 2016 @ 8:17 pm
Just to clarify since rereading I may have been ambiguous. The question is ultimately the relationship between law and autonomy. You oppose them but it may well be that law arises out of autonomy undermining your opposition.
Comment by Clark — July 10, 2016 @ 8:21 pm
So do you think that being “a law unto oneself” is 1) not condemned by scripture or 2) not an accurate description of autonomy? (I think collectivist self-legislation – a la Rousseau – provides the most interesting test-case.)
Comment by Jeff G — July 11, 2016 @ 9:28 am
I think the question is that the meaning of “law unto oneself” has to be unpacked carefully. That is there may be emergent laws out of autonomy. So I think the relation you are tying between autonomy and law unto oneself is potentially erroneous.
I’d say at best we can say an “anything goes” type of autonomous law is condemned. So more Nietzsche than pure autonomy.
Comment by Clark — July 11, 2016 @ 11:52 am
I think Kant and Nietzsche are pretty close to each other on this front. Nietzsche talks about our having the strength to legislate values AND then obey them. The primary difference here is that Kant think that those laws must be universalize-able.
“I’d say at best we can say an “anything goes” type of autonomous law is condemned.”
I think we can take a lot more from the quote scripture than just that. It clearly seems to be talking about a hierarchy of laws that we follow with a special emphases on earthly (terrestrial) law vs heavenly (celestial) laws (this is the 3 degrees of glory passage). The whole point of the passage is that just because we are following the (lower) laws of men – really good and moral men – does not mean that we’re living as we ought to be. This is because we’re living according to laws that men make for themselves according to their own reason, etc. (autonomy) rather than laws that come down to us from our Heavenly King by way of revelation and mandate (tutelage).
“Almost certainly there are laws you bind yourself to and are left autonomous for the rest.”
Okay, but as long as our “autonomous laws” are subordinated to the laws of nature (heteronomy) or the laws of God (tutelage), then it’s not really autonomy. At no point do I assume that God’s laws exhaust each and every action that we take. The question is whether we – in the end – bow to laws of our own or somebody else’s making.
Comment by Jeff G — July 11, 2016 @ 12:51 pm
Given the way that the sources of value have been carved up in the post-enlightenment tradition, I really don’t see much of an alternative to what I’ve posted:
These thinkers rejected any law that would come down to us from above or from the past (the two have typically been conflated). This leaves two options: either we reify the moral law (in which case the cries of alienation come pouring in) or we self-legislate.
Comment by Jeff G — July 11, 2016 @ 1:03 pm
“(The word for this legitimation from above is “grace”.)” Where do you get that from?
Comment by Bill B. — July 12, 2016 @ 10:10 am
Within traditional paternalism, grace is a pretty straightforward concept: It is basically the downward aspect of the vertical relationships which define a hierarchy. “Grace” is power and legitimacy flowing downward through the social hierarchy while “Faith” is deference, obedience and tributes (taxes/tithes) flowing upward through that same hierarchy.
Thus, “grace”, “paternalism”, “condescension”, etc. all played similar roles and were – roughly speaking – the same thing. Think of how the word is used when “Your Grace” is used to address a noble or how some laws and (especially) coronations are carried out or political offices are held “by the grace of God.” Think also of how the scriptures praise “the condescension of God”.
It was when the Protestants rejected this hierarchical way of framing inter-personal relations that the concepts of “grace” and “faith” had to be (fairly radically) redefined – typically in the direction of an abstract intellectualism that was better adapted to individualistic religion. Their struggles over the relationship between grace and works are more or less one outcome of this process of redefinition.
Comment by Jeff G — July 12, 2016 @ 11:16 am
I’ve never heard that definition of grace before. Thank you. Can you cite a reference for it?
So, with this definition of “grace”, what is the difference between “grace” and “justification”? And by the definition of “faith” above, what is the difference between “faith” and “works”?
Comment by Bill B. — July 13, 2016 @ 1:58 pm
There is no one, single source in which this definition will be explicitly stated. Instead, it is the overall logic in which the word in used in many instances to accomplish many ends within a paternalistic societies.
Here is a decent starting point:
https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Hebrew_Roots/The_original_foundation/Grace
To answer your other questions:
Justification is a part of grace, but it does not exhaust the concept. Empowerment and protection are just as important. Thus, grace is manifest in the creation of the world, the performance of miracles, etc.
The main idea that must be kept in mind is that there is no “bottom-up” creation or justification in this mindset. All improvement flows down from above within the moral hierarchy (think of the Great Chain of Being). Thus, evolution, peer review and free markets are all seen as deviations from or pollution to a moral ideal that was originally put in place by a moral author-ity (note the intimate connection between the two words) above it in the chain of being. It is for this reason that Christians are willing to attribute whatever “progress” they are willing to acknowledge in science/politics/etc. to God’s inspiration – even if the enlightened authors did not themselves realize it. Progress, justification and creation only come from above, they do not boil up from below.
With this context, the difference between faith and works is very small indeed. Faith basically just is the works that are performed out of loyalty and obedience toward one’s paternalistic Lord.
This is also the crucial difference between a contract (between equals) and a covenant (between unequals). The latter is not an agreement which is reached at the end of negotiations (typically within a free market) and can be freely entered or broken. Rather, it is closer to a blood oath (think the temple ceremonies) by which one pledges one’s life to the Lord.
Within these covenants, the people pledge their faith and obedience to the Lord while the Lord pledges His grace and (material or spiritual) protection. Thus, covenants have moral hierarchies built into them such that one thing is not be “traded” or “exchanged” for the other, as you would find in the market. (Sheep do not “trade” their obedience to their shepherd for his protection.) Rather, moral obligations (which are very different from market relations of self-interested equals) are being created de novo along the lines of moral hierarchies.
Comment by Jeff G — July 13, 2016 @ 2:32 pm
A few quick thoughts. First it’s not clear what laws are meant for each kingdom or event what’s meant by law. That’s not a small thing. It’s hard to really make sense of what’s meant by law.
If you don’t know what law means then it’s hard to sort out its connection to autonomy at the best of times. The “become a law” may simply be in practice a fancy way of saying they don’t obey the law.
As I said I’m not sure how to interpret these passages so I’m loath to take them too narrowly. That said there are some interesting parallels to the old medieval era notions of law and autonomy here (largely picked up from the late platonists) The main problem is a perversity of will such that self-love is privileged over morality. (Kant as I recall makes a similar move) The idea is that the love of self is at the root of all problems with law. (I’ll confess that I don’t quite get Augustine here — if you recall there was a discussion of all this on The Partially Examined Life a few months back)
To the other point, and again this comes up often in more existentialist Mormon thinkers especially those who appropriate Orson Pratt’s atomism. That is the existentialists are apt to see all law including moral law as arising out of persuasion and autonomy of individuals. So they’re apt to use phrases like “even the sands obey” to see law and autonomy as tied together by a certain unity. (I’m here thinking particularly of Chauncey Riddle although I don’t think any of his online writings make the existentialism explicit)
Regarding social order. Again grace makes sense in that way if you embrace medieval conceptions. (Taylor’s Secular Age is again quite insightful here) If you reject that ordering then I don’t think grace makes sense in that fashion. And while I see modernism as problematic I confess I see medievalism as even more problematic.
Comment by Clark — July 13, 2016 @ 8:21 pm
To add the reason I find medievalism problematic is precisely it’s ontology which seems so tied to both platonic coneptions of the chain of being but often too creation ex nihilo. I just can’t see how either can be reconciled to a Mormon conception of God who simply isn’t the One of the neoPlatonist (nor unmoved mover of Aristotle) and also isn’t the absolute creator of creation ex nihilo. Given that, what support the medieval ordering?
God as an essentially contingent (rather than necessary) embodied autonomous being makes all orderings akin to the chain of being deeply problematic.
Comment by Clark — July 13, 2016 @ 8:23 pm
“I find medievalism problematic is precisely it’s ontology which seems so tied to both platonic coneptions of the chain of being but often too creation ex nihilo”
I disagree on both counts. Of course, you’re right about Medievalism, but there are plenty of other paternalist metaphysics (the Old Testament being the most obvious example).
I absolutely reject that a top/down metaphysics entails creatio ex nihilo. All its really committed to is that order, purpose and moral valence come from above, not that all matter must itself be created from nothing.
Similarly, so long as the Creator is a god of continuing miracles and/or revelation (in that he delegates the author-itative recreation of the world to humans) then I see no need for unchanging ideals of any Platonic kind.
In other words, God is able to act upon the already existent world so as to author-itatively alter and adapt His designs and ideals as He sees fit.
Comment by Jeff G — July 13, 2016 @ 8:36 pm
Jeff, in a flat ontology, there is no “above” for that to make sense for.
Now you’re right that merely rejecting creation ex nihilo isn’t enough. After all the classic platonists didn’t have any doctrine like that. However their conception of the One as God makes him/it as not personable at all and not theistic but deistic.
You’re right that I shouldn’t therefore move to a flat ontology. However my point is just that those ideas of the chain of being are very much wrapped up with to platonic conceptions alien and arguably incompatible with Mormon thought.
Comment by Clark — July 14, 2016 @ 1:51 pm
“my point is just that those ideas of the chain of being are very much wrapped up with to platonic conceptions alien and arguably incompatible with Mormon thought.”
If all you’re objecting to is my fast and loose use of that specific term, then I don’t really object. The term was merely meant as a nice and intuitive way of describing the ways in which hierarchy, ascription, paternalism, grace, author-ity and creationism are all tied up with each other.
I totally reject the static nature of the model, the conception of “void” being at the very bottom of it as well as the idea of a self-existent One being at the top of it. As such, and for the record, (I know you do not think this of me) I am about as far from a Platonist that anybody could possibly imagine. (Of course, the anti-foundationalist tendency to measure one’s worth in terms of their distance from Plato is a little worn out.)
Comment by Jeff G — July 14, 2016 @ 2:06 pm
I guess all I’m saying is that if there’s an ordering of some sort of authority, what grounds that ordering? You seemed to be tying it to ontology which seems problematic. My various examples from existential ethics to questions of platonism were really just around that theme.
Comment by Clark — July 14, 2016 @ 2:16 pm
Moral authority determines ontology, not the other way around. The former prescribes, prohibits or tolerates various interpretations of the world which constitute the latter. Thus, metaphysics will largely follow the means by which moral authorities legitimate their own position.
Comment by Jeff G — July 14, 2016 @ 2:19 pm
I think one can make ethics of various sorts constituent of metaphysics. (Arguably that’s what Levinas is doing) But in those cases I think what one is doing is making an epistemological point. The question then becomes why ground epistemology in moral authority? (Which gets us to this whole issue you started – although I think you’re still missing that whole, “why should I think that way” angle that I think Heidegger and Levinas could address somewhat)
Comment by Clark — July 14, 2016 @ 3:23 pm
“why ground epistemology in moral authority?”
The whole point is that you can never ask this question in any significant sense that demands an answer – let alone answer it in a sense that demands acceptance – without appealing to some moral authority.
In other words, the answer is to throw the question back at the asker “Why should I even bother with your question?” without allowing them to appeal to a moral authority of some kind. If they can answer this question without prescribing or prohibiting anything on my part, then they will also have an answer to their own question.
Comment by Jeff G — July 14, 2016 @ 3:31 pm
This is why I find the phenomenological approach so intriguing as I think it avoids that question whether it be with the Heideggarian analysis or the more ethical Levinasian style of inquiry. (I think they are quite compatible even though clearly Levinas didn’t)
Put an other way we’re always already thrown into a system where these are already there for us. The question then is how to proceed.
If reasoning always presupposes both metaphysics and ethics then the question is much more how we change our views.
Comment by Clark — July 14, 2016 @ 4:04 pm
I guess I’m losing track of what the objection is here.
I too suggest that we find ourselves within a moral community within which we will interpret the world according to 1) the usefulness of the interpretation that is 2) constrained by moral evaluations and incentives. (The state of nature is always the status quo in which we find ourselves, and any attempts at proposing a social contract are attempts at reforming or re-constructing this status quo along different lines.)
Thus finding ourselves, always and everywhere, already within a moral community, we do not presuppose any specific metaphysics, nor do we need one – so long as we act within the socially enforced boundaries. (There is a strong element of indeterminacy in all of this.) The same thing can be said for our moral system as well. I do not have to presuppose anything specific in addition to knowing that some signals and behaviors will get moral push-back and that I would do well to anticipate and avoid such things – and a fully coherent theory is not necessary to do any of this. Again, this same thing applies in the case of our non-social interactions with the natural environment.
At no point is any specific or logically coherent metaphysical or ethical system/theory presupposed or required. All we need is somewhat refined behavioral patterns in which bad behaviors and signals have been pruned away through natural selection, social training, etc.
Comment by Jeff G — July 14, 2016 @ 4:30 pm
Obviously, my heterophenomenology (that I largely inherit from Dennett) is VERY different from Austrian phenomenology that became so popular on the continent.
Comment by Jeff G — July 14, 2016 @ 4:33 pm
I think the difference is the place of the community. We always find ourselves within a system of ethical assumptions. Many we may not even be aware of. And we have to act within that context. Yet simultaneously we are not controlled by those ethics. We can modifying our ethical thinking.
So to me the question is how those modifications function. That is we’re not fully determined by the communities we’re within. We’re also autonomous in some sense relative to them.
My question then becomes to what degree you think we can transcend the social systems in which we’re embedded. (I assume you think we can and do regularly) Secondly the question is then an analysis of that transcendence. Even if you don’t think the move is fully rational what governs it?
Comment by Clark — July 18, 2016 @ 10:10 am
“I think the difference is the place of the community. We always find ourselves within a system of ethical assumptions. Many we may not even be aware of.”
I’m guessing we disagree about what and how important an “assumption” is. When somebody says that there is an assumption at work, even if nobody has ever realized it, I get pretty foggy on what in the world they could possibly mean.
If all they mean is that there is an answer – to which there is no justifiable alternative – to a question that we can justifiably ask, then I don’t see “assumptions” as being all that deep, mysterious or timelessly binding in nature. If it’s something else, then I can’t help but smell mystification and ideology at work.
With regards to transcendence, I hold an equally deflationary view. Of course we can say things that a different community (in the past, future or foreign land) will support while our actual community doesn’t accept it. But I don’t think this is a very deep point. If somebody wants to hold out for something more grand than that, I will once again question their authority to hold anybody else to such a standard.
This is exactly like the person who prefers to obey dead prophets, future prophets or foreign prophets. None of them have any moral authority over that particular person – so while those other prophets might support that person, this should be very cold comfort to the person as they find themselves in the here and now.
In other words, the future approval that I may get from people has no effect on its moral legitimacy in the here and now. The same can be said for dead people in the past or foreign people of which I know nothing.
(I had to edit this comment to make it a bit more coherent.)
Comment by Jeff G — July 18, 2016 @ 2:36 pm
I wish I could contribute more intelligently to the conversation but I’m a novice in philosophy, so I can only speak from my own impressions of what “law” and “autonomy” mean.
How do you square your anti-autonomy stance with the LDS emphasis on free-agency? Is free-agency merely the freedom to choose good over evil, presupposing that God has given everyone a kind of black-and-white clarity about what good and evil actually is? Elder Oaks gives a tad bit more nuance with his “good-better-best” choices, but at the end of the day, is LDS freedom merely about trying to get people to make obvious choices to choose the “best,” the “celestial,” etc?
Or is there a dimension of this doctrine which encompasses autonomy as understood by the Enlightenment, an autonomy which is absolutely necessary to take hold of, because we now understand the world not to be simply black and white, but full of shades of grey, where choices are not obvious, grace is not given, and authorities are silent or contradictory?
Comment by Nate — July 19, 2016 @ 4:30 pm
Your point is a good one and I’m surprised it did not come up earlier.
The LDS doctrine of free-agency is a substantial departure from many paternalistic traditions – including that found within the medieval Catholic church as well as many of the Protestant Reformers. Rather, it makes much more sense within the early Christian context of Roman law and its rebirth after the European wars of religion.
Basically, the doctrine of free agency asserts that following God’s law – or any law for that matter – must be a choice made free of legal coercion or practical necessity (the second condition isn’t quite as clearly stated as the first). Thus, LDS doctrine largely accepts (although there is room for degrees here) the “monopoly on the legitimate use of violence” which we moderns grant to the modern state, in stark contrast to the “kill/burn them to save them” mentality that played such an important role in the wars of religion.
A passage which I like to quote from the early 19th century (in which nearly all latter day scripture was written) makes the connection between voluntary association, morality and agency pretty clear:
In other words, free agency is not a metaphysical doctrine, nor does it imply that men are justified in God’s eyes when they disregard or invent whatever moral laws they see fit. Rather, it is the acknowledgement that any overt punishment that we will receive for not obeying God’s law, will come from God Himself, and not any legal authorities, clergy, etc.
Thus, when Charles Taylor remarks upon the modern availability of viable, secular alternatives, Mormons should not be too concerned. Indeed, the existence of such alternatives is exactly what makes our discipleship free in a morally praiseworthy sense. Free agency almost seems to require the existence of alternatives from which we voluntarily distance ourselves (Colin Koopman calls this the “logic of purification” as opposed to the “logic of exclusion”). It is within this context of free agency that we then preach – rather than physically or legally coerce – against the other moralities since they seek either 1) self-legislation (autonomy) or 2) to minimize moral legislation altogether (heteronomy).
To summarize my long winded response, this post is about where moral legislation is supposed to come from whereas the “free agency” is about the ways in which we enforce obedience to that moral legislation. The two questions are obviously related to each other, but neither one can be fully reduced to or entailed by the other.
Comment by Jeff G — July 19, 2016 @ 4:58 pm
So what you are saying is that LDS free-agency is “giving one enough rope to hang oneself.” Not enforcing through unrighteous dominion, but not giving any ground away as far as the moral authority of LDS commandments. So somehow LDS culture manages to retain a black-and-white worldview, even in an extraordinarily modern world. Perhaps this is because we have some “soft” doctrines like temporary spirit prison, which make it possible to give sinners a bit of leeway, so we don’t need to “kill/burn” to save. But without these soft doctrines, I don’t know if LDS theology could thrive in this post-Enlightenment world while maintaining such strict paternalism.
The doctrine of free agency also allows LDS individuals a “claim to virtue” and a “credit to the man” rather than to God, or the law. Did LDS theology marry ancient paternalism with 19th century individualism? Perhaps this “praise to the man” attitude is a reaction against Calvinist predestination? Very little epistemic humility here, but I suppose that is what you would expect from an organisation which interprets themselves as “the only true church.”
Comment by Nate — July 20, 2016 @ 4:22 pm
“Not enforcing through unrighteous dominion, but not giving any ground away as far as the moral authority of LDS commandments.”
Sort of. I personally have come to hate the way people throw the term “unrighteous dominion” around, since it typically assumes that any dominion is, by very definition, unrighteous…. which is the exact opposite of what section 121 says. If anything, these people who try to morally legislate their priesthood leaders are, by this very act, engaging in unrighteous dominion since they have no authoritative stewardship of the issue they’re critiquing.
But that’s largely beside the point.
“Did LDS theology marry ancient paternalism with 19th century individualism?”
Pretty close. I think it definitely embraces the voluntarism of the 19th century, but I think it stands in strong opposition to its individualism (the repeated attempts by Smith and Young to establish the United Order in explicit opposition to free market competition make this very clear). I think the best way of describing it would be “voluntary paternalism”… a doctrine which stands in stark opposition to
1) the “involuntary fraternalism” of the political left,
2) the “involuntary paternalism” of the extreme right and
3) the “voluntary individualism” of the classical liberals/libertarians.
Comment by Jeff G — July 20, 2016 @ 5:08 pm
Voluntary paternalism? That makes sense within what I understand of LDS doctrine and culture. “You are free to choose liberty and eternal life or captivity and eternal death.” Thanks God, glad we got that cleared up.
Comment by Nate — July 21, 2016 @ 7:32 am
Jeff (30) By assumptions I just mean that if we analyze ourselves we find that when laid out as logical argument there are premises not explicitly stated that our arguments rest upon.
Now we can easily say that our positions aren’t based upon arguments but that in the case of analysis we create arguments to justify our already held conclusions. I don’t have much trouble with that. I don’t think it means the logical analysis doesn’t hold. At best we might find that there are different arguments holding different premises. That is that there’s a certain logical indeterminacy about grounds. Again I don’t have a problem with that and indeed think it rather common.
To your answer, I suspect we’re going around and around. (Not a problem of course – it gets me thinking and I suspect you thinking) The question ends up being why we break with a given authority. It’s still not quite clear to me when you think that’s justified. I know you say with regards to LDS that it’s only justified in terms of personal revelation (ignoring complexities like inconsistent messaging by authorities). However I’m curious as to how you view breaks in other contexts from authority and what grounds them.
Comment by Clark — July 21, 2016 @ 2:56 pm
Jeff (32) I’m glad you note how LDS accounts of agency are a break with what was found in medieval eras (and arguably much of late antiquity as well). Of course how many individual members perceive agency and how the scriptures seem to treat it vary. I think many members interpret it fully in terms of a certain modernistic liberal conception of autonomy. (Liberal in the traditional sense of modernism not the more partisan sense in American politics)
I think Nibley is mostly right when he mentions the ancient doctrine of the two ways. (Roughly developed from the axial period up through late antiquity) That is to choose is in certain ways dualistic and is just picking an ultimate aim and the direction of your progress. It’s a matter of what your heart is set on rather than autonomy in the more modern sense. The Book of Mormon in particular tends to adopt a fairly dualistic view.
There is a somewhat older view though that goes back to the Adam narrative of Genesis 2 (and carries through into Lehi’s particular take on it in 2 Ne 2). That is the idea of a place where we are balanced and left to ourselves. The idea of a probationary state is really wrapped up in this. (Which for Mormons becomes a key theological point with our later development of life and evil as a development for our souls)
But beyond that sense freedom seems wrapped up in the idea of “freedom to do” something. Sin, because it cuts us off from God and the spirit limits our abilities. So sin always is seen as limiting our choices just as much as a foreign occupier might limit the ability of an individual to travel. My sense in that particularly in the Book of Mormon freedom is wrapped up with the idea of connection to God as an empowering facility.
Comment by Clark — July 21, 2016 @ 3:04 pm
(Whoops screwed up the closing tag if someone wants to fix that)
Nate (35), yes while I disagree with Jeff on some issues, I do think the scripturally we freely choose to take up the “paternalism” of the Church. Where I differ from Jeff is more in the details of how we interact within that system.
Comment by Clark — July 21, 2016 @ 3:06 pm
Clark,
I’ll break this comment into three parts:
Part 1
While I insist that we practice a voluntary paternalism in the church, I wouldn’t go too far with this. A morality that doesn’t not entail a non-voluntary enforcement at some level is not worthy of the name. Thus, I claim that the morality to which God and God alone holds us to is involuntary paternalism. It is at this level that the costs of disbelief start to make our choices less free.
That said, I think a much more interesting difference between us lies in our approaches to “presuppositions”….
Part 2
The main difference, I think, is that I insist that analyses, arguments and their assumptions are social and quite optional practices, not something that just do exist and that I can hope to “uncover” or “discover”. To discover an assumption is to use socially accepted rules to infer and thus create one position (the assumption) from another (the position). This is the exact reverse of what the non-social model of reasoning suggest.
The non-social position is that of the modern intellectual who insists that human reason is a non-optional practice for humans. The question is not IF we use reasoning, but how well we use it. (I have heard this from so many people in the bloggernacle.) In this mind frame, all types of communication are different subsets of or attempts at logical analysis and argumentation. It is for this reason that our communications “presuppose” various assumptions.
My position is that human reasoning is a social and very optional human practice. Whether we create the assumptions which we attribute to the other person is 1) optional (it is its very optionality that brings argumentation to a practical end) and 2) may or may not be morally prescribed, proscribed or simply tolerated. In this view, logical analysis and argumentation is a subset of human communication, not the other way around. I’m willing to grant that it is possible for us to, if we so choose, use this optional practice to interpret the entire world and the communications that happen within it. But this does not mean that we ought to interpret all communication this way – less still that we have no choice but to so interpret them this way.
Thus, when I say “your view presupposes….” what I am engaging in an optional practice by which I am attempting 1) to dissolve the moral coalition of which you are a part and/or 2) to marshal my own moral coalition against the threats that people who makes claims like yours present to it. The practice of trying to pin inconsistent or untenable presuppositions on you thus brings a lot of moral baggage with it that we are importing from a shared community that acts as a third person adjudicator to our conflict of interests:
1) Typically, my identifying assumptions is merely a means as subverting your appeal to that third party by pinning you within a moral dilemma in which one rule o another must be broken.
2) I am presenting myself as being justified in the eyes of this third party in so subverting your position by placing you within this moral dilemma. (The idea that all people are equally justified in doing so is a VERY modern invention.)
3) I am attempting to saddle you with a responsibility (in the eyes of the third party) of legitimizing yourself and your position in the face of this moral dilemma.
4) I am assuming (there’s that word again) that if a satisfactory (to the third party) response within this moral dilemma cannot be found then our shared third party ought to form a moral coalition around me and/or not around you.
This, I suggest, is all Descartes was doing when he epitomized the modern values of questioning and doubting each and everything we could not defend. Popper presents a much more socialized version of this where anybody can call any claim into question at any time. Interestingly, Habermas starts down this pragmatic path when he says that the argumentation of communicative action only arises in the context of different proposed courses of action and then disappears once agreement has been met. He then backs away from this, unfortunately, when he accuses all post-Nietzscheans of “performative contradictions”.
Thus, I do not think that analysis and argument is simply finding support for position that we “already have”. Rather, I want to say that taking a position which may or may not be defended is itself an optional practice which is aimed at future results with respect to our shared third party. Logical analysis is simply one kind among many of the signals by which we seek to alter the incentives which each of us (and the shared audience around us) face in practice.
Simply put, construing all communications as “conclusions” that have been or must be defended logically is itself the practice that I am calling into question. It might be possible to do so, but this is a far cry from believing that we all ought to do so or (even worse) believing that we have no choice but to do so.
Part 3
I think a more straightforward way of understanding my position is not in terms of personal revelation but in terms of higher levels of authority. An appeal to personal revelation is nothing more than an appeal to the highest authority. Thus, if my stake president contradicts my bishop, I go with the former. If the prophet contradicts the stake president, same story. If the prophet contradicts my stake president’s reading of a dead prophet, I still ought to side with the former. If God Himself contradicts the living prophet, same story.
The essential assumption at play here is that of moral paternalism: moral justification comes always and only from above. There is no “bottom-up” justification, nor are there any “natural laws”, that just and somehow exist outside of all authority figures, that can give us moral justification. It is for this reason that we can never be morally justified in transgressing the moral boundaries set by a higher authority unless we appeal to an even higher moral authority.
Comment by Jeff G — July 22, 2016 @ 11:31 am
For Part 2 I’m not sure I disagree. My qualms about you’re tying everything to social structures isn’t the place of social interactions. I actually agree there. It’s the place of how reality shapes social interactions rather than it being more arbitrary norms. But my epistemology largely sees things as social in various ways.
My problem ultimately is with groups that intentionally cut themselves off from inquiry thereby avoiding facts. This happens rather commonly and while people within those groups can appeal to the norms of the group this ultimately is problematic if they’re avoiding difficult questions.
Comment by Clark — July 22, 2016 @ 2:08 pm
What is the difference between avoiding inquiry and avoiding facts? More importantly, what moral difference does this difference make?
If the difference is social, then it’s not really something in addition to the social process of inquiry. If the difference is not social, then why should I care what such people do?
Indeed, in most cases, it’s not clear why even they themselves would care about such “facts”. An example is the big bang theory. What non-social difference will such a “fact” ever make in my life?
Comment by Jeff G — July 22, 2016 @ 2:20 pm
There’s no difference that I can see. To decide if a claim is a fact requires inquiry.
As for where it matters, in politics it obviously matters. Politics (of all stripes) involves telling people what they want to hear and often saying things that go against established evidence. So there are consequences.
Now the problem of science (evolution, climate, age of bones, levels of extinction, temperatures, etc.) is trickier since arguably most of the time the facts don’t directly matter to people. However in aggregate it can add up to problems.
Again though to talk about social differences without speaking about the reality that determines consequences seems misleading. If I’m part of a group convinced something is going to happen (say a rapture of sorts by aliens next tuesday) it surely matters what actually happens that tuesday and what choices I make in the meantime based upon my judgments.
Comment by Clark — July 22, 2016 @ 2:54 pm
I’ve never understood why you think I ignore the non-social world.
The argument that I do put forward is as follows:
P1 – The non-social world does not tell us what we ought or ought not do, say or think.
P2 – Describing the non-social world is something that we do, say or think.
Thus:
C – The non-social world does not tell us how we ought or ought not describe it.
Pretty straightforward.
Comment by Jeff G — July 22, 2016 @ 3:04 pm
P1 is directly ignoring that the non-social world by denying that the non-social world can create “ought experiences”.
Comment by Martin James — July 25, 2016 @ 3:01 pm
If you’re faulting me for ignoring how the natural world actually does give us moral commands regarding what we ought and ought not do, then I am all ears. Please tell me how it does so. In what direction should I point my telescope to observe such obligations in the natural world?
You will notice that P2 clearly does bring the natural world into the picture, so whatever else I might do, I don’t ignore it. It is up to you to argue why it belongs in P1 as well.
Comment by Jeff G — July 25, 2016 @ 3:34 pm
First of all, I think that the non-social world conditions our ability to think, speak and be moral. The ability to be moral and morality aren’t the same thing but I think they are so closely related that non-social factors create a lot of social morality.
One set of conditions is around what makes a thing a moral being. For example, people with autism or psychopathy or dementia or different species all have different ways of being moral from those that do not. You could make the case that all of those are socially determined categories but I think it is defending a thesis at all costs to say that those conditions are not affected by non-social factors. The social versions of morality don’t help very much in determining why a person with dementia is treated differently from a moral point of view. In fact, the very social nature of who is labeled “crazy” to me is evidence not of the completely social nature of morality but rather of its inadequacy to be satisfactory. Why are appeals to non-social factors accepted by some people as moral arguments?
Comment by Martin James — July 26, 2016 @ 9:34 am
I find it interesting that you refuse to directly engage my formalized argument. Perhaps you could answer the following:
a) Which premise are you attacking?
b) What, exactly, is your argument against that premise?
c) What is your replacement premise?
That said…
“I think it is defending a thesis at all costs to say that those conditions are not affected by non-social factors”
Again, nobody is saying that all non-social factors are irrelevant. Such factors are clearly included within my P2. This misrepresentation is getting tiring.
What you have to show in cases of autism is that such things entail moral obligations (P1) regardless and independent of what we think of and how we describe them (P2). You have made exactly zero progress on this front.
For example, some communities morally excuse people because of their psychological anomalies. Others morally condemn them as “possessed” by demons, etc. The only difference here is the ways that communities think and speak of such people.
Comment by Jeff G — July 26, 2016 @ 10:59 am
No, I just have to show that an external factor causes autism (for example) and autistic people have different moral based on their autism.
I’m saying that “telling” and talk can be caused by non-social factors and you are saying that moral take is caused by other talk.
Comment by Martin James — July 26, 2016 @ 11:34 am
I’m attacking 1 and saying that our moral beliefs and talk can be created by non-social factors.
Comment by Martin James — July 26, 2016 @ 11:35 am
Okay, you’re attacking P1.
Now, which is it:
1: The naturalistic cause of autism tells the autistic person that he has a moral obligation to describe the world in a certain way.
or
2: The naturalistic cause of autism tells us that we have a moral obligation to describe autistic people in a certain way.
Both of these seem pretty flabby to me.
1a: To be sure, autism constrains how an autistic person can or will tend to describe the world around him. But it says nothing at all about how they ought or ought not describe it.
2a: The same reasoning applies in the other direction. An autistic person can or will tend to be described in lots of different ways (merely eccentric, a victim of illness, a evil demon, etc.). But this says nothing about how we ought to do so.
Another important point: if a particular description is either impossible or inevitable, then there is simply no need for moral obligation to play any role at all. It is for this reason that the natural constraints on what is possible (what we can or cannot do) provide zero information regarding our moral obligations (what we ought or ought not do).
Comment by Jeff G — July 26, 2016 @ 11:51 am
I’m saying our only notion of “ought” is constrained by non-social factors. Ought and morality could be an effect not a cause. I am not defending that this is correct, I’m arguing that you ignore this option.
You said “I’ve never understood why you think I ignore the non-social world.” Basically, I’m saying that you ignore it because you don’t spend much time on non-social explanations such as a lack of free will.
Comment by Martin James — July 26, 2016 @ 11:58 am
I still do not see any clear argument here.
If all you’re saying is that the morally obligatory description of something must be one among the many, many possible descriptions of it, then you’re not saying anything very interesting. Morals are the ways in which we channel behaviors within all the countless possible courses of action that are possible.
“I’m saying that you ignore it because you don’t spend much time on non-social explanations such as a lack of free will.”
That’s because the free will debate is a total cop out – a sham attempt at externalizing the responsibilities and decisions that are ours to make – the exact reason why I argue as I do.
If somebody is fully causally determined, then it is possible for me to blame them and it is possible that I do not blame them – both options are within the realm of possibility. But these natural facts give us zero information regarding which of these alternatives is the “right” one that we ought to go with. Instead, we need socially shared and morally defended premises like “we should only blame those that could have done otherwise” in order to answer such questions…. but such moral premises are not non-social facts. There is no combination of matter in motion, no calculation or brute causation – no matter how complex – that could ever say anything for or against this moral premise. Instead, it is a decision which we must make not a pre-existing natural fact that we must or ever could uncover.
Comment by Jeff G — July 26, 2016 @ 12:17 pm
I’m not making a moral argument. I’m making an empirical argument about whether you ignore the non-social. If you admitted that you ignore the non-social because you don’t think it is relevant, I would agree with you.
I think all of our moral talk is more complicated and problematic than you do. For example, some people believe that taking drugs or having sexual relations affects our ability to talk reason morally. This can be independent from whether it is moral or not to take drugs or have certain types of sexual relations. I think that the reasons that some people believe these actions affect moral reasoning are interesting. You seem to find them less worthy of consideration compared to social factors that affect moral thinking.
Comment by Martin James — July 26, 2016 @ 12:42 pm
Well how are we to empirically verify your claim other than by looking at all my claims which do mention the world and thus falsify your claim?
Comment by Jeff G — July 26, 2016 @ 12:58 pm
I also did not deny the natural world. What I did say was that moral obligations are made not found even though plenty of other stuff is found.
Comment by Jeff G — July 26, 2016 @ 1:04 pm
The context in which moral obligations are made is always found. Thus, the natural world is always present.
Comment by Jeff G — July 26, 2016 @ 1:13 pm
P1 – The non-social world does not tell us what we ought or ought not do, say or think.
P2 – Describing the non-social world is something that we do, say or think.
Thus:
C – The non-social world does not tell us how we ought or ought not describe it.
I think the way you phrase P1 is problematic. Reality acts on us which signifies but doesn’t tell in a linguistic sense. That may appear to be being pedantic but I think it an important distinction. So to my eyes P1 is just wrong when rephrased that way.
Comment by Clark — July 26, 2016 @ 2:30 pm
When you say the non-social world “conditions us” could you clarify what you mean by that? I’d agree that it’s often (always?) underdetermines a conclusion. It seems like you’re arguing for something stronger than that.
The reason I ask is in one sense of constrain you have a determinate non-social linguistic effect.
Now I think raising moral hides somewhat these issues because morals seem less constrained empirically than other data (such as the color the sky appears to be or the mass of an electron or so forth).
Comment by Clark — July 26, 2016 @ 2:32 pm
All I mean is that neither I nor society as a whole get to simply decide what is and is not possible. Reality thus determines what can and cannot happen. It says nothing at all about what ought or ought not happen.
“Reality acts on us which signifies but doesn’t tell in a linguistic sense.”
But isn’t a mind needed in order for something to “signify”? The natural, non-social world, by very definition, doesn’t have a mind and thus does not signify anything. As such, it tells us nothing about what we ought or ought not do.
Comment by Jeff G — July 26, 2016 @ 2:42 pm
For Peirce signs profuse the universe. So the answer is either yes or no depending upon what you mean by mind. Peirce tends to adopt the position that much we call non-mind actually is mind. His favorite examples were bees or crystal growth. i.e. he’s not really saying anything mystic by saying the universe is mind like. One way to take it is as suggesting that we should distinguish thought from consciousness. We conflate the two often.
Comment by Clark — July 26, 2016 @ 3:19 pm
What I’m saying is that no arrangement of physical matter or brute, unintentional causation or bees for that matter entails a moral obligation for humans.
I don’t see how “signs” provide a counter example to this claim.
Comment by Jeff G — July 26, 2016 @ 3:34 pm
So what makes something a moral obligation for you as compared to just an obligation. How do you distinguish law from moral, or prudence from moral or mannerly from moral?
So, if I say you ought not to waste money or touch the stove or be rude or exceed the speed limit, are these all moral in the same way, or moral but in different ways or not moral at all?
How do you distinguish between malum in se versus malum prohibitum?
I don’t know why I posted again, because we are just interested in very different things. You are not that interested in how well you can predict why the perception of what is moral changes. Why did the assault on authority that you say happened effective and why did it occur when it did? What role did non-social factors play in that?
Comment by Martin James — July 26, 2016 @ 4:10 pm
There aren’t any non-moral obligations in the sense that I’m talking about. I guess I just tack on the word for emphasis. I mean any obligation (moral, legal, whatever) to do something that you otherwise wouldn’t do.
I don’t think I have an obligation not to touch the stove.
Anything that a person who was born and lived his entire life in isolation would do, is not an obligation since nobody ever taught him a moral law and nobody holds him to a moral law. No matter what else happens on that desert island, he is, by very definition, not held accountable in any sense. It might be stupid for him to put his hand in the fire, but that doesn’t mean that he has violated any obligation whatsoever.
Comment by Jeff G — July 26, 2016 @ 4:19 pm
I’m just not that interested in what people ought to do.
Comment by Martin James — July 26, 2016 @ 6:02 pm
I post because I’m interested in how you conceive why people do what they do including why they think they ough tot do various things.
Comment by Martin James — July 26, 2016 @ 6:02 pm
You have convinced me that I’m on the enlightenment team and drinking the objective standard kool-aid but I still maintain that I like kool-aid because I’m mormon and it tastes like jello.
Comment by Martin James — July 26, 2016 @ 6:05 pm
LOL!
Well, there are certainly pros and cons to being on the objectivist side. I’m not totally sure that the cons actually do outweigh the pros as I suggest, but I am convinced that understanding and appreciating the alternatives might help mitigate (at least some of) the costs.
Comment by Jeff G — July 26, 2016 @ 6:12 pm
Jeff (59) More or less you’re making the is doesn’t entail ought distinction of Kant.
That’s fine, but note that’s not really what I’m arguing. There’s a difference between entailment and epistemological discovery. That is I can, from their utility, think that logic has various implications about how we ought reason. That doesn’t mean the evidence entails as a ground logic. But it lets us discover what is real within the universe.
More or less this is the argument for mathematical realism. While for much of the 20th century people (outside of mathematics) tended to be anti-realist about mathematics I think Quine’s acceptance changed that. That is he took as real anything one quantifies over implying much of math was real. Again there’s a certain pragmatic style of argumentation behind Quine’s move.
So we have to distinguish between learning something is an obligation from what makes it an obligation.
The problem is that if we make obligations purely an arbitrary choice by humans there are I think dangerous implications. Now admittedly there are ways of trying to avoid that. I mentioned existential ethics of people like de Beauvoir.
Comment by Clark — July 27, 2016 @ 9:48 am
Well, Kant and Hume’s distinction isn’t really what I’m getting at. Indeed, I insist that an “is” statement ALWAYS entails and “ought” of some kind. For this reason, I am drawing a sharp distinction between the natural world (considered totally independent of social interactions) and is-statement which necessary presuppose social interactions.
“So we have to distinguish between learning something is an obligation from what makes it an obligation.”
I insist that there is no important difference. I think any arguments surrounding “realism” are mystified smoke-screens in which power-relations are reified for the sake of avoiding scrutiny and potential subversion.
“The problem is that if we make obligations purely an arbitrary choice by humans there are I think dangerous implications.”
Perhaps, but whether such “implications” are prescribed, proscribed or merely tolerated within any community is itself determined by the social practices which structure that community.
Comment by Jeff G — July 27, 2016 @ 10:20 am
If there is not distinction then I confess I’m pretty confused. You agree that we aren’t purely controlled by the social (we can act independently) so presumably you’d apply that to epistemology as well. At which point my question is what the problem is?
Comment by Clark — July 27, 2016 @ 10:45 am
The relevant distinction is not between different kinds of statements, but between the social and non-social world – other intentional systems vs the non-intentional, “natural” world.
If you truly agree that the latter has no normative claim on the former – that there are no “natural laws” that we “ought” to obey, rather than having no alternative but to obey – then there is no problem….
But you consistently resist this claim.
Comment by Jeff G — July 27, 2016 @ 11:24 am
Getting back on point, you reject P1, but I see no alternative to it.
Comment by Jeff G — July 27, 2016 @ 11:25 am
I suspect the question is the semantics of “ought.” If there are oughts found in nature (like logic) then of course I disagree that the natural world has no claims on the intentional world. (For the record I find the divide you set up between the intentional and non-intentional problematic since presumably we are part of the natural world)
Comment by Clark — July 27, 2016 @ 2:19 pm
I guess I just don’t see what’s so complicated or ambiguous about any of this.
-I deny that anything other than other people (including heavenly people) have any normative claim upon us.
-Thus, if a person is totally isolated on a desert island (including, for this example, from God Himself) he can do whatever he wants without any worry that he is offending or violating any normative law. The impersonal world will never know or care about the difference.
-There is no normative law other than what people say there is.
-There is no objective law that obliges us regardless of what any or all people combined think or want.
-“If there are oughts found in nature (like logic)”… I deny that there are any such laws that bind human behavior.
And so on.
I don’t see how any of this is vague or unclear. If you could put forward another, clearer, or more defensible P1, I might know what the problem actually is here.
Comment by Jeff G — July 27, 2016 @ 3:32 pm
So, if you are the last person on earth and God isn’t involved, is it OK to torture animals?
My hesitancy from full buy in with social rules being the only morality is that some of our moral reason (such as questions like animal torture) don’t seem to be about relations with other people. I don’t think one needs to see animals as “persons” to be concerned with cruelty towards them.
It also seems to be a complete rejection of all “natural law” theories were people have a moral essence and purpose just by being a person.
I’m not committed to either of those morals in particular but I just think that moral reasoning involves both social and non-social components.
Comment by Martin James — July 28, 2016 @ 8:28 am
I’m also confused about what “conscience” is for you. Is it just an accumulated sense of social obligation? How would one ever weigh competing social groups and obligation regimes. What faculty or process does that?
Comment by Martin James — July 28, 2016 @ 8:31 am
(I’ll fix that typo, since it’s pretty significant.)
The main objection is that you’re importing US into the scenario. Without God or any other person to tell him otherwise, why would he ever think it was wrong? Who would ever judge him to be wrong? Without either of these things, in what meaningful sense would it actually be wrong?
If he simply doesn’t want to hurt animals… then he still isn’t being obliged to do something that he doesn’t want to, so that’s not a counter-example. And there is nobody to say that some of his desires are “higher” or “more noble” than others, so that won’t work either.
“I’m also confused about what “conscience” is for you. Is it just an accumulated sense of social obligation?”
I would agree so long as 1) celestial beings are included within this “society” and 2) not all people within this society have equal input into this conscience. What other source could there possibly be? The very fact that “conscience” might be innate or a part of “human nature” is precisely because we have evolved as a social species.
I think the deepest response to any of these claims is that since God is always there, or, even stronger, that God is always “in” nature, this is why there is a natural moral law. Of course, this just is to grant my argument, but it does effectively sideline all these distasteful thought experiments. Unfortunately, Mormons do not like the idea of God being “in” nature, since they are very much bound to the idea that moral law is both logically and/or historically prior to God in some sense.
Comment by Jeff G — July 28, 2016 @ 9:11 am
” Unfortunately, Mormons do not like the idea of God being “in” nature, since they are very much bound to the idea that moral law is both logically and/or historically prior to God in some sense.”
Why do they(and me) think that?
Comment by Martin James — July 28, 2016 @ 9:22 am
Jeff, I don’t think it’s ambiguous. I just am unclear why you think nothing but people can have normative demands on us. In the context of science, assuming the structures science discovers are really there, then why don’t those structures in the universe have a demand upon us to believe in them?
Comment by Clark — July 28, 2016 @ 9:28 am
Oh, there are great reasons to think this….. The problem is that Mormons also accept that other people (intelligences) are just as logically and/or historically prior to God as moral laws are. Since this is the case, the fact that any or all moral laws are prior to God does absolutely nothing to establish that such laws are prior to or independent of social relations.
Comment by Jeff G — July 28, 2016 @ 9:28 am
Jeff (77), I’m curious as to why you think Mormons don’t like the idea of God being in nature. That seems the dominant Mormon view by far – that God is embedded in the universe. I think perhaps you’re deriving conclusions for Mormons based upon your view that morals always arise from social norms by people. If one is a moral realist and doesn’t tie morals to God but as something inherent to the universe then there’s no reason Mormons would have problems with God in nature. Indeed I think that is the Mormon view.
Comment by Clark — July 28, 2016 @ 9:31 am
Clark,
The main point is that science isn’t “discovering” anything in the fully external or objective sense. Rather, they are simply learning to describe the natural world differently. Yes, some of these descriptions might be more useful for some purposes than others… but mere utility does not constitute a moral obligation. Indeed, a moral obligation is when you are prescribed/proscribed some behavior (description) REGARDLESS of its utility to you. It is for this reason that the natural world is unable to tell us how we ought or ought not describe it.
Comment by Jeff G — July 28, 2016 @ 9:33 am
But I don’t think one can say that knowing the laws is merely useful. Of course one can take that position but it’s a non-obvious reduction. (A common one of course, but hardly the only one)
More problematic though you’re merely restating how your view sees such things but not why you see it that way. After all I could turn around and make the same claims about society. People might hold things to be true but my following them is my choice to accept a norm. But at that point it becomes completely unclear why we should distinguish natural norms from social norms. After all I can function towards them the same way.
Utility thus can’t do the job you want since I can completely turn it around and apply it against the social in the same way you do the natural.
Comment by Clark — July 28, 2016 @ 9:40 am
Sorry, rereading that I wasn’t as clear as I could be. So let’s put it like this.
Why does the social impose a moral obligation in a different way than the natural? What is a moral obligation to you? I confess I just don’t see a different demand. I might have a moral obligation not to push people into a raging river. But it’s non-obvious to me why this is different from having an obligation to take care of animals.
In what way is my relation to the social different from my relation to animals or my relation to other natural non-human entities? The only difference I see is the degree of linguistic interaction.
Comment by Clark — July 28, 2016 @ 9:43 am
Clark (81),
I actually don’t find that issue very interesting. To the degree that God is, in some sense, built into every aspect of the natural world, this just is to say that the “natural world” doesn’t really exist – all the world is, in that same sense, social in nature. Such a position constitutes a confirmation rather than a refutation of my view.
(83)
My reasons are basically 1) the only way we ever learn about moral laws is through other people and 2) the only way that moral laws are enforced is through other people. What else is there left to do? Indeed, for all we know, the moral laws of nature could be the exact opposite of what we believe them to be. There is no empirical data or practical experience that could ever falsify such a claim.
More importantly, since natural having a moral law built into it is utterly and completely irrelevant to practice, we can safely stop pretending that nature is the one ushering moral commands rather than people who have a vested interest in mystifying their own power relations. This is just a ploy where some authority figures want us to believe that we “have no choice” in these matters since they are all a part of “nature” and as such outside of anybody’s control.
Allowing nature to morally dictate our actions is to stifle our own freedom.
Comment by Jeff G — July 28, 2016 @ 9:52 am
“The only difference I see is the degree of linguistic interaction.”
And that’s a MASSIVE difference! To the extent that I have a moral obligation to animals it is because 1) other people have been taught me that I do (Genesis comes to mind) and 2) such behaviors are morally enforced by other people. Thus, if I say “the senseless torture of animals is okay”, everybody within earshot will immediately push back against me, however subtly or not this push back will be.
edit: (But if an animal gives me a warning signal not to bother it, I do bother it, and then it retaliates, I was acting stupidly, not immorally.)
The natural world will not do any such thing. In this natural world, it is just one thing happening after another.
To be sure, given my strong Darwinism, there will obviously be a middle ground between any two points, including between the utterly immoral world of nature and the full-blown morality of humans.
I guess a more important distinction here would be between the natural world understood as A) the physical world of objectivism and B) a much more romantic understanding of the organic/holistic oneness of nature. My claim is that (A) is not only the one that the natural sciences study, but also entails exactly zero moral obligations. If one wants to endorse (B), then it’s not clear that there are any laws at all, in the strictest sense. Either way, (B) is clearly not the world that the natural science study.
Comment by Jeff G — July 28, 2016 @ 10:06 am
If things like logic are ultimately a kind of moral law, then I’m not sure we can say we only learn moral laws through other people. Likewise if we blur the distinction between the natural and the social I don’t think we can say they are enforced only socially. That is if I fall off a cliff due to natural law, that seems an enforcing of that law.
As for whether natural law is irrelevant to practice, I confess I’m not sure what you mean by that. If you mean we’d act the same way regardless of whether we’re realists about morals then I might agree. I’d have to think about that though. There may be practical differences.
To your final point I confess I’m not sure how you oppose “objectivism” and organic/holistic. Perhaps I’m misunderstanding your sense of the terms since I think science can study the latter and that there’s no real opposition between the two.
It does seem like language is the fundamental issue undergirding all the discussion. Perhaps because I think the focus on language as opposed to general semiotics is unhealthy that affects how I see all this.
I just am very skeptical we only learn morals from other people. If nothing else I think we have moral instincts which simply aren’t social. We can debate whether they are moral in some absolute sense – but then if we adopt your view of the social we have to reject all absolute senses which seems to imply we can’t discount moral instincts.
It seems to me there simply are pretty compelling reasons to think things don’t reduce to the social. That’s why much earlier in this thread I pointed out it really matters when we as individuals make our own rules outside of the social. It implies we aren’t dominated by the social which seems to undermine a lot of the arguments you’re now making. Add in the instinct from evolution and that undermines things even more. If the individual or nature can give us moral views then how can we say we only learn them from the social?
Comment by Clark — July 28, 2016 @ 11:01 am
Let me elaborate a bit on the edit above…
Here we are getting to the crucial transition at which morality arises and thus distances itself from mere nature.
A potential objection (and I think it lies at the heart of many of you guys’ objections) resides in the small but significant difference between acting intelligently and acting morally. After all, if morality is nothing more than anticipating, responding to and issuing threats and punishments, then what is the difference between our intelligent interactions with really complicated animals and just acting morally.
The basic point is that there is no empirical difference! When the Jansenists began dismissing the the “seemingly” charitable acts of Protestants to a really convoluted form of self-interest since they, as non-Catholics, could not be acting out of grace, they made a very good point! Almost any charitable or moral actions can be (not ought to be) described in terms of the self-interest that I have called “intelligence”.
Here we get to the very point at issue, however, for an objectivist will want to look as closely as they can at empirical data, etc. in order to see how we OUGHT to describe such actions. But, I insist, the natural world can never tell us which of these two descriptions we OUGHT to use. The dispute is a social/moral one, not an empirical/logical one.
Thus, I totally reject the idea that moral behavior is “nothing but” complicated self-interested/intelligent behavior, for this presupposes that one of these two descriptions is the one that nature “dictates” as opposed to our having a choice in the matter. We have a choice to make since we CAN describe any such action in either terms. It is for this very reason that morality is an intrinsically social phenomena! There are no empirical, moral facts out in the natural world – only parts of the natural world that we can describe in moral language.
In our current society, then, I insist that we use moral language because: 1) we morally prescribe/proscribe other people to do so (just as the Jansenists attempted to do) and/or 2) due to the rewards and punishments that we anticipate, it is intelligent for us to do so. The important point is that these are NOT competing explanations, but merely two difference ways of describing why we use moral language.
Thus, within an isolated world in which an isolated man lives and dies without anybody ever talking about it (that would include us three who are talking about it right now), the moral/intelligent distinction is meaningless. It is for this reason that his actions are not moral or immoral, for such categories that can only be applied within a social community. It is also for this reason that we (the observers who are not supposed to exist) are tempted to describe his actions in moral terms. It is for this reason that you guys push back against my withholding moral categories from him… but the whole point is that there are no moral terms in that world! Our very temptation to attribute morals to the scenario is in direct violation of the scenario itself.
Thus, the temptation to insist that there must be some natural fact that can decide whether that isolated man is doing something moral or not is a moral dispute within our own language *and nothing more*. We are the modern equivalent of trying to decide whether he is merely a self-interested Protestant or a charitable Catholic. And in the natural world where there are neither Protestants nor Catholics, the argument becomes utterly pointless.
Comment by Jeff G — July 28, 2016 @ 11:23 am
“I just am very skeptical we only learn morals from other people.”
I can’t tell if you’re still conflating previous distinctions or not.
My argument is that the natural, non-social world is not sufficient to morally obligate anything or anyone at all. This is a very different claim from the one you seem to be making: that the natural, non-social world is necessary to morally obligate someone. While I’m not totally sure to what degree it is necessary, I am not arguing against this claim.
This distinction closely parallels the Chinese Room thought experiment. You seem to be saying that placing a baby in an isolated room and giving it zero practical interaction with the outside world other than voice commands through a speaker will never be enough to teach it or give it morals. I fully agree with this.
This child wouldn’t have any deeper morals than the other, Robinson Crusoe person would. With this, you have been disagreeing since you think that latter would learn or have morals.
To summarize the scenarios which moral obligations do not exist:
A solitary person who has zero natural interaction has no moral obligations.
A solitary person in nature has no moral obligations.
Two people together in nature merely coordinate and negotiate their mutual self-interested behavior. This is not moral obligation.
Three people who do not have language do not have moral obligations. Again, it is more complicated intelligence.
What is required are three people who have a language such that one person can describe the behavior of a second person to a third person as immoral. Then and only then do moral obligations come into existence.
The fact that Martin is describing the actions of Robinson Crusoe as immoral to me (a third person) is the only thing that motivates the disagreement at hand and the obligations to which we both are attempting to hold each other. More importantly, Martin is describing my claims as immoral to Clark (and anybody else who might be lurking or who might be appealed to as a third party) in an attempt to hold me to a moral obligation (however diluted we might agree it to be) to recant such claims.
Comment by Jeff G — July 28, 2016 @ 11:41 am
Here are the points I defend:
1. The non-social world alone is utterly insufficient to morally obligate anybody at all.
2. The social world is utterly necessary to morally obligate anybody at all.
3. The social world alone is utterly insufficient to morally obligate anybody. Indeed, I think such a world is incoherent.
4. The non-social world may or may not be necessary to morally obligate anybody. I’m not sure.
I see you guys as rejecting 1 and 2, but to support your rejection you seem to merely be arguing for 3 – which I also accept. That’s why I get so confused and frustrated when I am accused of “ignoring” the non-social world.
Comment by Jeff G — July 28, 2016 @ 11:51 am
Jeff, I think we can discount the idea that a solitary person can be non-social. We’re inherently social creatures. Humans who are feral and not exposed to language develop significantly differently as children. At a certain point they can’t really be taught language. That doesn’t mean there’s no social but there’s no linguistically social.
Your four points are helpful. It really clarifies some places I was confused on.
What’s not yet clear to me is whether you mean know about an obligation or ground an obligation. That is I may need the social to learn logic. (And I in fact believe that) However I’m not sure that entails that logic is grounded on the social. I’m here separating out the epistemological question from the grounding question. In your four points my sense is you’re just talking epistemology. I’m actually completely open to saying the social is essential epistemologically.
It’s just that sometimes you talk like you’re not referring to epistemology at all.
Comment by Clark — July 28, 2016 @ 4:09 pm
How does one ever learn what words mean from other people alone?
Comment by Martin James — July 28, 2016 @ 4:42 pm
At least we’re moving forward! :)
“What’s not yet clear to me is whether you mean know about an obligation or ground an obligation.”
To me, there is no ground (in the sense of justification) outside of obligations.
A ground is simply a legitimate response to a pointed and potentially subversive question, implication of doubt or accusation of moral guilt. That pointed question may or may not be raised and the answer may or may not provoke further questions and answers. Without such a question (or the anticipation of such) “grounds” have no relevance worth speaking of.
Thus, such grounds are determined by 1) whether each person wants to continue with the Q&A of subversion and legitimation and 2) whether the third party towards which each party actually or potentially appeals prescribes, proscribes or simply tolerates their ceasing or continuing the Q&A.
In other words, all grounding is both inescapably practical (and thus interest-laden) and inescapably social (and thus obligation-laden). There is no “natural” grounding outside of this social practice.
All epistemology and metaphysics are simply strategic – albeit morally constrained – language (and thus social) reformation – the invention (not the discovery!) of new ways of subverting/challenging some behaviors and legitimizing/defending others. (Rorty thinks that we ought to abandon epistemology and metaphysics for this reason, but I see no reason why this re-description of philosophy entails its demise. Rather, it just makes philosophy much more reflexive and self-aware.)
Comment by Jeff G — July 28, 2016 @ 4:42 pm
Martin,
Re-read 89. Nobody is suggesting any such thing.
Comment by Jeff G — July 28, 2016 @ 4:42 pm
Who invented the word obligation and how did they communicate what it meant to someone else?
Comment by Martin James — July 28, 2016 @ 4:43 pm
The non-social grounds all semantics.
Comment by Martin James — July 28, 2016 @ 4:43 pm
“The non-social grounds all semantics.”
Please, re-read 90 and then present an argument for this otherwise unsupported assertion.
You are merely rejecting claim (1) without any support.
Comment by Jeff G — July 28, 2016 @ 4:46 pm
Jeff,
I’m not interested in the discussion morally. I’m not trying to obligate you to believe me or be obligated to believe. I’m trying to have a more interesting Robinson Crusoe experience.
Comment by Martin James — July 28, 2016 @ 4:46 pm
If I find out you are an AI, it wouldn’t make any difference to me.
Comment by Martin James — July 28, 2016 @ 4:47 pm
Other than it would explain that some programmer gave you P1 as a premise. :)
Comment by Martin James — July 28, 2016 @ 4:48 pm
In simpler terms, I’m saying that moral obligations don’t exist without a moral sense. Social relations change our moral sense but they don’t create it. I think you run into the paucity of stimulus situation where there has never been enough moral telling to explain all the moral positions that exist.
Comment by Martin James — July 28, 2016 @ 5:03 pm
No brain, no semantics, how’s that for a ground.
Comment by Martin James — July 28, 2016 @ 5:04 pm
(1) in 90 was a conclusion, not a premise.
Other than that, you’re simply inventing extra “senses” that people are supposed to have.
Comment by Jeff G — July 28, 2016 @ 5:13 pm
“extra” would imply some appeal to objectivity on your part. In what sense would a moral sense be “extra”?
Your are the one inventing “extra” social obligations and then saying they are the only type of moral obligation.
Comment by Martin James — July 28, 2016 @ 6:02 pm
But that’s boring. The interesting question is what your position is on morals relative to your position on God. Do social obligations between people depend completely, partially or not at all on God?
If morality is all social, are social norms inconsistent with God, morals? Why or why not?
Comment by Martin James — July 28, 2016 @ 6:07 pm
I think a point you’re somewhat hung up on (and I definitely do not think Clark is) is that you want to make morality biologically “innate”. While I do reject a strong gene-centrism, such a rejection is not necessary, since biological functions can only be assigned or take on any meaning relative to some context – in this case a social context.
Put different, regardless of what our genes tell us to do, simply following our genetically innate urges does not amount to fulfilling one’s moral obligations in any meaningful sense.
We’ve already discussed the relation between the morals of men and those of God (so many times) so I won’t bore you by repeating it yet again.
Comment by Jeff G — July 28, 2016 @ 6:18 pm
What I’m hung up is the relation of morality to power over the natural environment. What is it that connects morality and power over the natural environment?
Your morality as social seems to disconnect those. What connects the power to move mountains to morality in your view?
It is not that I think that morality is innate, it is that I think morality exists like I think numbers exist independent of the human mind and that our biology allows us to think about numbers and think about morality that already exist.
The key to mormon theology for me is that it connects morality with knowledge which gives power over nature.
Comment by Martin James — July 29, 2016 @ 8:04 am
If you stand fully convinced that numbers (as opposed to numerals) exist outside of all mental activity – even though nobody has ever seen one, felt one, etc. – then my account will never appeal to you.
If you’re asking me to explain how miracles are wrought, then again you will be disappointed. My comfort is that nobody has ever done any better than I have.
Comment by Jeff G — July 29, 2016 @ 8:08 am
Wow things moving fast. LOL.
Jeff (93) by ground I’m more thinking in terms of nature or essence. Not necessarily ontology but something closer to that than epistemology. So grounds of justification to me are how we know about a thing. But take an electron. How we know about it is quite different from it’s nature and composition.
Perhaps even making this move you’d disagree with. More or less I’m just trying to sense out if you have realist tendencies and worry about the things independent of humans or if you are primarily anti-realist and see the things inexorably connected to human knowers. That is to talk about any thing independent of humans is illegitimate.
My guess is that you’re a kind of idealist but with the social replacing the empirical sense-data of the kind of idealism the empiricists had. Yet also you’re not an idealist of the Hegelian sort who allows for the ideas to be independent of finite human groups. The very nature of things is social.
That’s fine if that’s your position. My confusion ends up being that sometimes you seem to almost be willing to talk like a realist about entities and then the place of the social becomes confused.
Comment by Clark — July 29, 2016 @ 10:29 am
Jeff (106) Yes I think grounding morality on our biology is deeply problematic. I’m completely fine with evolution discovering moral laws, much like evolution led to instinct that get lots of things right about the world. But so many of our instincts mislead us that we can’t say instincts tells us something is right (whether in physics or ethics).
Jeff (108) That comment on your view of numbers is helpful. I think it suggests you’re a strong anti-realist about all things in that their nature can’t be separated from humans. Rather than tie entities to sense-data as the empiricists did or knowing as Hegel did you tie it to social norms and obligations. Which is pretty interesting although a little different from Rorty’s type of idealism.
Rorty of course is frequently called a linguistic idealist. There is a reading of Rorty making use of some of Putnam views that denies this. Further at times Rorty seems to acknowledge the indepence of things – especially their causal relations – from our talk of them. An other reading of Rorty argues he’s not an idealist at all (of any stripe) but is an epistemological behavioralist. That is he isn’t talking about things at all but merely our “knowledge.” The odd idealist aspects arise out of a kind of black box behavioralism ala Skinner. As such even his knowledge talk isn’t really about knowledge but about linguistic reactions. (Which is why, according to this tradition, he gets miscast as a linguistic idealist) Others just think Rorty is very muddled. I confess I’ve come to that view myself.
A different way of putting my question in (109) might be whether you think you are talking about the nature of things, our knowledge of things, or just a practical behavior of humans towards what they label as things. It seems to me each is a very different position.
Comment by Clark — July 29, 2016 @ 10:39 am
Whether we describe something as real or unreal is a purely moral dispute. The natural, “world-as-it-is” has no ability to tell us whether we ought to describe something as real or not. Thus, when I start talking in realistic terms, I am making moral claims. There is nothing inconsistent in doing this.
Any and all protests, by contrast, that we don’t want to know whether we ought to describe it some way, but whether it actually is that way, is simply trying to push past the objection by rhetorical force and nothing more. I morally condemn such attempts within contexts such as this. The entire debate just is an attempt to determine how we ought to describe it, no matter how much somebody wants to bootstrap themselves out of it.
There is no talk independent of humans, so, yeah, its utterly incoherent.
The deep confusion at play is that any attempt at debating the nature of debate always involves two levels which are very easy to conflate when it reinforces our own position (I might be guilty, although I hope I’m not). To use my own account of debate as an example:
1st Level: All inquiry and debate is a case in which person-1 seeks to (de)mobilize a moral coalition from within a (potential) persons-3 against some person-2.
2nd Level: Proclaiming the 1st level is itself an attempt by person-4 (in this case, me) at (de)mobilizing a moral coalition from a (potential) persons-6 against some other persons-5 (in this case, you or Martin).
All six of these people are at play in this discussion – unless, of course, we make things confusing by equating one of these persons with another.
The case of stranded man in isolation (the man who non-socially interacts with nature “as it really is”) derives all of its moral force (to which both of us are appealing) from the 2nd level, never from the 1st. So, yes, morality absolutely does apply to the case of the stranded man – but only to the case, not the actual guy that the case is supposed to be about.
You’re basically right. The categories of language and conscious thought are entirely social in nature – as is all moral obligations. (I do, however, resist the idea that language fully determines and exhausts the world.) Perhaps a better way of getting at my position would be to frame it in terms of the ways we describe the social world.
-Even the most postivistic social scientist would argue that we cannot help but change our social world when we describe it. This is something that cannot be helped and the best we can do is try to isolate the scientist from their object of study by way of value-neutrality, objectivity, high-level mathematics, etc. More distance equals better science.
-Critical theorists, by contrast, endorse Marx’s dictum that the point is not to describe the world, but to change it. In other words, the way in which we unavoidably alter the world by describing it is a feature to be accentuated, not a bug to be isolated. Thus, critical theorists advocate a more full integration of the scientists with their object of study combined (ideally) with a healthy dose of self-reflexivity.
My position is much closer to that of the critical theorist – with important differences. The main point is that the ways in which we change the world by describing it are the very reasons for our attempting to describe it in the first place. Furthermore, this applies to ALL descriptions of the world: social science, natural science, humanities, religion, metaphysics, etc. All those values that the positivist scientists prescribed above (objectivity, neutrality, accuracy, etc.) are mere means to this end to the changes that we seek when we speak.
To summarize in a way that more directly addresses your issue:
I am not advocating the whole-sale rejection of “reality” as a word that we can legitimately appeal to. Rather, I am re-describing the role which this word actually plays in inquiry and debate. Any appeal to “reality” within a debate is a moral move within a social context which may or may not be good enough. Most importantly, what determines whether any such use of the word “reality” is legitimate is NOT reality itself, for the non-social world has no such authority over us. Rather, it is the interests and moral obligations that structure the particular social practice about and within which the debate is taking place.
What you’re doing is declaring my appeals (if they are such) to “reality” illegitimate simply because they are appeals to “reality”. But this is to miss the point since I fully acknowledge that mine are moral claims and nothing more. What is needed is either 1) to convince me that it is not in my interests to continue making these moral moves, or – more ideally – 2) mobilize other moral moves against my moral moves.
Comment by Jeff G — July 29, 2016 @ 11:32 am
Re: 110
We both disagree with appeals to evolution, but for different reasons. Basically, I think that evolutionary psychology is far too committed to gene-centrism such that the evolutionary process (in their opinion) takes far longer than it actually does. Probably the most suspect is when they claim that egalitarian morals are our “natural instincts” because we were supposed to have lived in relatively egalitarian tribes until about 10,500 years ago. Thus, the very hierarchical societies that we lived in from that time until about 300 years ago simply didn’t have time to share our moral intuitions in a different direction. Of course, at this point I agree with you in that it doesn’t really matter either way since morality is something that we are practicing, reproducing and revising in the here and now…. What this picture presupposes is that we are quite capable of moral adaptation in the here and now.
“Which is pretty interesting although a little different from Rorty’s type of idealism.”
Yes, there are important differences between Rorty and I. Like the enthusiastic romantic that he is, he grants far too much power to language and far too little goodness to moral enforcement. I agree with his demotion of the physical sciences and the attempts by the social sciences and (to some extent) the humanities to emulate the first. The difference is that while my model (roughly) attempts to view things in sociological terms, his attempts to do so in literary terms. Thus, I see no source of moral obligation and normativity in general in his account.
“A different way of putting my question in (109) might be whether you think you are talking about the nature of things, our knowledge of things, or just a practical behavior of humans towards what they label as things. It seems to me each is a very different position.”
Very good question! I love the clarity that it brings to the debate. Since my view is so sociological, mine is an account of social practice of describing, doubting, justifying, verifying, etc.
A decent way of thinking about things would be in terms of the good old fashioned Zombie thought experiment.
1 -Dennett’s position is that not only are zombies possible, they are the only beings that are possible and that we are them. We are zombies with no “inner” world that have simply evolved to talk about sensations, etc. in a particular way.
2 -Rorty’s position is that Dennett is basically right (which is exactly what makes Rorty see Dennett as a VERY close cousin in combat) except for when Dennett thinks that his description of the inner world is somehow “more real” than those zombies who resist such an account. The two accounts (Dennett who rejects the inner world and the other zombies who vehemently defend the existence of their inner world) are simply different ways of talking, one being more interesting or useful than the other within certain contexts.
3 -My position is that Rorty is basically right, except for when he thinks that “usefulness” or “interesting” are the final word in deciding between vocabularies. Rorty is right in that there is no empirical data that could ever, in and of itself, settle the issue, but he totally misses the fact that moral obligations often can and do settle such things.
Thus,
1 -Dennett thinks that we have a moral obligation to abandon “inner mind” talk since science “demonstrates” that we are zombies.
2 -Rorty thinks that we never have a moral obligation on the matter and that we should simply do that which is more interesting or useful.
3 -I think that whether we have a moral obligation to prescribe, proscribe or simply tolerate “inner mind” talk will depend upon the actual morals at play within our community.
This generalizes to ALL attempts at describing the world and what does or does not exist within it!
Comment by Jeff G — July 29, 2016 @ 12:06 pm
Another point worth mentioning is that I agree with Rorty is seeing consciousness as being fundamentally linguistic in nature but at this point we part ways since I see consciousness (like language) as being primarily aimed at our social presentations and interactions rather than aimed at presenting or interacting with the world in general, as Rorty seems to think.
Thus, I see little reason why language should fully determine and exhaust how we perceive and interact with the natural world. Consciousness (which is socially oriented) is built on top of subconsciousness (which is nature oriented).
I simply do not see this important distinction is Rorty – especially when he dismisses all animal “beliefs and desires” as mere metaphors based upon the real beliefs and desires that us language using humans actually have. It is at this level that my distinction between beliefs and claims becomes very relevant: claims as social phenomena that can be true or false, whereas beliefs are individual phenomena that are only good or bad. Humans make claims – animals do not.
We assume that our claims align with or are even equivalent to our beliefs, but I follow Freud et al in denying any tight or necessary connection between the two.
This, of course, is an attempt to reform the use of these words, rather than pass judgement on how people have or do use those words in their own lives.
Comment by Jeff G — July 29, 2016 @ 1:16 pm
Jeff, I’m not sure we can say the anti-realist debate is purely moral since really what is at question is what morality means which depends upon the realist question. That is there’s a certain circularity when you say that.
The question ends up being whether we are always just talking about human behavior (which is that one interpretation of Rorty). If morality reduces to human behavior (as in many ways Rorty has it) then that’s important to make clear.
What you are more or less doing is just changing the meaning of “real” such that it only has meaning in terms of human behavior but not what is *behind* that behavior. That is, you’re adopting a position somewhat like Skinner’s black box of behavioralism.
The problem I have with all this is that I think merely talking about human behavior without examining what is behind it independent of behavior is deeply important. It certainly is the case we can’t escape discussing how we know and it’s social situatedness in terms of practices. But we can hypothesize and test our claims which points to something beyond that social that is what we’re more concerned with. Put an other way I think focusing in on the social is important. However when it does so by excluding what is beyond the social (or even denying there can be any discussion that isn’t social) I think we’re in error.
Comment by Clark — July 29, 2016 @ 1:56 pm
“I’m not sure we can say the anti-realist debate is purely moral since really what is at question is what morality means which depends upon the realist question. That is there’s a certain circularity when you say that.”
Exactly!!! That there is no escaping this circle is exactly my point!
Comment by Jeff G — July 29, 2016 @ 1:57 pm
Regarding consciousness I think there’s always so much equivocation going on. Rorty in particular does this. We have to distinguish between firstness and thirdness in perception from awareness of things which in turn ought be distinguished from sentience or a kind of autonomy. Rorty often conflates these – often due to the more behavioralist tendencies he has at time. (You can see that in Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature where he makes a behavioralist move to equate first person perception to brain states as if they were the same thing)
Comment by Clark — July 29, 2016 @ 1:59 pm
But if we can raise the question then we can escape the circle. In other words you’re adopting a position that makes the circle.
The obvious rejoinder is why not adopt a position that makes the distinction comprehensible?
Comment by Clark — July 29, 2016 @ 2:01 pm
“What you are more or less doing is just changing the meaning of “real” such that it only has meaning in terms of human behavior but not what is *behind* that behavior.”
Again, exactly! There is no “getting behind” that behavior – especially through debate. The closest we can ever come to doing so is by leaving the debate (along with all other social interactions) entirely.
“But we can hypothesize and test our claims which points to something beyond that social that is what we’re more concerned with.”
If all you’re saying is that we can go interact with the world, come back and describe those interactions to a second person in a) terms that have b) normative implications, both of which must be morally regulated by a third party, for that second person’s future speech and action, then we don’t disagree.
If you’re talking about something else, then I smell mystification afoot. Let’s consider an individualistic “test”: I go out and test that X will happen. Let then say that X doesn’t happen……. That’s the end of the story. Nothing interesting follows from that test. In no way does X not happening obligate me to think, say or do anything differently.
Comment by Jeff G — July 29, 2016 @ 2:08 pm
“But if we can raise the question then we can escape the circle. ”
How is raising a question and assigning a burden of proof escaping the circle of moral obligation?
Comment by Jeff G — July 29, 2016 @ 2:09 pm
“The obvious rejoinder is why not adopt a position that makes the distinction comprehensible?”
The answer is because the position that makes the distinction comprehensible is a lie. It is a lie that
1) Adds nothing useful to the explanation, which is bad enough, and
2) it prevents various people, decisions and beliefs from being challenged, which is so much worse.
This lie allows people to say “you ought to believe X, but not because I, we or anybody else says so.” But such people just are telling me so by saying exactly that! In this way, they mystify their own pretensions to authority over us…. and that I cannot tolerate.
Edit: If (1) was the only danger, mine would only be an interesting competitor with the “traditional” model. It is because of the danger posed by (2) that my model gets its moral punch.
Comment by Jeff G — July 29, 2016 @ 2:49 pm
The position which I’m attacking is simply a well disguised version of the liars paradox:
“I’m not telling you what to believe.”
By telling me anything at all you just are telling me to believe something.
Comment by Jeff G — July 29, 2016 @ 2:53 pm
“Whether we describe something as real or unreal is a purely moral dispute.”
I’m not sure I understand this. What things do you think are unreal but empirical accessible? What things are real but not empirically accessible?
Are there things for you where non-social behaviors are socially determined to be morally required.
In other words, in your system do you agree that you could be right, but you are morally required to believe you are wrong by social obligation?
Or that you are socially required to ignore other people’s speech acts in forming your morals?
Comment by Martin James — July 29, 2016 @ 3:43 pm
Empirical observation is itself one among many possible social devices for adjudicating claims. It has been pretty useful for a lot of material purposes, but there is nothing necessary or timeless about it.
“In other words, in your system do you agree that you could be right, but you are morally required to believe you are wrong by social obligation?”
There is no “right or wrong” outside of social interactions…. only useful/unuseful, intelligent/foolish, and other such categories which we have preferences but not obligations.
“Or that you are socially required to ignore other people’s speech acts in forming your morals?”
No clue where this is supposed to have come from.
Comment by Jeff G — July 29, 2016 @ 3:51 pm
I’m just saying is it possible that you have a social obligation to believe you are required to believe your social obligations are not socially based?
Comment by Martin James — July 29, 2016 @ 5:40 pm
“There is no “right or wrong” outside of social interactions…. only useful/unuseful, intelligent/foolish, and other such categories which we have preferences but not obligations.”
Ok, then in what society is one obliged to believe you?
Comment by Martin James — July 29, 2016 @ 5:42 pm
“I’m just saying is it possible that you have a social obligation to believe you are required to believe your social obligations are not socially based?”
I’m sorry I was so dismissive because that’s actually a really good question. My answer is “YES!” Indeed, I would say that in some scientific disciplines this actually is the rule that is enforced, at least to some degree. To the extent that it is a moral obligation within our society at large, then mine is an attempt to mobilize other moral obligations in order to subvert its hold over us.
“in what society is one obliged to believe you?”
Well, its a bit more complicated than that (I can hear you groaning!).
A lack of proscription does not equal prescription, nor vice versa. To the extent that my model is morally prescribed/proscribed, it is at a very low level that I would personally place under “tolerated”. This is because 1) I am just one, largely insignificant person and 2) nobody’s interests are threatened at this point so they don’t have an incentive to even bother with me. (You should see the moral censure I get when I go after the apologetics crowd though!)
Basically what’s going on in our ongoing debate is that there are different sets claims, all of which are somewhat morally binding and are not all of which are fully consistent with each other. Quite naturally, both sides are accentuating those that support their own position while trying to make the claim that all the other claims are either A) no moral obligations after all or B) able to be integrated even if the other side doesn’t yet see how.
This clash of barely moral obligations just is what an argument typically amounts to. Regardless of which side comes out on top in this debate, however, I don’t think anybody’s going to get morally censured all that bad. For the most part, you guys seems to be testing how morally tolerable my position actually is rather than trying to fully condemn it.
Comment by Jeff G — July 29, 2016 @ 6:19 pm
My argument/concern is not precisely what you think it is. i think I’m trying to apply your approach and getting contradictions I can’t get around and you think I’m not applying your approach.
A couple examples: I don’t think making the case for science being the source of morality or being the paradigmatic case of good behavior. I also don’t think I’m defending a position that society doesn’t play a strong role in moral understanding and social obligation.
I think what I’m mainly saying is that I’m trying to pose moral quandaries and see how your approach deals with them in order to understand your approach and the answer either comes back ” my approach doesn’t decide between that moral choice so it is irrelevant” or “your posing of the question presumes I am incorrect and so I don’t have an argument”.
Here is an analogy. Let’s say your parent gave you the moral rule “don’t do anything stupid”. You come back to your parent and ask “is doing X stupid” and the answers always came back “might be stupid, might not be” or ” I’m not the expert on stupid” or “your question is stupid”.
The moral rule is pretty useless.
I feel like I keep coming up with examples where your approach either under specifies what is moral or is contradictory and you either say “that is for some authority other than me to decide” or you only get that contradiction because you created it by choosing more than one authority.”
I left where either pragmatically it doesn’t make a difference whether I adopt your approach or not because it doesn’t decide any issues for me or else just remaining confused that I don’t really understand what you are talking about.
To sum up the interesting parts about “morality is a social process of creating obligations and recognizing authorities” is how authorities are determined and how the wide variety of specific cases are captured in a much more limited set of moral rules or communications.”
To the first you seem to subject authority determination to an historical process of infinite regress and to the second you seem to say, the process of creating principles and communicating them works pretty well because most communities at most times haven’t had any trouble knowing moral from immoral.
Looking at our current cultures and moral conflicts you seem to hold that competing moral authorities caused any confusion there is in a bid to capture authority and moral power and I’m more inclined to see that moral authority competition occurs where moral principles and communication are inadequate to decide what are seen as moral quandaries within a given system.
In order to see if there is any new ground I’d like to ask again what your theory says about how social groups change morally and get new authorities over time? How do existing morals or authorities produce moral innovation? What creates the range of possible moral notions?
Comment by Martin James — July 30, 2016 @ 6:57 am
Is it correct to say that moral quandaries for you are just what social group to choose and whether to keep one’s obligations to that society?
For me there seems to also be a collective struggle to seek moral principles rather than posit them. For you the search seems to just be influencing each other or appeals to authority.
Comment by Martin James — July 30, 2016 @ 7:55 am
The whole point of my theory is to open up the wide plurality of possible moralities that actually have and do exist in the world. These different moralities will select moral authorities in different ways. By these means, my model is meant to open up a robust and deep faith without having to reject (a socialized version of) science.
I don’t see how this is all that complicated. It’s like you’re asking an evolutionary biologist to say either 1) which species is the true species, 2) how do species (in general) live or 3) predict how species will evolve in the future. But they don’t claim to offer answers to any of these any more than I pretend to answer your equivalent questions.
What they do offer, and my model does as well, is basic principles in terms of which we can understand these evolutionary processes. My main principles are incentives and enforcement: incentives structure what we will do and enforcement structures what we ought to do. Thus, any account of speech, inquiry, faith, science, politics, etc. that pretends to “transcend” the “limits” of incentives and enforcement are mere mystifications. Everything else is mere commentary.
Comment by Jeff G — July 30, 2016 @ 8:07 am
“Is it correct to say that moral quandaries for you are just what social group to choose and whether to keep one’s obligations to that society?”
No. A moral quandary is when we have to choose between conflicting moral obligations.
To repeat, since we do not get to simply act however we like, we do not get to simply posit whatever moral rules we like either. Our actions (including proposed reformations of moral obligations) are always constrained by the moral obligations and enforcements that our community already holds us to. The difference between creating and discovering ways of dissolving moral contradictions is one of semantics and nothing else.
Comment by Jeff G — July 30, 2016 @ 8:11 am
Ok, I think my position is that number 3 for evolutionary biologists is a perfectly good question and if they can’t answer it we can charge them with not being knowledgeable in an important way.
My other position is that non-social incentives are really important and interesting
Lastly, if moral obligations are social creations it is not clear why establishing a new society doesn’t make prior obligations non-binding.
Comment by Martin James — July 30, 2016 @ 10:41 am
1. Well, I am perfectly happy to fail in the same way that evolutionary biologists do.
2. Of course there are non-social incentives. That’s the whole point! The stranded man has plenty of incentives, but not obligations.
3. Of course the reformation/revolution/restoration of one society transforms and/or dissolves prior obligations! That’s exactly why dead prophets aren’t binding as living prophets are.
Comment by Jeff G — July 30, 2016 @ 10:48 am
I’m fine with your approach being like evolutionary biology and not being prescriptive.
Comment by Martin James — July 30, 2016 @ 2:04 pm
While I want to be okay with that, I’m not sure that my account can be contained in this way.
In the case of evolutionary biology, the claim that a species is not “natural” has very little moral relevance (unless we are talking about humans).
What I am saying is that moral claims to truth of any kind are not “natural”, something which has a great deal of moral relevance. As such, it is bound to conflict with at least some moral prescriptions.
If this doesn’t bother you, then your objections are very small indeed.
Comment by Jeff G — July 30, 2016 @ 2:32 pm
(Sorry – haven’t had time to read all the comments since I posted last. Maybe later tonight.)
Again, exactly! There is no “getting behind” that behavior – especially through debate. The closest we can ever come to doing so is by leaving the debate (along with all other social interactions) entirely.
Yes, that’s what I disagree with. That all we can talk about is the behavior. To me it’s not that different from what the positivists said about what is meaningful. Indeed there’s a lot of overlap between the positivists and the behavioralists. One way of looking at the positivists is just taking a quasi-behavioralist view and doing logical analysis on it.
Comment by Clark — August 1, 2016 @ 11:37 am
“Yes, that’s what I disagree with. That all we can talk about is the behavior.”
Once again, you’re confusing necessity and sufficiency. I’ve never said that behavior was all there is, only that we can never get outside of it. The only way to get “behind” behavior is through more behavior.
Comment by Jeff G — August 1, 2016 @ 11:54 am
But I don’t see how this avoids the problem of the positivists who make similar claims to what is behind what can be verified. To say that it’s meaningless to talk about what is behind behavior requires that one can ground “meaninglessness.” Now one can just assert that one can’t get behind, much like the positivists ended up doing with their criteria of truth. But there’s a reason why that was so dissatisfying (and arguably more than anything else why people rejected positivism)
Recall that much like you do, the positivist could always say we conduct more experiments and make more observations. So they too would say the only way to “get behind” is through more behavior. However because truth was defined in terms of this verification, it undermined the whole endeavor.
If for you truth is defined in terms of these behaviors (with treating with authority as just one more behavior) then I don’t see how this avoids a vicious circle.
Clearly you understand there’s something behind behavior but think we can only verify it in terms of future behavior.
The way out, as I’ve mentioned many times, is to remove verification (either with sense data or behavior) as a criterion of truth. That’s what Peirce does and that avoids most of the problems I think you’re creating for yourself.
Comment by Clark — August 1, 2016 @ 12:35 pm
I was actually just thinking about a post on this subject!
There have been two basic strategies in distancing oneself from (traditional) metaphysics and morality.
The “classical” approach – most exemplified by the positivists – is dismissing such talk as “meaningless”. This approach presupposes an individualism so that anything that makes no difference to the an individual and isolated scientist in his lab (however big this lab is) ought to be disregarded as irrelevant. This is the same approach to claims to authority – they should simply be ignored because they are unverifiable. (In this view, publicly and individually observable “nature” is the only authority. Hence “naturalism”.) Steering the safe course here means sticking to that which is observable and computable – things which have little, if any direct relation to behavioral analysis.
This is NOT what I am saying.
The other, “romantic” approach – most exemplified by critical theory – is dismissing such talk as “mystification”. This definition presupposes social relationship such that all such speech act most certainly make a difference in social relations – it’s just that they obscure and draw attention away from what those differences really are. Such mystifications ought not be dismissed as “meaningless”, but articulated and exposed for the social roles that they actually do play. For this reason, claims to authority should not be simply ignored, but actively engaged and resisted. The safe course here means a self-aware, reflexivity regarding the social effects that our own speech acts have – things which are unavoidably behavioral in nature.
This is much more what I am doing.
Thus, my approach is utterly different from any school that posits some “theory of meaning” whereby any competing claims will be dismissed as “meaningless”. Within my view, a “contradiction” is nothing deeper than a moral dilemma in which we have conflicting moral obligations. “Incoherence”, on the other hand, is simply when we are trying to endorse and subvert a moral obligation at the same time. At no point is dismissing a claim as “meaningless” without further analysis of the role that it plays a live option for me.
Comment by Jeff G — August 1, 2016 @ 12:58 pm
In other words, I see you as complaining that I embrace an incorrect theory of meaning such that I am using the wrong criterion for dismissing some statements as meaningless. (I assume you endorse Pierce’s theory of meaning.) What I am actually saying is that all such theories of meaning and all such attempts at dismissing various claims as meaningless are themselves bogus.
Furthermore, they are not bogus because they are meaningless. Rather, they are bogus because they are mystifications of real power-plays within actual social relations. Such attempts are not empty (and as such morally neutral), but morally insidious (precisely because they are not empty).
Comment by Jeff G — August 1, 2016 @ 1:29 pm
I think I was complaining about a theory of truth not a theory of meaning. Recall that Peirce’s theory of meaning (which for the most part I accept) is itself behavioralist. (The pragmatic maxim) To me the genius of Peirce as opposed to either the positivists or the later net-pragmatists was in keeping it a theory of meaning rather than truth. Further Peirce’s notion of abduction allows him to treat verification more broadly than many do. (Thus his “Neglected Argument for God” which, regardless of how one views it theologically is a great example of how he sees abduction, inquiry and metaphysics)
Overall I don’t mind the idea that we just have future behaviors to deal with our attempts to grasp more. That to me is ultimately the whole point of emphasizing a process of inquiry rather than a more static epistemology that models knowing in terms of classic geometric proofs.
My problem is just that we have to be able to think outside of current behavior. That is conceive of things beyond what is now present. When we make our analysis only in terms of what is present rather than in terms of presence and absence we err. (This to me is the classic blunder of philosophy)
So I have no problem with contradictions, ambiguities and so forth. To me those are a kind of demand upon us to inquire farther.
I’m not sure I’d call this romanticism. Further I think there are problems in critical theory in that as soon as you make things competing narratives, power relationships, or behavior/authority that there’s a temptation to then stay in terms of those things as they are held now. So you can see that with a lot of the nonsense that goes on in universities trying to argue against science in terms of gender power relations. (Stephen Plinker has tons of examples in his book, The Blank Slate which while polemical is still useful)
Beyond that my other objection which I’ve maintained for quite some time is just how we relate our knowledge to authority claims. So, to use an example I’ve used a lot what happens if an authority says the sky is red when you see it as blue. I don’t think you’ve really provided an adequate explanation there. Even if the explanation you’ll eventually give will be in terms of social behavior.
Comment by Clark — August 1, 2016 @ 3:05 pm
“My problem is just that we have to be able to think outside of current behavior.”
The only way we have done this is through the use of symbols whose use is 1) pragmatically oriented toward some behavior end – both in the speaker and in the audience – and as such 2) morally regulated through, again, social behavior.
Yes, we say all sorts of things that do not explicitly refer to anything that people are doing…. but this is just one more form in which we (for better or worse) draw attention away from the both the behavior that is presupposed by doing so and (more insidiously) the behavior that we try to elicit in others by doing so.
“Further I think there are problems in critical theory in that as soon as you make things competing narratives, power relationships, or behavior/authority that there’s a temptation to then stay in terms of those things as they are held now”
While they would definitely acknowledge that there is this tendency, this does nothing to show that it is a problem… let alone that this problem is more dangerous than that of unreflexive, positivism (the position that we can or should sideline such relationships).
“So you can see that with a lot of the nonsense that goes on in universities trying to argue against science in terms of gender power relation”
While such arguments are plenty obnoxious, they are not any less plausible than the positivist alternative. On this point, they are on very solid ground. In other words, my rejection of such SJW’s politically and morally motivated, and self-consciously so. The idea that we can have any other objection to them is pure mystification.
“So, to use an example I’ve used a lot what happens if an authority says the sky is red when you see it as blue.”
What your example assumes is that there is some deep difference between authoritatively mis-describing the sky and authoritatively re-describing it. But it is this very distinction that I am rejecting! If all you’re saying is that an accepted moral authority cannot say that the sky is the same color as blood without also making a large number of other renovations in related meanings and socially enforced rules then I would agree with you. This seems perfectly reasonable and far from a refutation of my view. If you’re saying something else, then I’m just not seeing it.
All authoritative changes like this just are one set of symbols and rules of application (which may track one person or a select group of persons) against other symbols and rules of application. I don’t see anything deep about this.
Comment by Jeff G — August 1, 2016 @ 3:33 pm
Closely related to this is Terrence Deacon’s book (meant as an argumentat against Chomskians like Pinker) that symbolic thinking and speaking evolved upon a symbolic representation of people and their roles, obligations, etc. – especially within the context of marriage relations. By this light, linguistic meaning evolved from the moral obligations which structure social relations which means that any attempt at using the former to refute my account of the latter seems very strange indeed.
Comment by Jeff G — August 1, 2016 @ 3:39 pm
“What your example assumes is that there is some deep difference between authoritatively mis-describing the sky and authoritatively re-describing it.”
But it is this very distinction that I am rejecting!
Is this a correct view of how you think your rejection works? Descriptions are social and morals are descriptions, so we have no non-social ways of doing morality.
Comment by Martin James — August 1, 2016 @ 4:44 pm
BTW, I bought the book Incomplete Nature a few years back but haven’t read it. Is it any good?
Comment by Martin James — August 1, 2016 @ 4:48 pm
I haven’t read it either. I would love to read it…. but there’s a long, long queue at this point.
“Descriptions are social and morals are descriptions, so we have no non-social ways of doing morality.”
Not really. In terms of Venn diagrams, yours would say:
Morality inside Descriptions inside Social.
What I say is:
Descriptions inside Morality inside Social.
In other words, describing something is one type of moral practice – whereas your interpretation makes morality one type of description.
Comment by Jeff G — August 1, 2016 @ 5:07 pm
So what is outside social?
Comment by Martin James — August 1, 2016 @ 5:38 pm
Also, what makes something moral in your view other than a description? How do we know the moral from the social and from the description?
Comment by Martin James — August 1, 2016 @ 5:39 pm
“So what is outside social?”
Are you asking me to *describe* it? If so, then you are asking for something that lies further inside my Venn diagram, not outside it.
Of course, there is a non-social world that places constraints on all of the levels inside it… but that is just one description that I think we would all agree to.
“Also, what makes something moral in your view other than a description? How do we know the moral from the social and from the description?”
There are plenty of social animals that are not moral, largely because they do not have language or some other symbolic capacity. There are plenty of moral things to do, even if you aren’t describing anything. More specifically, a moral claim doesn’t have to be a description. A silent ninja that restores his families honor by exactly vengeance on the man who dishonored his sister, doesn’t need to actually say anything.
Comment by Jeff G — August 1, 2016 @ 6:00 pm
I’ll write later on your other points, but I’ve always seen Pinker and Chomsky as on very opposite sides of various theoretical fences. Especially in terms of evolution of language. I’m sure there’s stances they share of course such as the idea language is innate. So I guess you could say Pinker is still working within the paradigm change ushered in by Chomsky decades earlier. Certainly Pinker admits Chomsky as an influence but certainly on things like human nature he differs wildly from Chomsky. On the evolution of language he argues strongly against Chomsky.
That said in cognitive science (at least the parts I’ve read) Chomsky seems irrelevant beyond some very broad claims which people agree with to such an extent they often aren’t even viewed as hypothesis. (Innate grammar and language for instance) Ditto with philosophy of mind I’ve read.
Comment by Clark — August 1, 2016 @ 6:13 pm
What you’re having a hard time grasping is what I call the “reduction cycle”. Basically, there are three parts of the world:
Intentional Minds
Organic Evolution
Physical Nature
What largely distinguishes different metaphysical systems is that they take one of these as “most basic” and then attempt to reduce the other two down to the first. Consider:
Creationism: An Intentional Mind created the natural world which then evolved in different, wayward ways, producing lots of minds, many of which do not believe in the first Mind.
Romanticism: Evolutionary history has produced different instincts, communities and vocabularies in which different people describe the world in different terms, one way being that of the physical scientists, another being that of the Darwinists.
Naturalism: The physical world began to replicate in various ways, giving rise to complexit organisms and communities, some of which learned how to think and speak and finally describe the physical world in terms natural science.
All three of these are able to not only explain all three aspects of our world, but also explain why the other worldviews wrongly believe as they do. If we ask any of these people where this reductive process should “ground itself”, they will then give the answer that follows from their own worldview:
Creationism: In God or wherever God tells us to.
Romanticism: In instinct or wherever our instinct tells us to.
Naturalism: In nature or wherever nature tells us to.
My model is aimed at showing that there are viable alternatives. It is in this sense that my model sucks at keeping creationists in the church by offering them viable alternatives…. But I think naturalism is, as a matter of fact, a far bigger threat to creationism than I am. Thus, I am primarily aimed at those who think that naturalism has no viable alternatives.
More than anything, by offering viable alternatives, I hope to make people more free in choosing for themselves what they will believe rather than thinking that naturalism is the only game in town. Thus, I present all three worldviews so that people can choose for themselves based in 1) the interests and incentives that they actually have and 2) the moral constraints of the community in which they actually find themselves.
If people freely and self-reflexively choose naturalism, I don’t see any problem with that at all. What I do have a problem with is when naturalists start getting dogmatic, claiming that they are the only “real” or “true” worldview – especially when they are least able to explain why I have any moral obligations at all, let alone one to believe what they say.
Comment by Jeff G — August 1, 2016 @ 6:25 pm
“I’m sure there’s stances they share of course such as the idea language is innate.”
This is basically all I meant. Deacon strongly rejects the idea of any innate language organ or language grammar or any such thing. What he says is that language and grammar evolved to be most easily reproduced in infants. Thus, grammar is a “good move” in design space that all languages converge upon rather than being a hopeful-monster/mutation that our genetic hit upon millennia ago.
Deacon is VERY influenced by Pierce in his approach, so I think you’d find him very interesting.
Comment by Jeff G — August 1, 2016 @ 6:30 pm
I don’t think that’s how Pinker views it. Rather he thinks the potential was there around 100,000 years ago. The problem of course is that once language pops up culture should develop fairly quickly. So the challenge for those arguments in evolutionary psychology is to explain how the evolution was recent enough to allow civilization to start developing around 10,000 years ago without the problem of why it didn’t start earlier. It’s actually a tricky issue. So when Pinker or even Chomsky talk about innate grammar they are really just talking about a potential capability. They then have had lots of arguments back and forth about other physical issues such as the vocal cords that can evolve to allow rapid use of this pre-existing propensity.
Comment by Clark — August 2, 2016 @ 8:04 am
(Admittedly it’s been a while since I read Pinker on this, so I may be mangling things somewhat — but that’s my memory of the debate between the two)
My problem with Chomsky is that I suspect grammar is emergent out of more complex parts. Pinker tends to assume that too. So there’s not *a* grammar in the brain but lots of parts that enable the development of a grammar.
To your other point about romanticism, creationism and naturalism, I’m not sure I buy those definitions. But then I also don’t think they’re as opposed as some do. It’s true there are forms of naturalism that explain away both intentionality and first person qualia as causally significant. But I naturalism is famously a vague and ambiguous category.
Comment by Clark — August 2, 2016 @ 8:07 am
Jeff,
your post in 150 is very helpful for me to clarify what I’m saying.
I think all 3 models are actually very poor at explaining why people adopt one of the 3 models. Naturalism only has a rudimentary account of why people don’t hold naturalistic views. For example, in evolutionary terms, the genetic mechanism hasn’t been determined. Evolution without genetics is not very naturalistic.
Romanticism doesn’t explain why people do or do not follow their instincts.
Creationism also doesn’t explain very well why moral choices change over time.
You sometimes argue that this concern with prediction of moral change is only a concern within naturalism. I’m trying to argue that regardless of which moral outlook you adopt, there are naturalistic and romantic and creationistic experiences involved.
For example, you related in some sense the ability to have language or a social system with morality, which is why I thought that morality is within the descriptive (which I would now expand to include the symbolic and conceptual).
To sum up, let’s say I accept that you have opened up additional possibilities, including the possibility that the moral authorities can declare the sky red. I still think that it makes sense to consider the naturalistic consequences and possibilities of that moral regime and how likely it is to exist or in what contexts in can exist. That is my minimum objection.
My stronger concern, but not a full-fledged objection, is that the ability of a moral system to explain moral change is a strong necessity for its survival.
For example, if an explanation is that moral change because people are evil, but the moral system is not successful in attributing evil to those adopting other morals, it is likely to lose adherents.
You don’t seem that concerned with this. For you, as long as it is possible to hold a moral position in some social grouping, that the degree to which that morality spreads or shrinks is not really what you are interested in explaining with your moral position.
Comment by Martin James — August 2, 2016 @ 10:35 am
Interesting points that definitely deserve deeper thought, Martin.
Your question regarding whether language lies within, without or just is morality is a very good one. I’ll have to think this relationship a bit more.
“it makes sense to consider the naturalistic consequences and possibilities of that moral regime and how likely it is to exist or in what contexts in can exist. That is my minimum objection.”
I do not disagree with this, so long as it also acknowledges that we are within the system that we are supposed to be making predictions about, a fact that undermines any deep attempt at prediction. That said, I don’t see how my model undermines such analyses, nor do I see why my model must be such an unavoidably empirical analysis.
” if an explanation is that moral change because people are evil, but the moral system is not successful in attributing evil to those adopting other morals, it is likely to lose adherents”
I’m not seeing the difference here. If we explain a moral revision as an evil departure from a standard, then we must also speak of such people as evil, distance ourselves accordingly and believe that (whether in this life or the next) they will be punished for their evil. If we don’t believe all these things, then I have no clue what “evil” is supposed to even mean.
“the degree to which that morality spreads or shrinks is not really what you are interested in explaining”
The reproduction of moral systems is extremely important to me, since this just is the evolution and adaptation of moral systems over time. We can definitely perceive social forces and contradiction at play which allow us to guess the “trajectory” in which our community is moving. Indeed, my entire approach (analyzing paternalistic, individualistic and fraternalistic communities) just is an analysis of these forces and contradictions along with the social practices that reproduce or undermine each one with respect to the others.
Comment by Jeff G — August 2, 2016 @ 10:53 am
“I’m not seeing the difference here. If we explain a moral revision as an evil departure from a standard, then we must also speak of such people as evil, distance ourselves accordingly and believe that (whether in this life or the next) they will be punished for their evil. If we don’t believe all these things, then I have no clue what “evil” is supposed to even mean.”
What I am saying is that evil and morals are part of a package, worldview or community, whichever best fits your model. What I am saying is that it can occur that one part of that community adopts an “evil” practice. If the community is successful in keeping that evil, then the moral system will sustain or grow, but if, instead, doubt begins to be thrown on the morals that held that behavior or belief to be evil, them the system will likely not evolve.
You are saying there isn’t much interesting there because that decision is juts what we mean by evil and so nothing stands outside of it.
I think we agree that this continual moral process goes on all the time.
The main issue is that an individuals experience of the world is more routinely affected by naturalistic forces and romantic forces that continually buffet the moral system. You focus on the fact that the moral and social continually buffet what we see as the moral and social.
The extreme version of my argument is that more and more people faced with the experiences they have both social and non-social, have no idea that “evil” is supposed to mean.
I’d like to hear a lot more about how you see incentives operating in the changes in morality.
What incentives are brought to bear? I think that one’s perception of one’s self as a “good” person is a key cause and you see it more as a key “effect” of this moral process.
Comment by Martin James — August 2, 2016 @ 11:40 am
I’m having a hard time figuring out what exactly you’re talking about. I think you’re asking what happens when “relativism” becomes wide spread and we cannot take any set of moral for granted.
Assuming this is your problem, then my perspective is very much designed at answering it. The answer is that since morality is relative to the community that one finds oneself in, then it becomes very important what community it is that you choose to identify and associate with….. In this case, God’s community. His morals are not objective, but they are absolute and beyond question.
So long as we are clinging to God’s law then we will, by the very act of belonging to that community, be morally obligated to condemn many of the other behaviors we see around us as evil.
Comment by Jeff G — August 2, 2016 @ 5:14 pm
Here is what mystifies me.
At root, you think the morals you wish to attach to are that of God’s community. Yet, almost all of the evidence and examples we have of moral communities are not most certainly not God’s community.
You seem to want to draw analogies between historical people communities and God’s community.
As one example, you seem to posit that we have moral obligations to communities whether they are God’s community or not. I don’t understand why.
The conundrum for me is that if one wishes to be part of God’s community, then the primary point has to be how God’s community is identified. But your belief that our search understanding is conditioned by our historical moral community, leaves me extremely skeptical that we can ever discern God’s community.
To the extent, I believe you about God’s community, I don’t understand the point of your historical and social analysis. Alternatively, to the extent I believe your historical and social analysis, I don’t understand how God can be found.
I have heard catholic philosophers say that the predominant culture in the USA is that each of us individually believes that God’s community is God and the individual and whoever happens to agree with them.
In practical terms, are you saying you are fine being part of any community that has a God in it, but not those that don’t?
Comment by Martin James — August 3, 2016 @ 7:44 am
No, I’m placing all the weight on personal revelation. Absolute morality consists in following who God tells us to follow, a morality that will be enforced by Him alone in the final judgement.
The point of the historical analysis is to show that God can tell us to follow any number of different people and/or moralities. There is no sidelining the process of personal revelation through an appeal to reason, nature, peer-review, etc.
Comment by Jeff G — August 3, 2016 @ 8:13 am
OK, cool. You’ve written so much more about topics other than personal revelation that I’m glad to see that clarified, although I do think you have mentioned it before.
My concerns are lessened but I still think that your work leads to serious questions about how much social and historical forces condition personal revelation.
I am defending a non-social source of conscience because it allows for personal revelation contrary to a current society in a way that I don’t see with a completely social understanding of morality.
Comment by Martin James — August 3, 2016 @ 8:48 am
“your work leads to serious questions about how much social and historical forces condition personal revelation.”
I would agree with that. I think any approach that does not raise such questions is only mystifying the issue.
Comment by Jeff G — August 3, 2016 @ 9:03 am
Ok, our difference is just down to how much the non-linguistic, non-social affects the social and linguistic. I think you’ve agreed it is a factor in the possibility of morality as we know it, but doesn’t determine or distinguish morals in any significant way, and I want to hold out that it can, at least indirectly, in that the way we experience in the non-social affects the social.
Or to emphasize the difference more, I think the non-social or at least technologically enabled, changes us in a way that leads to moral change – for good or for bad. You see more that our experience of the non-social and technological is inherently moral and only affects us if we let it affect us.
Comment by Martin James — August 3, 2016 @ 12:40 pm
“I think the non-social or at least technologically enabled, changes us in a way that leads to moral change – for good or for bad.”
I’ve never denied this. Again, I’m saying that personal interests and historically contingent morals always play a role, not that they are the only things that matter.
The natural, non-social world always constrains what moral systems can be, but it never constrains the possibilities down to one “true”, “real”, “necessary” or “undecided” morality.
The most basic example is which side of the road to drive on. The natural world makes the following options not very good ones:
Drive on any side you want.
Drive down the middle of the road.
Drive on the left when going north and on the right when going south.
Etc.
My main point is that despite how “inefficient” these strategies seem to us, there is nothing that says that all communities ought not accept any of them. Communities absolutely could endorse any of these rules if they wanted. Indeed, in some contexts, many of these rules are better than the one’s we actually live by. It is for this reason that many of these rules actually HAVE been the norms that societies have followed.
Another point is that no matter how closely be observe roads or the vehicles that use them, there is no natural fact of the matter than determines which side of the road we should use – or that we should even have to pick a side at all. Other people determine such things – and it is only by interacting with them that we could ever figure out which is the “correct” side.
Comment by Jeff G — August 3, 2016 @ 12:53 pm
I agree with you that morals can always be intentional and purposeful. I also think that in practice much of the change in morals is the result of small unintentional changes with non-linear effects that are very hard to reverse.
Comment by Martin James — August 4, 2016 @ 8:13 am
Of course they are….. But that’s exactly how one tradition would describe others as “drifting away” from the true morality.
Creationists insists that the only time morality should change is when God consciously changes it. Romantics insist that it should only do so when we, as a community, collectively and consciously change it.
Only naturalists (out of these three options) think that morality can evolve on its own for the better. (This just is the very definition of “alienation”.)
Comment by Jeff G — August 4, 2016 @ 8:18 am
Yes, I tend to see personal revelation by alienation perspective. I think I am in the small camp of Romantic naturalists actively seeking alienation for purposes recognizing God’s role in creation.
Comment by Martin James — August 4, 2016 @ 10:38 am
Wait, what? I’m not sure if we’re talking the same language here.
Neither naturalists nor creationists have much use for “alienation” as a concept. The concept is almost totally used by romantics to criticize any attempt to give moral control to anything or anybody other than ourselves. Thus, religion is alienation. Natural law is alienation. Etc.
Naturalists think that the more we offload our morals onto nature, the better. This makes them “more objective”, thus dismissing the collective authority of romanticism and the unilateral authority of creationism in favor of “expertise” with regards to how the world just works.
Creationists are basically those described in my grace post. They think that appealing to collective authority is to pollute the pure authority of God revealed to His chosen messengers. They think that looking at nature is suggestive (since God made it), but no amount of expertise could ever give us the divine authority that morals are supposed to have.
Now I have separated these out into fairly idealized types that are typically mixed in practice. I see you as 75% naturalist, 25% creationist – if we can be really crude about it. I, by contrast, am advocating something like 60% creationist, 40% romanticist. As for Clark, it’s always very difficult to figure out what his own position is, rather than what his objections to others are. Indeed, we already saw that he rejects my taxonomy altogether.
Comment by Jeff G — August 4, 2016 @ 10:49 am
I’m a romantic that thinks alienation is good for us. A masochistic romantic.
Comment by Martin James — August 4, 2016 @ 11:44 am
My irrational side is romantic more than creationist. My creationist side is basically that only God makes sense of the absurdity of consciousness (and morality) in a naturalistic world.
Comment by Martin James — August 4, 2016 @ 11:46 am
“I’m a romantic that thinks alienation is good for us. A masochistic romantic.”
Romantics are defines by their moral rejection of alienation. You basically saying “I am pro-triangle, but think that having 3 sides is really bad for us.”
Comment by Jeff G — August 4, 2016 @ 12:11 pm
People who want as much alienation as possible are naturalists.
Edit: Check that…
People who think that moral decision should be decided by a Higher Being instead of the collective people are creationists. People who think that there are no moral decisions to be made, not even for a Higher Being, are naturalists.
Comment by Jeff G — August 4, 2016 @ 12:19 pm
OK, so where would a person be that believes God will tell you what you want to hear as long as you ask in accordance with nature be?
Comment by Martin James — August 4, 2016 @ 2:20 pm
It’s not about “what would happen if…” It’s about who or what determines what actually is and is not moral.
Comment by Jeff G — August 4, 2016 @ 2:27 pm
OK, so Romantics is your bucket for people deciding and I say a Romantic can declare it is moral to make alienation an obligation.
Your own theory comes pretty darn close to saying that human authorities moral obligate people to worship God.
Comment by Martin James — August 4, 2016 @ 2:37 pm
If we only look to nature because we all self-consciously agree to do so, then there’s nothing alienated about it.
Comment by Jeff G — August 4, 2016 @ 3:42 pm
You can’t consciously decide to be unconscious of something. To the extent that you succeed, you’re not longer conscious of it and to the extent that you fail, you haven’t made it unconscious.
Comment by Jeff G — August 4, 2016 @ 3:57 pm
The one thing we definitely disagree about is that I’m way more convinced life is absurd.
Comment by Martin James — August 4, 2016 @ 4:37 pm