Hi Steve, Wow! Can you write! I don't really like your question because it's too nebulous. I don't know what you mean by: love, we or others?
Marsha On Apr 20, 2010, at 9:40 AM, Steven Peterson wrote: > Hi All, > > As a nonbeliever and a pragmatist, I don't think that we have a duty > to anything powerful and nonhuman such as Reason or The Moral Law let > alone a supernatural entity. My only duty is to my fellow sentient > beings with whom I am fortunate enough to spend a lifetime. If you ask > me why I ought to be concerned about other humans, I will have no > answer for you. Though I sometimes get asked this question, I've come > to find it more and more strange that anyone would think that it is an > important question to ask, yet it has been made clear to me that I am > thought to be lacking something vital in not having an answer. In > being able to respond, "because God says you ought to," believers tell > me that they have something significant that I don't have. What I am > supposedly lacking is often called a "foundation" for my ethical > claims. > > On the contrary, I think that anyone who needs to sincerely ask the > question, "why love?" is the one who is lacking something > important--probably love itself. People who love others simply don't > ask "why love?" unless they are playing the hypothetical extreme > skeptic--the Devil's advocate. The only non-hypothetical people who > need an answer to this question are those we call psychopaths, and no > offer of a philosophical foundation through reading Kant or Aristotle > is likely to convince a psychopath of anything. A theology might work > and I think does work in controlling the behavior of some psychopaths > so long as the threat of future punishment can be made to seem > undesirable and likely enough to balance against the perceived rewards > of anti-social behavior, but such is not true morality. Such a person > is not doing what is right out of concern for others but only as a > matter of animal self-preservation. > > C.S. Lewis in "An Experiment in Criticism" explained the Christian > view of ethics as follows: > "In the moral sphere, every act of justice or charity involves putting > ourselves in the other person's place and thus transcending our own > competitive particularity." In Lewis's view and my own, moral behavior > is motivated by empathy and compassion rather than by fear of > punishment or desire for reward. Where Lewis and I will disagree is on > the notion that in addition to cultivating empathy and compassion and > learning about what compassionate behavior is like, there is a need to > also imagine a ground upon which this notion can stand. We need such a > thing as The Moral Law and a Divine Command to follow this Law as an > answer to the question of why we should even bother cultivating > empathy and compassion. But this Divine Command carries with it a > system of carrots and sticks that just takes us back to animal > self-preservation instead of morality, so by accepting this answer we > are rejecting our notion of morality as unmotivated by such insentives > and disinsentives. > > Just as believers who attempt to answer the question "why love?" can > point to otherworldly divine judgment and subsequent rewards and > punishments, nonbelievers can point to materialist explanations for > why we love based on biological evolution and social contracts. > Neither of these sorts of answers are very satisfying because they are > answers about carrots and sticks rather than empathy and compassion. > Likewise, Biblical answers like, we should love, because God first > loved us just lead to more and more questions. Why? Why? Why? Anyone > who has ever had a conversation with a three-year-old knows that at > some point we exhaust our conversational resources in response to such > questions upon questions and get tempted to posit some universal > principle about the way things just are. But these principles about > the way things are now, even if true, won't tell us how things ought > to be in the future. > > Having reached such an impasse, it may make sense to step back and ask > whether the question at hand is one we even have. Asking "why should > we love at all?", is to play the skeptic in merely feigning disbelief > in the notion that we ought to love anybody. It is fake doubt because > the skeptic can give us no good reason to think that this question is > a practical matter for anyone who already does love. After all, none > of us look at their parents or their children or their friend or > anyone who they already do love and needs to ask whether or not loving > them is a good thing to do. I have heard no philosophical argument in > answer to this question that would make us love those who we do not > already love any more than such an argument has ever make us not love > those that we already do love, and I doubt such an argument is > possible. The question posed by the skeptic "why love?" seems to me to > presuppose that at some point in our childhoods, those of us who now > love were convinced by a strong rational argument that loving is what > we ought to do, and therefore we decided to do it, yet I doubt anyone > thinks that is how love begins. > > The fact is that we already do love and recognize the virtue of loving > at least some others as self-evident. What we need is not a > philosophical foundation to tell us why we ought to love, since for us > this is not a practical problem that we have any need to solve. What > we need is to better understand how to love others--how to better take > into account the needs of more of us and to expand and deepen our > circles of moral concern. What we should seek is not a philosophical > foundation for our current moral beliefs--a way to give our current > practices eternal status as The Moral Law--but rather ways to grow > morally--to enhance our moral imaginations for putting ouselves in > another's place and sharing in their joys and sorrows. > > > One way in which we have successfully cultivated empathy in the past > is through telling one another stories that help us imagine new > perspectives. Lewis might object that while cultivating empathy > through stories is a good thing, we can't know whether or not we have > made any moral progress without knowing whether the resulting > behaviors are more of less in accordance with the Moral Law. On the > contrary, we can account for moral progress by putting our stories > within the larger context of a broader story or stories about how we > got from there to here and what moving forward might look like. Such a > metanarrative rather than a philosophical foundation is all we need to > make our talk of moral progress coherent. > >> From the American perspective with its largely Christian heritage, > perhaps a good story from which both believers and nonbelievers may be > able to take inspiration follows. It is a story about where we are now > and how we may have gotten here which may also help guide is in where > we ought to go in the future. > > > A Narrative of Moral Progress > > As pre-linguistic proto-humans, we were completely egoistic and > amoral. We sought to increase pleasure and diminish pain. We did not > yet have any concerns for the well-beings of others. In fact, we had > no concepts of "self" or "other" or any concepts at all. It is not > until we evolved to have symbolic selves and social roles that it > makes sense to start thinking of ourselves at that time as moral > beings. Our morals practices were whatever patterns of behavior we had > that sometimes put the good of our relatives above the good of > ourselves. Some of these behaviors, perhaps even all of them, are best > explained as DNA-encoded responses for preservation of our DNA > overriding our tendencies toward self-preservation of individuals > (Dawkin's selfish gene theory), but as concerns for the well-being of > others, these behaviors can be viewed as moral nevertheless. These > first moral behaviors were always ethnocentric in the extreme. Those > not part of the tribe and perhaps sharing enough of our genes, were of > no moral concern. > > > We told stories around the campfire at night about heroes who did > great deeds and inspired new moral intuitions about the goodness of > emulating their deeds. Our social groups continued to expand to > include other tribes once nomadic ways of life gave way to > agricultural ones. > > In ancient Palestine, Moses and Joshua and others emerged as leaders > that helped unite our tribes. They codified many of our best moral > intuitions in a list of commandments prescribing how we ought to treat > one another to be in accord with Divine Law. This Law was said to have > been handed down through divine revelation to Moses given to us alone, > God's Chosen People, yet we came to know that other societies that had > no prior contact with us and presumably were not given the Divine > Revelation of the Chosen People also developed the same sorts of laws. > > The teachings of Jesus of Nazareth initiated a move toward a more > universal approach to values while working within the tribal practices > in Mosaic Law. When his moral intuitions conflicted with the > prescriptions of the Mosaic Law he asked rhetorically, "do people > exist to serve the law, or does the law exist to serve the people?" > For Jesus, the Mosaic Law above all taught that we ought to love God, > and he reinterpreted that "first and greatest commandment" to be > equivalent to a second--that we should love our neighbors as > ourselves. Note that by this greatest commandment, we are not told to > believe in God but rather to love God, and we were told that the way > to love God is to love others. In fact, Jesus taught, speaking for > God, that "whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of > mine, you did for me" whether we knew we were doing so or not. Belief > in God was no longer necessary for love of God. > > In the parable about trees being known by their fruit, it was said > that "Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the > kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is > in heaven." Based on this story, it would seem that belief is neither > sufficient nor necessary. Jesus taught in another parable, that the > sheep will be separated from the goats on judgment day not based on > adherence to any code of conduct or declaration of faith, but based on > a compassion test: "I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I > was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and > you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and > you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me." > > The Gospel writers were clearly of two minds as to whether belief was > a sufficient or a necessary requirement for salvation, In addition to > the parables, we also have many declarative statements about the > necessity of belief put into the mouth of Jesus. However, by focussing > on the stories supposedly told by Jesus in his preferred method of > teaching, we learned that love rather than belief is what is needed. > While modern Christians continue to debate the matter of the > importance of factual belief, amny of us coming from the Christian > tradition came to learn that love is the first and only law. > > We knew based on Mosaic Law that we ought to love our neighbors, but > Jesus expanded our understanding of what it means to be a fellow human > deserving of our moral concern. He didn't do it by articulating a > philosophical foundation for ethics but rather by telling stories and > asking such questions as "who acted as a neighbor?" in the well known > parable of the Good Samaritan. It was through such story-telling that > we came to imagine new perspectives and grow morally, and it is such > story-telling which may also be our best hope for continued growth > through recognizing others as also ourselves. Virtually every society > known in history developed some version of the ethic of reciprocity, > and like the others, our society has adopted this sentiment as its > Golden Rule and as a fine distillation of many of our moral ideals and > our best moral intuitions. > > The life of Jesus and his teaching through stories became itself one > of the stories that most inspires us and fits within the broader story > of our moral growth that I am telling right now. Stories within > stories within stories is how we have grown, and no important > consideration to philosophical grounding in first principles was > required. Such principles served in some cases to derive truths after > the fact from our stories, but our stories give us our moral > intuitions against which such principles need to be checked and > corrected. > > The Enlightenment thinkers, while often rejecting much of religious > dogmatism, still recognized a Creator and thought we had a duty to > nonhuman powers such as Truth and Reason. They were inspired by the > moral vision of a brotherhood among men told of in the gospels. With > inspiration from the Gospels and the Greek philosophers, they argued > for the possibility of a new sort of community where all men were > viewed as having been endowed by their Creator with sacred rights--a > community where there was no aristocracy and all lives were valued > equally. Many doubted that such was possible, but Our Founding > Fathers, having read Locke and Rousseau, insisted that their beliefs > followed from and were grounded in Truth, Reason, and self-evident > principles. > > If such principles were indeed self-evident, why were they not known > before? Why did King George need to be informed of them? Why were > these truths not already known to King George and everyone else? > Self-evident truths don't need to be boldly declared, they can just be > assumed, can't they? Perhaps not. Perhaps a certain amount of moral > growth was required before such truths could be recognized as > self-evidentially true. One had to have already learned to imagine > himself in the place of an other in something like a Rawlsian thought > experiment where justice is seen to be independent of the accidents of > our births. We needed the ability to identify with the other to a > great enough degree of empathy and compassion for the truth of these > self-evident truths to be beyond question for us. If so, such > universal principles were the result of expanded moral consciousness > and derived through the historical progress of better-developed moral > intuitions and empathy rather than access to the Moral Law through > some special revellation. > > Though some of them prayed for divine guidance, the Founding Fathers > did not claim to have been given any special revelation urging them > and advising them on how to forge a new nation upon newly disclosed > divine truths. America was from the start an experiment in the > possibilities for community where no man (and regretably they did seem > to limit their ideas to white males) was in essence superior to any > other, and none of us then knew for sure whether the experiment would > be a success. The positing of universal human rights in the > Declaration of Independence led to a future expansion of our circles > of moral concern. Rigid dichotomies between the aristocracy and the > peasantry were made fuzzy in a vision of egalitarian democracy where > leaders were to be chosen based on their capability to lead rather > than by being bothto aristoicratic parents. The principles we asserted > as self-evident were stated in universal terms with consequences that > we did not foresee at the time. > > The Founding Father's triumph of moral imagination is remembered along > with our profound failure of moral imagination with regard to African > slaves. At the end of the eighteenth century we simply could not > fathom a world where blacks and whites could live together or a world > where woman and men were socially and intellectually equal. It took > other moral geniuses to show us the possibilities for new communities > where a person could be judged morally by the content of her character > rather than by the color of her skin or her gender. > > While the Founding Fathers appealed to Nature and Providence to > explain their positions, they were also challenging many of our > preconceived notions of what Human Nature was like. Would democracy > just be the tyranny of the majority? Are we really fit to rule > ourselves? If so, then human nature must be something other than the > fixed essence that Aristotle thought it was and more of an open > question as Rousseau described it, because we were never thought to be > fit to rule in the past. Philosophical dogmas founded on the intrinsic > nature of humanity have typically been one of the hurdles to be > overcome in moral growth such as what was being sought in the American > experiment. We should remember that it was thought that The Chosen > People were intrinsicaly different from foreigners. It was thought > that the aristocracy ruled by divine right. Their rule was justified > by their intrinsic nature as royalty. It was once thought that blacks > were different in some essential way from whites, and it was thought > that women just didn't have the aptitude for intellectual endeavors. > They were by nature too emotional to be able to make important > decisions. All these beliefs were held on what was considered strong > philosophical foundations. > > The moral we pragmatists draw from this story is not that we need to > find that one true foundation for our philosophies. Instead we need to > drop the whole notion that ethics ought to be founded on something > called Human Nature. We ought to instead favor a view of ethics > surrounding moral imagination in recognizing our shared humanity > (i.e., empathy) and the expansion of our circles of moral concern in > seeing the joys and sorrows of others as our own (i.e., compassion). > Our moral intuitions are not what they once were. How did we get to > where we are now? Not because we finally discovered the right > philosophical foundation for a system of ethical thought, but by > stories--the visions of moral geniuses like Moses, Jesus, Gandhi, > Siddartha Gotama, Jefferson, Lincoln, Susan B Anthony, Martin Luther > King, and Desmond Tutu having been to the mountaintop and having > brought back their stories to inspire the rest of us and the rest of > us continually telling their tales. It was by reading Uncle Tom’s > Cabin rather than Kant that opened our hearts to the cruelty of > slavery. Though the history of ideas has had a part to play in this > broad narrative of narratives, such ideas about human nature are just > one type of story we tell one another about ourselves and often not > nearly so effective in changing hearts as humanistic narratives that > get us to see one another and ourselves through new eyes and imagine > new ways of living. > > > Our history is not a relentless march toward a pie-in-the-sky goal, > but a halting, mistepping, backtracking, and correcting struggle to > find some path toward something undefined but better. This story > doesn't tell us what "better" will look like in the future--we can > only hope that future moral geniuses will come along to paint such > pictures of new and better utopian visions for us--but it does tell us > what "better" means in moral terms. We will have improved from where > were in the past if we have successfully created new forms of life > where the separation between the needs of the self and the needs of > the other is dissolved. > > "Humanity" in this view is not an intrinsic nature to which we need to > better conform, but is instead the title of a grand epic. It is not a > static Platonic form but a promising project--a work in progress such > that a look back through history will give us a hope for future > progress and perhaps inspire new visions for what we may someday > become. This narrative of progress I sketched is open to a lot of > criticism. It is too simple, of course, which is the expense of > brevity and attempted tidiness, and I am sure it is historically > inaccurate in parts (I don't know much about proto-humans for > example), but the need for such historical corrections asside, let's > consider some more substantive objections to the ideas behind it. > > Objection #1 > One of the criticisms of this metanarrative that I anticipate is the > question, " is this metanarrative of moral progress--this story that > paints everything as stories upon stories--itself true?" In asking > whether the narrative I offered is true is to try to beg back the > question. My argument boils down to saying that "but is it true?" is > the wrong question that gets us involved in all those dualisms of > Platonism. In place of such questions as "is it objective or > subjective?" or "is it absolute or merely relative?" I suggest the > question about my narrative, "is it any good?" In doing so I am > begging back the question. The most basic issue at hand here is > whether the Good ought to be subordinated to the True. the question is > whether claims about what we ought to do need to be grounded in a > philosophical systems of deductions to be valid or whether the true is > instead only a particular kind of good--what is good to believe or a > compliment we pay to sentences which are earning their keep in guiding > us to what we want rather than a replacement God as capital-t Truth > that demands our allegiance. > > With regard to my metanarrative (where I paint a view of moral > progress as better taking into account the needs of more and more > beings through the expansion of the moral imagination through stories > that help us see the other as also your self and their needs as also > your own), I invite critics of this view who ask "but is it true?" to > offer an alternative narrative or improvement upon the one I offered. > (I'm sure it can easily be improved upon by others.) In doing so, I > will be be trying to move the conversation back from "but which one is > true?" to "which story is the better story?" because that shift in > conversation away from grounding in philosphical foundations toward > new and better narratives is what my metanarrative is really about. > > Objection #2 > > This move away from grounded Truth is promoting irrationalism. > > Some will see this move as anti-rational, but it is only > anti-Rational. It supports our atempts to find better justifications > for our beliefs and to also seek new and better beliefs, but it > opposes the view that our beliefs can be grounded in an ahistorical > transcultural faculty called Reason. I'm not asserting anything like > "it's good to believe falsehoods" which would cash out to saying > something like, "it is good to believe things that are bad to > believe." I care very much about the truth. What I don't care about is > the notion of Truth where our truth claims are thought to need a > philosophical foundation that somehow stands God-like outside of > history and culture in order to be taken seriously. We've never had > anything like the foundation that philosophers of the past have said > we needed and would someday provide for us. I don't think we will ever > cash in on their promises, and I should therefore not be thought of as > missing something very important in not claiming to have one or in > saying that we don't need one. What I've tried to illustrate in the > above story is that we can talk about progress without reference to > one. > > > Objection #3 > > > Without a genuine foundation, the skeptic, the cynic, and the criminal > will see you metanarrative as an easily dismissed fairy tale. > > In my story, the cynic and the skeptic are the result of the notion > that our belief need a genuine foundation. Once we drop the Cartesian > notion that our beliefs need to rest on some ground that stands > outside of time and culture (which becomes easier when we recognize > that Descartes's desire to have such a foundation was as culturally > contingent and as historically situated as any other human desire and > did not itself rest on anything outside of human experience) we come > to see such skepticism as fake doubt, and we come to see such cynicism > as merely the sounds of disappointment many of us make in never being > handed the philosophical foundation that philosophers of the past told > us we ought to be demanding but were never able to deliver upon. > > The criminal you mention is a different story. I she does not already > love and our stories have no effect despite all our most creative > efforts, the best we may be able to do is to provide a system of > carrots and sticks for getting her to act as though she does or else > admit defeat and incarcerate her if that fails. > > Objection #4 > > The question "why love?" is one do I sincerely have. I'm no > psychopath, but I'm no Jesus either. I don't need a reason to love my > family and friends, but I need a reason to care about people I don't > know. > > With the psychopath bit I was only getting to the basic question of > "why love anyone at all?" (which I think is easily dismissed as a > question that no one but the deranged really has) rather than the > tougher questions we all struggle with like "why love people I don't > even know?" I'm suggesting that these questions, like the question > "why love anyone at all?" and "are human rights really self-evident?" > only get answered with the expansion of moral imagination as we come > to love others as ourselves--not as we love ourselves but literally > recognizing others as also ourselves. That is moral growth and the > only kind of moral growth. "Thou art that," as they say in the East. > Your suffering is my suffering. Your joy is my joy. That is the sort > of compassion that the Jesus most resonate with me taught--not to > follow rules which presuppose a separation between the self and the > other, but to cultivate the love that unites the two where such rules > and carrots and sticks become irrelevant. These questions don't ever > get answered with rational arguments that convince. Instead, the > answers become self-evident with moral development just as Human > Rights only became self-evidently true once humans became morally > developed enough to recognize them as such. > > Conclusion > > Believers and nonbelievers will mostly agree about what is and is not > moral. We pretty much all think it's good to help old ladies across > the street, obey reasonable laws, and treat others with the same > kindness that we would like to see returned. And we pretty much all > think it is bad to rape, pillage, and murder. Our moral disagreements > are generally far less significant thatn our agreements. Nevertheless, > one idea we pragmatists may face strong disagreement from believers in > the above concerns the notion that there is something called Human > Nature and Natural Law that we need to conform to. I've pointed out > that in the past this notion was often been used as a tool of > oppression, but Darwin showed us that there is no such thing as human > nature that defines moral boundaries. We are constrained more by the > limits of our moral imaginations than by our Natures. We have > benefited from moral geniuses of the past like Jesus, Gandhi, and MLK > who have helped us to imagine new and better forms of community. I see > the genius of such people in that they were able to see beyond > supposed constraints on our moral possibilities due to our so-called > "intrinsic natures." They denied the sort of claims that were made > against them--all those platitudes that we still hear today that the > way things are now is "only natural" and therefore cannot be made > better. The fact that morally we are more than what we once were > suggests that there is every reason to think that we can't strive to > be still better. While the injunction "be pragmatic" often cashes as a > suggestion that we ought to lower our expectations, the > anti-foundationalism of James's, Dewey's, and Rorty's pragmatism helps > free us to work toward a future which is not so constrained by our > past as was previously thought. To be pragmatic in the Rortyian way is > not to lower our expectations to conform to our Natures but to pehaps > expect unimaginably more than we have been expecting. A look at out > past makes it seem doubtful that future progress will be a matter of > better conforming to two thousand year old moral moral visions of what > our Nature is like. Such a brief look back at our past transcendence > of old conceptions of our Nature as this may help us look more > hopefully to the future for still further progress in the expantion of > our circles of moral concern as we learn to better understand and take > into account the needs of more and more beings capable of experiencing > happiness and suffering. > Moq_Discuss mailing list > Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. > http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org > Archives: > http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ > http://moq.org/md/archives.html ___ Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org/md/archives.html
