quote:Originally posted by scifibum: "Besides, "normal" is relative."
But normal is what distinguishes mental illness from mental health.
I don't accept that because not only does "normal" change from country to country but it changes from time to time.
Homosexuality used to be classified as a mental illness, its not now. That doesn't mean that it used to *actually* be a mental illness.
Rather, there are actual mental illnesses and while our perception of what is or isn't is affected by the surrounding culture, it doesn't mean that what actually IS a mental illness changes.
quote:Originally posted by The Rabbit: If you seriously can't see any significant difference between the homeless guy babbling on the street corner about how he is God and the Mormon missionary who knocks on your door and tells you how God has answered his prayer, you have some sort of social developmental disorder.
*shrug* IF we're going to make this personal, I would suggest that your insistence that its OK to hear voices means that this conversation is striking rather close to home for you and you may wish to get checked out.
But I'm not making it personal. I'm just saying that from the point of an atheist, we don't believe in any god. Period. There's not a lot of wiggle room. Whether a guy comes up to us in a nicely starched shirt and claims he can hear god or we hear see a homeless guy that claims the same, its the same conclusion in both cases. The voices are imaginary. Whether we actually announce that loudly or not, thats all encapsulated in the very title of atheist.
Now, maybe the homeless guy who thinks he is god has other issues that should make us more wary of him rather than a clean-cut missionary. Sure. But thats not countering my original assertion.
My original assertion was:
quote: In other words, from our perspective whether a guy comes up to us saying that he's hearing Napoleon or that he's hearing God via "profound spiritual experiences," we're going to treat the two of you the same. Lots of space and maybe a tighter grip on the wallet and cellphone.
In other words, if the two people are otherwise equal, I have to treat the two of them the same regardless of who they hear. That doesn't mean I have to treat the two of them the same if they *aren't* otherwise equal. I'm more fearful of the guy who hears Napoleon if he's drunk, seems violent, or is physically diseased. I'm more fearful of the guy who hears god if he has a curious interest in flight manuals or if he's showing me a map of abortion clinics. In those two cases, they simply aren't otherwise equal.
And sure, maybe its offensive to say it out loud.
But at least we're honest about it because in reality, theists don't get terribly concerned about how they treat each other. Most people don't quibble over whether its "offensive" to say that what other people hear is imaginary. At best, they simply laugh at Scientology or Mormonism as simply being absurd and silly (see the TED thread). At worst, they claim that the other is simply evil (see like any Lisa thread about Muslims).
Subsequently, why atheists get special grief for pretty much stating what atheism means is beyond me.
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JonHecht: You may have to clobber me. I am not sure that A is A is exactly the same formulation as A=B although the form is similar. Also, there are doubtless connections with dualism but I am not clear exactly how you see them manifest.
Generally, I see Descartes as a bait-and-switch argument perpetuated these days by Chalmers etc. Even if I was to concede the theoretical possibility that an evil genius could deceive me into believing that I had a body even though I did not, I do not have to concede that he could do so in non-material ways. Conceding the evil genius as supernatural would also void the first argument that "I still could not be mistaken in thinking that I have the thoughts I do".
Strider: Thanks! Great links!
Overcoming Bias is always good too.
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quote:1. that spiritual experience are not the product of ignorance, low intelligence, poor reasoning skills or mental illness.
Neither are dreams. That is not a good reason to trust their content.
quote:2. that having a spiritual experience does not make people less able to function productively in society, more prone to be swindled, less able to maintain healthy relationships with other people, or more likely to participate in any behavior established to be anti-social or self-destructive.
Any spiritual experience which does have these effects, you instantly reclassify as mental illness and remove from your sample! As one scientist to another, would you consider rethinking your experimental design?
quote:3. People who have had these experiences frequently describe them as life altering and among the most powerful of human experiences.
Granted, but then again this is also true of people who've tried LSD and other hallucinatory drugs.
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Oh, this had nothing to do with Descartes. My point was that the indiscernibility of identicals states that if x=y, then x and y are identical in ALL properties, which effectively means x=x, though the second x is called a different name.
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That could be argued, as your linked aptly demonstrated, but I am still unsure of how you are relating it to Shermer... Perhaps you mean that Shermer implies that there is no supernatural even if he doesn't exactly say it?
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My point was that if you are going to be comparing two separate things as the same, it is more accurate to start with the statement x=y and see if that is true. I think it's logically simpler than saying a=a then explaining why that's not the case here.
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I'm not sure he is trying to say that. In fact he seems to be saying x=x, y=y, x/=y which may just be a re-statement of NOMA at bottom except that I think he does imply that there is only x and no y. He is definitely saying that y/=x so I think I of I doesn't really apply.
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He seems (to me) to claim that some people are claiming that x=y, and this is a simple proof against that statement.
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quote:2)I don't really understand what you mean here: "but without connecting their answers to facts about reality, we can't figure out which religious answers are best or how to apply religious answers to our actions." Please elaborate. An example would help.
Here's an example: Imagine your religion holds that human life is sacred and that people should not have children unless they are married. But then you are confronted by two groups of people. One group says we should teach about condom use in schools, and claims that would result in fewer premarital pregnancies and fewer abortions. The other group says we should NOT teach about condom use in schools, because doing so would result in more premarital pregnancies and more abortions. How do we know which of the two is correct? Lets assume that your religion's ancient texts do not go into the details of the effectiveness of various sex education methods. If that's the case then it's likely that the religion cannot answer the question of which policy best supports the goal of preventing pregnancies. The only way to resolve it is going to be to step beyond Religion, and use things like Science to figure out what works the best.
That's the problem with placing "What is meaningful?" in one magisteria, while placing "How does the world work?" in a totally separate magisteria. Answering the question of what is meaningful is only useful IF we can apply it to the world by knowing how the world works. Knowing the former doesn't help us in the least bit in resolving real problems unless we also know something about the latter.
quote:The gist of your argument seems to be that if people were not confused by the apparent competition and/or incompatibility of science and religion-acceptable-to-Tresopax (RATT), they would choose to follow RATT in preference to consumerism, extremism etc.
I didn't mention anything about anything being acceptable to me.
My argument is that the way we separate spheres of knowledge (separating moral/value questions from questions about pragmatic reality) makes it very difficult to come to any kind of cultural consensus on what matters and how we should act. I don't know what kind of consensus we'd come to or whether I'd agree with it, but without it there is a void that is filled with consumerism and materialism. Extremism is a reaction to that void.
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quote:2)I don't really understand what you mean here: "but without connecting their answers to facts about reality, we can't figure out which religious answers are best or how to apply religious answers to our actions." Please elaborate. An example would help.
Here's an example: Imagine your religion holds that human life is sacred and that people should not have children unless they are married. But then you are confronted by two groups of people. One group says we should teach about condom use in schools, and claims that would result in fewer premarital pregnancies and fewer abortions. The other group says we should NOT teach about condom use in schools, because doing so would result in more premarital pregnancies and more abortions.
What exact religious question are you alleging is being asked and answered here, because as far as I see, the question is "How do we reduce the number of abortions?" which isn't religious. and your two potential answers aren't religious either.
If you are really going to call every question under the sun "religious', then you are engaged in serious equivocation here.
quote:How do we know which of the two is correct?
According to you, we use our personal judgment, see if the political and philosophical needs outweigh the scientific answer, and if they do, which they usually do when one doesn't like the scientific answer, then you do whatever the religious answer is, right?
quote:Lets assume that your religion's ancient texts do not go into the details of the effectiveness of various sex education methods.
Okay, so what do you do when your religious texts have a clear, black and white answer? Like your texts say "The world was created in 6 days?"
You claim that's "incorrect" religion?
Or you claim that in your "personal judgement" the philosophical needs "trump" the science?
quote:The only way to resolve it is going to be to step beyond Religion, and use things like Science to figure out what works the best.
Unless in your personal judgement, the religous answer is right, and the scientific answer wrong, correct?
quote:I didn't mention anything about anything being acceptable to me.
But you have offered absolutely no other way of determiing "correct religion" from "incorrect" religion, despite being asked a million times. The reason is obvious, and its embarrasing to see you play naive about it
quote:My argument is that the way we separate spheres of knowledge (separating moral/value questions from questions about pragmatic reality) makes it very difficult to come to any kind of cultural consensus on what matters and how we should act.
Well, the one common thing that we can all agree on is physical reality. So I don't know why you constantly advocate that people should ignore it in favor of their "personal judgement", and then wonder why no one can agree on anything. It's becuase you keep undermining the utility of the one thing that everyone can agree on.
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quote:Any spiritual experience which does have these effects, you instantly reclassify as mental illness and remove from your sample! As one scientist to another, would you consider rethinking your experimental design?
Your implication is that these are all part of the same continuum and that the only difference is one of degree of severity. But this contention is not supported by scientific research either from behavioral psychology or physio/chemical studies of the brain. Researchers have, for example, performed CT scans on meditating or praying monks to determine which areas of the brain are active during their "spiritual experiences" and from this it has been scientifically proven that "spiritual experiences" are a fundamentally different phenomenon than dreams, hallucinations or psychosis. This does not stands as evidence that one is necessarily more valid than the other. It does mean that equating spiritual experiences with dreams, hallucinations or psychotic behavior shows ignorance of the facts. They are distinctly different phenomena and not at all part of the same continuum of human brain function.
[ February 26, 2009, 01:18 AM: Message edited by: The Rabbit ]
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quote:I think it's easier to hold down a job if the imaginary voice that talks to you is widely acknowledge as real by the society around you - people who talk about what Napoleon told them to do are called "mentally ill" in America; people who talk about what God told them to do are called, among other things, "Mr. President".
Jhai, Have you ever actually known someone who suffers from Schizophrenia or any severe mental illness? I have known several including two of my close childhood friends and a couple of extended family members. When I say that Schizophrenics who think they are talking with God have every bit as much difficulty functioning in society as Schizophrenics who think they are talking with plants and rocks or even that they talking with Napoleon, I speak from experience. But you don't have to take my word for, read any of the scientific literature on Schizophrenia and you will find that your assertions are factually incorrect.
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quote:Originally posted by The Rabbit: ... Researchers have, for example, performed CT scans on meditating or praying monks to determine which areas of the brain are active during their "spiritual experiences" and from this it has been scientifically proven that "spiritual experiences" are a fundamentally different phenomenon than dreams, hallucinations or psychosis.
Two problems: a) Researchers cannot use scans to rule out mental illness in these individuals (or any individuals). That would be a fairly remarkable breakthrough.
quote: Imaging research cannot yet be used to diagnose psychiatric illness and may not be useful in clinical practice for a number of years. In the future, imaging techniques may be useful to examine medication effects and predict medication response. Specifically, no published investigation in the field has determined that any structural or functional brain abnormality is specific to a single psychiatric disorder. Additionally, imaging studies examine groups of patients and groups of healthy controls; therefore, findings may not apply to all individuals with a given disorder. Even when significant differences are identified between groups, there is a substantial overlap among individuals in both groups.
b) Meditating or praying is fairly unremarkable. Its hardly disturbing, after all, a fairly decent number of kids "send" whether its to Santa Claus or the tooth fairy. At least in my case, I'm talking about actually "receiving," as in actually hearing the voice of god/Napoleon/aliens/CIA.
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quote:I think it's easier to hold down a job if the imaginary voice that talks to you is widely acknowledge as real by the society around you - people who talk about what Napoleon told them to do are called "mentally ill" in America; people who talk about what God told them to do are called, among other things, "Mr. President".
Jhai, Have you ever actually known someone who suffers from Schizophrenia or any severe mental illness? I have known several including two of my close childhood friends and a couple of extended family members. When I say that Schizophrenics who think they are talking with God have every bit as much difficulty functioning in society as Schizophrenics who think they are talking with plants and rocks or even that they talking with Napoleon, I speak from experience. But you don't have to take my word for, read any of the scientific literature on Schizophrenia and you will find that your assertions are factually incorrect.
I've never said I'm only talking about people with severe mental illnesses. In fact, I've never brought up the term schizophrenic at all. To reply to your point, however, I've seen examples of schizophrenics of both types as you describe above (mostly on street corners, sad to say), but I've also seen far less severe forms of self-delusion, both of the religious kind and the less socially-popular. Actually pretty much all religious believers, in my opinion, fall into this latter category.
But, as I said earlier, I think this talk of mental illness is rather useless - in the end, it's just arguing over a label that, win or lose, doesn't move the debate very far along. And one that I, personally, am not invested in at all. I much prefer "self-delusional" or "irrational" for people who believe in a god - and neither term, as I'm using them, immediately tells you how well a person can function in our society.
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quote:I've never said I'm only talking about people with severe mental illnesses. In fact, I've never brought up the term schizophrenic at all. To reply to your point, however, I've seen examples of schizophrenics of both types as you describe above (mostly on street corners, sad to say), but I've also seen far less severe forms of self-delusion, both of the religious kind and the less socially-popular. Actually pretty much all religious believers, in my opinion, fall into this latter category.
Jhai, I'm afraid I really don't seem to understand the point you are making. You seem to be saying that all types of self-delusion are essentially different degrees of the same thing, the same way that people who have chicken pox all have the same disease whether they get only one pock or die of complications. I'm saying that hypothesis is not supported and in to some degree contradicted by the scientific study of religiosity and various forms of mental illness. If this was not the point you were trying to make, could you please clarify.
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I'm saying that I don't care for the term "mental illness", severe or not, and I don't want to defend it in anyway or discuss it because I don't care about it and never brought it up. I think the terms self-delusional or irrational better fit people who believe in an imaginary deity. I have not discussed the various ways people can be irrational or self-delusional, and it'd be rather idiotic to claim that they're all similar.
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It has been my belief that Science is good at telling us "How" things are done.
It has been my belief that Religion/Philosophy is good at telling us "Why" things are done.
Science is good at telling us How life evolved on Earth.
Religion is good at telling us Why life evolved on Earth.
When you mix the two questions, you get unsatisfactory answers.
Science ultimately does not say Why life evolved on Earth. At best it says, "That's what arose logically over time." Not a very satisfactory answer.
Religion ultimately does not say How life was created on Earth. "God made it" is not a very in depth recipe for construction.
Lets apply this formula to a variation on Xap's earlier conundrum. It states that Religion A promotes Life as sacred and that Unmarried People should not have Children. This is an obviously contradiction. The variation I would make is a bit more closer to what we face every day....
Religion B states Thou Shall Not Kill, and Thou Shall Not Commit Adultery. Killing is later defined as ending the life even of children in the womb--the fetus. Committing Adultery is defined as having sex while unmarried.
Science determines that if condoms are passed out to kids at school, there will be less pregnancies and hence less abortions--the Killing of the Fetus. It also lowers the number of kids killed from venereal diseases.
The Non-Religion B person asks, "How can we reduce abortions? We make sure the kids have safe sex.).
Religious B person ask, "Why are they having abortions and dieing of Venereal Diseases? Because the adulterous sex they are having is bad. We need to make them stop having sex. Passing out condoms is condoning sex, perhaps even encouraging it."
No matter how many scientific statistics you find proving a reduction in deaths due to condom availability, Religious Person B will not change their mind. They are tying to fix the Why problem, not the What.
No matter how many biblical quotes or moral arguments you find proving that condom availability leads to immoral behavior, you will not change the Scientific mind. He is focused on solving the "How" question of reducing deaths.
So far, the Religious Person B has tried to work around this problem. Some have searched for scientific answers to refute the "how" of lives saved. A few have used bad science, and confused the issues with lies or untruths. In some realms this has worked to stymie the scientific arguments over "how".
For the Scientific person to win this argument and save the lives they have to attack the "why" questions. As the religious have crossed the line and took the fight to science, so the science believer must study the religion and learn to take the fight to the Religious B person not on the level of How or Science, but on the level of "Why" and Morality.
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A few years back when I was involved with teaching a professional ethics course, I had a very interesting discussion on the differences between science education and philosophy education with the philosophy professor who lead the course . The basic points can be summarized as follows. Students enter both science and philosophy classes with a model of how things work. For example students nearly always enter a physics class with what is essentially an Aristotelian model of physical law. The goal of physics education is to get students to replace this model with a more accurate scientific model.
In contrast, my philosophy colleague claimed that all philosophical and ethical systems were at their roots subjective and so the goal of philosophy education wasn't to get students to replace their philosophical model with "the correct model", but to enable the individuals to recognize the the strengths, weaknesses and limitations of the various models.
I will agree that all religious philosophies are fundamentally subjective and that many religious individuals are unaware of the limitations of those world view. The same is also true for most of the strident Athiests I've known.
The scientific method has no tools for dealing with subjective, non-reproducible experience. But subjective, non-reproducible experiences (love, hate, beauty, ugliness, virtue, vice, and even spirituality) are important parts of the human experience.
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quote:Originally posted by Darth_Mauve: Science ultimately does not say Why life evolved on Earth. At best it says, "That's what arose logically over time." Not a very satisfactory answer.
quote:Originally posted by Darth_Mauve: Science ultimately does not say Why life evolved on Earth. At best it says, "That's what arose logically over time." Not a very satisfactory answer.
For you.
Its not a very logical answer. Your typical bathroom scale is a tool for measuring weight. It can't be used to measure your height , girth, density or chemical composition. But even if no satisfactory tools existed for measuring height, density and chemical composition, it would be illogical to conclude that they did not exist or were irrelevant based on the fact that they could not be studied with a bathroom scale.
Science has only the tools to measure objective, reproducible, physical processes, it has no tools to answer the question "why" but this does not logically imply that there is no "why" or that "why" is an unimportant question.
The question of "why" may not be particularly important to you but millions if not billions of other humans find it important. Importance is one of those subjective qualities science can't deal with very well.
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quote:When you mix the two questions, you get unsatisfactory answers.
The problem is that in order to act correctly, we MUST combine the answers to "Why should we do X" and "How should we do X". One doesn't do us much good without the other.
Science can give us a "How" answer to the question of how do we discourage abortions. But it can't tell the "Why" answer to whether or not we should bother to discourage abortions. So, a Science-only person would have no idea what to do; he'd know how to do lots of things, but he wouldn't be able to reason whether or not he should do them.
Religion is good at giving us "Why" answers to things like "Why is abortion bad?", but it often isn't good at telling us "How" to go about doing that. Unless God specifically gives you directions on what the correct method of sex education is, or unless we can find a section of the Bible about condom use, there is at least no clear explanation within Christianity about the best method to avoiding abortions and protecting life. On that note, there is no section in the Bible on fetuses, so it isn't even clear that they should be considered a human life. In the two-magisteria model, those would rely on facts from the Scientific sphere of knowledge. So while a Religion-only person would have great answers to questions about what is important and "why" we should do things, he'd be totally in the dark as to how to go about doing things.
But in practice there are no Science-only people and there are few if any Religion-only people, because you can't get through life without both "Why" and "How" answers. Even people who attempt to approach the world purely from the way science presents it nevertheless still end up accepting some basic non-scientific moral premises like "Killing is bad" or "Happiness is good". And even people who attempt to get all answers from Religion end up using scientific ideas derived entirely without reference to religion in their everyday life (gravity, genetics, etc.). But either of those approaches tends to create a lot of confusion and irrationality for the person, since there is an inconsistency between how they are trying to approach the world and how they actually act.
But, as I suggested earlier, I also think trying to be both Scientific and Religious by simultaneously maintaining two separate conceptions of the world leads to confusion too. I think the ideal would be to approach science and religion as complimentary sources of knowledge attempting to develop a single coherent view of the world, where A does equal A. That's not really how Western culture has approached it, though, so I could only guess at how such a society would be different or what sort of different problems it might have.
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Darth Mauve and Rabbit: I think you're both using the vague questions of "how" and "why", when in the end you are merely talking about Cause and Purpose.
Worse yet, I think you're confusing cause and purpose. I assume because the religions you grew up in claimed that the Cause of everything was that God Purposed them. (such is the case in the Abrahamic religions)
I think by combining this question of cause and purpose into a simple "why" you're limiting your minds to the possibilities: namely that the Universe may have a cause but not a purpose, or that the Universe may have a purpose that's utterly unrelated to its cause (or its lack thereof).
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quote:Originally posted by Darth_Mauve: Science ultimately does not say Why life evolved on Earth. At best it says, "That's what arose logically over time." Not a very satisfactory answer.
For you.
Its not a very logical answer.
What do you mean by that exactly? If scientists manage to recreate life in a laboratory experiment starting from an inorganic "soup" similar to the one deduced to have been on Earth prior to the formation of life wouldn't it be logical to conclude that life originally arose from that soup?
To restate what Aris says, if you search for a "purpose" behind that transformation, then the scientific explanation will not be enough for you. "Why" equals "for what purpose" for you, but my question is: who said there should be a purpose? Only by postulating that there might/should be a purpose does not finding a purpose become a problem.
And hey, Aris. I don't think I've met you before on Hatrack although you registered before me, but it's always nice to meet a fellow programmer. And a fellow European. Posts: 4519 | Registered: Sep 2003
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quote:Originally posted by The Rabbit: In contrast, my philosophy colleague claimed that all philosophical and ethical systems were at their roots subjective and so the goal of philosophy education wasn't to get students to replace their philosophical model with "the correct model", but to enable the individuals to recognize the the strengths, weaknesses and limitations of the various models.
If the philosophy professor tried to present his view as the standard for the field - or even the majority view - then I'm rather shocked. I haven't run into many ethicists who believe morality to be subjective; typically the first day of an ethical theory class is spent on refuting this position, actually.
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quote:What do you mean by that exactly? If scientists manage to recreate life in a laboratory experiment starting from an inorganic "soup" similar to the one deduced to have been on Earth prior to the formation of life wouldn't it be logical to conclude that life originally arose from that soup?
Aris comes close to identifying the problem. When I use the word "why?" I am referring to purpose not cause. Science can only address cause. Science does not have any tools to explore the issue of purpose. What is illogical is to conclude that because the scientific method is not equipped to address purpose, that purpose is nonexistent or irrelevant. Its like concluding that because a bathroom scale can't measure height, height is an irrelevant quality.
Relevance is a subjective quality and therefore something that is outside the purview of science. The purpose of life may be irrelevant to you, but it is extremely relevant to millions of human beings. Simply telling them that science can't find a purpose doesn't make the question less relevant to them. That is my point and I think the point of NOMA. When you fail to recognize that religion and spirituality fill a void that is important to many people and which science simply can not address, you are failing to recognize the limitations of your own model and therefore lacking true scientific objectivity.
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quote:Originally posted by The Rabbit: When you fail to recognize that religion and spirituality fill a void that is important to many people and which science simply can not address, you are failing to recognize the limitations of your own model and therefore lacking true scientific objectivity.
I feel like you're creating a false dilemma here - either one recognizes that religion fills a void or you make people live with that void because science cannot address it (questionable premise there). There are other options. First off, science does "fill" that void for many people in my experience, typically by making them see that you need not see the lack of purpose as a void. If there need not be a purpose, then there's no void to fill - asking what the purpose of the universe is could be as silly as asking what the color of birdsong is.
If that doesn't do it for you, there are plenty of secular ways to fill that void - philosophy, the arts, humanism, etc. Religion and spirituality need not fill that void - and there are a lot of reasons why they may not be best suited to fill that void.
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quote:Originally posted by The Rabbit: In contrast, my philosophy colleague claimed that all philosophical and ethical systems were at their roots subjective and so the goal of philosophy education wasn't to get students to replace their philosophical model with "the correct model", but to enable the individuals to recognize the the strengths, weaknesses and limitations of the various models.
If the philosophy professor tried to present his view as the standard for the field - or even the majority view - then I'm rather shocked. I haven't run into many ethicists who believe morality to be subjective; typically the first day of an ethical theory class is spent on refuting this position, actually.
Clearly I didn't accurately express the point. There are numerous ethical models, utilitarian, deontological, contractual and so on. The underlying assumptions behind these different models, the basic laws on which they operate are fundamentally unprovable. The point my philosopher colleague was making was not that ethics was subjective in a broad sense, but that the point of an ethics education was not to persuade students that they, for example, should reject deontological ethics in favor of utilitarian ethics (or vice versa), but to enable students to logically assess the strengths and weaknesses of the different models with the recognition that all proposed models have limitations.
This is fundamentally different from science education where the goal is in fact to persuade students to accept a particular scientific model of the Universe as the most accurate.
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quote: Science does not have any tools to explore the issue of purpose.
Wrong. We can readily investigate the purpose of human activities through scientific means; an entity powerful enough to create the universe is not different in principle. Further, religion has no tools for this either, because it consists of making stuff up. This is not a viable solution to any problem at all.
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quote:The underlying assumptions behind these different models, the basic laws on which they operate are fundamentally unprovable
Depends on what you mean by proof, I suppose. I think they're about as provable as mathematics or logic - one of which is the bedrock of science. If you don't think mathematics is provable, I don't see how you can think science is provable.
quote: The point my philosopher colleague was making was not that ethics was subjective in a broad sense, but that the point of an ethics education was not to persuade students that they, for example, should reject deontological ethics in favor of utilitarian ethics (or vice versa), but to enable students to logically assess the strengths and weaknesses of the different models with the recognition that all proposed models have limitations.
The first part is clearly true - just look at any syllabus from an ethics theory class. The second part - that all proposed models have limitations - is not true, unless you're talking about a sketch of an ethical theory. The models as presented in an introductory class are limited. However if you accept that morality is not subjective, at some point one ought to be able to write out all of the rules of ethics, and this presentation would not have limitations. Ethics at a higher level is not about sketched-out models with limiting assumptions in the same way, say, economics is.
Most ethical theory courses end up persuading students that ethics are objective, at the very least.
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I wish that there was a field devoted to the study of the nature of reality, if God really exists, etc... hmm... Oh yeah!Posts: 2705 | Registered: Sep 2006
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Tres, I was a bit vague on the "Mix the two". I meant to say "Seek How from Religion/philosophy and Why from Science."
I agree that there can not be Science Only or Philosophy/Religion only people--at least not being so and being able to operate in this world.
Aris, I think its the readers of my post who are limiting the discussion to Abrahamic religions. The idea that there is no reason for the creation of the universe, no purpose, no Why is a philosophy.
So what we have is not an argument of Science VS Religion but "Scientific Based Philosophy VS Religion".
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I'm apologize but I'm going to have to bow out. I simply don't have the time to craft appropriate responses. Please don't assume I'm just ignoring what people have said or giving it inadequate consideration.
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quote:If that doesn't do it for you, there are plenty of secular ways to fill that void - philosophy, the arts, humanism, etc.
I agree with this. Religion does not have a monopoly on being able to offer explanations of what is meaningful, good, or bad.
Science is not one of the things that can, though, based on the rules that define science. To explain the "Why" questions, something other than science is necessary, whether religious or nonreligious.
quote:First off, science does "fill" that void for many people in my experience, typically by making them see that you need not see the lack of purpose as a void. If there need not be a purpose, then there's no void to fill - asking what the purpose of the universe is could be as silly as asking what the color of birdsong is.
This I don't agree with. I don't think people can live a good life without some sense that something is in some way important and meaningful.
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The only meaning or purpose to life is what you make for yourself.
If "Why" is the only thing religion is good for, then religion is good for nothing.
But that's not all it's good for. It's a beautiful lie you can tell yourself in times of trouble to make yourself feel better. It can give you the strength you need when you are in danger, and the comfort when dealing with the loss of a loved one.
So long as you're not using it to hurt other people or write it into law, believe whatever the hell you want.
quote: Most ethical theory courses end up persuading students that ethics are objective, at the very least.
Really? I have not taken any formal ethics classes, but I have read a good bit and had fairly in-depth discussions on morality with many people with varying degrees of education - and I must admit you are the only person I've ever heard of that speaks of objective morality like you do, as if it is the consensus among those with the education and mental capacity to comprehend it.
Not that I'm calling you a liar. You're the one with the education, after all. But if this is true - I'm just fascinated by that, not to even mention the fact that this is coming from someone who isn't religious. Every atheist (and most who even question the existence of a god) I've ever spoken to about morality favors a subjective brand of it. None share your conviction.
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quote:So what we have is not an argument of Science VS Religion but "Scientific Based Philosophy VS Religion".
I think that specifically what we are discussing is the NOMA thesis, which is an argument of science vs. religion. Philosophy exists too, but I don't think it is intended to be included in the magisterum of science. Here's a quote I'm borrowing from the wikipedia page in which Gould states his general thesis:
"the magisterium of science covers the empirical realm: what the Universe is made of (fact) and why does it work in this way (theory). The magisterium of religion extends over questions of ultimate meaning and moral value. These two magisteria do not overlap, nor do they encompass all inquiry (consider, for example, the magisterium of art and the meaning of beauty)."Posts: 8120 | Registered: Jul 2000
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Rollainm: I am an atheist, and I am going to confirm his statement. Most top meta-ethicists have already moved past the objective-subjective debate. As well, I believe that ethics are objective. (I'm a Rossian intuitionist, or at least Audi's variant on it.)
Edit: I suppose that I should say that I am technically an agnostic, though I effectively act as though I am an atheist.
Edit2: By the way, I am TAing an ethics course now, and I'm pretty sure that we convinced most of the students to abandon subjectivism.
Edit3: Then again, if they thought that ethics were subjective, then they probably wouldn't have become meta-ethicists.
quote: and I'm pretty sure that we convinced most of the students to abandon subjectivism.
But...how? I don't expect you to condense an entire course in a paragraph, but surely you can give me a general idea of how this is possible?
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rollianm, What would be the point in taking a class in something that, in the end, isn't applicable to your life in any way? Ethics is basically about what you ought to do and what a good life is. If ethics is subjective - i.e. none of the rules are necessarily the same from person to person - then systematically studying it seems a little silly.
My first ethical theory class opened up with the professor trying to see if anyone would say it's ever morally acceptable to torture innocent (non-evil) babies just for one person's fun. I understand that this is a pretty standard way to go about it.
Edit: I think it took about one class or so of arguing to get everyone on board with the "not okay to torture innocent, non-evil babies just for one's personal pleasure". It was a small class, and there was a lot of discussion regarding the exact nature of the statement. But in the end everyone agreed that it was not acceptable, period. And once you have that, then, clearly, there's at least one moral statement that is objectively true. Thus morality, as a whole, is not entirely subjective.
I agree that a lot of people say that morality/ethics is subjective. Hell, my husband is some sort of moral relativist, I think. However, I can't remember ever meeting someone who holds this view who has also studied ethical theory seriously - and that personal sample includes a lot of atheists. Many people, though, agree that holding an atheist world-view makes it more difficult to answer the question "why be moral?"
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Point taken on the view of those taking the class.
But my basic curiosity is still there. I still can't reconcile an atheist that believes in objective morality.
quote: My first ethical theory class opened up with the professor trying to see if anyone would say it's ever morally acceptable to torture innocent (non-evil) babies just for one person's fun. I understand that this is a pretty standard way to go about it.
At risk of thread-derailing, I guess I just don't see how this gets to de facto objective morality. If morality is subjective, then this question is meaningless and proves nothing. If morality is objective, then a consensual morality is still not necessarily an objective one and it still proves nothing.
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If you can refute a specific form of subjectivism, such as that, it implies that ethics aren't completely subjective.
Edit: Also against egoism there's also the classic arbitrariness argument, but that argument only came about nearly 20 years after Feinberg's argument.
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It wasn't a matter of gaining a consensus in the classroom. It was a matter of convincing each individual student to believe themselves that it could never be morally acceptable to torture babies for fun. Not that "you" just don't think it's not acceptable, but that it is, in fact, not acceptable. Run through the thought experiment yourself, rollainm. Could it ever be the right thing to do? For anyone?
It is in some ways similar to how you convince someone "2+2=4" is true or that "If A then B. A. Therefore B" is true. If they don't believe it, you can't convince them otherwise, but you can lead them through the thought process that will make it clear that that particular thing is true. Obviously, more complicated moral rules require more proofs, and may be quite difficult to understand - it's like the difference between simple addition and multivariable calculus, or between the simple logical axiom above and Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem.
Edit: Jon, I suspect that refuting egoism isn't a very good way to go about proving that morality isn't subjective. Just because that form of subjective morality is false, it doesn't mean that others are necessarily false. "If A then (B or C). Not C. Therefore not A" is bad logic. Also, in my experience most people pushing subjective morality are cultural relativists, not egoists.
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That's why I was more specific and said that it implies that morals aren't completely subjective, rather than saying that morals aren't subjective.
Edit: If morals were COMPLETELY subjective, then it seems to imply that any moral statement (including ethical egoism) could be true.
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quote: Could it ever be the right thing to do? For anyone?
Well, yes. For a person that actually enjoys doing such a thing and has never experienced any negative consequences for doing so, I think it would be quite easy - and reasonable - for them to assume there's nothing wrong with it.
quote: Not that "you" just don't think it's not acceptable, but that it is, in fact, not acceptable.
I still don't understand how making this jump is possible without being presumptuous.
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I didn't ask if it were easy, or reasonable for someone to do, or if someone else could believe it to be the right action. I asked if it was, in fact, right. And if you don't like being presumptuous, philosophy (particularly ethics) is not what you should be studying. Most philosophers are incredibly arrogant (but nice) people.
Is it wrong/presumptuous of me to say that, even if you don't believe it, 2+2 still equals 4 for you? Can someone ever be correct in believing that 2+2 does not equal 4? Or to take a more concrete example, is it presumptuous for me to tell Flat Earthers that they're just wrong? It may be easy for them to believe it, it may be reasonable, but it's still a wrong belief.
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quote:Originally posted by JonHecht: That's why I was more specific and said that it implies that morals aren't completely subjective, rather than saying that morals aren't subjective.
Edit: If morals were COMPLETELY subjective, then it seems to imply that any moral statement (including ethical egoism) could be true.
Ah. I thought you were saying that of a given set of moral principles, at least one of them is not subjective, and that you prove this by disproving ethical egoism.
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Doesn't answering that require an assumption of objective morality in the first place? Isn't that circular?
quote: And if you don't like being presumptuous, philosophy (particularly ethics) is not what you should be studying. Most philosophers are incredibly arrogant (but nice) people.
Perhaps I should have been more specific. Unreasonably presumptuous.
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Jhai: Not torturing babies might be a universal no-no, but they WHY behind the no-no is not universal. It all comes down to what you value.
If you think that torturing babies is a bad thing because god says it's bad, that's very different from thinking torturing babies is bad because it violates the individual rights of the babies.
Just because everyone agrees doesn't make it objective, just coincidence.
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Doesn't answering that require an assumption of objective morality in the first place? Isn't that circular?
No, it's not. Something could be morally right for Americans to do while not morally right for Chinese to do, if, for instance, you believed in cultural relativism - which is not objective morality.
Anyways, you're going to have to start defining terms at some point. And it's pretty much impossible to define anything perfectly - for instance, I've never heard a definition of "chair" that was completely accurate. Nonetheless, I imagine you have some idea by what I mean by "right" in that sentence. Clearly it's not the same as reasonable or easy, or you wouldn't have used those words. You could alternatively phrase it as what one ought to do, as what is good to do, what is acceptable to do, etc.
quote:Perhaps I should have been more specific. Unreasonably presumptuous.
Why is it unreasonable? Is it unreasonably presumptuous for me to say the other stuff I said above, such as the fact that 2+2=4, whether you believe it or not?
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