It seems that one of the pivotal issues in reasoned thinking about design-related questions — and in general — is the question of self-evident first, certain truths that can serve as a plumb-line for testing other truth claims, and indeed for rationality.
(Where, the laws of identity, non-contradiction and excluded middle are foremost among such first principles. And where also, some ID objectors profess to be “frightened” that some of us dare to hold that there are moral truths that are self evident.)
Where also of course, self-evident does not merely mean perceived as obvious to oneself, which could indeed be a manifestation of a delusion. Nay, a self evident truth [SET] is best summarised as one known to be so and to be necessarily so without further proof from other things.
That is, a SET is:
a: actually true — it accurately reports some relevant feature of reality (e.g.: error exists)
b: immediately recognised as true once one actually understands what is being asserted, in light of our conscious experience of the world (as in, no reasonable person would but recognise the reality that error exists)
c: further seen as something that must be true, on pain of patent absurdity on attempted denial. (E.g. try denying “error exists” . . . the absurdity is rapidly, forcefully manifest)
I think Aquinas has a few helpful words for us:
Now a thing is said to be self-evident in two ways: first, in itself; secondly, in relation to us. Any proposition is said to be self-evident in itself, if its predicate is contained in the notion of the subject: although, to one who knows not the definition of the subject, it happens that such a proposition is not self-evident. For instance, this proposition, “Man is a rational being,” is, in its very nature, self-evident, since who says “man,” says “a rational being”: and yet to one who knows not what a man is, this proposition is not self-evident. Hence it is that, as Boethius says (De Hebdom.), certain axioms or propositions are universally self-evident to all; and such are those propositions whose terms are known to all, as, “Every whole is greater than its part,” and, “Things equal to one and the same are equal to one another.” But some propositions are self-evident only to the wise, who understand the meaning of the terms of such propositions . . . .
Now a certain order is to be found in those things that are apprehended universally. For that which, before aught else, falls under apprehension, is “being,” the notion of which is included in all things whatsoever a man apprehends. Wherefore the first indemonstrable principle is that “the same thing cannot be affirmed and denied at the same time,” which is based on the notion of “being” and “not-being”: and on this principle all others are based, as is stated in Metaph. iv, text. 9.
In short, we have two facets here, First, standing by itself a SET has an objective character and is a first principle, a point of certain knowledge. But, that brings up the second aspect: we need to understand it, that we may grasp it. And, that may well fail, primarily by way of ignorance, secondarily by way of commitment to a contrary ideology that makes it difficult or even nearly impossible to acknowledge that which on the actual merits is self-evident.
How can we address the problem?
By understanding the significance of how rejecting a SET ends in absurdity. Which may be by outright obvious logical contradiction, or by undermining rationality or by being chaotically destructive and/or senseless. Moral SETs are usually seen as self evident in this latter sense.
For instance, by way of laying down a benchmark, let us take the SET that has been so often put here at UD, by way of underscoring vital moral hazards connected to evolutionary materialism (which entails that there are no objective foundations for morality, as many leading Darwinists have acknowledged on the record), to wit:
MORAL YARDSTICK 1: it is Self-Evidently True that it would be wrong to kidnap, torture, rape and murder a child. With corollary, that if such is in progress we are duty-bound to intervene to save the child from the monster.
It will be observed that essentially no-one dares to explicitly deny this, or its direct corollary. That is because such denial would put one in the category of supporting a blatant monster like Nero. Instead, the tendency is to try to push this into the world of tastes, preferences, feelings and community views. Such a view may indeed reflect such, but it is more, it asserts boldly that here is an OUGHT that one denies being bound by, on pain of absurdity. Which of course, further points to our world being a reality grounded in an IS adequate to sustain OUGHT, i.e. we are under moral government.
But, that is not all.
Let us again note Dr Richard Dawkins on the record, in Scientific American, August 1995:
Nature is not cruel, only pitilessly indifferent. This lesson is one of the hardest for humans to learn. We cannot accept that things might be neither good nor evil, neither cruel nor kind, but simply callous: indifferent to all suffering, lacking all purpose [–> It escapes Dr Dawkins that we may have good reason for refusing this implication of his favoured ideological evolutionary materialism] . . . .
In a universe of electrons and selfish genes, blind physical forces and genetic replication, some people are going to get hurt, other people are going to get lucky, and you won’t find any rhyme or reason in it, nor any justice. The universe that we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but pitiless indifference [–> As in open admission of utter amorality that opens the door to nihilism] . . . . DNA neither cares nor knows. DNA just is. And we dance to its music. [“God’s Utility Function,” Sci. Am. Aug 1995, pp. 80 – 85.]
This is right in the heart of the science and society issues that rage over Darwinism and wider evolutionary materialist origins thought. Where, let us again remind ourselves, we must frankly and squarely face how Dr Richard Lewontin went on record also:
. . . the problem is to get [people] to reject irrational and supernatural explanations of the world, the demons that exist only in their imaginations, and to accept a social and intellectual apparatus, Science, as the only begetter of truth [[–> NB: this is a knowledge claim about knowledge and its possible sources, i.e. it is a claim in philosophy not science; it is thus self-refuting]. . . . To Sagan, as to all but a few other scientists, it is self-evident [[–> actually, science and its knowledge claims are plainly not immediately and necessarily true on pain of absurdity, to one who understands them; this is another logical error, begging the question , confused for real self-evidence; whereby a claim shows itself not just true but true on pain of patent absurdity if one tries to deny it . . ] that the practices of science provide the surest method of putting us in contact with physical reality, and that, in contrast, the demon-haunted world rests on a set of beliefs and behaviors that fail every reasonable test [[–> i.e. an assertion that tellingly reveals a hostile mindset, not a warranted claim] . . . .
It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes [[–> another major begging of the question . . . ] to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is absolute [[–> i.e. here we see the fallacious, indoctrinated, ideological, closed mind . . . ], for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door. [From: “Billions and Billions of Demons,” NYRB, January 9, 1997. Bold emphasis and notes added. ]
These are smoking gun admissions as to the nature, prior commitments [viewed as self evident! . . . but actually only question-begging . . . ] and consequences of evolutionary materialist ideology, regardless of whether or not it is dressed up in the proverbial lab coat.
And, just as it is legitimate to confront a priori materialist impositions on the methods and conclusions of origins science it is equally in order to raise serious questions on the moral implications of such ideologies and the way they irreconcilably conflict with yardstick cases of self evident moral truth.
Let us look back at that child.
S/he has no physical prowess to impose his or her will. S/he has no eloquence to persuade a demonic Nero-like monster to stop from brutally despoiling and destructive sick pleasures. S/he is essentially helpless. And yet, our consciences speak loud and clear, giving an insight that this ought not to be done, yea even, if we see such in progress we ought to intervene to rescue if we can, how we can.
Is that voice of conscience delusional, a mere survival trait that leads us to perceive an ought as a binding obligation where there is no such, or it is merely the perceived threat of being caught by superior state power or the like?
We already know from great reformers that the state can be in the wrong, though often that was taught at fearsome cost. (Nero’s vicious persecutions being themselves evidence in point.)
And, if one is imagining that a major aspect of mindedness is delusional, where does that stop?
In short, once the premise of general delusion of our key mental faculties is introduced we are in an infinite regress of Plato’s cave worlds. If we say we identify delusion A, who is to say but this is delusion B, thence C, D, E and so forth?
{U/D Dec 4:} A video adaptation (one that is closely accurate to the text of The Republic):
So, we see the cogency of UD’s own WJM as he has argued:
If you do not [acknowledge] the law of non-contradiction, you have nothing to argue about. If you do not [admit] the principles of sound reason, you have nothing to argue with. If you do not [recognise] libertarian free will, you have no one to argue against. If you do not [accept] morality to be an objective commodity, you have no reason to argue in the first place.
In short, resort to dismissing key mental capacities as general delusion is a morass, a self-refuting fallacy. (Which is different from, whether one may be in specific error and even a great many may be in specific error. Indeed, if we look at the original Plato’s Cave parable, it side-steps that by pointing to the one man who is set free and recognises the apparatus of manipulation for what it is, then, having been led to see more widely, returns to try to help; only to face the power of a mass delusion rooted in an evident error that is clung to.)
Instead, we should respect the general capacity of our mental faculties, recognising their strengths as well as limitations, and how playing the general delusion card is self referentially incoherent and absurd.
There is absolutely no good reason to assume or brazenly assert or insinuate that our insight on moral yardstick 1, is delusional. We have instead every good reason to hold that we are morally governed, with conscience as a faculty of mind that serves that government, though it may be dulled or become defective or may be in error on specific points. (Much as is so for vision and hearing, etc.)
So, let us follow up:
1 –> Per MY # 1 etc., we see — on pain of absurdity if we try to deny — that there are self-evident moral truths, entailing that we are under the moral government of OUGHT.
2 –> Where by MY # 1, the little child has moral equality, quasi-infinite worth and equal dignity with us as fellow human beings, a status that immediately is inextricably entangled with that s/he has core rights that we OUGHT to respect: her or his life, liberty, personhood, etc.
3 –> So, we are under moral government, which requires a world in which OUGHT rests on a foundational IS that can bear its weight.
4 –> And, I am very aware of the dismissals of and debates regarding “foundationalism” out there {U/D Dec 02: link added with adjustments, “foundationalism” was there all along . . . }, on closer inspection we can readily see that our worldviews and arguments are invariably dependent on finitely distant start points on which the systems of thought or reasoning must stand:
5 –> So, also, we confront the challenge that – there is just one serious candidate for such a reality-foundational IS that can bear the weight of OUGHT: the inherently good eternal Creator God, whose precepts and principles will be evidently sound from . . . moral yardstick self evident truths.
6 –> Where also we can highlight the framework of such truths in the context of civil society and government, by citing a pivotal historical case or two. First, that when he set out to ground the principles of what would become modern liberty and democracy, John Locke cited “the judicious [anglican canon Richard] Hooker” in Ch 2 Sect 5 of his second essay on civil government, thusly:
. . . if I cannot but wish to receive good, even as much at every man’s hands, as any man can wish unto his own soul, how should I look to have any part of my desire herein satisfied, unless myself be careful to satisfy the like desire which is undoubtedly in other men . . . my desire, therefore, to be loved of my equals in Nature, as much as possible may be, imposeth upon me a natural duty of bearing to themward fully the like affection. From which relation of equality between ourselves and them that are as ourselves, what several rules and canons natural reason hath drawn for direction of life no man is ignorant . . . [[Hooker then continues, citing Aristotle in The Nicomachean Ethics, Bk 8:] as namely, That because we would take no harm, we must therefore do none; That since we would not be in any thing extremely dealt with, we must ourselves avoid all extremity in our dealings; That from all violence and wrong we are utterly to abstain, with such-like . . . ] [[Eccl. Polity,preface, Bk I, “ch.” 8, p.80, cf. here. Emphasis added.]
7 –> Less than a hundred years later, this was powerfully echoed in the appeal to self evident moral truths in the US Declaration of Independence of 1776:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, [cf Rom 1:18 – 21, 2:14 – 15], that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. –That [–> still, held self-evident!] to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government [–> right of judicious reformation and innovation, if necessary backed by the right of just revolution in the face of unyielding tyranny when remonstrance fails and threats or actual violence manifest in “a long train of abuses and usurpations” indicates an intent of unlimited despotism . . . ], laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security . . .
8 –> Those who would therefore seek to poison the well and the atmosphere for discussion on such matters, need to first pause and soberly address these historically decisive cases.
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Therefore, the amorality of evolutionary materialist ideology stands exposed as absurd in the face of self-evident moral truths. Where, such moral yardsticks imply that we are under government of OUGHT, leading onward to the issue that there is only one serious explanation for our finding ourselves living in such a world — a theistic one. END