quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson: [QUOTE] And the second difference is this: from a psychological perspective, it is a known fact that people more easily justify abomination when they believe they are acting on behalf of a higher authority. It's much harder to justify, say, putting someone into an iron maiden on your own initiative than to do it because God -- or, to take God briefly out of the equation, your boss -- told you to do it.
I didn't know that was a known fact. Would you mind posting some references, please?
Personal experience is that those who committed the most heinous acts were atheist. But that's just personal experience.
quote: I didn't know that was a known fact. Would you mind posting some references, please?
There's actually a pretty wide body of work on it. Milgram springs to mind first, of course. And while the people who may have ordered the most heinous acts in recent decades may have been officially atheist -- and I'm not necessarily conceding this, either, actually -- the people who actually performed those acts were generally not (and were, per my previous argument, acting on unquestioned commands from authority.) From my perspective, someone can order as many deaths as they want without bothering me a lick as long as the people they're ordering have the strength of mind to say "no, I will not."
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Tom-- Do you also admit the benefits given to society by those acting in the name of God? Charity, art, music, etc?
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Oh, absolutely. Motivation is motivation, and certainly in the formative years of human development we needed a reason to obey a central authority; I don't think agriculture and the development of the city-state could have happened without that sort of justification.
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quote:Originally posted by Scott R: Tom-- Do you also admit the benefits given to society by those acting in the name of God? Charity, art, music, etc?
Just to clarify for myself, you are submitting that followers of God also do acts of Charity, art, music, etc. You are not stating that "Charity, art, music, etc" are benefits we wouldn't have without followers of God. If my clarification is correct, I accept this, too.
quote:Tres: You say this as if you think the religious should just have to put up with being looked down upon because of the priorities that viewpoint places upon them.
Who doesn't have to put up with being looked down upon for whatever reason? Who is immune to the negative opinions of others? Lord knows I suffer being looked down upon for who I am, even by some members of this board. Why should the religious be immune to this where it applies?
Blackblade, I was going to argue about you claim regarding "Scandinavia" since I thought the hubub about Canada and Spain recently included remarks about how they were the first to legalize gay unions. However, luckily I checked my facts and you are right (to a degree). The HRC website lists several countries with varying degrees of legalized gay unions. I had no idea how far behind the curve we really are as a nation. That said, I'd love to see you, or anyone else, really, take that list and point out the spiritual malaise each country has undergone due to its degree of recognition of homosexual unions. In fact, that's a challenge. You can even start your own thread.
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quote:Somebody made the point that Baptists think Mormon Proselyting is damaging to the moral fabric of society. 1: I have never heard that argued, 2: They are welcome to try to pass bills that accomplish their aims, we wont begrudge them that, merely vote against such measures.
Do you honestly think that if this were the case you'd have a chance in winning? And do you not know your LDS history? Or even American and European history for that matter?
I think that this is one of the problesm with the "Democracy = Freedom" idea that our country pushes. Democracy, on its own, merely replaces tyranny by the strong with tyranny by the majority. That's why there was and is a great conern with securing individual rights and with developing and adhering to a workable public square epistemology. To actually secure "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" for the individual and for a nation, you need to set aside rights for each person that can't be taken away by the majority and a set of guidelines for what arguments are legitimate for employing government force against the will of some of its citizens. The majority of people in a country can vote for the death of one person or a group of people (like in the Missouri Mormon Extermination Order), but, if the system is working, it would avail them nothing. They, even as a majority or a supermajority, do not have that right.
I wrote something a little while back about our country's roots in the Enlightenment. It might be useful for me to repost it here:
quote:(Just a note, I'm going to treat the Age of Reason as part of the Enlgihtenment. Of course, if you know the difference between the Age of Reason and the Enlightenment, you already the stuff I'm going to talk about.)
The Enlightenment (wiki) was a movement towards reason and tolerance and away from the magical thinking, submission to authority, and inflexible parochialism that had kept Christian Europe a place of ignorance, savagery, and internicine warfare.
The first revolution was one of the system of thought. During this period, thinkers developed a way of thinking and of proof that has led our modern ideas of science and systematic scholarship.
They looked at what we actually could say we know. This was done early on by Montainge and Descartes (he of the "I think therefore I am.") and later by Hume and Kant.
One of the central characteristics of this new system of thought was its reliance on the idea of immutable, underlying laws. No longer was "Just because." or (more importantly) "Because God (or some other person in authority) said so." considered an adequate answer. The Deist (and in many cases the Christian) god was seen as a watchmaker, who set the immensely complicated but understandable universe machine in motion and was now watching it play out according to the laws that the god set in place.
This orderly conception of the universe spread into other matters, such as politics. Rulers were now expected to be able to provide valid reasons for their decisions and action instead of rely solely on their authority as they had in the past. There was increasing emphasis on the rule of law instead of the rule of the privledged (meaning "private law") person. This eventually developed into the idea of "natural rights" (or, as Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence "inalienable rights").
The Protestant Reformation had already raised the individual to the position of central concern, but it did so without humanism and tended to regard the individual as bascially evil who's basic duty was submission. The Enlightenment re-emphasized this pre-eminent focus on the individual but included the ideas of humanism, turning the picture of human history as one of a progression towards achieving the benefits of human freedom, instead of the static worlds of the communal relations then emphasized by the Catholic Church or of degraded, isolated individuals a la Luther and Calvin (and in my opinion, Ecclesiastes).
So the Enlightenment carried with it a call to revolution against those powers that opposed human freedom, namely the Church and the State, with the idea of setting up a new form of government. The ideas from the Declaration of Independence:
quote: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. --That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
and the Constitution:
quote:to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity
were not the often-ignored platitudes that they have become. They were a declaration of a new age, a near complete break from the world that had come before. Instead of being a matter of one ruling family wresting control from another or of one religion taking over from another, this was set forth as a revolution based on ideology and dedicated towards to extending justice and liberty to all it's citizens and not just those who had the right connections or religion. There are few things in human history as profound and far-reaching as this.
The Enlightenment had at least three distinct factions, divided by geography and ideological focus. The intial Enlightenment thinkers (now excepting the Age of Reason) were French: Rousseau, Voltaire, Diderot, and d'Alembert, among others). They were know as the philosphes or the Encyclopedists (as they were contributers to Diderot's Encyclopedia - itself revolutionary in the idea that people should be able to have ready access to information and that this access would destory ignorance and led to drastic social change). They were the most ideologically centered thinkers and, as the forces they opposed - Church and State - were most entrenched, they were also the most negatively oriented. Anti-clericsm was very strong in France as was the idea that the old order needed to be destroyed before the new one could be built.
The Scottish Enlightenment (wiki), (sometimes considered the English Enlightenment due to the role of John Locke and the dissident groups of England such as the Puritans) on the other hand was influenced by Scotland's status as one of the poorest country in Europe and the background of Calvinist Presbeterianism and took on a much more pragmatic and productive bent. The Scottish formed a lot of the thought that made up Utilitarianism. Also, besides the more philosophical concerns, he Scots turned to pratical applications, such as economics. Adam Smith, author of The Wealth of Nations and the granddaddy of systematic capitalism, was a member of the Scottish Enlightenment.
The American Enlightenment was directly influenced by the Scottish one, as the Scotch did a heck of a lot of teaching. Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, and James Madison, among others, were pupils of members of the Scottish Enlightenment. America was presented with the problem of unifying a divided populace with extremely different concerns and ways of approaching the world. Thus, the American Enlightenment was even more pragmatic and concerned with application than the Scottish. It's no accident that two of the main, non-Enlightenment pupils, Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Paine were men with a driving concern towards practicality. The proto-Americans were faced with the problem that Franklin expressed as "We must hang together or, assuredly, we will hang separately." This was true not just in reference to the revolution against the British, but also as to the future of the nation as a whole. The Constitution (primarily authored by James Madison and defended in the Federalist Papers by Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and John Jay - see how those names come up again) achieved this by forming entrenching the Enlightenment ideas of the rule of law, liberty, and tolerance into the framework of the new nation.
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There was plenty of Christian influence in the development of American. Judeo-Christian ethics formed the backdrop of the Revolution and the formation of the constitution. Heck, it even formed the backdrop of the French Enlightenment, which was against the Church as an institution, not necessarily the ideals of the Christian religion. However, at a time when most of the nations of Europe were "Christian" nations, America was different through the new ideas of the Enlightenment, which has as one of their effects America being much less a "Christian" nation than the countries of the old order.
When peopel talk nowadays about Americ being a "Christian" nation, they generally don't seem to understand the Enlightenment, its central role in our country's develpoment, or how while it's not contrary to religion, it does limit the legitimacy of what they want to do. They tend to want to force other people to live by their religions rules because we live in a "Christian" nation. On the other hand, however, many people seem to regard the strong anti-clericism of the French Enlightenment and the blatant and savage anti-religiousity of the French Revolution to be part and parcel of what it means to be an Enlightenment nation. They seem to want to get rid of all traces of religion and make religious people feel as if they should feel ashamed of their belief. Neither one of these is true to the spirit of the founding of our country. Neither the Christian bigotry of the Maryland Act of Toleration nor the exclusionary, positivist nonsense of Thermidor should be part of our national character.
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Of course, since there's such astounding ignorance of the things I just wrote about, what really is true to this spirit these days?
quote:First difference being, of course, I can tell you at any given time why I hold the moral opinions I do, what my code of ethics includes, etc. How many religious people could, if and when they come to kill me at their god's command, let me talk to their god before the fatal stroke is dealt to see if we might come to some arrangement?
Why is it enough for you to simply explain why you hold the opinions you do, yet you ask the religious to PROVE it by letting you talk to God? You can't offer any more proof of your code of ethics than they can. And they can explain the reasons for their beliefs just as well as you. This is not a difference.
quote:And the second difference is this: from a psychological perspective, it is a known fact that people more easily justify abomination when they believe they are acting on behalf of a higher authority.
Yes, but it is also easier to do the right thing when you have an authority telling you to do it. That is a fact too.
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quote:Yes, but it is also easier to do the right thing when you have an authority telling you to do it. That is a fact too.
That's not actually true. Having a moral system dependent on external rewards and punishments or authority instructions over time leads to poor moral development and an increase in immoral behaviors (such as stealing, cheating, etc.) when not under direct supervision.
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quote:Why is it enough for you to simply explain why you hold the opinions you do, yet you ask the religious to PROVE it by letting you talk to God?
For one thing, because I am the source of my ethical code. When I do something, it is because I choose to do it and believe it is right.
Presumably, somebody killing me because God has told them to do so has no strong opinion himself on whether or not I should be killed; if he did, he'd be killing me on his own initiative. If he's killing me because God said so, God's desire to make me dead is what I care about. Talking to my killer about why he wants me dead would be completely irrelevant, because the only reason he could put forward would be "God says so." So why not ask to talk to God?
quote: For one thing, because I am the source of my ethical code. When I do something, it is because I choose to do it and believe it is right.
Isn't that still the same thing basically? You do something because you believe it is right. Religious people are doing things because they believe it is right. The religious would have a strong opinion himself based upon what he believes his God told him to do. Just like you have a strong opinion to not want to be killed based upon your own personal moral convictions.
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quote: Isn't that still the same thing basically? You do something because you believe it is right.
No. They do something because God told them to do it, and they believe that doing what God tells them to do is right. It's one step removed, and that's an important step.
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Yesterday my sweet mother-in-law sent me a junk mail. It was the story of how the daughter of a great religious evangelical who's name slips my mind, was asked on Television why God allows bad things to happen, like 911. She explains, in the e-mail, that it is because we have asked God to leave our life, our schools, our politics and our places of business. God, being a polite being, did as he was asked, allowing bad things to happen.
The e-mail was about 20% factual, and 80% added criticisms and fire&brimstone styled religious conservative hyperbole.
I responded back to her, and to everyone else on her junk list that I could find, "Its sad. The terrorists who murdered all those thousands of innocent people, and the crimminals and sadist who directed them, have but one goal as well. They too, want to return their God to our schools, places of work, and public life."
The biggest problem I have with people arguing that their religious morality is better than secular morality, is that there are a bunch of other people with differing religious moralities who want the same thing.
Secular thought was not created out of anti-Christian hate mongers. It was created as a way for people of different sects to be able to live together in the same world. One Christian may believe that the bible makes homosexuality a sin. Another, taking the same bible, believes it is not. So, besides throwing bible verses at each other, how do we create a society with both of these Christian sects in it?
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quote:For one thing, because I am the source of my ethical code. When I do something, it is because I choose to do it and believe it is right.
This contradicts your earlier claim that you can explain why you hold the moral opinions you do. If there are reasons for your belief, then those reasons are the source of your ethical code, not you - at least, it is if you are going to claim that someone whose reason is God is not the source of his own belief.
quote:They do something because God told them to do it, and they believe that doing what God tells them to do is right. It's one step removed, and that's an important step.
And you do X because reason Y tells you it is right (unless, of course, you have no reason at all for your beliefs). That is just as much one step removed - whether that reason Y is God, some other person, some assumption you've decided to accept, or some argument you think is valid.
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quote: If there are reasons for your belief, then those reasons are the source of your ethical code, not you - at least, it is if you are going to claim that someone whose reason is God is not the source of his own belief.
Except that God is not a reason, Tres. God is the source of the reason.
In other words, I have my own reasons for behaving a given way, reasons I can explain to you and even reconsider. Someone who does something because God has ordered them has the order as their reason, and God then becomes the person with the reasons. In this scenario, any complaint should be addressed to God, as He's the person with the reasons.
There's a difference, I submit, between doing X because Reason Y makes X a logical necessity, and doing X because Individual B has a Reason Y. In fact, I don't have to submit this; as I've said before, there's a fairly substantial body of work on this very issue. Doing things because you've been ordered to do them is significantly easier than doing things because you've concluded that they should be done. It even engages different physical parts of the brain.
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Let me cite Davidson's Rule: Any post which is solely submitted in order to point out the typos or grammar errors of a previous post is highly likely to contain an error of similar nature.
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quote:Someone who does something because God has ordered them has the order as their reason
...hence that someone has a reason! And thus someone who does something because God said so is also a person with reasons for their moral opinions.
quote:There's a difference, I submit, between doing X because Reason Y makes X a logical necessity, and doing X because Individual B has a Reason Y.
The difference is that the latter is a subcategory of the former. "Because Individual B has a Reason Z for X" is a Reason Y, and if Individual B is infallible then that Reason Y would make X a logical necessity.
You are trying to count some reasons as reasons but not others. This is not correct. Even if you don't think certain reasons are good reasons, or even if it is "significantly easier" to follow certain reasons than others, that does not make those reasons cease to be reasons. People who follow God's will have reasons that they can explain just as you do - those reasons just often happen to invoke an argument by authority, a different sort of reason, but a reason nonetheless.
And although you can say following that sort of reason is easier, I think it would be difficult to say that reasoning in that way is less effective than whatever other sort of reasons you are thinking of. That's because it's very hard to find trustworthy assumptions from which to base your reasoning, other than authorities. Usually, instead of God, the authority becomes some sorts of rules (like Utilitarianism) or your own personal subjective feelings.
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:laughs at Tom's double post, which he will probably have edited by the time this post posts:
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quote: You are trying to count some reasons as reasons but not others. This is not correct.
No, it IS correct. Specifically, I am saying that doing something because someone told you to do it is -- both logically, emotionally, and scientifically -- different from doing it because you have a reason.
This isn't even disputed by modern psychology, Tres. The mechanism for obedience is completely different from the mechanism for rational thought. Where you're welcome to disagree with me is my assumption that this is inferior to the other approach.
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What does modern psychology or the meachanism for obedience have to do with whether or not obedience is a reason with which things can be justified?
A reason is a reason, as long as the rightness of the act you are justifying follows from acceptance of that reason. If X follows from Y, and you believe Y, then Y is a reason for X. It doesn't matter if Y is "because God said X is good" or "because studies have shown X decreases crime" or "because I have a feeling X is good." All three of these entail different "mechanisms" but they are still all reasons, meaning it is still incorrect to count some as reasons but not others.
It is not difficult to paint any given belief as totally irrational if you start deciding which reasons count as real reasons, and which do not.
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quote: What does modern psychology or the meachanism for obedience have to do with whether or not obedience is a reason with which things can be justified?
Because I believe that some reasons are significantly superior to others, particularly when it comes to offering actual justification for behavior -- but also when it comes to producing correct behavior. There is an enormous functional, social, and biological difference between doing something because you were told to do it and doing something because you have concluded that it is right. Do you understand this distinction?
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Perhaps a point of clarification is needed. Ultimately it boils down to responsibility. A person who is acting on their own, by their own reasons usually has no choice but to accept full responsibility.
A person acting under orders ( or commandments etc ) is able to blame the other party. The responsibility shifts from the individual committing the action to the entity requesting that the act be done.
At the fatal moment in which an act can not be reversed i.e. pulling the trigger of a gun, an individual acting on their own will be able to say to themselves, no I will not do this it is wrong. However, on the other side of the coin if one is acting from an order they have to say no I will not listen to the order ( or whatever ) but this step requires that they significantly battle within themselves something entirely different ( potentially being or becoming a target of the other entities ill wishes ) furthermore since they can say oh it's not my fault it makes it much more likely that they can go through with the act, unfortunately.
Lastly, interpretation "always" leaves room for error. Generally one can very clearly understand their own personal motivations. Trying to interpret what something else wants, demands, or asks is a risky proposition.
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quote:Because I believe that some reasons are significantly superior to others, particularly when it comes to offering actual justification for behavior -- but also when it comes to producing correct behavior.
Yes, some reasons are better than others. But that doesn't mean the lesser reasons are not really reasons for those who believe them. You claimed that you can give reasons for your moral opinions, while the religious cannot. That's not a claim about whose reasons are better - that's a claim that the religious don't even really have ANY reasons at all, and that is the claim I'm refuting.
quote:There is an enormous functional, social, and biological difference between doing something because you were told to do it and doing something because you have concluded that it is right. Do you understand this distinction?
I understand the distinction in this way: Doing something because you were told to do it is one particular way of doing something because you have concluded it is right. The former is a type of the latter.
If you are doing something because you have been told to do it, then I think this necessarily implies you have come to the conclusion that it is right. However, the reverse is not true - if you come to the conclusion that something is right, it is not necessarily true that this is because you have been told to do it.
This is not really a functional, social, or biological difference though. Rather, the functional, social, and biological differences exist between types of reasons - such as differences between authority-based reasons, observation-based reasons, logic-based reasons, aesthetic-based reasons, etc. But reasoning itself (concluding something is right) is an umbrella that includes all of these functionally, socially, and biologically distinct ways of determining right from wrong.
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Tres- "If you are doing something because you have been told to do it, then this necessarily implies you have come to the conclusion that it is right. "
I point to the Milgram link above.
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quote: You claimed that you can give reasons for your moral opinions, while the religious cannot.
Specifically, I claimed that I can provide primary justification for my moral opinions, while "the religious" cannot. Their moral opinions are second-hand.
quote: If you are doing something because you have been told to do it, then I think this necessarily implies you have come to the conclusion that it is right.
And here I refer again to the numerous studies which indicate that this is not true. There is a physical difference in brain mechanics between the thought processes for obedience and the thought processes for rationalization. This physical difference expresses itself in distinctly different -- and predictable -- behaviors under the two conditions, even for the same decision. People do things differently when they are told to do them than when they have reached the decision independently.
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Unrelated to what is being discussed now (sort of) I found a much better Milgram link. here
Also, I agree with Tom and this happens to be one of the main problems I have with religion in general.
I don't think anyone's mind will be changed now though. Seems pointless to keep arguing the same thing over and over.
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quote:Having a moral system dependent on external rewards and punishments or authority instructions over time leads to poor moral development and an increase in immoral behaviors (such as stealing, cheating, etc.) when not under direct supervision.
It's interesting you'd say this, Mr. Squicky, because it appears at least to contradict your statement.
I mean, religious people (mostly) believee they are always under supervision. Or Supervision, if you will. G-d is watching. Jesus is always with you. The Spirit is always with you. Karma cannot be tricked. Etc.
But your statement implies that religious people are more likely to committ moral error when not under direct supervision, even though they believe they're under Supervision every moment?
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quote:No. They do something because God told them to do it, and they believe that doing what God tells them to do is right. It's one step removed, and that's an important step.
I think you're misstating the relationship many religious people have with G-d.
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I am sitting here giving myself a headache because I'm on the verge of an epiphany, or a chunck of stupidity, and I can't quite put it in words yet.
However, it goes something like this:
Those who argue that a religious based morality is prefered seem to be saying that without a strict guideline of right and wrong, people will have to decide on their own, and will simply rationalize as right anything they do that is wrong, but beneficial to themselves.
Since people are imperfect they will be unable to match the perfection of divinely inspired morality.
However, there is a smorgasbord of those that claim divinely inspired moralities out there. Since people are imperfect won't they have a tendency to choose the wrong divinely inspired morality? To say the bible is your rock from which you will not stray meand that for some reason you chose that rock. This could have been either divinely inspired, or due to a set of reasons to many to go into here.
The only thing that I know for sure is that I have read the bible, bits of the Koran, and bits of other religious texts from around the world. No divine inspiration has directed me to choose any one over the other, nor any interpretation of one over the interpretations of others.
So what can I rely on other than my judgement and logic?
You say that God tells you homosexuality is bad, so you are agains SSM. In truth, unless you are getting personal divine conversations, you are saying that your biblical studies, or the biblical studies of those you believe as true experts, say that homosexuality is bad--and so is SSM. How are those experts, or your own studies, any freer from rationalizations and human imperfections than my own beliefs on the subject, which are not biblically or religiously centered?
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quote: But your statement implies that religious people are more likely to committ moral error when not under direct supervision, even though they believe they're under Supervision every moment?
I submit that even the most religious person occasionally forgets that God is Watching (tm).
quote:I think you're misstating the relationship many religious people have with G-d.
There's a reason I put "the religious" in quotes, Jeff. If you read my earlier posts, you'll notice that I specify a very narrow population, indeed, as target of my observation. Religious people who would NOT kill me even if they thought God told them to do so are completely exempt from this complaint.
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I noticed that, Tom. I should've been more specific, that's my mistake. I was speaking more to your tone, which implied (necessarily, I realize, since those are the people you're talking about) that you're always around such people, that they're everywhere.
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quote:If you are doing something because you have been told to do it, then I think this necessarily implies you have come to the conclusion that it is right.
And here I refer again to the numerous studies which indicate that this is not true. There is a physical difference in brain mechanics between the thought processes for obedience and the thought processes for rationalization. This physical difference expresses itself in distinctly different -- and predictable -- behaviors under the two conditions, even for the same decision. People do things differently when they are told to do them than when they have reached the decision independently.
How does this prove that doing something because you were told to do it does not necessarily imply you concluded it was right? All it proves is that the method through which they reached their conclusion is different in those different cases. Just because obedience is a different sort of reason for doing something, that entails different sorts of physical responses in a person, does not mean that it ceases being a reason, or a "primary justification" for the thing being justified. Someone who obeys authority still reaches the conclusion to do so themselves, even if there is a different mechanism involved.
Similarly, in the Milgram experiment, the "teacher" has concluded it is right to keep shocking the "student". The case is interesting because there are two reasons in conflict - one reason is that the experimenter should be obeyed, versus the other reason that stems from the knowledge that hurting someone severely is wrong. The experiment illustrates that people are naturally inclined to place more weight on the need to obey than on the logic stemming from their own value system. It may be that this bias is a physical one, based in the way the brain is designed. However, why does any of that suggest the teacher did not ultimately conclude he was doing the right thing by obeying? Even if consciously he was telling himself he should not be coming to that conclusion, he did come to that conclusion, because he kept obeying. And if asked why he did it, I would bet he would state right of the bat it was because the experimenter told him to, and because he had to obey. That is a reason and I would think a "primary justification" for his action.
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quote: How does this prove that doing something because you were told to do it does not necessarily imply you concluded it was right?
Because doing something because you were told to do it precludes the possibility of doing it because you concluded it was right. If the first applies, the second cannot apply -- not least because, presumably, the second would take precedence over the first if it occurred.
quote: However, why does any of that suggest the teacher did not ultimately conclude he was doing the right thing by obeying?
Believe it or not, this concern was actually addressed. And in almost all cases, the "teacher" did not in fact reach that conclusion.
quote: And if asked why he did it, I would bet he would state right of the bat it was because the experimenter told him to, and because he had to obey. That is a reason and I would think a "primary justification"
You're using a definition of "reason" that I think is preventing you from understanding my point, Tres. If by "reason" you mean "cause of an effect," then everything has a reason.
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quote:Because doing something because you were told to do it precludes the possibility of doing it because you concluded it was right. If the first applies, the second cannot apply -- not least because, presumably, the second would take precedence over the first if it occurred.
You are simply stating this as if it is fact, but I've been saying the exact opposite is true: Doing something because you were told to do it implies you concluded it was right. You would have concluded it was right because someone you trust told you to do it - the two are not mutually excluse.
If you had not concluded it was right, why would you have chosen to do it? Shouldn't that be the ultimate test of what you have concluded is right - what you decide to do? If you say something is right but then go ahead and do something else, you probably haven't really concluded it's right.
If not by their actions, how would you determine what one actually has concluded is right when one's actions are inconsistent with one's claims about right and wrong?
quote:You're using a definition of "reason" that I think is preventing you from understanding my point, Tres. If by "reason" you mean "cause of an effect," then everything has a reason.
No, by "reason" I mean that which justifies choosing to do a given act in a given person's mind.
Posts: 8120 | Registered: Jul 2000
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posted
This thread was here at the right time, I'm using just the links listed, as the startings of research for an exploratory paper (in an english comp class)
Posts: 5362 | Registered: Apr 2004
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quote: You are simply stating this as if it is fact, but I've been saying the exact opposite is true: Doing something because you were told to do it implies you concluded it was right.
And I'm telling you that you are absolutely wrong, and that study after study indicates that you are wrong. That, in fact, there are measurable biological and psychological distinctions between these two things. This is not something that is even argued among psychologists, as I understand it.
quote: If you say something is right but then go ahead and do something else, you probably haven't really concluded it's right.
You appear to believe that people only do those things they have concluded they should do. What's interesting about the obedience mechanism is that it actually bypasses this step, which is precisely why it's dangerous.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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quote:And I'm telling you that you are absolutely wrong, and that study after study indicates that you are wrong. That, in fact, there are measurable biological and psychological distinctions between these two things. This is not something that is even argued among psychologists, as I understand it.
Except that those studies don't show what you keep claiming they show. They show only that there are different methods of concluding things, not that one method counts as concluding while the other does not.
And it is not surprising that psychologists don't argue about this much, because it is a question that is beyond the scope of any sort of scientific psychology. It is a question of the nature of reasoning. I think modern psychology tends to stay away from issues of that sort.
quote:You appear to believe that people only do those things they have concluded they should do. What's interesting about the obedience mechanism is that it actually bypasses this step, which is precisely why it's dangerous.
How does it even make sense to say one could bypass this step? Again, what other test is there for what a person has concluded is right, beyond looking at what they have chosen to do?
The only way I can see that it would make sense to say that you have not concluded you should do something, and yet you are doing it anyway, would be if you were physically unable to do otherwise. And if you were physically unable to do otherwise, you haven't really chosen to do it. Your body has simply forced you to do it, making your beliefs irrelevant. But when a religious person obeys the Bible, it is not at all accurate to claim they are physically unable to do otherwise if they wanted to. It would be a great shirking of their responsibility to say anything other than that they are choosing to act according to God's law by their own free will.
So the question still is this: If they they are choosing to do it by their own free will, why would they be choosing to do it, other than because they've concluded it is the right thing to do?
Posts: 8120 | Registered: Jul 2000
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posted
Father: "What made you think it was okay for you to be out walking the dog at this hour?"
Daughter: "Mom told me to do it."
Are you sure you want to say that the Daughter's answer here isn't really any reason at all? Should the Father demand a 'real' reason?
It seems to me that it's rational for a daughter to conclude she should walk the dog when her mom tells her to, regardless of what brain processes lead her to draw that inference. And it would be quite unfair of the father to claim that isn't a real reason at all and that the daughter was acting totally irrationally, just as it is unfair of you to claim following God's will isn't a real reason that the religious can use to guide their actions.
quote: Are you sure you want to say that the Daughter's answer here isn't really any reason at all? Should the Father demand a 'real' reason?
Let's up the ante a bit and try this one on:
"What made you think it was okay to torture that man?" "The general told me to do it."
------
The reason these don't feel equivalent -- even though they are -- is that the obedience mechanism is just fine for "little" things. We don't particularly mind when a daughter does a chore because her parents told her to do the chore, not because she thought the chore needed doing; a father in that situation, wanting to preserve that kind of automatic obedience, would be very unlikely to question it. Parents go to great lengths, in fact, to instill that sort of obedience.
I used the army in my later example because they're also an organization that goes to great lengths to install obedience mechanisms -- for much the same reason. You don't want soldiers to stop to think "should I shoot this man," when stopping to ask that question might result in being shot themselves. You want them to shoot the person you tell them to shoot -- or charge into the hail of fire -- on command, and take on faith that what you're doing is for the greater good.
But this is not rationalization. This is not even rational thought, per se. It is a mechanism that is deliberately cultivated to bypass rational thought. And like all mental mechanisms, it can be useful in limited situations. But -- as with my torture example -- it can backfire. Consider the effect of this sort of obedience on your "walking the dog" example; what if the girl was walking the dog when a rapist suddenly ran after her, and she just kept walking the dog anyway, because she'd been told to do it? Luckily, most kids aren't that obedient to their parents. More relevantly, the instinct we share for self-preservation tends to override the obedience mechanism in most cases, which is why it's easier to order someone to kill somebody else than it is to order them to die.
If you're really hung up on the word "reason," fine; feel free to call acting out of obedience a "reason," however pathetic. It is NOT, however, a rational behavior -- which is what I suspect bothers you in the first place.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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quote:The reason these don't feel equivalent -- even though they are -- is that the obedience mechanism is just fine for "little" things.
"Why don't we just pass a law to require prayer in schools?" "Because the Constitution says we can't."
"Why don't we torture terrorists?" "Because the Geneva Convention tells us not to."
"Why didn't Tommy eat the poison berry?" "Because his Mommy told him not to."
"Why didn't you torture that man?" "Because the Bible says to love your neighbor."
There are many cases where obedience works well for "big" things. The usefulness of obedience has nothing to do with how "big" or "little" the importance of something is. It has to do with how well we can judge the situation on our own. Little kids don't judge well, so it is better for them to follow rules of obedience, rather than use more complicated reasoning to try and deduce what to do. Adults are equally inept at judging in many cases - cases where morality is very tricky or where things are going on that are larger than can be seen by the individual.
quote:But this is not rationalization. This is not even rational thought, per se. It is a mechanism that is deliberately cultivated to bypass rational thought.
It may or may not be a conscious thought. Rational behavior of all sorts can go on a level below conscious thought - like when someone spots a crime and, without stopping to think about it, realizes it is wrong. In such a case, rational deduction of some sort is going on, even though the person might not even be aware of it. Similarly, sometimes obedience involves a thought and sometimes it does not. I've frequently thought "so-and-so told me not to do this, so I should not." In cases like that, obedience does involved conscious thought. But in other cases it might be more automatic.
Either way, though, obedience is still rational, because it is based on a valid deduction. X is right, X says I should do Y, therefore I should do Y. This is a valid, rational argument. Whether you actually think this, or whether the that processing is simply built into your brain, that rational argument is still the basis of any sort of obedience. Of course, like any attempt at rationality, things can go awry if your assumptions are mistaken. Who knows how your mind has come to the conclusion that so-and-so can be trusted to be right? But it is still reasoning, even if the assumptions involved result in the conclusion being flawed.
Rationality allows for the existence of rules - whether this be "X is always the right act" or whether it be "It is always right to obey what Y says." From such rules you can rationally deduce what act to do. And the reason such rules may be necessary is because of our lack of judgement when it comes to individual situations. Human Beings often judge very poorly in certain situations. As a result we have rules, traditions, and authorities to tell us what to do. If these are situations where following the rule or authority is more often going to lead to better results than our individual judgement, then it is rational to follow the rule or authority.
And again, yes, this may not all be consciously thought out by the person following the rule or authority. The classic shock therapy is an example of how one can come to reason using a rule that one is not conscious of. If you shock someone everytime they drink a beer, they will conclude they should not drink beer, even if they latter have no idea why they are thinking that. I'd argue that this behavior is still rational because, even though it might be subconscious, it is still based on a logical argument stemming from a rule based in repeated observation.
I think this distinction is very important, particularly in politics, where ethical decisions must be made. Liberalism, in particular, makes a habit of assuming human reasoning should be entitled to reject any and all tradition or authorities. This, I think, is a mistake. The reasoning of the majority is often overly simplistic and short-sighted. If it seems to the average Joe that Nazis should not be allowed to have free speech, they will judge that we should ban pro-Nazi speech. It will often not occur to them what other things this might end up causing in the far long run. As a result we have set up authorities, such as the Constitution, to protect us against the faulty reasoning of individuals.
Yes, the Consitution is an authority that we obey in the same way many obey God.
But there are other authorities that we have too, for the same reason. God and the Bible are one of them. In the modern era people tend to be willing to reject these authorities because they seem wrong. They forget that it is still rational to place trust in an authority when trusting the authority will result more often in the right answer than attempting to judge things for oneself. And then they pass mistaken laws accordingly.
This is why I am hung up on considering appeals to authority as rational behavior. There are many "big" issues where I simply do not trust individual human judgement as much as I do authorities. (And, of course, there are other situations where the reverse is true.)
Posts: 8120 | Registered: Jul 2000
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quote: Either way, though, obedience is still rational, because it is based on a valid deduction. X is right, X says I should do Y, therefore I should do Y.
Tres, it's really difficult to have this conversation with you until you read some more literature on the topic. Comparing the Constitution to God, for example, is flawed on a number of levels; at best, it can be compared to the Bible -- and, indeed, that would be a valid analogy.
quote: This is why I am hung up on considering appeals to authority as rational behavior.
The thing is, even under the most charitable interpretation, it's an abandonment of responsibility. "I do not understand this," the logic goes, "so I will listen to this person whom I believe does." And it's precisely that process which makes it easier to countenance atrocity.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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quote:Originally posted by Tresopax: Father: "What made you think it was okay for you to be out walking the dog at this hour?"
Daughter: "Mom told me to do it."
Are you sure you want to say that the Daughter's answer here isn't really any reason at all? Should the Father demand a 'real' reason?
Excellent as comrade TomD's points are, it seems to me that there is a further difference here : The daughter can readily point to her mother, and ask "Mom, why did you want me to walk the dog?" It is an unusual god for which this is possible.
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
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quote:Tres, it's really difficult to have this conversation with you until you read some more literature on the topic.
As a matter of fact, I have read some literature on this topic, including the psychological experiments you've been referring to. I'll also point you to Chapter 3 of Between Past And Future by Hannah Arendt ("What Is Authority?"), which is a pretty good analysis of authority and obedience.
quote:The thing is, even under the most charitable interpretation, it's an abandonment of responsibility. "I do not understand this," the logic goes, "so I will listen to this person whom I believe does."
Well, I am sure people naturally view it is an abandonment of responsibility, but I don't think it actually is. When you chose to obey someone, it is still your choice to obey. In a sense, by doing this, you are only shifting the thing you are judging - you are trusting your judgement of who to trust more than your judgement of what to do. If you fail to pick the right authority to obey, it's still your judgement's fault, one way or another.
Regardless, whether that constitutes an abandonment of responsbility or not, it can still be the rational thing to do. If you truly don't understand something, shouldn't you trust someone who you think does?
quote:The daughter can readily point to her mother, and ask "Mom, why did you want me to walk the dog?" It is an unusual god for which this is possible.
Well, yes. In truth the authority that religious people are directly trusting is not God. They are trusting the Bible or their church - trusting that those come from God, who they in turn trust. This is a more dangerous chain of reasoning, but it still follows the same general idea.
Posts: 8120 | Registered: Jul 2000
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quote: Regardless, whether that constitutes an abandonment of responsbility or not, it can still be the rational thing to do. If you truly don't understand something, shouldn't you trust someone who you think does?
Absolutely. But -- and here's the kicker -- the actions produced by that decision to trust are by any useful definition not rational. When you abdicate your responsibility for decision-making to someone else and agree to abide by their decisions, you are no longer making individual decisions; you are abiding by the consequences of a previous decision, and no longer individually examining each future decision on its merits.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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posted
I don't think that is correct. Abiding by the consequences of a previous decision IS a method of individually evaluating each future decision. You aren't weighing the future decision solely on its own merits, but you are still evaluating it using a process that follows valid logic. This is rational because, as long as you still trust that your original decision was correct, it would follow that doing this should give you what you'd expect to be the correct answer for each future decision. (Whether this is responsible or not would be another issue.)
I think a useful definition of rationality should include decision-making in which the ultimate decision follows from the premises you think you have further reason to believe are true. This is a case of that.
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