Category Archives: Philosophy

Do morals go up or down?

Atheism, Philosophy

The theist argument tends to be that morals are derived from a higher place.  Without a supernatural deity, who is by definition good, we cannot have objective good or evil, morality or sin.  This is essentially the top-down approach to morality.

Most atheists would argue that morality is a bottom-up approach however.  Humanity evolved a conscience (to use Austin Dacey’s terminology) and has since worked to form a rational justification for what is considered moral.

The benefit of the top-down approach is simplicity.  We need not look any further than higher authorities to know what to do.

Unfortunately, this also leads to its downfall.  Looking at the Bible one can find many lessons that are at the very least confusing to the initial reader, and looking to priests and religious leaders can often provide poor examples too.  So although we can say morals might be top-down, we have no reliable way to guarantee that, or to determine which morals are best for this existence.

However, using the bottom-up approach we can construct a rational and just system of morality that can accomplish the same thing as the top-down approach, without causing undue confusion caused by immoral would-be role models.

So what does a bottom-up form of morality look like?

Let’s assume that we can sit as an infinitely-knowledgeable impartial observer (this is a philosophical construct, not a deity/god) who sits and watches humans interact.  For an action to be fair for all individuals involved, it should be the action which causes the least harm to all of those involved, likewise, it is the most moral action if it causes the most benefit to all involved.  As the impartial observer I would be able to make the call as to which action(s) are moral and which aren’t.

Why? I have assumed that all affected people are equal, by causing more harm than necessary to any of these people an imbalance of suffering has unnecessarily been caused.

Are all of the people equal? I like to think so.

There is a lot of ground that can be covered in moral “bottom-up” philosophy, but I think this is good for now.

The Secular Conscience

Atheism, Books, Philosophy

I finished reading the Secular Conscience by Austin Dacey, and I don’t think my mere words can do justice to the secular philosophical poetry that the man can write.

The basic arguments of the book are:

  1. That secular liberals have lost their soul in being unwilling to debate religious/moral issues in the public square. This was done in the mistaken ideas of “privacy” of religion and “liberty” to believe anything and not be offended. Basically this is seen in extreme efforts to accomodate “multiculturalism” and endagers our free speech, but also prevents us from speaking out for abortion rights, stem cell research and other topics.
  2. That all ethics and morals come from a collective secular conscience that is accessible to all (or at least most, excluding sociopaths). He discusses much moral philosophy in that latter chapters that just build on his earlier arguments. For Dacey, all morality must be derivable from reason which is available to everyone.

I’m going to write a bit more on a few philosophical ideas that sprung from this book, and I highly recommend it to everyone, especially leftists, secularists and anyone who associates with the “freethought” movement.

And if you get a chance, see him speak, he’s sensational.

Things to rave about

Links, movies, Personal, Philosophy, Science

WALL-E: A great Pixar movie, with a moving story, a good amount of social commentary (for the anti-consumerists) and lots of laughs.  Everyone should see it.

Body Worlds One: The best science lesson I’m likely to get all year that’s outside of my field.  You get to every bit of the insides of anonymous people (the focus is on the science, not the stories of individual body donors).  The process of plastination is explained in simple and complex detail (for all levels of experience), and their are various philosophical quotes and narrative explorations of how death has been viewed in society.  It’s quite interesting in how it explores the idea that death is only a taboo subject of late since our lifespans have reached new lengths in the past century.

My favourite quote from body worlds comes from the Roman philosopher Seneca the Younger:

Death is the release from all pain and complete cessation, beyond which our suffering will not extend. It will return us to that condition of tranquillity, which we had enjoyed before we were born. Should anyone mourn the deceased, then he must also mourn the unborn. Death is neither good nor evil, for good or evil can only be something that actually exists. However, whatever is of itself nothing and which transforms everything else into nothing will not all be able to put us at the mercy of Fate.

The Leap of Faith

Philosophy

Recently (when I’ve been posting), I’ve written a bit on rationalism and have been trying to construct a logical defence of it, both for myself, and for my (so far very well-spoken) critics.  I added a bit of a response here that attempted to clarify some points, but even that brings about more comments:

First:

We do use faith when we suppose that no monsters will jump out of our refrigerators and eat us. This isn’t blind faith, of course. It’s a reasonable faith based on experience. In general, monsters don’t habitate our refrigerators, no matter how long your leftovers hang about there! But there’s no reason why monsters should not be there. Nor is there any reason why dandelions should be blue one day instead of yellow. A Christian might say God wills such things, but there is no reason why God should not say, “Tomorrow I’ll make icebox monsters and blue dandelions just to remind men that they rely on Me more than they give credit for.”

This is where the fundamental issue is.  The “monsters in the fridge” analogy is something we take for granted.  We have never seen monsters in a fridge, and therefore we assume there shall not be monsters in the future.  This is an inductive argument (which I tried to allude to in my last post on this).  As Hume theorized: there can be no (deductive) logical justification for induction, it is merely a habit.  All arguments for induction are inherently circular (i.e. induction is only justified by an inductive argument).

So, when we say it’s reasonable to assume there’s no monsters in the fridge (which we agree), we have an inductive argument for that, and the only justification for using induction is that it’s worked in the past (which is an inductive argument itself!)

So, I think we both realize the same issue, and it’s pretty deep.  Science itself is an inductive practise, and is generally credited with being rational/logical – but it potentially has no rational basis!

Perhaps god (or God if you prefer) makes induction justified in this world, but you’re right that that does not ensure the future success of induction, so this is a problem for all of us (theist, deist, atheist, or whatever else).

As it stands (as there seems to be no philosophical consensus on any way to solve Hume’s problem from ~250 years ago) I think we are all left to take that leap and hold onto induction, since it seems as though it evolved from the basic habits of animal behaviour to a complex rational account of the world found in our minds today. So that is the leap of faith I’ll admit honestly to taking, and I think its one we all take.

Response on Rationalism

Atheism, Philosophy, Religion

I got some good responses to my The Logic of Rationalism post, in paticular I wanted to make a full response to this post:

Which brings me to this post. With respect to the author, aren’t you just advocating subjectivism? And are you really willing to say with intellectual honesty that even if rationalism is supported only by circular logic that you’d still use it because you don’t like the alternative? Because, and I am an expert in this arena, that would be faith, bro.

The problem here lies with Hume’s Problem of Induction: simply stated that there is no rational or non-circular argument for using induction.  Now atheist and fundamentalist theist both use induction everyday (if you open your fridge and don’t expect a monster to jump out and kill you – you’re using induction).  So every one of us makes a “faith leap” (if you want to call it that) in assuming induction holds (since it seems to – but that statement is itself inductive reasoning).  So I guess what I was intending to say is that without induction our lives cannot be lived, we are evolved to live on the assumption and that’s all we can deal with.

Now as for subjectivism, I’d have to say that I’m more agnostic on this point.  As it stands I don’t think the universe has shown necessary objective/teleological evidence, but that’s not really to say there isn’t.  I need to think more on this before I’m really sure where I stand.

I should mention that using a methodology to refute a methodology is actually a rather common test. I mean, what’s the point of relying on a philosophy that can be used to discredit it itself?

At the risk of overkill, how do you know your rationalism is reliable? If you’re following the logical dictums of Descartes’ cogito ergo sum, how do you know that your thoughts are reliable? After all, atheists usually allege that reason itself evolved by chance [or some inexplicable yet benevolent mechanism called natural selection for which they also cannot posit a reasonable materialistic origins for] so how do we know your reason and hence your rationalism is reliable?

We don’t!  But for me, it seems that without the jump to induction and working from there we can’t function as “rational” beings (whatever that even means).  I think the point here is that these are deep philosophical and interesting questions, that very much get beyond the classical arguments in the “is there a god” debate.  I think an argument for god developed around these ideas would be one of the strongest I’ve seen/heard so far.

And, above all, what is the objective standard for your rationalism? Or is it subjectivism all along? “I believe therefore it must be. I hope.”

I hope this isn’t the case. I hope you can provide me with the objective standard of your rationalism. Otherwise, I fear, you will perhaps have disproven your own existence. If “I think, therefore I am,” what are the consequences if one is not thinking?

– Sirius Knott

I don’t know about disproving my own existence, but I don’t know if Descarte was on the button with that one.  I’ll admit that I’m not a philosopher, but dabble a little with my spare courses.  I hope I responded somewhat to your questions (which are of the utmost interest), and I look forward to future thought and discussion on these topics (I’ll likely be writing/YouTubeing) more on this in the future.