The New Ten Commandments

I recently debated Pro on another subject, so I hesitated to take this debate. But it is a good topic and no one else has taken it up after a day or so, so I'll beg Pro's indulgence and have at it. 1.) Do not believe anything without good reason or evidence. Indeed, allow reason and the scientific method to guide your beliefs about the world. >No who is at all reflective believes that are acting without good reason. That includes jihadists, thieves, astrologers, and Methodists. Therefore as a commandment this is vacuous. It amounts to no more than "do whatever you think is best." 2.) Do not pretend to know things you don't really know and always allow yourself to be open to evidence and reason. >Against, everyone believes they know whatever they believe with enough certainty to act upon it. It is another vacuous commandment. 3.) Do not hoard your money or be absorbed by greed. Let generosity to the Earth's less fortunate be at the forefront of your daily life. >Since "hoarding" and "greed" are tautologously excessive behaviors, they ought to be condemned. However, putting generosity at the forefront of life would be truly devastating to human existence. It would end all investment in the future by requiring that all money be spent on subsistence. There would be no factories or roads or schools or anything that required capital. 4.) Do not do unto others what you would find repulsive if it were done to you. >The Golden Rule is fine, but how did "repulsive" get in there? Repulsive means offensive on an emotional level. Homosexuality is repulsive to many heterosexuals, yet we ought to be tolerant of it nonetheless. Mucking around with internal organs is repulsive to most people outside the medical profession, but we still want surgeons to do their jobs. The proposed commandment uses "repulsive" as a transitive verb, which is inherently subject to misunderstanding, since we have to guess what was really intended. 5.) Do not deprive others of their life, liberty, property or their pursuit of happiness and don't treat them purely as a means to some selfish end unless by doing this you would cause greater suffering. >This has a basis mistake in the wording -- why would we want to cause greater suffering? Probably the intent was something else, along the lines of "pursue the greatest good for the greatest number." If so, then it is a poor commandment because it sets us up as judging what is good for others, rather letting them decide for themselves. 6.) Do not discriminate against anyone on the basis of gender, nationality, species, ethnicity, or sexual orientation and don't violate the preferences that people may hold, insofar as those preferences aren't reprehensible. >Probably Pro means "unjustly discriminate" rather than "discriminate." For example, Americans ought not impose income taxes on Germans who work in Germany, which is perfectly reasonable discrimination. there are just reasons for discriminating on grounds of gender and other categories as well. But once the commandment is amended to "unjust discrimination," it becomes vacuous, amounting to be "be just." 7.) Make a general practice of reducing suffering in the world and increasing overall levels of happiness among living creatures. Mostly this is vacuous, but what makes A happy may make B very unhappy. The "living creatures" part is spooky. Who knows what makes a squid happy? I suspect happiness is not defined relative to squid. The commandment erroneously attributes human characteristics to other species. 8.) In all things try to refrain from harming conscious creatures and let compassion be a pivotal factor in the decisions that you make. "Try" is not a commandment. In any case, malaria carrying mosquitoes ought not be put on the same plane with the people they infect. 9.) Try to be motivated by love and a general concern for the well being of others. "Try" is not a commandment. This is another of those vacuous "be good" commandments. Jihadists believe that religious law is good for everyone and that infidels must be killed in order to maximize the good in the world. 10.) Encourage your children to study math, science, philosophy and literature to the best of their abilities. This is a fine idea, but commandments are supposed to be moral rules rather than practical ones. For example, "change the oil filter every time you change your oil" is a good rule, but not a moral commandment. As to the old commandments, 1. I don't have problem treating not putting any god before the Christian God. I don't believe in any of them, so none are ahead of any of the others. 2-4. I agree are outdated or inapplicable. Christians have interpretations that spiff them up for modern times. 5-9. We generally agree are good commandments. 10. Pro objects to "coveting thy neighbor's wife" as sexist, by argues that coveting other property of a neighbor is just free enterprise. That's not it. I'd go for a rewrite of "wife" to "spouse," but the idea is to not resent what your neighbor has, but rather to get your own stuff fairly. As correctly understood, it is a good commandment. Pro objects that the old commandments are absolutist, but that is the nature of commandments. If they are not absolutist, then they are not commandments. The same is true of Pro's proposed alternative commandments. Pro tries to avoid being absolute by being vacuous. "Try to be good." avoids being absolute at the expense of begging the question of what a person should do. Many of Pro's commandments are in that realm of not really giving direction. Rules that try to be absolute sometime come into conflict, and everybody recognizes that. That doesn't make them bad rules, it means that in those cases where they conflict we need metarules to resolve them. The Golden Rule, for example, is a metarule. The value of commandment-style rules is that they often do not come into conflict. The old "Do not steal," "Do not murder," Do not commit adultery," "Do not bear false witness," ... , are good solid rules that actually give direction. Pro's alternative are mostly indefinite directions that promise good outcomes, but really do not say what to do to achieve the outcomes. Some of them, those that demand putting charity ahead of investment and raise malaria-carrying mosquitoes to the plane of equality with humans, are downright disastrous. I like the idea of succinct commandments for modern times. Maybe Davy Crockett's "Be sure you are right, then go ahead." would be a good one. But Pro's list is not a net improvement over the old list.