From: mss2@kimbark.uchicago.edu (Michael S. Schiffer)
Subject: Re: Unbe Awakens
Reply-To: mss2@midway.uchicago.edu
Organization: University of Chicago Computing Organizations
Date: Fri, 18 Dec 1992 16:46:28 GMT

In article <105249@bu.edu> mjmh@crsa.bu.edu (Michael J M Holmes) writes:
>/* nods his head a few times, having listened to John's further
>explanation.

>"I wonder about this *basis* of anyone's morality, since even among people
>who have the same religious belief from birth to grave, there must be
>some growth, or examination, or shift, or discovery of a new aspect of
>their religion, or their moral code.  I really am not an absolutist, and I
>think that even in the most conservative life there is no constant when
>it comes to belief, or turning belief into action."

	"There are two possible explanations for such change.  One is
that there is no constant and it's essentially a matter of a random
walk.  But another is that there is a constant and people grow closer
to or draw further away from it.  As I drive around, sometimes I might
find a particular radio station coming in clearly, while other times
it may be almost lost in static-- and both the trend and the change
itself depends on the direction and distance I drive.  But it's not
that there's no radio station, nor that the transmitter is moving."

>"What if the basis for someones morality was simply the idea that 
>you exist, why not make the world a better place for your having existed?
>No trying to please a deity, or gain an afterlife, or following right action,
>or obeying a text, but simply because you want to be that type of person?
>(This is a slightly simplified example.)"

	"But what do you mean by `better'?  You've just introduced a
standard of _some_ sort through the back door.  How do you decide what
constitutes making the world a better place, and why does it please
you to know that the world will be a better place by whatever standard
you choose?"

>"What if someone feels that their actions mean something important, 
>solely because they mean something to *themselves*?  Not
>science, or logic, or religion, just their personal 
>philosophy of life?

>"Imagine an atheist on his deathbed, certain that there is nothing ahead of
>him (masculine pronoun chosen for simplicity).  He has lived his life
>morally, based on the above criteria, and previous examples - 
>and as he examines his life, he can be satisfied that he loved, 
>he was loved,  he made a positive difference in the world.  
>And all of this matters because it mattered *to him*.  He has no 
>regrets, no misgivings, and he *likes* the way he lived his life.  
>I think he was moral, and hesitate to call him religious, 
>even under your very broad definition.

	"He made a `positive difference'.  Positive how?  Either he
has some idea of `the good' or he couldn't have spent his life
pursuing it.  Meanwhile, the decision that some good matters to him is
at least as irrational a decision as any religion might be.  I agree
that it _isn't_ a religion-- but conversely he is hardly in a position
to criticize religious people for holding unreasonable or false
beliefs, because he took just as much of a leap when he decided that
it was better to work for a positive change in the world than not to."

>"I think that most peoples morality develops and changes - the basis for
>their morality may be one aspect of their religion, then a few years later
>it may be an individual who inspires them to be moral, then they may
>have a period where they remain moral but don't attribute it to anything - 
>then they may eventually return to their original religion, yet base their
>morality on another aspect.  Was there a *constant* basis for morality,
>that this person kept missing, or had and then lost?  I don't think so.
>I feel that if we want to, we constantly grow and develop and deepen
>our understanding of morality."

	"How do you deepen your understanding of something that has no
form of its own?  If you rewrite an essay, it may show a deeper
understanding of the subject-- but only if you can compare it to what
you know of the subject to make the judgment.  If you rewrite a poem,
it may express a deeper truth-- but only if there are deeper truths
which you've already encountered to be expressed.  Conversely, if I
write an encyclopedia entry about elves, I may make them resonate more
with mythic images and thus make them deeper and more complex, but I
can't deepen my understanding of elves themselves because there are no
elves to understand."

>"I still feel leery whenever people equate religion and morality.  Morality
>always deals with actions of some sort, (so I feel there is always some
>pragmatic content to morality) and by linking it with religion it
>becomes too easy to use these definitions to condemn some peoples actions
>as immoral whenever they differ from your individual religion or belief.  
>(I don't mean you personally, John, I mean in general!)"

>"And the idea that there *must* be some universal constant for morality - 
>that's a philosophical argument from many of my philosophy classes that
>never quite convinced me that it made sense.  When you declare that there
>is a universal system of morals that all actions are to be measured against,
>you then open the door for arrogance, bigotry, oppression... since people will
>declare that *their* philosophy or religion is based on *the* only morality,
>so yours *must* be wrong, and it can be proven, since there is only *one*
>moral code in this universe."

	"Conversely, when you declare that there is no universal
system of morals that all actions are measured against, you then open
the door for the same things... since people will declare that since
*their* philosophy or ideology is as valid as anyone's, they have as
much right to steal or kill or enslave as you have to resist them.
The worst-case scenario for moral absolutism is a theocracy in which
the authorities believe they can do anything they want by divine
right.  The worst-case scenario for moral relativism is one in which
the authorities believe they can do anything they want because they're
permitted to build their own morality, and they choose one which views
anything they do as permissible and anything done to them as cause for
punishment.

	"The difference, as far as I see it, isn't in worst-case
scenarios, but in the fact that one who believes in absolutes can say,
`No.  That's wrong.  It is as wrong for you to kill children for fun
as it would be for me.'  Relativism doesn't mean that one is more
likely to kill children for fun, but it implies that one has no moral
response to someone that is.  As soon as you make the decision that
the children have more right to happiness or life or whatever than the
guy with the axe, you've made a moral decision for someone else and
asserted that your moral code is, provisionally, superior to his.  But
superior on what basis?  Because it pleases you more?  Well, his code
pleases him more.  More people would agree with you?  If morality is
by majority rule, then there are certain countries in which you'd have
been wrong to try and prevent the massacre of children, if they
belonged to certain ethnic groups.  You want your life to make a
positive impact on the world?  That begs the question of what positive
means and how you figured that out."

>/* sighs.  "But this is just about the point in the argument where everything
>can get fuzzy.  Beyond belief, or faith, how can anyone really *know*
>the nature of the Universe, or of The Deity, or of what happens *after*
>death.  I think you *can't* know - you can firmly *believe*, but that
>isn't the same as knowledge.  So I acknowledge that I could be completely
>wrong, that there is a universally constant morality - but logical proofs,
>philosophical arguments, religious discussions - none of these can
>*prove* it, one way or another."

	"True enough.  But neither can you prove that solipsism is
false, or that you're not simply a brain in a box with a highly
sophisticated experiment being done on you, or that the universe
didn't come into existence five minutes ago with all memory
pregenerated.  The option for believing only what can be absolutely
known, or established with falsifiable hypotheses, doesn't exist.  And
Occam's razor shaves according to our preconceptions-- it was the fact
that relativism seemed to me to lead to absurdity which led me to
believing in a moral absolute and hence to theism.  Those who don't
find the idea absurd may feel that I'm making an unwarranted leap, but
to me it turned out to be the hypothesis that required the fewest
assumptions."

>"I'd just like to plead for understanding - aside from the religious or
>philosphical considerations, when people put these beliefs into
>*action*, when moral considerations get turned into pragmatic
>events and decisions, this is the crucial point that I worry about.
>People who wear their moralness on their sleeve, or people who
>look down on nontheists as unable to be moral (or, perhaps worse,
>acting moral but for the *wrong* reasons)."

	"But even your preference for pragmatic action over philosophy
requires judging that some people's moral systems are worse than
others.  Clearly, you believe that burning someone at the stake for
what he believes is wrong.  The Inquisitor believes it's right.  On
what basis do you say that his action is more wrong than yours in
stopping him?  Maybe you're right that he has no _more_ basis to
determine what's right than you-- but by your own argument, he also
has no less."

Michael


-- 
Michael S. Schiffer, LHN, FCS	"Indeed I tremble for my country
mss2@midway.uchicago.edu	 when I reflect that God is just."
mike.schiffer@um.cc.umich.edu	 -- Thomas Jefferson, Notes on
mschiffer@aal.itd.umich.edu	    Virginia (1784)