tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-40551291127284089872024-03-12T17:19:30.959-07:00Songs of a Semi-Free ManSongs of a Semi-Free Manhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05666794329484768175noreply@blogger.comBlogger89125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4055129112728408987.post-75772962544148713682015-07-08T10:43:00.000-07:002015-07-21T06:44:19.125-07:00Mackie’s Argument From Queerness – A Double-Edged Sword<style>
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<br />
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br /></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">What are objective moral values?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If moral values are objective there should be
some way that we can come to agreement on what kinds of things that they
are.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Are they <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">sui generis</i>, non-natural properties with which we can somehow get
into contact?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If so, do such
things exist?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Alternatively, are
objective moral values to be explained in terms of the natural, physical world
rather than something non-natural, and if so, how do we explain their strange
qualities?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">In this paper I will examine J. L.
Mackie’s argument from queerness, which is an argument against the existence of
objective moral values.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I
will agree with Mackie that objective moral values as Mackie describes them, if
they exist, are quite strange and unlike other properties in the universe.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The peculiar qualities of objective
moral values present a strange problem.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>If they are as Mackie terms them, ‘queer properties’, one’s approach to
them turns on one’s acceptance of naturalism.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That is to say, that if one embraces naturalism one will
reject the existence of objective moral values, whereas one who embraces
objective moral values will reject naturalism.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So my conclusion will be that the argument from queerness is
on suspect ground because it is dependent on an assumption of naturalism, but
if objective moral values exist, this assumption is ungrounded.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Along the way, I will also look at
attempts to argue that objective moral values are not queer properties but can
be explained in terms of natural properties.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In particular, I will examine David Brink’s response to
Mackie’s argument from queerness, but conclude that it does not successfully
avoid Mackie’s argument.</span><br />
<a name='more'></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">I. <span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Mackie’s
Argument From Queerness</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">J. L. Mackie contends that there are no
objective moral properties. Mackie contends that if moral values are objective,
they are categorical in nature.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He
states that if there are objective moral values that such values are
categorical imperatives like those described by Kant, and are distinguishable
from hypothetical imperatives.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He
explains:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 1.0in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">A categorical imperative, then, would
express a reason for acting which was unconditional in the sense of not being
contingent upon any present desire of the agent to whose satisfaction the
recommended action would contribute as a means.<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=4055129112728408987#_ftn1" name="_ftnref" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;">[1]</span></span></a></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">What does Mackie mean by objective?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Alexander Miller has argued that Mackie
says many different things about what he means by objectivity.<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=4055129112728408987#_ftn2" name="_ftnref" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;">[2]</span></span></a><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I think that examining Mackie’s
argument from relativity provides us with a clue concerning what Mackie means
by objective.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the argument from
relativity he argues that because moral values and practices vary so much from
society to society, this is good evidence for rejecting the existence of
underlying moral values that are “recognized at least implicitly to some extent
in all society.”<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=4055129112728408987#_ftn3" name="_ftnref" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;">[3]</span></span></a><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So, he is rejecting the existence of
objective moral principles that are recognized by all persons and
societies.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Therefore, in this
paper, I will consider that necessary conditions of objective moral properties
are that, if they exist, they are recognized by all in some way and are
categorical.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Some may quibble with this definition of
objective moral values, but this is the common sense view of morality, and I
take Mackie’s point to be that if naturalism is correct then this common sense
view of morality is mistaken – hence an error theory.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>On the other hand, if this common sense view of morality is
correct it presents a stiff challenge to naturalism.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So, my definition of objective moral values will not include
thick concepts such as ‘courage’, which although evaluative and action-guiding,
they are also parochial. In fact, objective values as defined in this paper
would be considered thin concepts.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Because of his position that there are no
objective moral values Mackie adopts an error theory, which means that even
though people act as if they are making decisions according to objective moral
values, there are in fact no moral values.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">He uses two arguments against the
existence of objective moral values: (a) the argument from queerness argument (“AQ”)
(b) the argument from relativity.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>In this paper I will concentrate on the argument from queerness.<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=4055129112728408987#_ftn4" name="_ftnref" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;">[4]</span></span></a><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I will argue that the queerness
argument, as set out by Mackie, both the metaphysical and epistemological
parts, is dependent on the assumption of naturalism because if one does not
assume naturalism the existence of objective moral values can be used to reject
naturalism.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Here I define
naturalism as “reality is exhausted by nature, containing nothing
‘supernatural’, and that the scientific method should be used to investigate
all areas of reality, including the ‘human spirit’.”<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=4055129112728408987#_ftn5" name="_ftnref" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;">[5]</span></span></a></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Mackie breaks the argument from queerness
down into two parts – one metaphysical and one epistemological.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The metaphysical part states that if
there are such things as objective moral values then there are strange entities
in that they are categorical and thus action guiding.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The epistemological part states that if there were objective
moral values we would need a strange faculty or intuition to become aware of
them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He writes:</span></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">If there were objective values, then they
would be entities or qualities or relations of a very strange sort, utterly
different from anything else in the universe.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Correspondingly, if we were aware of them, it would have to
be some special faculty of moral perception of intuition, utterly different
from our ordinary ways of knowing everything else.<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=4055129112728408987#_ftn6" name="_ftnref" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;">[6]</span></span></a></span></div>
</blockquote>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: 1.0in; mso-list: l2 level1 lfo7; text-indent: -.5in;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">A.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">The Metaphysical Argument From Queerness</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Mackie’s metaphysical argument from
queerness relies on the fact that objective moral values would be something
like Plato’s Forms or Moore’s non-natural qualities.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The metaphysical branch of Mackie’s argument from queerness
could be set out as follows in AQ1:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .75in; mso-list: l3 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">1.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">If
objective moral values exist there are non-natural properties that are categorical.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .75in; mso-list: l3 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">2.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">There
are no non-natural properties that are categorical.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .75in; mso-list: l3 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">3.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Therefore,
there are no objective moral values.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Obviously, the work being done here is by
premise 2 which rules out non-natural categorical properties.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But, is there are an argument for this
provided by Mackie?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
metaphysical portion of the argument from queerness assumes that naturalism is
true.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So, there seems to be a
missing or assumed premise about the truth of naturalism.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So, the metaphysical branch of Mackie’s
argument from queerness could be set out more fully as follows in AQ2:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .75in; mso-list: l6 level1 lfo3; text-indent: -.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">1.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">If
objective moral values exist there are non-natural properties that are categorical.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .75in; mso-list: l6 level1 lfo3; text-indent: -.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">2.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">If
naturalism is true there are no non-natural properties that are categorical.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .75in; mso-list: l6 level1 lfo3; text-indent: -.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">3.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Naturalism
is true.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .75in; mso-list: l6 level1 lfo3; text-indent: -.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">4.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Therefore,
there are no non-natural properties that are categorical.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .75in; mso-list: l6 level1 lfo3; text-indent: -.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">5.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Therefore,
there are no objective moral values.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">It can be seen just how much Mackie’s
argument from queerness relies on the presumption of naturalism if one asserts
the existence of objective moral values and one does not assume
naturalism.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So, modifying Mackie’s
argument from queerness by asserting the existence of objective moral values
one could formulate an argument AQ3 in the following form:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .75in; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo5; text-indent: -.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">1.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">If
objective moral values exist there are non-natural properties that are categorical.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .75in; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo5; text-indent: -.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">2.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">If
there are non-natural properties that are categorical then naturalism is not
true.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .75in; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo5; text-indent: -.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">3.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">There
are non-natural properties that are categorical.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .75in; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo5; text-indent: -.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">4.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Therefore,
naturalism is not true</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">From AQ3 it can be seen that if objective
moral values are queer properties, it is a double-edged sword for Mackie
because if one assumes their existence, then naturalism is false.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In fact, the appeal to the special
nature of objective moral facts is often appealed to as an argument for theism,
a fact that Mackie acknowledges.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>He recognizes that theism could provide a response to his argument from queerness
and that in fact theists could use his argument from queerness for their own
purposes. Mackie concedes “that if the requisite theological doctrine could be
defended, a kind of objective ethical prescriptivity could be thus introduced.”<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=4055129112728408987#_ftn7" name="_ftnref" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;">[7]</span></span></a><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Mackie contends that there are no good
arguments for theism.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So, it seems
that in his argument from queerness Mackie has the additional burden of proving
that theism is not true.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And, he
has to do so without the help of the argument from queerness, which is itself
dependent on naturalism, and which can be used as a part of an argument against
non-naturalism.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">So what is Mackie’s argument against
theism?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Well at least in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong</i>, he
does not present an argument so much as list reasons why he thinks that theism
is not a viable option.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He writes:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 1.0in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">I can only state my convictions that
there is no cogent positive argument for the existence of a God, the problem of
evil constitutes an insuperable difficulty for an orthodox theism, that the advance
of scientific knowledge renders a theistic view of the sort sketched above
superfluous as an explanatory thesis and utterly implausible, and that no
specific revelation – such as would be needed to make the proposed view morally
significant – has reliable credentials.<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=4055129112728408987#_ftn8" name="_ftnref" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;">[8]</span></span></a></span></div>
</blockquote>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 1.0in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span> So the metaphysical portion of Mackie’s argument from queerness depends on an assumption of naturalism. But, the interesting thing is that the queerness of objective moral values has been used to argue against naturalism, as I will discuss in more detail in the next section.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: 1.0in; mso-list: l2 level1 lfo7; text-indent: -.5in;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">B.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">The Epistemological Argument From
Queerness</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Now let us examine the epistemological
branch of Mackie’s argument. The epistemological part of the argument from
queerness asserts that if there were such things as metaphysically queer
objective moral values, how would we ever come to know them?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We would need some kind of faculty that
could intuitively know these objective moral values and Mackie holds that this
is just not plausible.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Again, this
seems to be beyond the naturalistic pale, and so Mackie rejects the existence
of such a faculty as implausible.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I contend, however, that the epistemological part of the argument from
queerness adds no particular force to his argument, no matter your position on
the existence or non-existence of objective moral values.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">If
the metaphysical part of the argument from queerness is defeated, the
epistemological part of the argument from queerness becomes toothless or at
least not as problematic. Richard Joyce has argued, and I tend to agree with
him, that Mackie’s epistemological argument from queerness is dependent on the
metaphysical argument from queerness.<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=4055129112728408987#_ftn9" name="_ftnref" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;">[9]</span></span></a><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That is to say that if there is no
metaphysically queer properties then there is no need for epistemologically
queer faculties for somehow connecting with this metaphysically queer
properties.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So, if one rejects the
metaphysical part of the argument from queerness, one does not have to deal
with the epistemological part – it becomes a moot point.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Joyce writes:</span></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 1.0in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">These
are not independent arguments, since we are forced to posit weird
epistemological equipment only if it has already been established that the
properties in question are weird. Thus really it is the metaphysical strand of
the Argument from Queerness that is load bearing.<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=4055129112728408987#_ftn10" name="_ftnref" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;">[10]</span></span></a></span></div>
</blockquote>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">However,
I would contend that even if one were to embrace the metaphysical part of the
argument from queerness, and accept metaphysically queer moral properties in
one’s ontology that the epistemological part of the argument from queerness
becomes much less troublesome.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Take the case of someone like Mark Linville (whose position is set out
in the section below) who is willing to embrace objective moral values as
metaphysically queer properties, and who has used the existence of such
properties to reject naturalism; the epistemological part of Mackie’s argument
for queerness should not be too hard to defeat.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If naturalism has been abandoned and metaphysically queer
moral properties are part of one’s ontology, why stop there?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It does not seem a much bigger step to
embrace a special faculty that can somehow know these properties once
naturalism has been set aside.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">So,
whether or not one accepts or rejects the metaphysical portion of the argument
from queerness, the epistemological part of the argument from queerness seems
to play little role.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Moreover,
again when it comes to argument from queerness, the assumption of naturalism
plays an important part not just in the metaphysical part of the argument, but
also in the epistemological part of it also.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the next section, I will set out a position that has been
taken that embraces objective moral values as queer properties in an argument
to reject naturalism.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">II.<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The
Argument From Queerness Used Against Itself</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">As I mentioned above, the queerness of objective
moral values has been used part of an argument against naturalism.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>An example of such an argument is
Mark Linville’s argument against evolutionary naturalism.<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=4055129112728408987#_ftn11" name="_ftnref" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;">[11]</span></span></a><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Linville defines evolutionary
naturalism as “the combination of naturalism and an overall Darwinian account
of the origin of species.”<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=4055129112728408987#_ftn12" name="_ftnref" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;">[12]</span></span></a><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A central premise of Linville’s
argument is the existence of objective moral values.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He argues that evolutionary naturalism cannot accommodate
objective moral values, which he asserts exist. And from this he concludes that
evolutionary naturalism is false.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Of course, the argument as I set it out above may not be wedded to
evolutionary naturalism but the point is that if objective moral values are
queer properties, they can be used by the non-naturalism as to contend against
naturalism.<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=4055129112728408987#_ftn13" name="_ftnref" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;">[13]</span></span></a><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Linville sets out this argument as
follows:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">1.<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>If
Evolutionary Naturalism (“EN”) is true, then human morality is a by-product of
natural selection.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">2.<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>If
human morality is a by-product of natural selection, then there are no
objective moral facts.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">3.<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>There
are objective moral facts.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">4.<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Therefore,
EN is false.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Linville’s recognizes that there is
significant opposition to his first premise, but holds that he has presented
sufficient evidence to support it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>His argument for his second premise is that natural selection is
fitness-aimed rather than truth aimed, and so if human morality is a by-product
of natural selection our moral beliefs appear to be fitness-aimed rather than
truth-aimed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is therefore an
argument for moral skepticism for objective moral values if such moral values
are a by-product of natural selection. For my purposes I am content to present
an example of AQ3 above showing that the alleged queerness of objective moral
values has been said to motivate arguments against naturalism. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">A few points can be remarked upon at this
point.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>First, if one accepts that
moral values if they exist are queer in Mackie’s sense, then whether one holds
that such objective moral values can exist depends on one’s underlying
philosophical presuppositions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>What does this do to the argument from queerness?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Does it just become a test of one’s
presuppositions? </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">How does an account like Linville’s fare
with regard to the epistemological part of Mackie’s argument from queerness?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It seems that if non-naturalism can be
established and if there are metaphysically queer objective moral values,
positing an additional special moral faculty by which one can discern these
objective values, would not be a massive leap.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Therefore, as I mentioned in Section I.B above for someone
willing to embrace the metaphysical queerness of moral properties, the
epistemological part of the argument does not pose particular problems.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">It seems that without a prior defense of
naturalism, Mackie’s argument from queerness does not succeed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The argument from queerness further
cannot be used as an argument in favor of naturalism as that would be question
begging, and as we have seen, philosophers have appealed to the queerness of
objective moral values in an effort to attack and defeat naturalism.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So, the argument from queerness does
not seem able to bear the heavy burden of showing that there are no objective
moral values on its own.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So, must
one accept that objective moral values exist and are by nature queer because
they are non-natural and categorical?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>David Brink has a possible way to defend objective moral values without
appealing to non-naturalism.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br />
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">III.<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Natural
Objective Moral Values</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">David Brink has evaluated Mackie’s
argument from queerness and argued that it does not affect moral realism.<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=4055129112728408987#_ftn14" name="_ftnref" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;">[14]</span></span></a><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Here we must be careful to define what
Brink means by moral realism.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So,
the first port of call in this section will be to define Brink’s moral realism.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Brink defines moral realism as follows:
“(a) there are moral facts, and (b) these facts are logically independent of
our evidence, i.e., those belief which are our evidence, for them.”<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=4055129112728408987#_ftn15" name="_ftnref" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;">[15]</span></span></a><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He asserts that moral realism claims
that there are objective moral facts and implies that there are true moral
propositions.<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=4055129112728408987#_ftn16" name="_ftnref" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;">[16]</span></span></a> <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Brink defines Mackie as a moral skeptic
of a particular kind; a moral skeptic who denies the existence of moral values
but who is not a skeptic about most other disciplines.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That is to say, that Mackie thinks
there are special metaphysical and epistemological problems about realism in
ethics that do not for example affect the physical sciences.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Brink’s strategy is to try to show that
the metaphysical and epistemological claims and commitments of ethics are just
as plausible as those of physical sciences.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Brink points out that treating moral
values as objective has the backing of common sense moral practice and casts
aspersions in the direction of Mackie’s counter-intuitive error theory.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is a point that I will return to
later in this paper.<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></b>But, then Brink draws a distinction
between his definition of objective moral values and Mackie’s definition.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>To do this Brink references an
assumption that he claims underlies Mackie’s argument from queerness – internalism.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Brink points out that Mackie assumes
internalism about objective moral values.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Internalism is the thesis that moral values motivate action a priori,
that in Mackie’s terms, they are prescriptive and categorical.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Brink breaks internalism into two
distinct camps – motivational internalism and reasons internalism.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He writes:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 1.0in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Internalism is the a priori thesis that
the recognition of moral facts itself either necessarily motivates or
necessarily provides reasons for acting…We can distinguish motivational
internalism (MI) and reasons internalism (RI): MI holds that it is a priori
that the recognition of moral facts itself necessarily motivates the agent to
perform the moral action, while RI claims that it is a priori that the
recognition of moral facts itself necessarily provides the agent with reason to
perform the moral action.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Externalism, by contrast, denies both MI and RI.<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=4055129112728408987#_ftn17" name="_ftnref" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;">[17]</span></span></a></span></div>
</blockquote>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 1.0in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Brink contends that much of the reason
why Mackie thinks objective moral values to be queer properties is because
Mackie thinks that objective moral values entail internalism.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>However, Brink states that he sees no
reason why objective moral values should entail internalism.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Brink contends that internalism is
false.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He argues that whether or
not moral facts motivate one to act or give one reasons to act depends on what
those moral facts are and also depends on one’s desires or interests.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Apart from his argument against
internalism, Brink also argues that Mackie’s argument from queerness is based
on the assumption that if objective moral values exist that they must be <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">sui generis</i> and independent of natural
properties. Obviously such a definition of objective moral values conflicts
with naturalism, so Brink contends that if one could explain objective moral
values not as <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">sui generis</i> but as
explainable in terms of natural properties, Mackie’s argument from queerness
would be disarmed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So he proposes
an account of objective moral values that is consistent with materialism or
naturalism.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He argues that one can
accept objective moral values and materialism by either reducing moral values
to natural properties, i.e., by showing that they are identical to natural
properties, or take the route that Brink does and claim that objective moral
values supervene on physical properties.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Brink holds that objective moral values
supervene upon physical properties.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>He rejects reductionism on the grounds that because<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> </b>moral properties could be realized in non-physical as well as
physical ways this means that not all moral properties are therefore reducible
to physical properties.<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=4055129112728408987#_ftn18" name="_ftnref" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;">[18]</span></span></a><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But this leads to another queerness
debate between Mackie and Brink.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Mackie holds that the supervenience relation between the physical base
property and the moral supervenient property is mysterious or queer.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And so Brink’s brand of supervenience
does not escape Mackie’s criticism.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Brink states that “a supervenient
relation obtains between two properties or sets of properties just in case the
one property or set of properties is causally realized by the other set of
properties; the former property or set of properties is the supervening
property or set of properties, and the latter property or set of properties is
the base property or set of properties.”<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=4055129112728408987#_ftn19" name="_ftnref" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;">[19]</span></span></a><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So, according to Brink when a natural
state of affairs such as the torturing of a cat for sport occurs the moral
property of being wrong supervenes on that natural state of affairs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Mackie states that such a supervenience
relation is still mysterious. He states:</span></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 1.0in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">What is the connection between the
natural fact that an action is a case of deliberate cruelty – say, causing pain
just for fun – and the moral fact that it is wrong?...The wrongness must
somehow be ‘consequential’ or ‘supervenient’; it is wrong because it is a piece
of deliberate cruelty.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But just
what in the world is signified by this ‘because’?<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=4055129112728408987#_ftn20" name="_ftnref" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;">[20]</span></span></a></span></div>
</blockquote>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-right: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Brink
offers a defense of the supervenience of moral properties by arguing that there
are many other types of supervenience that we do not consider mysterious or
queer.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Brink’s strategy is to
adopt Mackie’s suggestion to find ‘partners in guilt’, i.e., other examples of
supervenience that are not considered metaphysically queer, and argue that
moral supervenience should be treated in the same way as these other forms of
supervenience.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-right: .5in; text-indent: .5in;">
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">However, I do not think that Brink’s
defense is very successful.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Brink
points to the supervenience, for example, of mental states upon physical
states.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He states that few think
that mental states are queer.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>However, the queerness comes about in the supervenience relation not in
the supervening property itself.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>So while it may be true that not many consider mental states to be
metaphysically queer, this is not the same thing as saying that the fact that
mental states supervene upon physical states is not considered mysterious or
queer.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A materialist who does not
wish to offer a reductionist solution to the mind/body problem is similar to a
materialist like Brink who does not want to offer a reductionist account of
morality.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Both do not wish
everything to the physical level but they do so at the expense of positing a
supervenience relation that just is, and which as Mackie points out is very
difficult to explain.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-right: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">To
be fair, Brink offers some more examples of supervenience other than the
supervenience of mental states on physical states.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But these examples doe not further his cause.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He states that certain social facts
such as unemployment, inflation, and exploitation supervene on physical facts
but no one considers them metaphysically queer.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>However, social facts such as unemployment and inflation
seem to be very different things than moral properties.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(I leave aside exploitation, because to
my mind that is a moral fact, or perhaps a natural state of affairs upon which
the moral property of being wrong supervenes.)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Social facts like unemployment are reducible to the ‘base’ physical
properties.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So unemployment is
completely reducible to x number of people in a certain area do not have
jobs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Similarly, the social fact
of inflation is reducible to the fact that the prices of certain products in a
certain region have risen above a certain level.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Since Brink’s project is to explain objective moral
properties in terms of supervenience upon a natural base rather than to reduce
objective moral values to a physical base, these types of examples do not
further his cause.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-right: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Brink
also presents examples taken from the physical sciences – biological states
supervening upon physical states, and macroscopic physical objects like tables
supervening upon microscopic physical particles.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But here again a straight reductionist account would do the
trick.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That is to say the relation
between what Brink wants to label the base property and the supervening
property is not like that of moral properties supervening on natural facts such
as torturing cats for fun.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If we
could straightforwardly reduce the moral property of wrongness to natural facts
such as torturing cats for fun that would be a different story.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But, whatever the merits of reducing
moral properties to natural facts, it is not a project that Brink thinks can be
successful.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-right: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Brink
recognizes that if supervenience does not work that a case could be made for
sui generis moral properties:</span></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 1.0in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in; tab-stops: 5.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">If and only if moral facts were queer
kinds of entities would we need some special faculty for cognitive access to
them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But the realist denies that
moral facts are <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">sui generis</i>; moral
facts supervene on natural facts.<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=4055129112728408987#_ftn21" name="_ftnref" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;">[21]</span></span></a></span></div>
</blockquote>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-right: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">But,
I do not find his account of supervenience convincing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The supervenience relation is
mysterious and none of the examples he provides help to make it less so.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The one helpful case is the
supervenience of mental states on physical states, but that supervenience
relation is held by many to be mysterious.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-right: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Therefore,
I contend that Brink’s attempt to avoid Mackie’s argument from queerness by
outlining a theory whereby objective moral values are not queer but explainable
in terms of natural properties, does not succeed because his is still saddled
with the mysterious supervenience relation of moral properties up on natural
properties. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; page-break-after: avoid;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">IV.<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Final
Analysis</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; page-break-after: avoid;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>So
far we have examined Mackie’s argument from queerness and found that it depends
on an assumption of naturalism because if one embraces the metaphysical
queerness of objective moral properties, one can use this phenomenon to argue
against naturalism.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We have also
seen Brink’s attempt to ‘dequeer’ objective moral values fail as the
supervenience of moral properties on natural properties remains a mystery.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Given this background that we have
worked through the above, where do we now stand?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I think that the field can be narrowed to those who hold
that if objective moral values do exist that they are queer properties, i.e.,
something very different from anything else in the universe.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So we would be left with two opposing
views – Mackie’s view and then the view of someone like Mark Linville.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What are the consequences of their
views?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Mackie’s
view avoids expanding one’s ontology to include such metaphysically queer items
as objective moral values, but at a high expense.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I mentioned Mackie’s error theory earlier.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He asserts that since common sense
morality asserts that objective moral values exist when they do not, we must
adopt an error theory.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 1.0in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">The
denial of objective values will have to be put forward not as the result of an
analytic approach, but as an ‘error theory’, a theory that although most people
in making moral judgments implicitly claim, among other things, to be pointing
to something objectively prescriptive, these claims are all false.<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=4055129112728408987#_ftn22" name="_ftnref" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;">[22]</span></span></a></span></div>
</blockquote>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">This
is a very high price to pay.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So
while in everyday life we act as if there are objective prescriptive standards,
we know that in reality, no such things exist.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Mackie recognizes that since his error theory goes against
common sense morality he bears the burden of explaining why it is the correct
view and why there are no objective moral values.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He states that his view needs ‘very solid support’.<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=4055129112728408987#_ftn23" name="_ftnref" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;">[23]</span></span></a><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>However, as we have seen, his argument
from queerness does not stand on its own too feet, but is undergirded by a
presumption of naturalism.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Linville’s view, which accepts that objective moral values exist and are
queer, leads to the abandonment of naturalism, which is a price many will not
be willing to pay either.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span>So if bullets have to be bitten, is there any way of deciding between these two alternatives? Is it just down to one’s position on naturalism or is there something stronger that one can hang one’s hat on? Well if naturalism is true then one must I think bite Mackie’s bullet and accept his error theory, no matter how contrary it seems to common moral practice, that there are no objective, prescriptive moral values. However, naturalism must first be shown to be true, and in doing so, the challenge of explaining objective moral values without appealing to non-naturalistic properties must be met.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Bibliography:</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Brink, David O., “Moral
realism and the sceptical Arguments from Disagreement and Queerness,” <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Australasian Journal of Philosophy</i> 62
(1984): 111.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Joyce,
Richard, "Moral Anti-Realism," <i>The Stanford Encyclopedia of
Philosophy </i>(Summer 2009 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = <http: archives="" entries="" moral-anti-realism="" plato.stanford.edu="" sum2009="">.</http:></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Linville,
Mark, “The Moral Argument,” in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The
Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology</i>, ed. William Lane Craig & J. P.
Moreland (Blackwell Publishing Ltd.: Malden, MA, 2012): 391.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Mackie, J.L., <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong</i> (New
York, NY: Penguin Books, 1978).</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Miller, Alexander, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Contemporary Metaethics: An Introduction</i>
(2<sup>nd</sup> Ed.) (Malden, MA: Polity Press, 2013).</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Papineau,
David, "Naturalism", <i>The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy </i>(Spring
2009 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL =
<http: archives="" entries="" naturalism="" plato.stanford.edu="" spr2009="">.</http:></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div style="mso-element: footnote-list;">
<br clear="all" />
<hr align="left" size="1" width="33%" />
<div id="ftn" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=4055129112728408987#_ftnref" name="_ftn1" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;">[1]</span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">J.L. Mackie, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong</i> (New York, NY: Penguin Books,
1978),</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> 29.</span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=4055129112728408987#_ftnref" name="_ftn2" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;">[2]</span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Miller, Alexander, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Contemporary Metaethics: An Introduction</i> (2<sup>nd</sup> Ed.)
(Malden, MA: Polity Press, 2013), 108-109.</span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=4055129112728408987#_ftnref" name="_ftn3" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;">[3]</span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Mackie, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Ethics</i>, 37.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"></span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=4055129112728408987#_ftnref" name="_ftn4" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;">[4]</span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> The argument from relativity contends
that moral codes and practices vary widely from society to society, and argues
that this phenomenon is better explained by these variations being different
ways of life rather than direct perceptions of objective moral values.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That is to say, that it does not seem
likely there are objective moral values given the fact that moral codes and
practices vary so much from society to society and from group to group.</span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=4055129112728408987#_ftnref" name="_ftn5" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;">[5]</span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">David Papineau, "Naturalism", <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy</i>
(Spring 2009 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL =
<http: archives="" entries="" naturalism="" plato.stanford.edu="" spr2009="">. citing
(Krikorian 1944, Kim 2003).</http:></span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=4055129112728408987#_ftnref" name="_ftn6" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;">[6]</span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Mackie, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Ethics</i>, </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">38.</span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;">[7]</span></span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> Ibid. 48.</span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=4055129112728408987#_ftnref" name="_ftn8" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;">[8]</span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> Ibid. 232.</span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=4055129112728408987#_ftnref" name="_ftn9" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;">[9]</span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> Joyce, Richard, "Moral
Anti-Realism," <i>The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy </i>(Summer
2009 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL =
<http: archives="" entries="" moral-anti-realism="" plato.stanford.edu="" sum2009="">.</http:></span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=4055129112728408987#_ftnref" name="_ftn10" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;">[10]</span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> Ibid.</span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=4055129112728408987#_ftnref" name="_ftn11" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;">[11]</span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> Mark Linville, “The Moral Argument,” in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology</i>,
ed. William Lane Craig & J. P. Moreland (Blackwell Publishing Ltd.: Malden,
MA, 2012): 391.</span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=4055129112728408987#_ftnref" name="_ftn12" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;">[12]</span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> Ibid. 394.</span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=4055129112728408987#_ftnref" name="_ftn13" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;">[13]</span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> Note that Linville explains that he
argues against evolutionary naturalism as that is the kind of naturalism that
is taken to be the ‘only game in town’ when it comes to naturalism.</span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=4055129112728408987#_ftnref" name="_ftn14" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;">[14]</span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Brink, David O. Brink, “Moral realism and
the sceptical Arguments from Disagreement and Queerness,” <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Australasian Journal of Philosophy</i> 62 (1984): 111.</span></div>
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=4055129112728408987#_ftnref" name="_ftn15" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;">[15]</span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> Ibid. 111.</span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=4055129112728408987#_ftnref" name="_ftn16" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;">[16]</span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> Ibid.</span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=4055129112728408987#_ftnref" name="_ftn17" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;">[17]</span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> Ibid. 113.</span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=4055129112728408987#_ftnref" name="_ftn18" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;">[18]</span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> I agree with Brink here, and so I will
not spend more time explaining why a reductionist account of objective moral
values, as defined in this paper, cannot be successful.</span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=4055129112728408987#_ftnref" name="_ftn19" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;">[19]</span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> Ibid. 119.</span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=4055129112728408987#_ftnref" name="_ftn20" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;">[20]</span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Mackie, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Ethics</i>,</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> 41.</span></div>
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<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=4055129112728408987#_ftnref" name="_ftn21" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;">[21]</span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> Brink, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Moral Realism</i>, 123</span></div>
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<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=4055129112728408987#_ftnref" name="_ftn22" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;">[22]</span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> Mackie, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Ethics</i>, 35.</span></div>
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<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=4055129112728408987#_ftnref" name="_ftn23" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;">[23]</span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> Ibid.</span></div>
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Songs of a Semi-Free Manhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05666794329484768175noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4055129112728408987.post-78835078376489022062015-06-25T17:44:00.002-07:002015-07-18T20:36:28.911-07:00Kant's First Antinomy - Can We Know If the Universe is Finite or Infinite?<style>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Immanuel Kant’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Critique of Pure Reason</i> is a towering and original work in the
philosophical cannon.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Kant’s transcendental
idealism is designed to remove skeptical doubts about empirical science that
Hume had raised by asserting that space and time are conditions of experiences
that are internal to each of us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>However, Kant cautions that because space and time are internal
intuitions that condition our experience we can never know things in themselves
or noumena but only things as they appear to us or phenomena.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If we forget this, Kant warns that we
will end up in endless philosophical muddles.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Central to showing the necessity of transcendental idealism
are the antinomies of pure reason, which show that when we try to go beyond the
conditioned, that is experience within the bounds of space and time, we come to
intractably contradictory positions such as the universe in finite in time and
space and the universe is infinite in time and space.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Kant wants to use the antinomies to motivate us to accept
transcendental idealism, because if we assume a transcendentally realistic view
of and think we can reach the things in themselves, we end up in the
intellectual mire of the antinomies.</span><br />
<a name='more'></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">In this paper I critically examine the
First Antinomy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I will argue that
there is no conflict between the thesis and antithesis of the First Antinomy
for a number of reasons.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>First, it
appears that the antithesis borders on circularity.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The thesis argument is also not without its problems.
Second, I will contend that the first antinomy highlights a tension between
what Kant calls reason and understanding rather than a conflict within reason
itself, a point that Michelle Grier has recognized.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I propose that the antinomies represent a divergence between
rationalism (as I will call it) and naturalism, a conflict that does indeed
seem intractable to many.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Finally,
I argue that Kant’s transcendental idealism points a possible way this conflict
might be resolved.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>However, I
conclude that the power of the antinomies is not such as to force one to accept
transcendental idealism.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the
course of attempting the above, I will examine how Grier, who recognizes
similar issues in the antinomies, comes to a different conclusion than I do.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">The point of Kant’s antinomies is to show
that reason wants to move from the conditioned, which is the world of
appearances that we experience in space and time, to the unconditioned.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Kant wants to show how this desire to
move from the conditioned to the unconditioned gets us into trouble.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Kant lays out two principles that are
the sources of this problem.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>First
reason urges us to:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>find for the conditioned knowledge given through the
understanding the unconditioned whereby its unity is brought to completion.<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=4055129112728408987#_ftn1" name="_ftnref" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;">[1]</span></span></a>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">This first principle is that reason aims
to organize the concepts of the understanding.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>However, Kant maintains that because the world of sense is
conditioned by our internal intuitions of space and time we are falsely led to
think that the conditions of how this experience is possible is also given to
us and we are led to adopt principle two:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">If the conditioned is given, the whole
series of all conditions, subordinated to one another – a series which is
therefore itself unconditioned – is likewise given, that is, is contained in
the object and its connection.<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=4055129112728408987#_ftn2" name="_ftnref" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;">[2]</span></span></a>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">This illegitimate urge to find the
conditions of the unconditioned leads us into intellectual cul-de-sacs, and
competing, contradictory claims.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In
particular, it leads us to adopt competing antinomies, based on our particular
predilections, and that reason can show each of these antinomies to be equally
valid.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Kant describes the role of
the antinomies in the following way:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">If in using principle of the
understanding we apply our reason not merely to objects of experience, for the
use of understanding, but instead venture also to extend these principles
beyond the boundaries of experience, then there arise sophistical theorems,
which may neither hope for confirmation in experience nor fear refutation by
it; and each of them is not only without contradiction in itself but even meets
with conditions of its necessity in the nature of reason itself, only
unfortunately the opposite has on its side equally valid and necessary grounds
for its assertion.<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=4055129112728408987#_ftn3" name="_ftnref" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;">[3]</span></span></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">The first antinomy concerns whether or
not the universe is finite or infinite in space and time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The thesis position is that the
universe is finite in space and time and so had a beginning while the
antithesis states that the universe is finite in space and time and so has no
beginning.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Kant’s point was that
reason could be used to prove either the thesis or the antithesis and as a
result, no one could ever prove the other position to be incorrect.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The proponents of the thesis and
antithesis positions would argue themselves to a standstill.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And so if reason leads to two
contradictory results, then it shows that there is something seriously
amiss.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Kant uses this to argue
that the reason we are in this bind is because we are adopt a transcendentally
realist viewpoint, instead of a transcendentally idealist position.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That because the conditions of space
and time are given to us in experience we reason that we can also discover the
conditions of the conditions, that is the conditions of space and time
themselves.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Kant’s transcendental
idealism holds that are spatio-temporal viewpoint is given as part of our
understanding and that we cannot escape this.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Thus he argues that we are not privileged to a God’s eye
view of the universe, whereby we can step outside of space and time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Kant argues that the antinomies result
from this desire to obtain this God’s eye view; a temptation that he sees the
force of but which we must do our best to avoid if we want to escape the
antinomies.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">In the Appendix to the Transcendental
Dialectic, Kant recognizes the forces of the drive to discover the conditions
of the unconditioned, but cautions us to use this a regulative principle
instead of a constitutive principle. In fact Kant points out that reason’s
desire to find the condition of the unconditioned is necessary for our progress
in knowledge.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So, he is fine with
its use as a regulative principle, and even considers it necessary as such.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">However, do the antinomies actually show
that if we come at the world from a transcendental realist position that reason
will bring us to a place of deadlock?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>In the following section I will critically examine the first antinomy in
order to see if there is a legitimate contradiction between the thesis and
antithesis position.<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=4055129112728408987#_ftn4" name="_ftnref" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;">[4]</span></span></a></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">I.<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The
First Antinomy - The Thesis Argument</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">In this section, I will take at look at
the thesis and antithesis arguments of the first antinomy in turn and point out
difficulties with each.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Some which
trouble me, and other problems that have been pointed out by others.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">The thesis of the first antinomy is that
“the world has a beginning in time, and in space it is also enclosed in
boundaries.”<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=4055129112728408987#_ftn5" name="_ftnref" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;">[5]</span></span></a><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Here I am going to focus on the first
part – that there is a temporal beginning to the universe.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Here is Kant’s argument:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">For if one assumes that the world has no
beginning in time, then up to every given point an eternity has elapsed, and
hence an infinite series of states of things in the world, each following
another, has passed away.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But now
the infinity of a series consists precisely in the fact that it can never be
completed through a successive synthesis.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Therefore an infinitely elapsed world-series in impossible, so a
beginning of the world is a necessary condition of its existence; which was the
first point to be proved.<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=4055129112728408987#_ftn6" name="_ftnref" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;">[6]</span></span></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Here is how I break down Kant’s proof: </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">1.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Assume
that the world has no beginning in time.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-left: .75in; mso-list: l3 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">2.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">If
the world has no beginning in time then an infinite series of successive events
has elapsed up to any given moment in time.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-left: .75in; mso-list: l3 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">3.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">An
infinite series of successive events can never be completed.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-left: .75in; mso-list: l3 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">4.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Therefore,
an infinite series of successive events has not elapsed.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-left: .75in; mso-list: l3 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">5.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Therefore,
the world had a beginning in time.<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=4055129112728408987#_ftn7" name="_ftnref" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;">[7]</span></span></a></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-left: .75in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Alvin Plantinga points out a problem of
circularity with the thesis argument of the first antinomy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Plantinga accepts that if one starts at
a finite point (as premise 2 in the argument above does) and attempts to count
back successive events to infinity (as premise 3 does), one will never reach
infinity so long as the successive events occur at a constant rate (the
conclusion in 4 above).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>However,
he thinks if one takes the first premise and assumes that the world has no
beginning, then there was no beginning point, and at every moment an infinity
would already have elapsed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So
given premise 1 above, at any point an infinite successive series of events has
already occurred, therefore, his claim is that premise 4, while it might follow
from premises 2 and 3, does not follow from premise 1.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He writes: </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .25in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">…if the world has existed for an infinite
stretch of time, then there was no first moment, no first event, and no
beginning either to the series of moments or the series of events; more
generally, at any preceding moment an infinite time would already have
elapsed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>To conclude, as Kant
does, that it is impossible that an infinite series of events has occurred is
just to assume that the series in question had a beginning – that is, is finite
– but that is precisely what was to be proved.<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=4055129112728408987#_ftn8" name="_ftnref" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;">[8]</span></span></a></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">I am not completely convinced that
Plantinga’s argument against the thesis position of the first antinomy is
successful. However, there are other formulations of arguments that the
universe in finite in time that escape Plantinga’s criticism.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For example William Lane Craig has
offers the following kalam cosmological argument:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-left: 1.0in; mso-list: l4 level1 lfo6; text-indent: -.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">1.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Everything
that begins to exist has a cause</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-left: 1.0in; mso-list: l4 level1 lfo6; text-indent: -.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">2.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">The
universe began to exist</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-left: 1.0in; mso-list: l4 level1 lfo6; text-indent: -.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">3.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Therefore,
the universe has a cause.<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=4055129112728408987#_ftn9" name="_ftnref" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;">[9]</span></span></a></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-left: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Obviously, the work is being done mostly
in this argument by the second premise.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Craig offers the following argument in support of the second premise:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-left: 1.0in; mso-list: l5 level1 lfo7; text-indent: -.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">1.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">The
temporal series of events is a collection formed by successive addition.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-left: 1.0in; mso-list: l5 level1 lfo7; text-indent: -.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">2.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">A
collection formed by successive addition cannot be actually infinite.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-left: 1.0in; mso-list: l5 level1 lfo7; text-indent: -.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">3.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Therefore
temporal series of events cannot be an actual infinite.<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=4055129112728408987#_ftn10" name="_ftnref" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;">[10]</span></span></a></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-left: 1.0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Taking
the kalam cosmological argument set out above and the argument in support of
the second premise of the kalam cosmological argument, we have an argument for
the thesis position that is does not fall subject to Plantinga’s
criticism.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .25in;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">The
First Antinomy – The Antithesis Argument</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">The antithesis states that “the world has
no beginning and no bounds in space, but is infinite with regard to both space
and time”.<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=4055129112728408987#_ftn11" name="_ftnref" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;">[11]</span></span></a><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Here is how Kant lays out the argument:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .25in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">…suppose that it [the world] has a
beginning.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Since the beginning is
an existence preceded by a time in which the thing is not, there must be a
preceding time in which the world was not, i.e., an empty time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But now no arising of any sort of thing
is possible in an empty time, because no part of such as time has, in itself,
prior to another part, any distinguishing condition of its existence rather
than its non-existence (whether one assumes that it comes to be of itself or
through another cause).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Thus many
series of things may begin in the world, but the world itself cannot have any
beginning, and so in past time it is infinite.<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=4055129112728408987#_ftn12" name="_ftnref" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;">[12]</span></span></a></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Again, I am going to concentrate on the
claim that the world or the universe has no temporal beginning.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My formulation of Kant’s argument is as
follows:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-left: .5in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo2; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">1.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Assume the world has a beginning.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-left: .5in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo2; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">2.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">If the world has a beginning, it was
preceded by a time in which it was not.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-left: .5in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo2; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">3.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">If there was a time where the world was
not, this was an empty time.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-left: .5in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo2; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">4.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Nothing can begin in an empty time.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-left: .5in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo2; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">5.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Therefore, the world had no beginning.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-left: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">It could be argued that this argument
borders on circularity, or begs the question.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That is to say, that it is in danger of assuming its
conclusion in its premises.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
conclusion of the argument of the antithesis of the first antinomy is that time
is infinite and so the universe must have had no beginning.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The essential premise to this argument
is premise four that no cause of the universe could arise in empty space and
time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This seems to be assuming that
only natural causes, i.e., causes that occur within space and time can have an
effect.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So, an effect that
occurred beyond space and time would not make sense.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>However, this is an assumption of naturalism, that all
events are due to natural causes.<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=4055129112728408987#_ftn13" name="_ftnref" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;">[13]</span></span></a><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The conclusion sought is a naturalistic
one, that the universe is infinite.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>So, if one assumes naturalism as part of the premises, and then one
comes to a naturalistic conclusion, it should not come as a complete
surprise.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That is to say that if
one assumes naturalistic causation then reality will be co-extensive with space
and time and therefore infinite.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">If I am correct that the antithesis of
the first antinomy is indeed circular, this has some important
consequences.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>First, the conflict
between the thesis and the antithesis of the first antinomy is neutered.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Unless one can show a similar fault in
the logic of the thesis, the thesis must be seen to win out.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Even if the logic of the thesis is also
suspect, and both the thesis and antithesis arguments are without force, the
conflict between the thesis and antithesis positions of the first antinomy is
without force.<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> </b>The second, issue is
that one is not driven automatically to embrace transcendental idealism if this
conflict between the antinomies can be defused.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Perhaps, instead Kant’s suggestion of transcendental
idealism is still an option, just not one to which we are remorselessly
driven.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Instead, I want to suggest that Kant
points out that the conflict between the rational position of the thesis (which
Kant would label the urge to find the condition of the unconditioned) and that
of the naturalist that antithesis position can be solved if they accept a third
option – transcendental idealism.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
position of transcendental idealism, which might be described as naturalism
with the possibility that there might be something more than the given physical
world.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What Kant was trying to do
was create naturalism with the room for freewill.<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=4055129112728408987#_ftn14" name="_ftnref" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;">[14]</span></span></a><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Brilliant as Kant’s compromise between
the rational position and naturalism might be, it does not seem to me to be
obligatory, but rather more like a choice of three possible outlooks – the
rational, the naturalistic, and the transcendentally ideal.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Position one is that of pure reason,
position two is taken by those who assume naturalism, and position three is
Kant’s critical method of transcendental realism, a way of adopting naturalism
for empirical science while leaving opening the possibility of freedom, so that
morality is possible.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">The search for a condition for the
unconditioned does not conflict with itself, but rather with what I have called
naturalism. So, it seems that the first antinomy does not show that reason’s
search for the conditioned of the unconditioned leads to intractable conflicts.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Perhaps, there is no conflict because
neither the thesis nor antithesis argument holds water, or perhaps a reformed
argument for the thesis position is effective and so wins the battle over the
antithesis position.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Alternatively,
the thesis and antithesis positions emphasis different things - the thesis, the
rational position, and the antithesis, the naturalistic position.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Michelle Grier presents a challenge to
this objection that I will examine later in the paper, but first I want to
examine another potential issue, whether the antithesis position of the first
antinomy assumes transcendental idealism.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Does the Antithesis Assume
Transcendental Idealism?</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Even if one questions my contention in
the preceding section that Kant’s argument for the antithesis is circular or begs
the question, there is an issue whether or not the argument for the antithesis
assumes a transcendentally ideal viewpoint rather than a transcendentally
realistic viewpoint.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This would be
a problem because it is the use of a transcendentally realistic viewpoint, the
quest for the conditions of the unconditioned, that Kant holds drives us to the
thesis and antithesis positions in the antinomies, and that instead one should
maintain a transcendentally idealistic viewpoint.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So, if the antithesis assumes a transcendentally idealistic
viewpoint this would fail to show how adopting a transcendentally realistic
position leads to intractable contradictions.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">As I set out the argument above most of
the work is being done by the fourth premise.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But is this premise plausible, especially if one looks at it
from a transcendentally realistic perspective?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If one had a truly God’s eye view and so could transcend
space at time, would the fourth premise present a difficulty?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Is reason able to imagine an empty
time?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It seems that reason is the faculty
that aims to go beyond the conditioned to find the conditions of the
unconditioned, so why would reason become bogged down in the conditioned, i.e.,
space and time, unable to imagine an empty time?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Of course when Kant refers to faculty he is not meaning a
particular physical thing.<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> </b>This is
exactly what Kant tells us that reason does when it uses the drive to search
for the conditions of the unconditioned as a constitutive principle rather than
a merely regulative one.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So, when
Kant states that nothing can begin in an empty time, is he assuming that we
cannot escape space and time, that space and time are internal conditions that
make experience possible, i.e. assuming transcendental idealism.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">So, in his proof for the antithesis of
the first antinomy does Kant assume a transcendentally idealistic viewpoint,
where one cannot step outside of space and time?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The point of the antinomies is to drive one to embrace
transcendental idealism by showing how transcendental realism becomes tied up
in contradictions between the thesis and the antithesis.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But, if the antinomies show that the
transcendental realist and idealist position conflict, this is to be expected.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It also does not show the need for
transcendental idealism.<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Grier’s Response</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Having said what I did above about the
problems of the antithesis of the first antinomy being circular or assuming
transcendental idealism, I want to make sure that I am not being uncharitable
to Kant’s position or misconstruing it in some way.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Michelle Grier has recognized problems similar to the ones I
raised above, so I want to take a look at her interpretation, and use it to
determine if there is something that I have missed or failed to grasp.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Grier points out in relation to the first
antinomy that the thesis side can be seen as the point of view of reason that
wants to go beyond the conditioned, which is our standpoint in space and time.
While the antithesis point of view is the point of view of understanding as
Kant defined it being conditioned in space and time. She points this out as a
challenge to the position that the first antinomy shows a conflict of reason
with itself.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So, rather than
pointing out the deficiencies of reason going beyond the conditioned and ending
up with contradictions of the antinomies, she suggests that the antinomies show
instead the tension between reason and understanding.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She writes:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 45.0pt; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">I am clearly suggesting that what Kant is
doing is pitting the attempt to comprehend things through the abstract use of
the understanding against the attempt to do so in accordance with the
principles of sensibility…it seems that there then can be no real conflict at
work in the antinomies after all.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>It this is so, then Kant’s efforts to have isolated a genuine conflict
of reason with itself and, indeed, his use of this conflict as further proof
for his own transcendental idealism amount to a rather grandiose inflation of a
mere ‘tension’ between different (ultimately compatible) tendencies of our
thinking, and it really proves nothing of substance beyond this.<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=4055129112728408987#_ftn15" name="_ftnref" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;">[15]</span></span></a></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 45.0pt; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">So she recognizes the problem that I am
having in seeing how the first antinomy presents a conflict of reason with
itself; that as I put it earlier in the paper, the thesis represents what I
have called the rational position, while the antithesis represents what I have
called the naturalistic position.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Grier considers whether the thesis and the antithesis of the first
antinomy are not actually in conflict because the thesis is considering the
world in general while the antithesis is concerned with the world as we find it
in space and time.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">What is Grier’s response to this
problem?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Because of course if the
thesis and antithesis show tension rather than all-out conflict one is not
driven to transcendental idealism.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Grier recognizes the tension between the thesis and the antithesis; that
the thesis goes beyond the space and time whereas the antithesis assumes space
and time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Her solution, however,
is that the antithesis position assumes space and time not as intuitions but as
things in themselves.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Therefore,
she argues that just as the thesis position assumes that it can reach things in
themselves, the antithesis also assumes that space and time are things in
themselves.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Consequently, she
points out that Kant’s solution of transcendental idealism is still the
solution to the problem because both the thesis and antithesis position result
from trying to reach the noumenal world.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>She writes:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">…the theses take pure concepts to be
materially informative, and so yield general metaphysical conclusions, the
antitheses take what are for Kant merely the subjective forms of our intuition
to be universal ontological conditions.<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=4055129112728408987#_ftn16" name="_ftnref" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;">[16]</span></span></a></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">The conclusion of transcendental idealism
is that we can never thus know whether the thesis or the antithesis position is
correct because of our internal intuitions of space and time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If we take space and time to be things
in themselves then we should favor the antithesis.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">For the purposes of the argument of the
antithesis what is the difference in taking space and time to be internal
intuitions that we cannot go beyond or taking them as things in themselves that
we cannot go beyond? If we take the first antinomy and replace the assuming of
space and time as things in themselves and rather treat them as intuitions that
condition our experience of the world, do we arrive at a different result? It
seems that we do.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Here is how I
set out Grier’s antithesis argument for the first antinomy (GAA).</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-left: 1.0in; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo4; text-indent: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">1.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Assume
the world has a beginning.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-left: 1.0in; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo4; text-indent: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">2.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">If
the world has a beginning, it was preceded by a time in which it was not.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-left: 1.0in; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo4; text-indent: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">3.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">If
there was a time where the world was not, this was an empty time.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-left: 1.0in; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo4; text-indent: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">4.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">But
we cannot experience an empty time.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-left: 1.0in; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo4; text-indent: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">5.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Therefore,
we cannot know if the world had a beginning.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-left: 1.0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">We arrive at the conclusion that we
cannot know if the antithesis position is correct.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But we must keep in mind that transcendental idealism is
posed as a solution to the problem of the antinomies. Does this epistemic
reading of Kant drive us to accept transcendental idealism or solve the problem
that the antinomies do not show a conflict of reason with itself but rather a
tension between the rationalistic and naturalistic; what Kant labels the
position of Plato and Epicurus respectively;<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=4055129112728408987#_ftn17" name="_ftnref" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;">[17]</span></span></a>
Plato’s conception that ultimate reality is beyond space and time and Epicurus’
conception that ultimate reality and space and time are co-extensive.<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=4055129112728408987#_ftn18" name="_ftnref" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;">[18]</span></span></a>
These are equivalent to the positions I am calling rationalism and naturalism
in this paper.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So, Grier’s
conclusion is that one cannot know if either of these positions is true because
one cannot escape one’s internal intuition of space and time.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">But does my problem raised earlier remain
– that the antinomies do not inevitably lead one to embrace transcendental
idealism, but rather that transcendental idealism is a compromise between
rationalism and naturalism, or between Plato and Epicurus?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That if the antinomies do not
effectively show us the intellectual bankruptcy of these positions in relation
to transcendental idealism, that there is no reason to choose the Kantian
outlook over the Platonic or Epicurean.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Further, if the thesis position is stronger than that of antithesis due
to the inherent circularity of the antithesis argument, where does that leave
us?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">The question is why accept that space and
time are internal conditions of our understanding and are so transcendentally
ideal rather than transcendentally real.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Is Grier slipping back into assuming transcendental idealism into her
argument?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That is to say, is she
making the same mistake in assuming the solution into the problem?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If her version of the antithesis
argument of the first antinomy is as I have set it out in GAA above, then
clearly it assumes transcendental idealism.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There is a hidden or assumed premise, so the full argument
should go as follows in GAA*:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-left: 1.25in; mso-list: l2 level1 lfo5; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">1.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Assume
the world has a beginning.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-left: 1.0in; mso-list: l2 level1 lfo5; text-indent: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">2.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">If
the world has a beginning, it was preceded by a time in which it was not.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-left: 1.0in; mso-list: l2 level1 lfo5; text-indent: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">3.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">If
there was a time where the world was not, this was an empty time.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-left: 1.0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">4*<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>But
we cannot experience an empty time because time and space are internal
conditions of the understanding that make understanding possible.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-left: 1.0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">5.<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Therefore,
we cannot know if the world had a beginning.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-left: 1.0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Replacing 4 in GAA with 4* in GAA* makes
it clear that GAA is depending on transcendental idealism to get its point
across.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So again this is not a
case of being driven to transcendental idealism because transcendentally real
positions collapse into intractable arguments.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So Grier’s solution does not seem to get us any closer to
establishing the need for transcendental idealism.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This does not negate the point made earlier that even if the
antinomies do not force us to transcendental idealism, transcendental idealism
is still a position that can be adopted as a compromise between rationalism and
naturalism.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One is not forced to
go down that road, but it may still be a road yet worth exploring in more
detail.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; page-break-after: avoid;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">No
Conflict Between Reason and Understanding</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; page-break-after: avoid;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; page-break-after: avoid;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">I mentioned above in the previous section
that transcendental idealism even if one is not forced to accept it as a result
of the antinomies, may still prove to be very useful as a compromise between
rationalism and naturalism; rationalism representing in Kant’s term – reason,
and naturalism representing in Kant’s term – understanding.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>However, reason and the understanding
do not always come into conflict, even concerning issues such as whether the
universe is infinite in time or came into existence at a finite point in the
distant past.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; page-break-after: avoid; text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; page-break-after: avoid; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Another consideration, if
the antinomies do not present an example of reason conflicting with itself but
a tension or conflict between reason and understanding (or sensibility), do
reason and understanding always come into conflict with each other such that
transcendental idealism is necessary to adjudicate between them?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I think that one can argue that reason
and understanding can go hand in hand, and often do so.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For example, the thesis of the first
antinomy could be construed as not in conflict with sensibility and in
particular data from the Standard Model of theoretical physics, which explains
the origin of the universe in the Big Bang from the singularity.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In that case, data from the scientific
sensible world could be used to confirm the thesis of the first antinomy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One might object that scientific data
such as the Standard Model does not show a beginning of the universe, but my
point is that there is no necessary conflict between reason and sensibility. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">So, for example, the alternative argument
for the thesis position, the kalam cosmological argument that I reference
above, uses not just philosophical arguments to support its second premise that
the universe had a beginning.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Two
scientific evidences are also offered as proof of this premise, the Standard
Model of physics and the second law of thermodynamics.<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=4055129112728408987#_ftn19" name="_ftnref" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;">[19]</span></span></a><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Standard Model of physics holds
that the universe began at the Big Bang.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The second law of thermodynamics, states that the universe as a closed
system will eventually reach a low entropy state where energy is evenly
distributed throughout the universe, which will result in the heat death of the
universe.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The second law of
thermodynamics is used to show that the universe has not existed for an
infinite period of time because if it had the universe would already be in a
low entropy state.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So, reason and
understanding, the rational and the empirical can work together as they do in
the kalam cosmological argument, and so are not always destined to fight
against one another.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Conclusion</span></b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; page-break-after: avoid; text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; page-break-after: avoid; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Kant uses the contradictory
positions of the antinomies of pure reason to show the need to adopt
transcendental idealism.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>However,
the critical analysis above of the first antinomy puts this in some doubt.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Kant’s argument for thesis position
that the universe is finite in time is not completely airtight.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It may be that a different argument for
the thesis position, such as the kalam cosmological argument referenced above,
would be more successful.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>However,
Kant’s argument for the antithesis position that the universe is infinite in
space and time is also problematic.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Instead it seems more appropriate to view the thesis position as a
tension between reason and understanding.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>That is to say that the thesis position is that of rationalism and the
antithesis position as that of naturalism.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Michelle Grier recognizes this tension, but her suggestion
to save Kant’s theory is not successful as she assumes transcendental idealism
as part of her argument.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Therefore, the force of the first antinomy is somewhat less than it
first appeared, and so one is not forced by the first antinomy to accept
transcendental idealism.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Kant’s
transcendental idealism may still be a compromise position between rationalism
and naturalism, but the first antinomy does not force this choice.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Lastly, perhaps this compromise isn’t
even necessary as reason and understanding can work together as in the kalam
cosmological argument, which uses scientific proofs to support its premises.<br clear="ALL" style="page-break-before: always;" />
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> </b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; page-break-after: avoid; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Bibliography:</b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Allison,
Henry E., <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Kant’s Transcendental Idealism</i>
(New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004).</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Craig,
William Lane, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Kalam Cosmological Argument</i>
(New York: Harper & Row Publishers, 1979).</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Grier,
Michelle, Kant’s Doctrine of Transcendental Illusion (New York: Cambridge
University Press, 2001).</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Kant,
Immanuel, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Critique of Pure Reason</i>,
trans. Paul Guyer and Allen W. Wood (New York: Cambridge University Press,
1998).</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Papineau,
David, "Naturalism", <i>The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy </i>(Spring
2009 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL =
<http: archives="" entries="" naturalism="" plato.stanford.edu="" spr2009="">.</http:></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Plantinga,
Alvin, “Kant” in Warranted Christian Belief (New York: Oxford University Press,
2000), 3.</span></div>
<div style="mso-element: footnote-list;">
<br clear="all" />
<hr align="left" size="1" width="33%" />
<div id="ftn" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText" style="line-height: 150%;">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=4055129112728408987#_ftnref" name="_ftn1" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;">[1]</span></span></a>
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Kant (A308/B364). References to the
Critique of Pure Reason are to the standard A and B pagination of the first and
second editions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>All quotations
are from Immanuel Kant, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Critique of Pure
Reason</i>, trans. Paul Guyer and Allen W. Wood (New York: Cambridge University
Press, 1998) except where stated.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>This quote is from Michelle Grier, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Kant’s
Doctrine of Transcendental Illusion</i> (New York: Cambridge University Press,
2001), 119 citing the Norman Martin Kemp translation, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Immanuel Kant’s</i> <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Critique of
Pure Reason</i>.</span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText" style="line-height: 150%;">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=4055129112728408987#_ftnref" name="_ftn2" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;">[2]</span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> Ibid.</span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText" style="line-height: 150%;">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=4055129112728408987#_ftnref" name="_ftn3" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;">[3]</span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> Kant (A421/B449).</span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText" style="line-height: 150%;">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=4055129112728408987#_ftnref" name="_ftn4" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;">[4]</span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> Due to concerns about space I have
limited this paper to an examination of the first antinomy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>However, the other antinomies present
similar difficulties.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Moreover, if
one can show a lack of contradiction within one of the antinomies, this will
severely weaken Kant’s case that there is a conflict in reason that should lead
one to embrace transcendental idealism as the only possible solution to this
conflict.</span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText" style="line-height: 150%;">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=4055129112728408987#_ftnref" name="_ftn5" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;">[5]</span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> Kant (A426/B454).</span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText" style="line-height: 150%;">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=4055129112728408987#_ftnref" name="_ftn6" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;">[6]</span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> Ibid.</span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText" style="line-height: 150%;">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=4055129112728408987#_ftnref" name="_ftn7" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;">[7]</span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> Others, like Allison and Grier, break
this argument down differently.</span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText" style="line-height: 150%;">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=4055129112728408987#_ftnref" name="_ftn8" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;">[8]</span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> Alvin Plantinga, “Kant” in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Warranted Christian Belief</i> (New York:
Oxford University Press, 2000), 25.</span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=4055129112728408987#_ftnref" name="_ftn9" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;">[9]</span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> William Lane Craig, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Kalam Cosmological Argument</i> (New York: Harper & Row
Publishers, 1979), 63.</span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=4055129112728408987#_ftnref" name="_ftn10" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;">[10]</span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> Ibid. 103.</span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText" style="line-height: 150%;">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=4055129112728408987#_ftnref" name="_ftn11" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;">[11]</span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> Kant (A427/B455).</span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText" style="line-height: 150%;">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=4055129112728408987#_ftnref" name="_ftn12" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;">[12]</span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> Ibid.</span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText" style="line-height: 150%;">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=4055129112728408987#_ftnref" name="_ftn13" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;">[13]</span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> A more complete definition of naturalism
is as follows: that reality is exhausted by nature, containing nothing
‘supernatural’, and that the scientific method should be used to investigate
all areas of reality, including the ‘human spirit’. Papineau, David,
"Naturalism", <i>The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy </i>(Spring
2009 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL =
<http: archives="" entries="" naturalism="" plato.stanford.edu="" spr2009="">.</http:></span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText" style="line-height: 150%;">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=4055129112728408987#_ftnref" name="_ftn14" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;">[14]</span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> Kant in the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Critique of Pure Reaso</i>n wants to leave the door open for human
freedom as this will be important for his moral theory.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He writes:</span></div>
<div class="MsoFootnoteText" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 1.0in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Thus in the judgment of free actions, in
regard to their causality, we can get only as far as the intelligible cause,
but we cannot get beyond it; we can know that actions could be free, i.e., that
they could be determined independently of sensibility, and in that way that
they could be the sensibly unconditioned condition of appearances.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Kant (A557/B585).</span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=4055129112728408987#_ftnref" name="_ftn15" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;">[15]</span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> Michelle Grier, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Kant’s Doctrine of Transcendental Illusion</i> (New York: Cambridge
University Press, 2001), 193.</span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText" style="line-height: 150%;">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=4055129112728408987#_ftnref" name="_ftn16" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;">[16]</span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> Ibid. 210.</span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText" style="line-height: 150%;">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=4055129112728408987#_ftnref" name="_ftn17" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;">[17]</span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> Kant (A471-2/B449-500).</span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText" style="line-height: 150%;">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=4055129112728408987#_ftnref" name="_ftn18" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;">[18]</span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> Grier, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Kant’s Doctrine of Transcendental Illusion,</i> 183.</span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=4055129112728408987#_ftnref" name="_ftn19" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;">[19]</span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> Craig, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Kalam Cosmological Argument</i>, 110-140.</span></div>
</div>
</div>
Songs of a Semi-Free Manhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05666794329484768175noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4055129112728408987.post-27768616863893093032014-06-03T06:47:00.004-07:002014-06-03T06:47:34.935-07:00A Mind Divided Against Itself – Cartesian Soul Theory and Brain Splitting?<style>
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</style> <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Jeff McMahan in his book <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Ethics of Killing</i> <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">– Problems at the Margins of Life</i>,
examines several accounts of personal identity – what we really are. <a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=4055129112728408987#_ftn1" name="_ftnref" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn;" title=""></a>Among those examined is the theory that
we are souls.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>McMahan finds
several problems with soul theory, both hylomorphic soul theory and Cartesian
soul theory.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">This paper, however,
is solely concerned with his treatment of Cartesian soul theory, which will be
referred to as soul theory for the remainder of this paper.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I will attempt to show why McMahan’s
objections to soul theory do not hit the mark.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>First, I will examine whether his contention that studies
showing divided consciousness in patients whose corpus callosum has been
surgically split, spells the end for Cartesian dualism.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Second, I will show that McMahan is
somewhat less convinced that such patients have divided consciousness when this
example becomes an issue for his theory of personal identity.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Finally, I will review his thought
experiment concerning the splitting of one’s cerebral hemisphere into two parts
and whether the insertion of these hemispheres into two different bodies can be
reconciled with soul theory.</span><br />
<div style="mso-element: footnote-list;">
<br /></div>
Click on this <a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1-DJSyPcZzcZrbAXmmNBQdz_5hjBk5hMHQMcbxzxPJjw/edit" target="_blank">link </a>to read the full a paper.Songs of a Semi-Free Manhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05666794329484768175noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4055129112728408987.post-85518045614135064792013-07-31T18:18:00.001-07:002013-08-01T08:42:45.846-07:00Why Be Good?<style>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
In my last blog, I talked about drivers who ignore the
one-way sign posted at the end of the street on which I live.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A frequent tactic of those who live on
the street to discourage this flouting of the rules is to shout “WRONG WAY”, at
cars failing to adhere to these rules.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I suppose this will alert someone who was not aware they were driving in
the wrong direction to their misdeed, but mostly it will make them aware that
people are watching.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
If we see morality as rule following is there a danger that
we only follow the rules when someone is watching, or when someone can catch
us.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Plato asked what we would do if we could do what we liked
without anyone finding out?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In The
Republic, he gave the example of a magic ring that made the wearer invisible.
(1)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>An ancestor of Gyges of Lydia
was said to have used this ring to kill the king and take his place on the
throne, without anyone finding out what he had done.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Plato pondered whether anyone with such power that he could
not be caught would do the right thing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>So we have to ask ourselves if we just follow rules because we are
afraid of getting caught or if we had Gyges’s ring would be do what we want?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
To take a more contemporary example, imagine, on a dark
night, a car hitting a pedestrian on a deserted road and driving off.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If no one sees the incident, and
assuming that the driver successfully conceals or explains away other evidence
such as damage to the car, should the driver stop and help and put himself or
herself in possible legal jeopardy?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Would the driver’s actions be bad even if he was not caught
or otherwise found out?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I would
say that whether or not he or she faced any consequences his or her actions
would still be bad.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If that is true,
then something is bad even if you don’t get caught. Even in the ring of Gyges
the point is not that the ring makes his actions good, the problem presupposes
that there is a good and a bad way to act, but rather why we should do what is
good?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
However, what about those who don’t get caught?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
We could respond by stating that most people don’t “get away
with it”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We have police and
justice systems designed to make sure that the guilty are punished.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But in a world with this much
corruption and selfish ambition, can we say that no one gets away with it?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Moreover, if someone were truly
successful in getting away with their crimes, we would never really know what
they had done.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It seems to me that unless there are consequences for wrong
actions, then there is no reason to do the right thing if one can get away with
it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Since, it is likely that
there are some at least who get away with things, take a moment to reflect on
unsolved crimes, it would seem to follow that there would be no reason to do
what is good if one can "get away with it".</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This is indeed a great problem.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We could try to solve it by better policing and a fairer
judicial system, but will we ever reach perfection, or even near
perfection?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That is to say, that
it is likely that we will never see complete justice in this world.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Perhaps if all of our actions were
watched or recorded all of the time, we might achieve such justice.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>However, not too many would find that
to be a palatable solution, and our experience of human nature would lead us to
believe that instead of using total surveillance to achieve total justice, it
would be used to perpetuate total forced submission.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Moreover, we might distrust that the judicial parts of that
system would act fairly and impartially.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
What we would need is a fair, impartial judge who observes
everything, and carries out a just punishment, so that no one “gets away with
it” in the end.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Further, this
judge would need absolute power to see every crime and be able to punish all of
the guilty, while at the same time be above corruption.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If such justice is to have existed
throughout history and to extend into the future, this person must have endured
throughout human history and must continue to do so for as long as we exist, or
else this perfect and powerful person, would need to be replaced from time to
time with no gap between such powerfully, perfect persons. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It is clear that if such a person does exist, he or she
would be morally perfect, supremely powerful, all-knowing, be everywhere at the
same time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If you think about it,
this sounds a lot like God.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
(1)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Plato, Republic, trans. Robin Waterfield (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1993), 47-49.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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<br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span>Songs of a Semi-Free Manhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05666794329484768175noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4055129112728408987.post-24907167146591287442013-06-24T14:51:00.001-07:002013-06-24T14:51:19.379-07:00Reversing Forward – Is Morality Just Rule Following?
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">I live on a one-way street.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>However, I frequently observe cars going the wrong way up
the street.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But even more
interestingly, some people go the wrong way up the street in reverse.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Does this make it O.K.?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Isn’t that the human condition, we know the right thing to
do, but it can be inconvenient or painful, so we try to do something else?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But we have a nagging feeling that we
need to do the right thing so we try to renegotiate the rules.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If I can’t drive forward in that
direction, maybe driving the forbidden direction in reverse is a little
better.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Not perfect, but then we
are only human – right?</span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">If we see doing the right thing as following the rules,
there is a temptation to try to modify the rules so they are easier for us to
comply with.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Further, if being
ethical or living a morally good life merely involves following the rules, then
our motives for doing so are of no consequence.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That is to say, we don’t drive the correct way down the
street because it is the right thing to do but because we are just following a
rule. </span></div>
<a name='more'></a><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">But morality is more than rule following because morality
and such rules cannot be separated.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>We could easily imagine a rule that we would think of as wrong or
immoral.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>To extend our traffic
metaphor, for example, a rule that said that when a pedestrian walks out in
front of you when you’re driving you should hit the pedestrian with the car in
order to curtail such behavior among pedestrians.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>However, I don’t think that many would consider someone who
follows this rule to have acted rightly.
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">As I have alluded to in previous posts, Jesus recognized and
articulated this essential element of flawed human nature.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That we want to been seen to be good
but at the least possible expense to ourselves.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That we set rules that we can follow to show ourselves that
we are good.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But Jesus recognized
that in order to change ourselves we don’t try to modify our behavior but
instead need to first change ourselves.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Jesus identified our inner thoughts and motivations as key. Jesus
condemned the religious authorities of his day for trying to outward appear to
be doing the right thing while inwards they were full of evil.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">
</span><blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you
hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside
but on the inside are full of the bones of the dead and everything unclean. In
the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the
inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> (1) </span></span></div>
</blockquote>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Dallas Willard very eloquently and at length points this out
in his book “The Divine Conspiracy”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>He wrote:</span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">
</span><blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">And here also lies the fundamental mistake of the scribe
and the Pharisee.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They focus on
the actions that the law requires and make elaborate specifications of exactly
what those actions are and of the manner in which they are to be done.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They also generate enormous social
pressure to force conformity of action to the law as they interpret it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They are immensely self-conscious about
doing the right thing and about being thought to have done the right
thing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span> (2)</span></div>
</blockquote>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">The problem is that our inner motivations, if they go
unchecked, can lead to some very ugly places.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">We like rules because we can try to find a little wiggle
room here and there and think that we are still being good because we were
following the rules. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>However, as I
mentioned earlier, we don’t have rules for their own sake.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So, we don’t prohibit driving the wrong
way up one-way streets just for the sake of having a rule.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We do it to protect life. But, when we
try to find exceptions we end up not following the rules.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Instead we drive the wrong way up the
one-way street – we just do it in reverse - and hopefully no one gets
hurt. </span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span></span><div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">For why I think we want to be good please click <a href="http://songsofasemifreeman.blogspot.com/2011/03/good.html" target="_blank">here</a>. </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">(1) </span>Matt 23:27-28 (New International Version).</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">(2) Dallas Willard, <i>The Divine Conspiracy</i>, (New York: Harper One, 1997) 143.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
Songs of a Semi-Free Manhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05666794329484768175noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4055129112728408987.post-38965811977369816442013-05-27T17:15:00.000-07:002013-05-28T06:03:12.868-07:00Some "Thoughts on Mind & Cosmos" by Thomas Nagel<style>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">I have been a fan of Thomas Nagel since I first read his
essay “What It’s like To Be a Bat”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>His lucid, common sense analysis was striking to me as an undergraduate
philosophy student.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I was
therefore intrigued about his latest book – <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Mind
and Cosmos</i>, especially since there was such a furor surrounding it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There has been much talk, well in
certain circles, about <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Mind and Cosmos</i>.
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">In the debates between theists and non-theists, Nagel’s book
has lauded by the theist side for championing their cause, and treated
as a dangerous betrayal by nontheists.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> (1) </span>But I think the book is neither.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Sure the subtitle, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Why
the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature is Almost Certainly False</i>,
may lead you to think that he has landed firmly in the camp of theism, but I
think that would be to go too far.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>We have to keep in mind that just because Nagel holds neo-Darwinism to
be false doesn’t mean that he believes theism is true.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Nagel makes it more than clear that he
is not a theist, he just doesn’t want to base his atheism on something he
considers to be false.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And that
indeed is laudable.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">So what has caused all the fuss?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Nagel claims in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Mind
and Cosmos</i> that the dominant naturalistic worldview, which holds that a
blind process of natural selection is responsible for our existence, is
fundamentally flawed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It should
also be noted that he mentions his doubts on the likelihood the ability of
purely physical laws to explain the origin of self-reproducing life forms, and
the likelihood of natural selection producing the life forms we see today in
the available geological time. (2) However, the first sticking point for Nagel comes in his
area of specialty – philosophy of mind. Essentially, he holds that the project
to reduce the mind to physical properties has failed because of the intractable
problem of explaining consciousness.</span><br />
<a name='more'></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">As Nagel explained in his paper “What Is It Like To Be A Bat?”,
consciousness is essentially subjective and connected with a single point of
view. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(3) He explains that we can
understand how a bat’s perception systems works but cannot understand what it
is like to be a bat.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Therefore, he
contends that consciousness cannot be reduced to purely physical processes
because that would ignore the subjectivity of consciousness.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">For if the facts of experience – facts about what it is
like <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">for</i> the experiencing organism –
are accessible only from one point of view, then it is a mystery how the true
character of experiences could be revealed in the physical operation of that
organism. (4)</span></div>
</blockquote>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">In <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Mind and Cosmos</i>,
Nagel continues this line of thought.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>He contends that consciousness cannot be accounted for by the widely
held Darwinian worldview.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He
writes: “Conscious subjects and their mental lives are inescapable elements of
reality not explainable by the physical sciences”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(5) <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>However, he
also thinks that if mind cannot be reduced to purely physical properties the
whole materialist project is in trouble.</span></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">But the failure of reductionism in the philosophy of mind
has implications that extend beyond the mind-body problem.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Psychophysical reductionism is an
essential component of a broader naturalistic program, which cannot survive
without it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This naturalistic
program is both metaphysical and physical.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It holds that everything in the world is physical and that
everything that happens in the world has its most basic explanation, whether we
come to know it or not, in physical laws.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(6)</span></div>
</blockquote>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">He elaborates stating that any solution to the mind-body
problem must provide a constitutive account of how “complex physical systems”
like us are simultaneously mental as well as physical, a historic explanation
of how this came about.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">He then points out that the answer to these questions must
be either reductionist (reduce us to more basic elements) or emergent
(explaining how pure physical creatures at some level of evolution became
mental as well).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Nagel argues that consciousness cannot be reduced in this
way.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He points out that if a
reductionist account is correct, it can’t be reduced to the purely physical.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He writes that such an explanation
“will depend on some kind of monism or panpsychism” (7).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That is to say, that elementary mental
properties are somehow intrinsically connected with elementary physical
properties.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>However, Nagel
recognizes that this type of reduction of mental properties would not be
intelligible in the same way that particle physics is intelligible.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He states that “panpsychism does not
provide a new, more basic resting place in the search for intelligibility – a
set of basic principles from which more complex results can be seen to
follow”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(8)</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Nagel finds an emergent account also unsatisfactory. He also
rejects the idea of emergence of consciousness and reason.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That is the conjecture that somehow
through completely natural process dependent on physical entities and forces,
at a certain level of evolutionary development, consciousness and reason, being
non-physical in nature, just appeared.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He writes:</span></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">That
purely physical elements, when combined in a certain way, should necessarily
produce a state of the whole that is not constituted out of the properties and
relations of the physical parts still seems like magic even if the higher-order
psychophysical dependencies are quite systematic.” (9).</span></div>
</blockquote>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Nagel also points out another problem that he sees with
naturalistic Darwinism.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He states
that such a theory cannot explain our capacity to reason to reach out for
objective truths of science and logic because if natural selection does not
select beliefs for their objective truth but for their fitness or survival
value.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He writes:</span></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">It is not possible to think, “Reliance on my reason,
including my reliance on <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">this very
judgment</i>, is reasonable because it is consistent with its having an
evolutionary explanation.” <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(10).</span></div>
</blockquote>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Finally, Nagel discusses values.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He takes the position, that there are objective moral values,
and holds that the existence of moral values is incompatible with Darwinian
naturalism.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Since he holds that
objective moral values exist, he concludes that Darwinian naturalism cannot be
a true or complete picture of reality.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>He writes:</span></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“[Sharon] Street points out that if the responses<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>and faculties that generate our value
judgments are in significant part the result of natural selection, there is no
reason to expect that they would lead us to be able to detect any
mind-independent moral or evaluative truth…That is because the ability to detect
such truth, unlike the ability to detect mind-independent truth about the
physical world, would make no contribution to reproductive fitness.” (11). </span></div>
</blockquote>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Nagel instead posits that in nature there are perhaps
teleological (or purposeful) laws at work, in addition to purely physical laws,
that make it likely that conscious creatures like us with the capacity for
reason and the ability to recognize objective values would come to be.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He speculates that “natural teleology
would mean that the universe is rationally governing in more than one way – not
only through the universal quantitative laws of physics that underlie efficient
causation but also through principles which imply that things happen because
they are on a path that lead toward certain outcomes – notably, the existence
of living, and ultimately of conscious, organisms.” (12).</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Nagel makes a distinction between the natural teleological
laws he is proposing and an intentional account, where a Being, such as God,
intervened to cause conscious creatures to exist.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">However, Nagel does not give reasons why a natural
teleological explanation should be preferred to an intentional designer,
besides the fact that he seems to prefer the first.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Nagel’s conviction that the prevailing scientific consensus
of Darwinian naturalism is “a heroic triumph of ideological theory over common
sense” is an admirable statement of one who is not afraid to seek truth in
unpopular places.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And, his attack
on this prevailing view is cogent, concise, and well argued.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>On the other hand, his suggestion of
what should be put in its place – natural teleology – is somewhat less
plausible.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
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</style><span style="font-family: inherit;">(1) See, Jennifer Schuessler,"An Author Attracts Unlikely Allies", N.Y. Times Feb. 6, 2013, C1. Available at http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/07/books/thomas-nagel-is-praised-by-creationists.html?pagewanted=all. Accessed May 27, 2013.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">(2) Thomas Nagel, Mind & Cosmos, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature is Almost
Certainly False</i>, (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012); 6.
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">(3)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Thomas
Nagel, “What Is It Like To Be a Bat?” in Modern Philosophy of Mind, ed. William
Lyons, (London: Everyman, 1996).</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">(4)<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Ibid.;
165.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">(5)<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Thomas
Nagel, Mind & Cosmos, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Why the
Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature is Almost Certainly False</i>,
(New York: Oxford University Press, 2012); 41.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">(6)<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Ibid.;
42-43.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">(7)<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Ibid.;
61.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">(8)<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Ibid.;
62.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">(9)<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Ibid.;
55-56.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">(10)<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Ibid.;
80-81.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">(11)<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Ibid.;
107.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">(12)<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Ibid.;
67.</span></div>
Songs of a Semi-Free Manhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05666794329484768175noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4055129112728408987.post-44072067373076679442013-04-11T19:11:00.001-07:002013-08-04T15:51:02.376-07:00Religion and Violence<blockquote class="tr_bq">
“Religion poisons everything. As well as a menace to civilization, it has become a threat to human survival.” – Christopher Hitchens (1) </blockquote>
We are often told that religion, including Christianity, is the cause of great evil in the world. That in the words of Christopher Hitchens - “religion poisons everything”. It is claimed that if religion is removed violence will be greatly diminished. In his book, God Is Not Great, the late Hitchens outlined in the second chapter entitled “Religion Kills” various conflicts and atrocities that he blamed on religion. (2) <br />
<br />
I’m leaving aside the question of whether one can be good without God. I’m also not going to counter with the argument that atheist belief systems have been responsible for a greater share of evil and death, or enter the debate over whether communist states were atheist. I’m also going to avoid bringing up the thorny issue that if an atheist claims religion is evil they are committing themselves to a system of absolute moral standards. <br />
<br />
Instead, let’s do a thought experiment. What if you had a magic ray gun that could remove someone’s religious beliefs instantly? Imagine further that you had a way to spread the effects of this ray gun over the entire earth, so that every person on the planet was struck, and no longer had any religious belief. <br />
<a name='more'></a>Would all war and evil instantly disappear? Would we wake up to a world without wars, robbery, rape? <br />
<br />
An argument can be made that some wars were religiously motivated, but all? World War One, War War Two, Vietnam? Most wars are caused by nations seeking to extend the power and bumping up against others that seek to do so as well. <br />
<br />
Are most crimes motivated by religion? Very few crimes are blamed on religion. <br />
<br />
I think that it would be extremely difficult to contend that if religion were to instantly disappear that all evil would disappear with it. Therefore, I don’t think it to be the case that religion is the cause of all evil. <br />
<br />
So I think we’re left with the following question - would instances of these be lessened if our hypothetical ray gun rid the world of religion? <br />
<br />
There is definitely some violence that is due to religion. But, of even these, perhaps not all are truly attributable to religious impulses. Take the conflict in Northern Ireland, often described as between catholics and protestants. Many conflicts break down along ethnic lines and religion may often be a convenient label. Growing up in the Republic of Ireland, I never heard anyone express religious motivations for the “troubles”. The fight was over political power and exclusion and largely descended into “tit for tat” killing and mayhem. The participants may have been labeled catholic and protestant, but they are fighting over land and historic injustices, not religious differences. <br />
<br />
If, as it seems to be the case, the zapping of religion would not end all war and other violence, there must be something else causing the problem. That is something besides religion that causes such murderous chaos. Moreover, if this is true, then even those who claim to be acting in the name of religion are just using this as a cover. That is to say, they would likely find another reason to act violently in the absence of religion. So removing religion would not do any good. <br />
<br />
Atheists are claiming that we can live in a world where the lion lies down with the lamb and men beat their swords into plough shares if we can get rid of religion. However, this is not the case. If there is no God, and this is recognized by all, this may have very a negligible effect on violence in the world. When you factor in religious beliefs that urge pacifism, it may be that removing religion makes the world a much worse place. <br />
<br />
It is to create a straw man to claim that religion is the problem. Man is the problem and he uses religion in some cases to further his aims. <br />
<br />
Any solution to the problem of violence must deal with man, must make him want not to maim, rape, or kill. The problem is that man’s selfishness can breed hate. Jesus identified our inner thoughts and motivations as key. He stated that it was not enough not to murder, we must not hate: <br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
“You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘You shall not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.’ But I tell you that anyone who is angry with a brother or sister will be subject to judgment. Again, anyone who says to a brother or sister, ‘Raca,’ is answerable to the court. And anyone who says, ‘You fool!’ will be in danger of the fire of hell. (3) </blockquote>
Many people have misused Christianity. But the heart of Christianity - loving your enemy and treating every life as sacred, believing that how you treat others has eternal consequences - has a much better chance of brining peace. <br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
“You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? (4) </blockquote>
One may reject the Christian solution to the problem of violence in the world, but it is hard to reject Jesus’ diagnosis of the problem. <br />
<br />
<br />
(1) Christopher Hitchens, God Is Not Great – How Religion Poisons Everything, (New York: Twelve, 2009), 24-25. <br />
<br />
(2) Ibid. <br />
<br />
(3) Matthew 5:21-22. <br />
<br />
(4) Matthew 5:43-46. <br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />Songs of a Semi-Free Manhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05666794329484768175noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4055129112728408987.post-73755329721507114392013-03-13T08:43:00.002-07:002013-03-13T08:43:44.879-07:00Gap<span style="font-family: inherit;">Waiting for an invitation that never came </span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Cocooned in my complaints </span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">As events passed me by </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">But was it lying step-crinkled on the carpet </span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">The something else </span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Ignored as nothing more </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">The opening of space just wide enough </span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">But I missed my cue </span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">I didn’t see how I could fit on through.
</span>Songs of a Semi-Free Manhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05666794329484768175noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4055129112728408987.post-53184448310243348912013-03-07T07:38:00.000-08:002013-03-11T06:55:57.374-07:00Sporting Morality<style>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">I was listening recently, as I often do, to a sports call in
show.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The sport in question was
football, or soccer as it is known in my current abode.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Callers were discussing professional
fouls – e.g., deliberately sticking out a leg out to trip an opponent who has
beaten you. A professional foul makes no legitimate attempt to win the
ball.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Everyone can excuse a tackle
intended to win the ball back that was either not properly executed or a tackle
that fails because the other player successfully avoided it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A professional foul contains an element
of intention.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">One of the presenters of the show, a former pro, complained
that a particular player should have professionally fouled an opponent who went
on to score.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The rationale being
that a deliberate breaking of the rules was permitted if it stopped the other
team scoring.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Indeed, the former
pro opined that, the referee would punish the professional foul with a free
kick or a yellow or red card.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">For those who don’t know, a yellow card is a caution, a red
card sends a player off for the remainder of the game.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Two yellow cards automatically mean a
red card.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">But, I was struck by a caller who said that he coached kids
and who stated that he would voluntarily punish his own underage players by
substituting them if they committed a professional foul.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That is, the coach would punish them
beyond any punishment handed out by the referee.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><br />
<a name='more'></a></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">One of the presenters raised the question whether adult
amateur players abided by the same standards.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Would an adult player be admonished or commended for a
professional foul by their teammates?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>While there was no definitive answer to this rhetorical question, there
was no sense of outrage among callers about amateur adult players committing
professional fouls.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">It’s only a game, right?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But why do we care to hold kids up to an impeccable level of
fairness? Do we teach kids to play fair, that there is more to life than
winning, lessons they can completely disregard as soon as they are
eighteen?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Does this mean that
these lessons are not worth learning, or that adults are remiss in not
continuing to heed childhood lessons?</span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Maybe a sense of fair play is something foreign to us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Something we are forced to adhere to as
kids by an authority figure that has power over us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When we become adults we like to think that no authority
figure has power to control us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>But that’s not really true.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>It may be true that there is no coach to answer to when we play amateur
sports with our friends, but as adults in most areas of our lives there are
those we have to answer to.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Those
that have power over us.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">This sense of fair play, “doing the right thing”, is not
something purely relegated to the domain of children.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We kick against it as adults when we can.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">We complain about professional athletes no longer being role
models.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But when
professional athletes do things we would condemn children for doing, we call it
professional.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You see kids learn
to play fair, but grown-up life is a little more complicated that that – is
that the message we want to send our kids?</span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Maybe the kids could teach them a thing or two.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Maybe we are wasting our kids’ time
with talk of fair play and winning not being everything.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But that seems to be alien to us.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">There is a fault-line that runs between how we are taught to
act as children and how we act when faced with pressures of success and money
come in.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is why we absolve
professionals from obedience to childhood lessons to enable them to reach their
goals.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And, this doesn’t only
apply to professional athletes.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">It seems that we think there is a way that we should
act.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Indeed, a way that everyone
should act.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We want our kids to do
things the right way.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We want to
take shortcuts when it suits us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>But, isn’t that the human condition, we feel bound to do the right
thing, except when we don’t?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But,
we know somehow, somewhere that the urge to do the wrong thing should be
ignored by our better selves.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And
that’s what we try to teach our kids.</span></div>
Songs of a Semi-Free Manhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05666794329484768175noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4055129112728408987.post-59623535769961912512013-01-28T12:38:00.000-08:002013-01-28T15:28:16.997-08:00Through a Glass Darkly<div class="MsoNormal">
For much of the past couple of years the majority of my posts at Songs of a Semi-Free Man have considered the idea that we are haunted by the sense we were meant for something more, or even that something else is going on in the <a href="http://songsofasemifreeman.blogspot.com/2011/06/conspiracy-theory.html">background</a>. In the words of St. Paul we see “through a glass darkly”. (1) <br />
<br />
We grope for meaning in love, work, education, <a href="http://songsofasemifreeman.blogspot.com/2010/12/songs-in-key-of-joy.html">art</a>, <a href="http://songsofasemifreeman.blogspot.com/2012/05/cometh-hour-cometh-man.html">sport</a>, family. We want to do great things; we want to be part of great things. It is not enough to live, mate, procreate, work and die. If this is our fate we reject it (even as we give intellectual assent to philosophical and scientific dogmas that promise such a pointless existence). <a href="http://songsofasemifreeman.blogspot.com/2011/07/finale.html">Death</a> pains most of all. <br />
<br />
We dream of <a href="http://songsofasemifreeman.blogspot.com/2011/01/sailing-to-utopia_25.html">utopia</a> but live in the shadow of the waking nightmare of Doomsday. We want to scream out – “I am and I matter.” Sometimes we even dare scream – “they matter too.” <br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
<br />
Many thinkers have felt this inner drive for <a href="http://songsofasemifreeman.blogspot.com/2012/05/nothing-new-under-sun.html">meaning</a>. Existential philosophers such as Jean-Paul Sartre recognized that life was essentially meaningless and that or everyday lives lull us into complacency so that we do not realize we are sleepwalking through life absorbing and contenting ourselves in meaningless things. An ancient Hebrew text described this sense thousands of years earlier. <br />
<br />
Modern science tells us that we have no purpose. Over time we evolved. Any sense of purpose we possess must be a leftover from some primitive instinct that helped us to survive. If this is true the quest for meaning is itself meaningless. If we are merely animals, albeit highly developed animals, driven to survive why do we care about meaning something? Evolution and natural selection assert that the strongest and fittest survive and pass their traits on to succeeding generations. And there are many people walking the earth today who exploit, maim and murder their fellow humans for gain. <br />
<br />
But, strangely we do not laud this behavior but <a href="http://songsofasemifreeman.blogspot.com/2011/04/evil.html">condemn it in the strongest terms and try to punish it</a>. Instead we profess to value generosity, selflessness and sacrifice in others; traits that harm our chances of survival. <a href="http://songsofasemifreeman.blogspot.com/2011/03/good.html">Why?</a> <br />
<br />
It is asserted that we will eventually evolve into peaceful loving creatures that will usher in an age of peace, love, understanding and <a href="http://songsofasemifreeman.blogspot.com/2011/10/equality.html">equality</a>. However, <a href="http://songsofasemifreeman.blogspot.com/2011/11/bankers-into-plowshares.html">history so far tells a different tale</a>. We continue to butcher and exploit – the only difference is that as we have become more efficient at doing so we have increased our efforts to pretend that we are really not that bad. How do we reconcile our dreams of utopia with natural selection?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Many of us resort to <a href="http://songsofasemifreeman.blogspot.com/2011/09/cynicism.html">cynicism</a>, making fun of our earlier earnest hopes, but feeling sad for their loss at the same time.<br />
<br />
I believe that this sense of something greater is there because there is something greater. Linked to this article are some, but not all, of the posts I have made on this topic.<br />
<br />
As I look forward to exploring new ground on Songs of a Semi-Free Man, this is a look back at where we've been. Please enjoy and thank you for reading!<br />
<br />
<br />
(1) 1 Corinthians 13:12. king James Version. </div>
Songs of a Semi-Free Manhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05666794329484768175noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4055129112728408987.post-69216436934905058122013-01-23T19:26:00.002-08:002013-01-23T19:30:10.696-08:00Certain<style>
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Certain enough<br />To point the finger<br />To condemn<br />To hate<br />Certain enough to scream <br />With our eyes closed<br />We can’t hear anyone elseSongs of a Semi-Free Manhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05666794329484768175noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4055129112728408987.post-57979487317650315232012-12-13T12:56:00.000-08:002013-02-27T09:02:19.295-08:00Lack of Peace on Earth<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><span style="font-family: inherit;">Heaven on Earth<br />
We need it now<br />
I'm sick of all of this<br />
Hanging around<br />
Sick of sorrow<br />
Sick of pain<br />
Sick of hearing again and again<br />
That there's gonna be<br />
Peace on Earth (1)</span></i></div>
</blockquote>
Peace on earth. No trouble with being overwhelmed with that this year. Wars, rumors of wars, fear of economic collapse. It seems that nearly everyone has something to lose this year, or fears losing something. Indeed, just the normal rush to buy presents, decorate the house, visit relatives, and look like you’re having fun, can be trying by itself.<br />
<br />
So Christmas with its message of peace and joy rings hollow to many. Why should we expect this time of year to be more peaceful and joyful than any other day of the year? All the giving, getting, and going just doesn’t seem to get us there.<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
<br />
I think it is because we have lost sight of the real meaning of Christmas. Before you roll your eyes at my use of this hackneyed phrase, let me clarify. I don’t mean to say that the real meaning of Christmas is in peace and joy and brotherhood – all good things of course. The real meaning of Christmas is how this peace and joy is to be brought about.<br />
<br />
The words of old Christmas carol, “God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen,” explain it succinctly:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>God rest ye merry, gentlemen, let nothing you dismay, <br />Remember Christ our Savior was born on Christmas Day;<br />To save us all from Satan’s power when we were gone astray. (2) </i></blockquote>
The Christian message about Christmas is not that we can somehow bring about peace and joy at a dark, cold time of year. Instead, it is that we live in a dark, cold world, where we are damned with a sense of purpose but frustrated by the futility and randomness of death and disease. That we are burdened by a sense of dread that we are not good but have no will to change. That human nature was corrupted and that a dark angelic force holds sway over the world. The good news was that the birth of Jesus, the coming of God in human form, was going to change all that. That was, and is, the source of peace and joy.<br />
<br />
Light had come into a dark world.<br />
<br />
We may not like this message. It’s not very politically correct or pluralistic. But when we reflect about the lack of peace and joy we feel at this time of year, we need to remember that the message removed from its context makes little sense. Remember that songs about love, peace and brotherhood, are nice, but without a means to bring these noble aims about, these songs are ultimately vacuous. We haven’t proven very good at bringing about peace and joy so far. In a thousand years will the hopes of Bing Crosby and David Bowie “when men of good will live in peace again” (3) be any less aspirational? I don’t think anything points in that direction. <br />
<br />
You might think the Christmas message to be false, but if so, then are hopes for peace on earth.<br />
<br />
Happy Christmas!<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord. This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.”<br /><br />Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying, “Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests.” (4)</i> </blockquote>
<br />
(1) "Peace on Earth" U2. <br />
<br />
(2) "God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen." Traditional.<br />
<br />
(3) “Peace on Earth/Little Drummer Boy”. Larry Grossman, Ian Fraser, Buz Kohan/ Katherine K. Davis, Henry Onorati, Harry Simeone<br />
<br />
(4) Luke 2:8-14 (NIV)Songs of a Semi-Free Manhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05666794329484768175noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4055129112728408987.post-80385735247260225382012-11-07T06:31:00.000-08:002013-02-27T09:04:52.966-08:00Some Thoughts on Hell<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />
<blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>Imagine there's no heaven</i><br />
<i>It's easy if you try</i><br />
<i>No hell below us</i><br />
<i>Above us only sky</i><br />
<i>Imagine all the people living for today</i> - John Lennon (1)</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">John Lennon asked us to imagine there’s no heaven. I’ve tried, but all I come up with is hell.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Many things occur on this planet that demand judgment and
punishment, but many go unpunished.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>If there is no certainty of punishment, there is no reason not to play
the system to get as much an advantage as you can.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That is not to say that you can get away with everything but
rather that not everything will be punished.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So, if you can get away with it, go ahead.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You might respond that our moral
standards will keep us in line, and while I certainly hold to the reality of
objective moral standards, the problem is that if detours from these moral
rules are not punished, there is no justice. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Moreover, experience
and history tells us that humanity doesn’t keep to an honor code.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We may know that certain acts are wrong
but we are also plagued by the thought that some people get away with it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If everyone else is doing it why can’t
we?</span><br />
<a name='more'></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Lennon was right that everyone would be living “just for the
day” if there is no heaven or hell, but I think it would be rather more grim
than he suggested.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Lennon’s rejection of hell is widely held (probably more
than his rejection of heaven), but increasingly, the idea that bad behavior
should be punished is prevalent in the form of the universe will punish bad
deeds or karma is going to sort you out. In fact, Lennon also believed in
karma.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So, we don’t reject the
idea of hell because we don’t think we need punishment, or because we don’t
believe that this present physical world provides perfect justice.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>An appeal to the karma or the universe
is an appeal to the transcendent.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">If we don’t object to the idea that bad moral actions
deserve punishment and recognize that this world doesn’t provide adequate
judgment and punishment, and appeal to a transcendent source of judgment and
punishment, why do we object to the concept of hell?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">A final judgment for all by an impartial, all-knowing,
all-wise judge would ensure justice.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It won’t matter how good your attorney is, or how
wealthy you are, or how long ago it happened, or whether witnesses can be found
or whether they can clearly remember.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>All deserving punishment will receive it.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">However, Christianity doesn’t end with punishment.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There is a way to escape hell, even
deserved punishment.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We just
have to submit to the ultimate authority, but there’s the rub.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That’s why if we stuck with a hell,
we’d rather have this one with its greed and genocide, reality T.V. and
inequality. At least we have some element of control over this one – right?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But after all isn’t hubris our greatest
failing.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">If we reject the hell presented in orthodox Christianity, we
are doomed to one of our own making – a world without justice or any hope of
it. A</span>s C.S. Lewis pointed out –
“the doors to hell are locked from the inside”. (2)</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">(1) John Lennon, <i>Imagine</i>.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">(2) C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain, Harper Collins, New York (2001); 130. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
Songs of a Semi-Free Manhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05666794329484768175noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4055129112728408987.post-69437900957732582132012-10-12T07:26:00.002-07:002012-10-12T07:27:37.400-07:00Reflections on Nobel Peace Prize for the E.U.It was announced today that the E.U. is the recipient of this years' Nobel Peace Prize. As a European living in the U.S., I'm not sure how I can claim my share, but peace in post-war Western Europe is indeed a great achievement. However, the European project, founded on the idea of the mutual surrender of certain powers to a supranational authority in exchange for peace, is perhaps now more in doubt than ever. The timing might therefore feel strange, but the Nobel committee likely wishes to remind Europeans of the big picture. I think the idea of surrendering power to a greater authority that can guarantee peace is a very wise idea. However, how do we find an authority that all will respect? Here are some thoughts from an earlier post:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">After the Second World War, an
attempt was made to bring balance to Europe by establishing a
supranational authority, run by Europe’s best and brightest, that would
override national and ethnic enmities that had bloodied the continent
for millennia. First, France and Germany ceded control over coal and
steel production to the European Coal and Steel Community. In the
following decades, closer and closer union was pursued, and Brussels was
populated by brilliant minds seeking the best for Europe – peace and
prosperity. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">But, as things stand, national
differences threaten to tear the EU asunder. National interests it
seems cannot be trumped by bureaucrats in Brussels, however visionary
and well-intentioned. Europe is still very much a group of sovereign
nation states unwilling to surrender authority to a supranational body.
</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">So, it appears that the European
project has failed to produce balance. Moreover, any human authority
that tries to settle disputes between nations is likely to be accused of
bias by one or more parties to the dispute, and may even become the
target of wrath. So, even if we were to find a very wise and virtuous
person, who held humanity’s best interests at heart, no one would follow
him or her. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">We need someone with unquestioned
authority to settle the disputes of humanity. This is the picture we
find in Isaiah Chapter Two. </span></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the temple of the God
of Jacob. He will teach us his ways, so that we may walk in his
paths.” The law will go out from Zion, the word of the LORD from
Jerusalem. He will judge between the nations and will settle disputes
for many peoples. They will beat their swords into plowshares and their
spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not take up sword against
nation, nor will they train for war anymore. <span style="font-family: inherit;">Isaiah 2:3-5 (New International Version).</span></blockquote>
</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Only a supremely wise, just, and unbiased
being could convince disputing nations to beat their swords into
plowshares. No more wild experimentation. No sincere appeals that it
will be different this time. No more claims to have learned the lessons
of history, when at the darkest times it becomes painfully clear that
the lesson that we always forget is that history repeats itself. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Humanity clings desperately to the
hope that one day swords will be beaten into plowshares. However, it
seems, that the biblically-inspired hope of perpetual peace and justice
cannot be established without the biblical-described source of such
peace – God’s kingdom of justice established on earth as it is in
heaven. </span></blockquote>
You can read the entire post <a href="http://songsofasemifreeman.blogspot.com/2011/11/bankers-into-plowshares.html" target="_blank">here</a>. Songs of a Semi-Free Manhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05666794329484768175noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4055129112728408987.post-61400390248649075372012-10-04T12:41:00.001-07:002012-10-04T12:41:46.468-07:00Leaving It All Behind<style>
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div class="MsoNormal">
You've got to leave it behind<br />
All that you fashion<br />
All that you make<br />
All that you build<br />
All that you break<br />
All that you measure<br />
All that you steal<br />
All this you can leave behind<br />
All that you reason<br />
All that you sense<br />
All that you speak<br />
All you dress up<br />
All that you scheme... – U2 “Walk On” (1)</div>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">We must leave everything to those who follow.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Our greatest treasures are the
following generation’s junk.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Stuff
they have to clear away.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If they
have attachment to something it is because it reminds them of someone who has
passed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They have no
attachment to the thing itself.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">If you have ever gone through the stuff of someone who has
passed away, you will probably have wondered why they kept some things, and
then concluded that those things must have been valuable or useful in their
time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Similarly, if you have ever been in the market for a house,
and started looking at potential properties you will have seen things that make
you wonder what the previous owners were thinking.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Home renovations are never in my experience undertaken
lightly, so some thinking went into that floral wallpaper or wood paneling.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">But we don’t take this truth about the temporary worth of
goods to heart.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We treasure our
shiny, usually slimmer than yesteryear, treasures.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">The recent launch of the new iPhone caused thousands to line
up for days to be the first to have what in a few years will be obsolete and in
thirty years – junk.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But they were
willing to spend so much time for this ephemeral object, that in years to come
will be perhaps found as a curiosity in an attic, similar to four-track players
I found in my parent’s attic when I was a kid.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">It is exciting to have the latest first; to be an early
adopter.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Some now cite this as an
achievement.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And if you can keep
getting the newest first, perhaps you can keep yourself satisfied.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But if you reflect, you will realize that you are paying
a premium to own tomorrow’s junk first.</span></div>
<a name='more'></a><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Everything we collect, will likely someday be someone else’s
problem.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So it makes sense not to
over value our material possessions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Collecting the latest electronic gadget or buying the newest model car
will only provide a temporary, illusory sense of meaning.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It will get old.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And in today’s world of planned
obsolescence that won’t take too long.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Neither money nor credit is endless for most of us (as we have no doubt
become increasingly aware over the past few years), so we can’t keep replacing
the old when we tire of it.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="woj">If new stuff made us happy, we should buy as
many things as possible.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But there
is no free lunch - we are teased by what we can’t have.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Even if we could buy meaning through
possessions, that is beyond the reach of most people.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And isn’t the real appeal that we own something shinier and
newer than our neighbor.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If everyone
could own whatever they wished would this urge be no more?</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Therefore, our sense of meaning cannot come from material
possessions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We need something
more.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Jesus pointed this out in
the Sermon on the Mount:</span></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="woj">Do not store up for yourselves treasures on
earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal.</span>
<span class="woj"><sup><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></sup>But
store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not
destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. (2). </span></span></div>
</blockquote>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="woj">Life is short.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We have a need to cherish something. Our stuff might outlast
us, but there is no guarantee that whomever it comes to after us - descendant
or complete stranger - will want anything to do with it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There is nothing we can do about it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We have to leave it behind.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="woj">It appears that Jesus was right to contend
that earthly treasures will not satisfy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The question we then must consider is if he is also right about heaven.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><br />
</b>(1)
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<span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: Cambria; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">U2, “Walk On”, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">All That You Can’t Leave Behind</i>, Island
Records, 2001.</span>
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="woj"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">(2) <span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Matthew
6:19-20 (New International Version).</span></span></span>
Songs of a Semi-Free Manhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05666794329484768175noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4055129112728408987.post-17248244188598766762012-09-19T12:27:00.001-07:002012-09-19T14:13:56.552-07:00Injected the Wrong Way<blockquote class="tr_bq">
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</style></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
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</style>"Because you have the cursed Jesuit strain in you, only it’s
injected the wrong way.” <i>James Joyce – Ulysses. </i>
</blockquote>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">James Joyce’s celebrated novel <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Ulysses</i> opens with a tense early morning exchange between two
friends - Stephen Dedalus and Buck Mulligan.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Dedalus is offended with Mulligan because on an earlier
occasion Dedalus heard Mulligan refer to Dedalus’ mother as “beastly dead.”
(1)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Mulligan pushes back
criticizing Dedalus for refusing his mother’s request to pray with her at her
death bed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Mulligan, a young
doctor responds:</span></div>
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<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">And what is death, he asked, your mother’s or yours or my
own?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You saw only your mother
die.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I see them pop off every day
in the Mater and Richmond and cut them into tripes in the dissecting room.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s a beastly thing and nothing
else.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It simply doesn’t
matter.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You wouldn’t kneel down
and pray for your mother on her deathbed when she asked you.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Why?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Because you have the cursed Jesuit strain in you, only it’s
injected the wrong way.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>To me it’s
all a mockery and beastly.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Her
cerebral lobes are not functioning…Humour her till it’s over. (2)</span></div>
</blockquote>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Mulligan doesn’t believe in God and prayer, but is fine with
humoring the wishes of one who does.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Dedalus, on the other hand, can’t bring himself to pray, even at his dying
mother’s request.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He won’t
compromise his belief in the non-existence of God.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Mulligan’s reference to the “Jesuit strain” is a dig at
Dedalus’ education by Jesuit priests at Gonzaga College (a secondary school
Joyce also attended).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
implication is that even though Dedalus doesn’t believe in God, he acts in
other ways like one who does – and not just any believer – a Jesuit priest – a
member of an order known for their tenacious intellectual defense of theism.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Can one actually keep their beliefs or lack thereof private
as Buck Mulligan? <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One of our
greatest needs is for truth, to know why.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The answer to that question is so precious that we will defend it
fiercely.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Mulligan represents the cynic not
willing to fight for truth. However, it seems that many atheists are not willing, like
Buck Mulligan, to hold their worldview privately. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">For example, there is outreach to encourage others to
embrace non-belief – look at the clergy project an attempt to reach out to
Christian ministers who no longer believe. (3)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Community gatherings and celebration of shared worldview –
witness the Reason Rally in Washington D.C. last spring. (4) And, more
controversially, the suggestion of the need for atheism to create communal
contemplation spaces.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Alain de
Botton plans to build such a structure in London. (5) De Botton’s plan has not
been welcomed by many atheists, but it could be argued that the ideas behind
the London building are found in the Clergy Project and the Reason Rally.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Another example is a lawsuit by American Atheists seeking to
prohibit a cross from ground zero being displayed at the 9/11 memorial yet to
be completed in New York City. (6) The arguments advanced in favor of
displaying the cross are that it was a symbol of comfort to many and is a
historical artifact related to 9/11.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>If this is a symbol of comfort, that atheists consider to be without
meaning, letting the matter lie without protect would be the Buck Mulligan
approach.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Let them have their
crosses if it makes them happy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>But, to kick up a storm about the 9/11 cross seems to open up atheism to
Joyce’s charge that they have the religious strain just injected the wrong way.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">But, is this a bad thing?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>First, it shows that atheists care about finding truth, and
second, that they agree there is a truth out there to be found.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Caring about the truth, and being
willing to go to great lengths to defend it is only bad if we base our
arguments on bad evidence and tie them together with faulty logic, or if we
abandon reasonable argument and try to make others accept our arguments through
force.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">It is best for everyone to put their cards on the table to
put forward what they believe in a respectful manner.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">I say let the truth win. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Let the best arguments win out.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Let’s approach with open minds, not afraid to confront
issues where we clash but with gentleness and respect as well.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Let us also recognize that atheists
and theists alike are injected with the “Jesuit strain” – the search to find
and defend truth – there are worse things.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">(1)<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>James
Joyce, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Ulysses</i>, Vintage International, New York, 1990; 8.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">(2)<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Ibid.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">(3)<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>See,
“From Bible-Belt Pastor to Atheist Leader”, N.Y. Times, Aug. 22, 2012,
available at <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/26/magazine/from-bible-belt-pastor-to-atheist-leader.html?_r=2&pagewanted=1">http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/26/magazine/from-bible-belt-pastor-to-atheist-leader.html?_r=2&pagewanted=1</a>
(accessed Sep. 19, 2012).</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">(4)<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>See,
<a href="http://reasonrally.org/">http://reasonrally.org/</a> (accessed Sep.
19, 2012).</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">(5) <span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>See,
“Alain de Botton reveals plans for 'temple to atheism' in heart of London”, The
Guardain, Jan. 26, 2012, available at <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/jan/26/alain-de-botton-temple-atheism">http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/jan/26/alain-de-botton-temple-atheism</a>
(accessed Sep. 19, 2012).</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">(6)<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>See
“Atheists continue battle against World Trade Center cross at memorial”, CNN
Belief Blog, Sep. 10, 2012, available at <a href="http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2012/09/10/atheists-continue-battle-against-world-trade-center-cross-at-memorial/">http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2012/09/10/atheists-continue-battle-against-world-trade-center-cross-at-memorial/</a>
(accessed Sep. 19, 2012).</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
Songs of a Semi-Free Manhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05666794329484768175noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4055129112728408987.post-44601544122338796542012-08-22T06:00:00.002-07:002012-08-22T06:00:58.260-07:00Back To School<style>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
September sneaks up on me every year - the silent assassin
of the summer.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s true that it’s
been a while since September marked the start of a new year for me personally,
but now the time to buy back to school supplies for my kids, brings with it the
sense of time quickening, a total lack of preparedness, and the amazement that my
kids are a year older.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Living in
the U.S., as I now do, I appreciate the timing of Labor Day, a quick pause
before the madness of the first day of school, which in a couple of weeks will
be mere mundane reality.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
However, September is not wholly unwelcome as many welcome
the chance to reconnect with school friends, but also to learn.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
As humans we have a thirst for learning.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Which is in essence a desire to know
how things work. To understand the world around us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We may have hated homework and being stuck in the classroom
but it wasn’t because we didn’t want to learn.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
Of course not everyone has pleasant memories of school or
learning, but I don’t think there are any of us without curiosity of how things
work.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You may not be a great fan
of “book learning” but there are many types of knowledge and as many ways to
acquire it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Some may be more
interested in cultivating the earth or fixing cars, but all of these endeavors
lead naturally to a desire to figure the how.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
This pursuit of the how assumes that there is a how to be
discovered.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For example, there is
a way to fix a car, a way to grow plants that survive for more than a month
(still a mystery to me), a way to solve a quadratic equation.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
Our desire to learn more about the how of the world around
us is insatiable.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Look at the Mars
Rover, the confirmation of the existence of the Higgs boson, we want to explain the how.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But that leads to a deeper question –
is there a why?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
A car can be fixed in a certain manner because it was
designed in a certain fashion.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
Is the same true of the how behind growing a plant?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Or the Higgs boson? The more
information we learn about the how of the universe, the larger these questions
will loom.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Is there a why behind
the how?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A purpose to it all?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
To read an insightful article about the the Higgs boson, see <a href="http://www.christianpost.com/news/the-god-particle-not-the-god-of-the-gaps-but-the-whole-show-80307/" target="_blank">this article</a> from Oxford professor John
Lennox.</div>
Songs of a Semi-Free Manhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05666794329484768175noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4055129112728408987.post-8433599463685688682012-08-02T11:27:00.003-07:002012-08-02T11:30:21.868-07:00Thoughts From a Boat on Lake Erie<style>
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<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
Staring at the horizon on water is very different to staring
at the horizon on land.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If you are on a large body of water facing away from the
shore, whatever is over the horizon is hidden.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Of course
we know that the water must at some point give way to some form of land mass
but it might be very different from the land at our backs - different
language, terrain, temperature.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
A long car journey does not pose the same sort of
mystery.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We can drive from rural
to urban areas but the changes in scenery are gradual and marked out for
us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Watch out ahead.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We are provided with signs telling us
the distance to our destination. On the water the horizon is mysterious.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The time of arrival is unknown, perhaps
closer than we think.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The water
has no marks that can be read, at least by the likes of me. Perhaps this is a
perpetual journey without end.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
Staring at water relaxes us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Refreshes us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Inspires us to create, to reconsider ourselves and our choices
anew.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Water is constantly moving reminding
us of renewal and change.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As
Heraclitus put it we never step into the same river twice. No matter how bad a
situation we find ourselves in, there is the potential to change?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>On a stormy day we marvel at its
natural power on a calm day we wonder at the restraint of such power.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
The ancient Greeks thought of the journey from this life to
the afterlife as crossing a river.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Looking at the horizon I can imagine that hidden on the other side of
the flowing blue mass is a better place – a good country, connected to our
present existence but separated.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 12pt;">We long for that shore.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
possibility of its existence makes life worth living.</span>Songs of a Semi-Free Manhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05666794329484768175noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4055129112728408987.post-23245357987746116172012-07-26T16:09:00.000-07:002013-07-10T12:40:24.055-07:00The Ethical Life<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhz0dSB0iWSFYETd3qLsnmln0QKfPXt62a6kB9_vmFCBCNwQdXAMnWf59qr4FNggN2fx37AOcwaw9DZO-wDWTeQqeLFgDIXHgCFcATE4Zbm99p5kNUD9tjT3jL1xBiv4vN-nCME2fyJ7os/s1600/1416709_28076424.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhz0dSB0iWSFYETd3qLsnmln0QKfPXt62a6kB9_vmFCBCNwQdXAMnWf59qr4FNggN2fx37AOcwaw9DZO-wDWTeQqeLFgDIXHgCFcATE4Zbm99p5kNUD9tjT3jL1xBiv4vN-nCME2fyJ7os/s320/1416709_28076424.jpg" width="316" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
Ethics is a wide topic that touches every facet of our
individual lives and our society.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I want to talk about a very small slice.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The fact that ethics has, in certain cases, been boiled down
to one concern – environmental ethics or how we interact with the natural world.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In particular, reducing one’s carbon
footprint.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
Let me explain.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The BBC recently appointed Justin Rowlett as “Ethical Man”, his task was
for him, along with his family, to live ethically for one year.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Something we should all aspire to,
right?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>However, his ethical duties
were not to help old ladies across the road, to treat others with respect, but
to live in such a way so that he and his family would minimize their carbon
footprint and consequently their impact on the environment.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(1)</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
There is a clothing line in New York City called the “The
Ethical Man” that manufactures and sells clothing made with a minimal impact on
the environment. (2)</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
I’m not claiming that thinking about how we use natural
resources is not part of what we call ethics.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m saying that environmental ethics are a part and not the
whole of living the ethical life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
I simply have a concern that by portraying one aspect of our
existence as living the ethical life, we may stunt truly ethical
behavior.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We can tell people it is
better to ride a bike to work than drive, but if they ride in a reckless manner
so that they run an old lady over on their way, can we say they are acting
ethically in a holistic sense?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
Moreover, if we tell people that they can be ethical solely
by bike riding and recycling that may provide some with an easy way out.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Throughout human history, we have tried
to boil down the ethical life to rules that we can follow.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Jesus confronted Jewish religious
leaders who claimed living the “ethical life” could be accomplished by
following an increasingly elaborate system of religious rules but did not truly
behave ethically. </div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="font-family: inherit;">
<div class="MsoNormal">
Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you
hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices—mint, dill and cumin. But you have
neglected the more important matters of the law—justice, mercy and
faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the
former. (3)</div>
</blockquote>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
And </div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="font-family: inherit;">
<div class="MsoNormal">
Jesus replied, “And you experts in the law, woe to you,
because you load people down with burdens they can hardly carry, and you yourselves
will not lift one finger to help them. (4) </div>
</blockquote>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
He instead stated that only by changing one’s character can one
truly act ethically.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He contended
that it was not just our actions that determine whether or not we act
ethically but our underlying thoughts and attitudes.</div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="font-family: inherit;">
<div class="MsoNormal">
You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘You
shall not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.’ But I
tell you that anyone who is angry with a brother or sister will be subject to
judgment. (5) </div>
</blockquote>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
How to act ethically, to live the “good life”, is a problem
that many have wrestled with throughout history, and one that all thinking
people should carefully examine.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>We should not let ourselves or others off the hook by pretending that following
rules in a certain area of life, we are truly and completely ethical.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
For more on this topic please see this post – <a href="http://songsofasemifreeman.blogspot.com/2011/03/good.html" target="_blank">Good</a>.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
(1)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>See http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/newsnight/ethical_man/default.stm.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
(2)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>See http://www.theethicalman.com/.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
(3)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Matthew
23:3 (New International Version).</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
(4)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Luke 11:46 (New
International Version).</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
(5) <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Matthew 5:21-22
(New International Version).</div>
Songs of a Semi-Free Manhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05666794329484768175noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4055129112728408987.post-39375895950131129302012-07-12T07:30:00.001-07:002012-07-12T07:30:09.078-07:00Intersection<style>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
Being a little late</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
He was a little quick</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
He looked in the mirror</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
But didn’t see anyone else</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
A murderous intersection</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
With no intent at all</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
The victim drove away</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
No liability</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
No responsibility </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>Songs of a Semi-Free Manhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05666794329484768175noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4055129112728408987.post-56521093071392110642012-06-28T13:19:00.002-07:002012-07-25T12:06:50.173-07:00Summer<div style="font-family: inherit;">
The sun was out the other day. It’s not something that can be counted on every day. Growing up in Ireland I learned quickly to be skeptical that the sun schedule was in anyway linked to the calendar. As many Irish people will tell you it seems more closely tied to exam schedules. But when it does appear it causes a change in mood – an elevation of happiness. </div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
I now live in Buffalo, New York. Not the place to go to chase the sun, but summer days in Buffalo can be almost perfect. </div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
There is something that seems natural about having a cold on a wintery, November day, or the flu on a frozen, February day, but being sick on a bright, hot summer day, seems a little unnatural - a contradiction of the natural order. </div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
Even death seems more appropriate in winter. Patrick Kavanagh, the Irish poet, wrote of how “October-coloured weather” reminded him of his dead father. (i) Perhaps, it is because my father passed in November that summer seems to be correlated with life and not death. </div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
The aliveness of a perfect June day, when inside is as good as out, makes everywhere a comfortable place. This is the time to enjoy. A day it feels painful to be stuck in the office while the whole world is out playing. Is this a holdover from school holidays or vacations (divided by a common language and all that) that conditions us to want time off?<br />
<a name='more'></a></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
When it’s warm we are comfortable. We want to slow down. To relax. Journeys don’t have to be rushed to escape from the cold. No pragmatic dashes from place to place. The journey itself becomes a pleasure. We walk rather than drive. Searching for a destination to justify our ramble rather than minimizing trips out into the cold. </div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
Summer is a time of storing up of rest. A time when hopefully most of us can get some sort of relaxation and escape from the rest of the year. It’s not that we want to do nothing, in fact, many people enjoying hiking and other forms of exercise to help them relax. Some even enjoy camping without all of the comforts of home that supposedly make our lives easier and more convenient. </div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
Maybe you live somewhere that enjoys good weather all year round. I was going to say that I envy you before I considered it some more. Summer, when it comes to Dublin or Buffalo, is a sharp contrast to the rest of the year. In my experience, Dubliners and Buffalonians make sure they don’t let the summer pass them by. Summer is a time to focus on the wonder of being alive, and the truth that no matter how financially successful we may or may not be, one of the most valuable things we can do is rest and enjoy the natural beauty all around us, under a hot, lazy sun. </div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
We only have so many summer days. We only have so many summers. </div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
(i) Patrick Kavanagh, "Memory of My Father", available <a href="http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/memory-of-my-father/" target="_blank">here</a>. </div>Songs of a Semi-Free Manhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05666794329484768175noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4055129112728408987.post-84479221376305141332012-06-20T11:45:00.000-07:002012-06-20T11:46:21.626-07:00Rejection<style>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
Why do we want to be accepted and hate rejection so
much? After all, rejection is
quite logical. In most scenarios
there are more people trying to achieve a goal they will not reach. For example, you might want to be a
star athlete but there are only so many places on professional teams for you to
obtain. Moreover, just achieving
professional status, hard as that is to do, doesn’t guarantee stardom. You might want to be successful
musician or a writer, or the CEO of a Fortune 500 company, but the vast
majority of people seeking those positions will not achieve them.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
It’s true that anyone can start a band, write a book, or
form a company, but to make it a success is something else entirely. The odds are against us. Still it doesn’t hinder some of us from
reaching for the stars. Hope
springs eternal.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
There are many who embrace the logic of rejection and don’t
try to reach hugely ambitious goals, but they will face rejection from friends
and potential romantic partners.
Even if you don’t want to be a corporate titan, most of us are not
content to remain on the same rung of the ladder forever. So even if we shy away from giant goals
we can’t completely inoculate ourselves from rejection. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
Are we supposed to become accustomed to not achieving our
dreams, and settle for the possible – to surrender to cynicism? To sneer at those who try?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
We seem destined to search for unconditional acceptance in a
world where we face constant rejection.
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
We know we are not perfect and so we need acceptance in
spite of ourselves. Close family
can provide this to a certain extent, but our family members are often just as
imperfect as we are. </div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
If there were a perfect person would they be disgusted by
us? Or would a perfect person be
so gracious that only they could overlook our many flaws and accept us
nonetheless?</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
If I were a truly “perfect” person I would likely console
myself better that I was better than everyone else as I maintained splendid
isolation. </div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
The Bible tells of a perfect God coming to live with hugely
flawed people, some of whom couldn’t stand Him so much that they wanted Him
dead. But He offers acceptance –
no matter what we have done. That
is good news.</div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
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For some thoughts on whether we are good people click <a href="http://songsofasemifreeman.blogspot.com/2011/03/good.html" target="_blank">here</a>.</div>Songs of a Semi-Free Manhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05666794329484768175noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4055129112728408987.post-17996232792648264882012-06-07T11:25:00.000-07:002012-08-06T04:47:22.262-07:00CSI Effect?<style>
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Radical skepticism and unquestioning credulity are strange
bedfellows in today’s society. We
can’t rely on our own recollections because sometimes we make mistakes. We don’t trust the testimony of
others. It’s not that we
necessarily think others are liars, it’s just that everyone has their own
perspective on the world – their personal narrative.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
But at the same time we are experiencing the triumph of
scientific knowledge, often to the detriment of other types of knowledge. Science is concerned with accuracy,
verifiability, and certainty. And
science is indeed magnificent. The
problem is that other types of knowledge have been downgraded. If scientific evidence is triple A
rated, other forms of evidence have junk status.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
The CSI Effect</div>
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<br /></div>
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Criminal lawyers have commented on the existence of what
they have termed the CSI effect.
They have theorized that juries have been influenced by the rash of
criminal forensic T.V. shows such as CSI, and now expect heightened scientific
evidence to be presented at trial.
Jurors prone to the CSI effect are also theorized to be more likely to
dismiss other forms of evidence such as eyewitness or circumstantial evidence.<br />
<a name='more'></a></div>
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<br /></div>
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This has led to juries acquitting in cases where scientific
evidence, such as DNA, is not presented, even where other forms of evidence are
presented to the jury. For
example, in a case in Baltimore the defendant was acquitted of murder even
though there were two witnesses to the alleged crime. The jury felt there was a lack of physical evidence. (i) In another case, the jury questioned why
a bloody coat had not been tested for DNA, even though the defendant had
admitted that he owned the coat. (ii)</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
There is much debate over the existence of the “CSI effect”
(iii), but it points to a preference for scientific evidence over other types
of evidence such as personal testimony.
However, there are many things in life that cannot be proved with
scientific exactness.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
Think about how you would prove what you had for breakfast
this morning, or the whole historical endeavor. Are we to say that if it cannot be proven scientifically it
never happened? Of course not.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
Science is wonderful, and its proper use in the courtroom
improves the administration of justice – no question. But, to place scientific knowledge on a pedestal all by
itself goes too far. </div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
When many people claim that the central claims of Christianity cannot be proved
because there is no scientific evidence, are they falling victim to a CSI
effect? There may be firm
historical evidence that Jesus existed.
There may be eyewitness reports, from those who changed the whole course
of their lives and died defending it, that Jesus rose from the dead. But, where’s the DNA, the video
evidence. </div>
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<br /></div>
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I submit to you ladies and gentlemen of the jury, two people
may have seen the defendant shoot the victim, but we all know memories are not
infallible. If he’s guilty where’s
the DNA?</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
We need balance.
Blind allegiance to science allied to thoroughgoing skepticism of other
forms of evidence can lead us to some strange places.</div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
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Notes:</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
(i) Jeffrey
Heindrick, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Everyone’s an Expert: The CSI’s
Negative Effect on Juries</i>, Arizona State University – The Triple Helix Fall
2006, available at <cite><span style="font-style: normal;"><a href="http://www.cspo.org/documents/csieffectheinrick.pdf">www.cspo.org/documents/<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">csieffect</b>heinrick.pdf</a>.</span></cite></div>
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<br /></div>
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(ii) Ibid.</div>
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<br /></div>
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(iii) See
Hon. Donald E. Shelton, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The ‘CSI Effect’:
Does It Really Exist</i>?, National Institute of Justice Journal No. 259, March
2008, available at http://www.nij.gov/journals/259/csi-effect.htm.</div>Songs of a Semi-Free Manhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05666794329484768175noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4055129112728408987.post-69695146470852283212012-05-31T20:07:00.000-07:002012-06-07T08:56:33.809-07:00Sickness<style>
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This week a particularly nasty stomach bug has infiltrated
our home. I will spare you the
details, but it has not been a pleasant experience. I spent most of yesterday trying to summon the energy to get
out of bed, which I managed to do a couple of times, immediately regretting
the decision each time.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
The illness that I am experiencing this week is annoying but
not life-threatening.
Unfortunately, not all illness is so easily recovered from, and some
diseases have no recovery. </div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
While we are healthy we don’t think about sickness. We sometimes pause to reflect on our
wellness when we see others suffer, but for the most part sickness seems alien
to us. Something is wrong. We know it happens, and it could happen
to us, but when it strikes, it seems so unfair.<br />
<a name='more'></a></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
Sickness brings with it a sense of vulnerability,
powerlessness, and a wonder of when it will end. We know that sickness have natural causes, even though there
are many of them that medical science still does not understand. We try to gain power over disease by
scientific discoveries, and while amazing strides have been made, there are
still so many diseases for which we don’t have a cure.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
It is natural to feel pain and discomfort. Even animals do that. But we go further, we experience the conscious
or physical pain of thinking that this is not the natural order of things. We believe we are meant to be whole,
physically-functioning. As we get
older, we mourn the loss of previous capacities.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
In sickness we feel powerless where we think we should be
powerful. Why do we have this
sense that we should be pain free and whole and that we should not decay as we
grow older?</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
We live in a world where sickness is so common, yet it is
strange that our ancient ancestors, who had little of the medical knowledge we
enjoy today, could imagine a world without it – a heaven. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
You might argue that it was their longing for a pain-free
existence. But what from their physical world
inspired them to dream this up?
For them sickness and death were so much a part of life that imagining a
world without them would have been like imagining a world without sound. Perhaps then their inspiration was not solely drawn from the physical, material world.</div>Songs of a Semi-Free Manhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05666794329484768175noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4055129112728408987.post-87325466645809477162012-05-24T19:47:00.001-07:002012-05-25T06:16:16.252-07:00Winning Through Negativity<style>
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I assume that negative political advertisements work –
otherwise why would they be paid for?
That is, if they didn’t work we would be rid of them by now. But do they convince or merely cement
the opinions of those already inclined to the position being advocated (if the
negative ads can be described as advocating). This kind of discourse is not going to bring about positive change. </div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
To change someone’s opinion requires that person to make a
choice. It cannot be forced upon
them. It also requires openness to
new ideas, especially those we might not be accustomed to entertaining.<br />
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
Civilization is the willingness to listen to others, trying
our best to keep our prejudices and preconceived ideas in check. That is not to say that all ideas are
equally valid, I firmly believe that truth is objective and not subjective, and
that reasonable persons can get to it.
If history has shown us anything, it is that ideas can be the most
dangerous things of all. But all ideas deserve a listen until we figure out their value.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
But, the exchange of ideas without civility can have the
opposite effect. If we go beyond
the bounds of legitimate persuasion towards coercion, we may get our way for a
while, but resentment of those forced to toe the line will grow and we will
find ourselves in a worse position than before.<br />
<a name='more'></a></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
On the other hand, if we don’t engage in thoughtful, open
dialogue our society will not get better and will likely get worse. Solutions will be found as we venture
towards truth.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
In my recent book I wrote about the increasing balkanization
of culture:</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit; margin-left: 0.5in;">
Increasingly, people interact with
other people who tend to hold the same views on things. There are magazines,
web sites, and radio and television stations catering to specific social and
political beliefs. A person can spend the majority of his or her time
surrounded by ideas and beliefs that resonate with them and avoid arguments
that might challenge their worldview. (i)</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
Further, because we look to sources that we agree with us,
we don’t spend enough time analyzing what they tell us.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit; margin-left: 0.5in;">
The result of the acceptance of the
sound bite is the poverty of effort directed towards understanding ideas we
encounter. On the surface, many ideas seem appealing and plausible, but may not
hold up to a rigorous examination of their underlying assumptions. Rarely are ideas
subject to an examination of their foundations. (ii)</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
It seems to me that negative political advertisements work
precisely because they appeal to our prejudices and our unwillingness to dig
deeper to find the truth. They are
less about convincing others through well-presented arguments to come over to
your side, and more about discouraging supporters on the other side from
voting.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
If, like me, the onset of election season, which now never
seems to end or begin, and the negativity it entails drives you crazy, consider whether the advertisements or the society that consumes them are the problem. Would an open-minded, critically-engaged, and reflective
society permit the vitally important question of how our society is run to be
settled in such a way?</div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit; margin-left: 0.75in; text-indent: -0.5in;">
(i)<span style="-moz-font-feature-settings: normal; -moz-font-language-override: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span>Songs of a Semi-Free Man, Deep River Books
(2012), 11.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit; margin-left: 0.75in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit; margin-left: 0.75in; text-indent: -0.5in;">
(ii)<span style="-moz-font-feature-settings: normal; -moz-font-language-override: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span>Ibid., 75.</div>
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<br /></div>Songs of a Semi-Free Manhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05666794329484768175noreply@blogger.com0