----- Original Message -----
From: "William T Goodall" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Thursday, September 06, 2001 12:34 PM
Subject: Re: Contradiction Problems????
>
> Here you go muddling things up again.
Sounds like you are close to quoting Ronald Reagan's famous debate line from
1980. I don't necessarily use the exact same categories and pattern
recognition that you do. That doesn't make my pattern recognition wrong.
For what its worth, I get paid for pattern recognition and I think I've done
a decent job of it over the years. You may not agree with the categories I
use, but I think that, at the very least, they are a valid alternative means
of organizing things.
>Atheism is about the question of
> whether claims about the *supernatural* are literally true or not. An
> atheist doesn't believe in ghosts, spirits, gods, angels, afterlives or
> other supernatural things. Atheism has no more to say about ethics than
> geometry has to say about ethics because the subjects are *not related.*
>
Well, that's a straight line if ever I heard one. :-)
> To borrow (without endorsing) your terminology, atheism has nothing to say
> about the transcendent.
Well, I agree that atheists do try to do that. But, most atheists I know
end up making statements about the transcendent when they talk about the
foundations of their ethics.
>
> Of course it is a contingent historical fact that a society's ethics have
> been bundled into a package with its religion, but this is an accidental
>not a logical connection.
Well, it is curious that accidental coincidences are repeated, don't you
think? As someone trained in pattern recognition, its hard for me to accept
that a pattern that crosses cultures is accidental.
Now, I wouldn't argue that
>A religion is a mixture of history, parable,mythology and codes and rules,
some of which are ethical and some of which (dietary restrictions etc) are
purely arbitrary.
>
I think the problem here is that you are looking at the surface of religion,
while denying its core. You may disagree with the core, you may think it is
wrong, but I think it any consideration of religion needs to address the
foundation of all of these. Religious writings indeed do include folk
history, parables, mythology, holiness codes, poetry, systematic theological
writings, and often very detailed codes of behavior in order to express and
define the relationship of a community to God. If one wishes to understand
the ethics, one needs to understand the context in which they were
developed.
> Does the fact that the majority of modern Christians reject the literal
> truth of the Biblical creation myth mean that they reject ethics? No,
> because these are two quite separate issues, just as atheism and ethics
>are quite separate issues.
While there are, indeed, neoevangelists who are certain that a literal
interpretation of the creation myth is important, mainstream Christianity
has rightly concluded that natural philosophy is not the province of
scripture. (Tommy Aquinas did this). The ethics of Christianity is rooted
in the second of the great laws of Jesus "thou shall love thy neighbor as
thyself." It is at least partially rooted in the first law "thou shall love
thy God with thy whole heart, thy whole mind, and thy whole soul." I'll
agree that it is possible to divorce the second law of Jesus from the first
and build an ethical system on that. But, that law then becomes a "self
evident truth." One can base it on something else, say the value of each
and every human life. But, since there is no experimental measure of
"ought", one cannot make ethics a science.
>
> I think faith is inadequate. Faith after all is 'belief without evidence'.
Well, I would think it is more belief without proof. My faith certainly is
not without confirmation in what I have observed. I know full well though,
that I do not have proof, and that the things that I see as evidence can be
interpreted many ways.
Indeed,
> Obviously one has to avoid the naturalistic fallacy as well, but a middle
> ground is better than mere faith. Any debate about ethics that uses logic
> and evidence about the consequences of actions has *already* moved beyond
> mere faith.
The debate then becomes one about the possible ways concerning applying the
axioms. There are many possible systems that could attempt to fulfill the
second great law of Jesus.
>It is possible to do a great deal of ethical thinking without
> relying on faith - look at something like Rawls' (sp) "Theory of Justice'
> for example.
I have not read his work, but every ethical system I have read has had made
some a priori assumptions about what the goal is. I'd like to take as an
example a system that I think both of us differ with: that of Ann Rand. For
her selfishness is virtue, altruism is evil. In my discussions with
objectivists, I know that showing that someone serving their own interests
in a particular will cause significantly more harm to other people than
benefit to him or her has nothing to do, for them, with whether it is an
ethical action. If it fits their criterion, then it is ethical and the
other people's loss, hurt, etc. is their problem, not a matter of ethical
behavior.
I differ with their fundamental postulates, but I cannot falsify them with
experimental evidence. I would guess that you would differ with them also,
and I'd be very curious to see if you think you could falsify them. I
consider Rand a third rate philosopher, but you know that she is probably
the world's best selling philosopher, sigh.
Going back to your example of geometry. There are a zillion different
geometries. None are right, none are wrong (well some geometries are not
self consistent, but I'm not considering those.), they are just there. Some
are very useful (like Hilbert Space and foamy space) for physics. But, the
ones that aren't useful aren't wrong.
My views of ethics is that the criterion is stronger: one doesn't just need
to have a self consistent system to have an ethical system: there is
actually Truth involved. I said before, that science is not about truth.
I'd put forth the proposition that ethics is about truth: what action is
right.
Whether you call them self-evident truths, reasonable statements, or faith
statements, there have to be some assumptions made in any system of ethics.
Indeed, I'd argue that the basic assumptions define the system much more
than anything else. They often give the yardstick against which to measure
the product of the ethical system.
A Christian with good ethics will ground his behavior toward his fellow
humans on "love others as yourself." Most atheists that I consider moral
ground their behavior in something quite similar. Whether is it called
empathy, consideration for others, recognition of the worth of all people,
or whatever, it is similar. While my reading of other religions is not
nearly as extensive as my readings in Christianity, I suspect that
Christianity is not unique in considering assigning worth to other humans as
comparable to one's own as the foundation of ethics.
This is the faith statement I am talking about. Having accepted this axiom,
one is free to use logic, observation, etc. to develop a system of ethics; a
system of justice. But, one cannot prove this axiom, and one cannot
experimentally falsify competing sets of axioms. (Like geometry, some
competing sets can be shown to be internally inconsistent, but there are
plenty of internally consistent sets of axioms that could be developed.)
Dan M.
