Does “A Well-Lived Life” Have Meaning?

_{Barry Arrington

March 16, 2009

Intelligent Design}

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Charles Murray recently recounted an experience in Europe:

Last April I had occasion to speak in Zurich, where I made some of these same points. After the speech, a few of the twenty-something members of the audience approached and said plainly that the phrase “a life well-lived” did not have meaning for them. They were having a great time with their current sex partner and new BMW and the vacation home in Majorca, and saw no voids in their lives that needed filling.

It was fascinating to hear it said to my face, but not surprising. It conformed to both journalistic and scholarly accounts of a spreading European mentality. Let me emphasize “spreading.” I’m not talking about all Europeans, by any means. That mentality goes something like this: Human beings are a collection of chemicals that activate and, after a period of time, deactivate. The purpose of life is to while away the intervening time as pleasantly as possible.

Today’s class assignment: Comments should start with one of two statements, either: (1) “The mentality Murray describes is true, because . . .” or (2) “The mentality Murray describes is false, because . . .” Obviously, what you write after “because” will the only interesting part of your comment.

Comments

mullerpr, It appears that we are online at the same time, and I missed your other posts before responding. I take full responsibility for my failures. I recognize them as failures, and I seek to maximize net pleasure by learning from them. Some people may use reductionism to excuse bad behavior. Well, I am not sure that I am a reductionist. Even if I were, I will always believe in freewill (another discussion altogether) and individual responsibility. In the end, it appears that we may have more in common than you initially suspected. But none of that means that we are not fundamentally pleasure-seeking.QuadFather_{March 18, 2009
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mullerpr [70], I'm not entirely clear on what it is you wish to add to my view. Can you provide some sort of example? Also, it's hard for me to tell whether or not you agree with what I'm saying. Can you clarify and explain? In closing: I also believe in free will. Does this affect your understanding of my arguments? If so, how?QuadFather_{March 18, 2009
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I have to add that I relate all forms of certainty to something like the uniformity of nature and certainly not some post-modern/skeptic subjectivist claptrap.mullerpr_{March 18, 2009
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QuadFather, I am suspecting that your issue with expressing definitions of pleasure as being more than the ordinary or even the highest form there is, might be because you want to moderate your pleasure in relationship with your failures to reach that pleasure. That is OK if you don't want the full burden of responsibility for your actions or pleasure seeking choices. But can you truly live in such a state of mediocrity with no certainty about anything?mullerpr_{March 18, 2009
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Hi QuadFather #65, I have to agree that it takes a lot of maintenance to experience the elation of the choice to accept righteousness through Christ. The reason is that of all the choices we always have to make so very little turns out to produce lasting or even immediate pleasure. All the choices that ends up in a mess has the tendency to completely remove our righteousness whether it is when we convict ourselves or being convicted by other people or God himself... Bad choices leads to unrighteousness (In its simplest form it simply means "To miss the mark"), that is the inevitable part of our fallen state that came about through our free will. (I will refrain from arguing that we actually do have a free will.) What I am adding to your view that all choices are aimed at pleasure, is that it is universally not acceptable to accommodate failure to achieve that objective. When people start to attribute failure to achieve the golden rule to our so called inherent lack of free will, the road to nihilism becomes almost inevitable. It is therefore logical that the God who gave us the free will should supply us with a way to achieve pleasure in the truest form possible. I prefer to relate pleasure to my state of righteousness from which I can find true pleasure in everything no matter how simple or unimportant it might seem. My strategy is certainly not to find happiness just in the exotic consumerist fetishes that are available in the market place. In closing I have to admit that since I have a very deep understanding that Christ's righteousness did not came cheap and is not at all a blanket pardon to a complete licentious life, I make very sure about the consequences of my actions. Because I might be inadvertently place a judgment on someone who does not accept Christ's redemption. I even find true pleasure in this responsibility.mullerpr_{March 18, 2009
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vjtorley [68], I am not arguing that decision-making requires deep introspection; That is but one way to weigh the options. Other times, we intuit this information on the basis of vast experiential data and make a choice subconsciously. Sometimes, it is instinct. In the case of the altruistic mother, her instincts further generated an illusory absence of choice. There are many ways to make choices, but I believe that all of them have developed in such a way as to arrive at the greatest net pleasure. Simply look at the results of these methods. You have an itch, you scratch it without thinking, and you feel better about it. You get the munchies, you instinctively reach inside that bag of chips, and it feels good to have tamed your growling stomach. There is no option but to put a bandaid and neosporin on your child's scrapped knee, and you feel relieved once the kid is all patched up. So, we may not think about it very deeply all the time, but I maintain that decision-making is fundamentally pleasure-seeking. I know that this seems to spoil the selflessness of a "Christ-centered life," but I think that this is an illusory consequence of language. I think it's extraordinarily important for Christians to remember that the virtue of a Christian life is not in denying one's self the pursuit of happiness, but in serving a purpose beyond the self. Shouldn't that be the thing that Christians are focused on, rather than denying themselves the pursuit of happiness? I also have to point out that I as much as predicted that you would have to "end the sentence with some form of 'it’s just more pleasureful that way.'”:
For what Christianity really teaches, on an ethical level, is that only when you "lose yourself” can you really find yourself. And that’s when the pleasure of leading a good life starts.
Thanks for taking the time to understand an opinion that is very difficult to articulate.QuadFather_{March 18, 2009
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QuadFather: I think we are finally getting to the nub of the matter. You write:
I don't think we can make choices that we do not prefer.
I agree. But I would disagree with the assertion that we neccesarily make a choice because we prefer it. That may sound odd. What I am saying is that sometimes, when we make choices, we do not introspect. I maintain that at least on some occasions, we can make a choice without even attending to how we feel about making it. Later, we may realize that we feel great after having made it - however, that feeling of pleasure was not why we made the choice in the first place. Thus I would disagree with your thesis about choice:
To make a choice, I believe, is pleasure-seeking by definition.
Such an account of choice is too introspective, in my opinion. On the contrary, I would assert that moral goodness in its purest form is unreflective, either because it is natural (in God's case) or because it has become an ingrained habit (in the case of a virtuous human being). The mother who willingly accepts suffering for the sake of her child does not do so because she prefers to do that, but simply because she cannot imagine doing anything else. The habit of putting her child's needs first has become part of her personal identity, as a moral agent. She does not stop to think about her own preferences when she puts her child first; rather, it is "second nature" to her. Likewise, I would wholeheartedly agree with your comment:
There is something about putting others first, about serving a purpose greater than yourself, that is far more fulfilling than seeking one's own material gain.
Very true; but you are unlikely to discover this personal fulfilment if you ask yourself, after every choice you make: "How did that feel? Was it more or less pleasurable than the alternative?" No; the trick is to somehow stop introspecting and forget about your feelings. For what Christianity really teaches, on an ethical level, is that only when you "lose yourself" can you really find yourself. And that's when the pleasure of leading a good life starts.vjtorley_{March 18, 2009
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Seversky
Either your god is a capricious being who conjured these moral prescriptions on a whim or it is a rational being and these morals are the outcome of a process of reason.
The two alternatives you describe do not exhaust all possibilities. Both alternatives assume that morality is something that God constructs - either on a whim or as a result of rational deliberation. There is a third possibility, argued for by C. S. Lewis and defended by Steve Lovell in an article entitled "C. S. Lewis and the Euthyphro Dilemma" at http://www.theism.net/article/29 - namely, that God is essentially good. As Lewis himself put it in "The Poison of Subjectivism" [1943] in Christian Reflections (London: Fount, 1981), pp. 107-8:
When we attempt to think of a person and a law, we are compelled to think of this person either as obeying the law or as making it. And when we think of Him as making it we are compelled to think of Him either as making it in conformity to some yet more ultimate pattern of goodness (in which case that pattern, and not He, would be supreme) or else as making it arbitrarily ... But it is probably just here that our categories betray us. It would be idle, with our merely mortal resources, to attempt a positive correction of our categories... But it might be permissible to lay down two negations: that God neither obeys nor creates the moral law. The good is uncreated; it could never have been otherwise; it has in it no shadow of contingency; it lies, as Plato said, on the other side of existence. [But since only God admits of no contingency, we must say that] God is not merely good, but goodness; goodness is not merely divine, but God. These may seem like fine-spun speculations: yet I believe that nothing short of this can save us. A Christianity which does not see moral and religious experience converging to meet at infinity... has nothing, in the long run, to divide it from devil worship.
Lovell comments:
Lewis seems to be claiming that we must avoid the false dilemma of either putting God above morality or morality above God. In some way, the two must be on the same plane. Lewis' suggestion is that God is goodness or, more precisely, that God is identical with the property of goodness.
Lovell's essay is well worth reading, and I would strongly recommend it. Lovell anticipates objections that could be raised against the "Divine Nature Theory" as he calls it (i.e. the theory that God is essentially good) and (in my opinion) successfully rebuts all of them. The other matter you raised, Seversky, was that if morality is rational, why do we need God to figure it out?
[I]f this god worked out these morals rationally what is to prevent us, as rational creatures, from doing exactly the same thing for ourselves?
Good question. First, God didn't "work out" morals; God is essentially moral. Second, although humans can often work out what's right and what's wrong, our reason is notoriously fallible. God is perfectly intelligent by nature; we are not. You are right to say that we do not need to explicitly assume the existence of God in order to derive a moral code. However, ethics cannot guarantee what ethics presupposes. Ethics presupposes the reliability of human reasoning when treating of speculative questions relating to "right" and "wrong" (as opposed to merely practical issues, such as getting my next meal, where the alternatives are simply "success" and "failure"). What kind of Being could guarantee the reliability of human reasoning when the goal is truth rather than mere success? Only a Being who: (a) made us and (b) is both essentially rational (or more precisely, intelligent) and essentially good. In the absence of such a Being, it would be unwise to place too much trust in our speculative moral reasoning, as it could easily lead us astray. I for one would take it with a very heavy grain of salt, if I were an atheist. Of course, you might well ask why individuals and cultures often disagree about morality, if God is the author of our rational faculties. To answer this question properly, I would have to talk about the Fall of the first human beings, and also about individual human sinfulness, both of which can cloud the intellect. Neither of these things were originally intended by God, although both were foreseen. But that is another story.vjtorley_{March 18, 2009
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mtreat [54], Exactly. Except for the first sentence: Murray described a lifestyle that is "pleasure-seeking". By choosing the option that "seems best all-around", are you not seeking pleasure, and thus validating the worldview as described by Murray? I whole-heartedly agree with everything after that first sentence. I especially appreciate your broad treatment of hedonism. Or perhaps it would be better to say that the concept of hedonism is generally treated very narrowly?QuadFather_{March 18, 2009
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mullerpr [51], It sounds like you get a great deal of joy and elation - and dare we say, pleasure? - from shedding your fallen self. Now I understand what you are saying, truly I do. Studies have shown that the act of giving generates more happiness than receiving. There is something about putting others first, about serving a purpose greater than yourself, that is far more fulfilling than seeking one's own material gain. At the same time, notice how difficult it is to make that point without saying things like "is better", "is more enjoyable", or shoot, "is more fulfilling". It seems that no matter how much we sacrifice our experience, Well darn it, we always end the sentence with some form of "it's just more pleasureful that way." I think it's just that a "choice" is pleasure-seeking by definition. It is a problem of logic and language, not of morals and worldviews. However, the danger for Christians, as this seems to have become our example, is that they risk coming across as the miserable sort who deny all pleasures and blessings that God has given them in the present. And that is something that people like me have come to despise. The joy and elation that you experience via your faith requires maintainence. Without that maintainence, I think miserable self-loathing Christianity is inevitable. I hope that you are more successful in this than many other Christians I know.QuadFather_{March 18, 2009
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Tim [48], I think the difficulty you are having is with the strong association between "pleasure seeking" and selfishness. This is a very difficult thing to articulate, but ... I believe we may be dealing with a definitional conundrum here. On the one hand, we believe it is possible to forfeit one's own pleasure-seeking in lieu of some "greater" purpose. On the other hand, any choice we make is "preferred" by definition; that is, this choice in some way or another is more pleasureable than the competing choice. It's not that I don't think we can put others "first", per se, it's just that I don't think we can make choices that we do not prefer. It's not so much a question of morality, or whatever, as it is a question of logic. Consider the examples used. Altruism is the act of accepting pain for the benefit of another, but it is not the act of making a less pleasurable choice. The one making the altruistic decision has weighed the options and found altruism to be preferable to the alternative. For example, the idea of a suffering child is more painful for the mother than the idea of her own suffering. Thus, she accepts suffering to avoid a suffering child, and the net result is less suffering overall for the mother than in the alternative scenario. So you see, pleasure seeking is not just about material gain, as in hedonism. Consider another example: Why would a Christian seek a Christ-centered life? Because it is preferable. Because the outcome of a Christ-centered life is "better". It is a more "positive" experience overall. In other words, a Christ-centered life is chosen because is results in the greatest net "positive", ie: pleasure. I did not communicate very well before, but I hope now you can see that my argument is much more about logic than about the human condition. To make a choice, I believe, is pleasure-seeking by definition.QuadFather_{March 18, 2009
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Saying a particular world view is "irrational" without substantiating your claim is nothing more than juvenile name calling. Making a point about the fact that God does not have to be seen to be real is a good beginning. But there should be much more than that. I would like to add the fact that claiming to be atheist based on the evidence is a good rational position. That is exactly what Antony Flew did and he proofed himself to be rational when he embraced the evidence to the contrary. If anyone then claims to be an atheist based on the evidence then their claims are as rational as their analysis of that evidence. The way in which anyone approach the modern scientific evidence of cosmology and the origin of life place a profound burden on or rational faculties. There is always the "cop out" available that claims that we have no rational capability in any event. That is fine as long as you can live according to that conviction when you try to execute the golden rule.mullerpr_{March 18, 2009
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On the rock,
Domoman, by your reasoning, a good person who is moral and cares, cannot be an atheist, and is actually lying if they say that they are. Is this what you think?
Actually, I think atheists are theists in denial. They aren't lying so much as not understanding their own irrationality. --------------------------------- Grasshopper: Master, show me God. Master: God is everywhere. Grasshopper: But master, how can I know God if I cannot see him. Maser: See this apple? How does it fall? Grasshopper: Oh, that is so easy, Master. Gravity make the apple fall. Master: Show me gravity, grasshopper. Grasshopper: Master, I just did. When you drop the apple, it always goes down. It never goes up. Thats because of gravity. Master: But where is this gravity, grasshopper. I cannot see it. Why does gravity hide so? Grasshopper: Master, I don't know. Master: Then why do you ask me to show you God. Grasshopper: Master, I'm hungry. Can I eat the apple?Oramus_{March 18, 2009
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Domoman @ 56
So, to sum up: I’m not saying that atheists cannot be moral. I am also not saying that if I lost my faith my morals would go down the drain. I am simply stating this: if atheism is true then nothing matters, so living morally does not matter (although you might be moral to benefit yourself, or simply for the sake of feeling good, if it does indeed, make you feel good). Yes, atheists CAN be moral. But given an atheistic worldview, “morals” do not truly exist because everything equals death, and so nothing truly matters.
...to which the obvious response is: matters to whom? Whether or not a God or Intelligent Designer exists, what we do know - if we know anything - is that we have this life to live now. What matters to me and, I suspect, most other people is that this life should be as long and as personally enjoyable as possible. As an individual human being I recognize that I am weak and vulnerable. I stand a much better chance of enjoying a long and happy life within the shelter of a stable and secure society. That stability and security arise from the willingness of the members of that society to respect the desire of all other members to enjoy a long and happy life and to act accordingly. The principles behind the rules or laws which regulate human behavior in society are what we call morals. In fact, they all arguably reduce to one simple guideline known as the Golden Rule - "do unto others as you would have them do unto you". Whether or not they can be said to have an "objective" existence is more a question of semantics. They have no existence beyond the confines of the subjective human mind. On the other hand, I believe they also exist in the minds of other human beings beyond myself who have an objective existence so you could say that to that extent they exist objectively. Whether or not they have any special warrant if they are prescribed by a god is also questionable. In the first place, unless you can convince us your god exists your claim for divine authority is without merit. In the second place, even if we accept, for the sake of argument, that your god exists, it doesn't help. Either your god is a capricious being who conjured these moral prescriptions on a whim or it is a rational being and these morals are the outcome of a process of reason. In the first case, what makes divine whimsy any better than ours and, in the second case, if this god worked out these morals rationally what is to prevent us, as rational creatures, from doing exactly the same thing for ourselves?Seversky_{March 18, 2009
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"That mentality goes something like this: Human beings are a collection of chemicals that activate and, after a period of time, deactivate" This notion is false and I believe suicide and addiction are evidence that we are more than the sum of our parts. If all there is are chemicals working together, then how can decisions made in the cerebral cortex fly in the face of evidence brought to bear by various parts of the body signaling furiously that those actions authorized by the brain are in fact killing the body? If as proponents of the MES believe, that organisms are geared for survival through competition and other mechanisms, then why do some members of the human species work against themselves? Is it for the greater good of the group? If so, how does damaging or terminating what was originally a fit body (i.e.: --A stock brocker living the high life, making millions, sees the 'success' go up in smoke in a matter of days (think ponze schemes) then suddenly jumps off the 99th floor. --a doctor with multiple degrees, working long hours due to the pressures of the business, starts poppin valium and whatall, can't stop using, sees a successful medical career unravel, and is later found passed out in the vicinity of a homeless shelter ) ..add to the success of the group? Like a host of other real life issues, none of these experiences seem explainable from an evolutionary standpoint. Rather, something acting on the brain, above and beyond the mundane interactions of chemical compounds, seems more plausible in the light of glaring contradictions the observations interpreted from an evolutionary perspective present.Oramus_{March 18, 2009
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Mtreat, I'm not going to debate this with you, as I don't want to, but I am curious as to your reasons in believing that all men will be saved by God through Christ? I'm guessing you referred to verse in Romans somewhere between and/or 5:11-15. Note: I'm not suggesting that nobody will be saved through Christ, I'm just wondering why you think everybody will be. I don't believe that Hell is a place of eternal torment, but rather, eternal annihilation (for info on why I believe this, you could read the chapter found on this website: http://www.biblicalperspectives.com/books/immortality_resurrection/6.htm). But I wouldn't mind universal salvation. :)Domoman_{March 17, 2009
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BTW, I'm not saying the the mentality described by Murray is true, that is, the idea behind the mentality is true. I'm simply saying that that mentality does exist. But as far as whether or not I believe that the idea behind that mentality is true, I would have to say: no, it is not true. I definitely believe life has meaning. So, PaulN, me and you might have actually meant the same thing. I think I was trying to say that the mentality described by Murray does actually exist amongst Europeans. But the mentality itself, that life has no meaning, I would say is false.Domoman_{March 17, 2009
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Hazel,
Domoman, [...] How do you go about determining whether someone’s “purpose” is true or not? If someone say this is what I believe my purpose is, in what way can you say that isn’t? You can say that you don’t think that they have a good purpose, which is a value judgment; or you might say you don’t think they really know what their purpose is, in which case you have a psychological issue about the person’s self awareness. So I still think that Barry’s issue, as stated, is unclear.
Having a purpose requires that: something exists for a reason, and furthermore to cause a certain effect. But if atheism is true, then mankind is an accident and exists for no reason, therefore not existing to cause any specific effect. So, with atheism, no matter what a person may think their purpose is, no purpose truly exists.Domoman_{March 17, 2009
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On The Rock,
Domoman, by your reasoning, a good person who is moral and cares, cannot be an atheist, and is actually lying if they say that they are. Is this what you think? [...] .. or does it mean that if you lost your faith, you think that you’d lose your morals, and act completely differently?
No, absolutely not. Neither of your assumptions follow from what I stated. I am simply saying that if atheism is true, then no true objective morals exist. That does not by any means suggest that an atheist cannot be moral, and I definitely do not mean to say that. For instance, I gather that Bill Gates is an atheist, and he has spent much of his time helping the poor and the sick. So, I don't mean to say that being an atheist makes it so that you cannot lead, what most people would consider, a moral life. I'm just trying to make the point that there is no grounding, or firm foundation for such morals in an atheistic universe. Morals simply do not truly exist if atheism is true, but that does not mean that atheists cannot do what most consider to be moral. Nor am I suggesting that if I lost my faith that all my morals would go down the drain. I certainly consider it a possibility, that if I lost my faith, I would act much different then I do now, as I would see very little reason not to do certain things. Why shouldn't I bother to not do certain things if I can get away with them (such as stealing)? It might make sense, from an atheistic perspective, to not do certain things for my own benefit. I might even do things that do not benefit me. But I do not have any real reason not to steal etc. if I can get away with it. Nor do I really have any reason to respect others and be unnecessarily kind to them if I do not wish to. Nothing matters anyway. But, in the chance that I lost my faith, I may be kind to others simply because it makes me feel good. So, to sum up: I'm not saying that atheists cannot be moral. I am also not saying that if I lost my faith my morals would go down the drain. I am simply stating this: if atheism is true then nothing matters, so living morally does not matter (although you might be moral to benefit yourself, or simply for the sake of feeling good, if it does indeed, make you feel good). Yes, atheists CAN be moral. But given an atheistic worldview, "morals" do not truly exist because everything equals death, and so nothing truly matters.Domoman_{March 17, 2009
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That's a nice post, mtreat.hazel_{March 17, 2009
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The mentality Murray describes is false, because...when faced with a choice between living life as though it has no purpose versus a life that has purpose, it seems best all around to do the former. Clearly, it cannot be objectively or empirically proven that life has purpose; I can only suggest that we as individuals and society as a whole benefit from living as though it does. Even that conclusion is admittedly debatable. Some will say that more harm than good has been done by those that live life with purpose. I will admit that the committed fanatic (with a purpose) sometimes commits horrific acts out of some combination of misguided sincerity, ignorance, and evil intentions. However, it is also clear that much good is left *undone* by those that have chosen to live life without purpose (not to say that those that live without purpose never contribute to the welfare of others). How do you measure the pluses and minuses of one versus the other? It simply can't be quantified. Therefore, my position is more opinion than fact and I would never force my position on others. Hedonism, as originally formulated, stipulates that which increases the sum of pleasure as "right" and that which increases the sum of pain as "wrong." Pleasure, as originally defined by hedonism, is not limited to the sexual but also includes the mental, domestic, cultural, familial, musical, and artistic – not to mention the base senses of touch, smell, taste, etc. Increasing the sum of pleasure also includes finding pleasure in bringing others pleasure. Logically, this *requires* that we allow others to please us (if we don't allow others to please us, we deny them the pleasure found in pleasing others). Ironically, it is possible to be so “unselfish” that you are in fact selfish. Jesus allowed His feet to be washed. It was a giving act on His part for it brought pleasure to the foot washer. The foot washer gave selflessly and Jesus gave by receiving the act selflessly. I say live life as though it has purpose and let that purpose be to increase the sum of pleasure and decrease the sum of pain. I am, by faith, a Christian that believes that all have been saved by the selfless act of the cross. Just as all were in Adam irrespective of individual choices, all are now in Christ irrespective of individual choices (what I call Christian Universalism). From that perspective, I am free to love and accept others as they are while living my life in a way meant to increase the sum of pleasure and decrease the sum of pain.mtreat_{March 17, 2009
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First thank you, this is a wonderful question. “a life well-lived” did not have meaning for them. “The mentality Murray describes is true because . . .” People make all sorts of wild boastful comments like these guys, because they are using clouded judgments. They are not being rational. They are wildly disillusioned. Put one of these kids on an island by themselves with their show toys and then wait. Would their attitudes not change? Or have their friends die because of their careless driving behavior in the BMW. Let me state further (for those that are disillusioned like these guys), the primary purpose of life is found in the relationship. I would even go so far as to say "the relationship is the final cause“ (sorry Aristotle but you should have taken the argument to the natural conclusion). The purpose we make a "chalice" or jump onto a land mine to save our buddy, is because of the relationship. Whether we deny it or not life has purpose. Whether we see the blessings nor acknowledge our greed for popularity. The reality still remains “a life well-lived” does have meaning for everyone.Tim AJ_{March 17, 2009
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Arthur Smith "Ah! Have you deleted any other comments, Clive?" Lets not go off on rabbit trails.Clive Hayden_{March 17, 2009
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QuadFather, In general "forgetting about oneself" is the term for shedding the "fallen self" that has no chance of happiness. I am not sure that you might even want to understand it if there is no concept of mankind being in a fallen state and in need of redemption. (I can tell you practically how wonderful it feels to experience complete righteousness from the only true Judge... All experiences are wonderful without even trying... it just is!) An alternative is self righteousness which is a powerful and reassuring feeling. There are a lot of people trying to rationalize this feeling as having substance within a specific world view that is carefully designed to foster self righteousness. This makes me understand why so many people fight so hard to maintain this religious stance under the guise of science. But from personal experience and the experience of millions of witnesses over the ages, I can assure you that "forgetting our own attempts to achieve righteousness" and accepting Christ's redemption is truly "a well-lived life". (The nice thing is that it comports with reality and pure rational analysis of all the data.)mullerpr_{March 17, 2009
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Frank H, "Which higher law are they talking about? If one says a law passed down from some deity, I most strenuously disagree. As humans are by our evolved nature, social animals, we have instincts that show those groups that stick together, help each other and take steps to address wrongs that others do live better and are more successful. No gods are needed." Either the preservation of society, as your first principle of morality, which just has to be accepted without argument, as a premise, and not as a conclusion, in which case it is just "right" to do it, and not just right because you or any group affirms it, for no one would have any "duty"--which is not the first principle by your scheme--to accept another's first principle, and by this it would be a relative thing, invented by man; or it is an Instinct, one that we "ought" to obey. If it is the first principle of morality that just "ought" to be obeyed because man says so, (then it is not a real and objective moral principle outside of partisan preference), in the teeth of other and contrary principles of morality, then it is a relative thing between men, and has no basis for being accepted when in contradiction to other moral principles. And we cannot set up any one principle to always be followed in every circumstance, for if we do we will be shirking other moral principles. And if we say that it is based on some instinct, C.S. Lewis refutes that argument in The Abolition of Man: "This he will probably feel that he has found in Instinct. The preservation of society, and of the species itself, are ends that do not hang on the precarious thread of Reason: they are given by Instinct. That is why there is no need to argue against the man who does not acknowledge them. We have an instinctive urge to preserve our own species. That is why men ought to work for posterity....In reality we have not advanced one step. I will not insist on the point that Instinct is a name for we know not what (to say that migratory birds find their way by instinct is only to say that we do not know how migratory birds find their way), for I think it is here being used in a fairly definite sense, to mean an unreflective or spontaneous impulse widely felt by the members of a given species. In what way does Instinct, thus conceived, help us to find 'real' values? Is it maintained that we must obey Instinct, that we cannot do otherwise?...Why this stream of exhortation to drive us where we cannot help going? Why such praise for those who have submitted to the inevitable? Or is it maintained that if we do obey Instinct we shall be happy and satisfied?...It looks very much as if the Innovator would have to say not that we must obey Instinct, nor that it will satisfy us to do so, but that we ought to obey it. But why ought we to obey Instinct? Is there another instinct of a higher order directing us to do so, and a third of a still higher order directing us to obey it?—an infinite regress of instincts? This is presumably impossible, but nothing else will serve. From the statement about psychological fact 'I have an impulse to do so and so' we cannot by any ingenuity derive the practical principle 'I ought to obey this impulse'. Even if it were true that men had a spontaneous, unreflective impulse to sacrifice their own lives for the preservation of their fellows, it remains a quite separate question whether this is an impulse they should control or one they should indulge. For even the Innovator admits that many impulses (those which conflict with the preservation of the species) have to be controlled. And this admission surely introduces us to a yet more fundamental difficulty. Telling us to obey Instinct is like telling us to obey 'people'. People say different things: so do instincts. Our instincts are at war. If it is held that the instinct for preserving the species should always be obeyed at the expense of other instincts, whence do we derive this rule of precedence? To listen to that instinct speaking in its own cause and deciding it in its own favour would be rather simple-minded. Each instinct, if you listen to it, will claim to be gratified at the expense of all the rest. By the very act of listening to one rather than to others we have already prejudged the case. If we did not bring to the examination of our instincts a knowledge of their comparative dignity we could never learn it from them. And that knowledge cannot itself be instinctive: the judge cannot be one of the parties judged; or, if he is, the decision is worthless and there is no ground for placing the preservation of the species above self-preservation or sexual appetite. The idea that, without appealing to any court higher than the instincts themselves, we can yet find grounds for preferring one instinct above its fellows dies very hard. We grasp at useless words: we call it the 'basic', or 'fundamental', or 'primal', or 'deepest' instinct. It is of no avail. Either these words conceal a value judgement passed upon the instinct and therefore not derivable from it, or else they merely record its felt intensity, the frequency of its operation and its wide distribution. If the former, the whole attempt to base value upon instinct has been abandoned: if the latter, these observations about the quantitative aspects of a psychological event lead to no practical conclusion. It is the old dilemma. Either the premisses already concealed an imperative or the conclusion remains merely in the indicative. Finally, it is worth inquiry whether there is any instinct to care for posterity or preserve the species. I do not discover it in myself: and yet I am a man rather prone to think of remote futurity—a man who can read Mr Olaf Stapledon with delight. Much less do I find it easy to believe that the majority of people who have sat opposite me in buses or stood with me in queues feel an unreflective impulse to do anything at all about the species, or posterity. Only people educated in a particular way have ever had the idea 'posterity' before their minds at all. It is difficult to assign to instinct our attitude towards an object which exists only for reflective men. What we have by nature is an impulse to preserve our own children and grandchildren; an impulse which grows progressively feebler as the imagination looks forward and finally dies out in the 'deserts of vast futurity'. No parents who were guided by this instinct would dream for a moment of setting up the claims of their hypothetical descendants against those of the baby actually crowing and kicking in the room...The truth finally becomes apparent that neither in any operation with factual propositions nor in any appeal to instinct can the Innovator find the basis for a system of values. None of the principles he requires are to be found there: but they are all to be found somewhere else." http://www.columbia.edu/cu/augustine/arch/lewis/abolition2.htmClive Hayden_{March 17, 2009
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Barry didn’t delete your comment, I did.
Ah! Have you deleted any other comments, Clive?Arthur Smith_{March 17, 2009
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THEOLOGY TANGENT ALERT: Quadfather, the context was one of hedonism. You wrote that our goal is the enjoyment of God's creation as man's (ultimate) goal. (my inference). That is why I reminded you of the shorter catechism. I was just saying that a Christian worldview does NOT put enjoyment of God's creation first; that is why I said your views were heterodox. QF, it is not a matter of dividing up behaviors according to some predesignated list. An afternoon at the beach can be like heaven or hell. My immediate (typical?) response to the twenty-something's comments was that I assumed that their behaviors were not part of the abundant life that Jesus would have for us. They (almost) claim that much themselves. QF, please don't take this as a personal attack, but when you write about theists (by which I take you to mean Christians, at least in part), either you are writing without enough precision or rigor, or you don't actually know what distinguishes a Christian worldview from "being nice". I have quoted you extensively below, not exactly quote-mining as quote-strip-mining. In each statement, you display a misunderstanding of orthodox Christianity. “Altruism is practiced for the sake of some psychological comfort.” I disagree. For the disciple, altruism is practiced in obedience to God. “Some theists to forgo present happiness, but only because they are confident in an enjoyable spiritual future.” I can think of no right-thinking theist who would say that. You get a little wiggle room using happiness, but not enough. The apostle Paul would have a field day with it. “So whether you are a materialist or a non-materialist, it all comes down to enjoying your life (and/or afterlife).” No. For a Christian, it certainly does not come down to enjoying your life. Enjoying life is an outcome of a Christ-centered life, but not the central goal. “You see, there is absolutely nothing evil about wanting to have a pleasant life. The problem is when one individual is disregarded.” Perhaps you could have gotten away with, “there is nothing absolutely evil about wanting to have a pleasant life,” but not that’s not what you wrote. The problem is that there is some evil in wanting a pleasant life; it does not lie in “when one individual is disregarded,” but when God is disregarded. “But to seek a pleasant life … Is this not what we all do, atheists and theists alike?” I think it is impossible that theist and atheists are alike in this. Consider what Christ followers are to do first, “Seek first the kingdom . . .” and in that seeking here on earth we “will know trouble.” “And if you ask me, these europeans sound a lot more happy and satisfied with life than religious folk who always seem to be waiting for something.” Religious folk? Christianity is not a religion; it is a revelation. “Better to be an atheist living his life than to be a theist and missing it. That’s what I say, anyways.” You have been entitled to your opinion, perhaps that entitlement has not been helpful to you. That is for you to consider. Sorry about the tangent, people, but I did follow the initial instructions.Tim_{March 17, 2009
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MimsChristian, Barry didn't delete your comment, I did.Clive Hayden_{March 17, 2009
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vjtorley [43], So, the beauty of theism is that we can forget about ourselves, which results in a greater capacity to enjoy ourselves, and that is why it's nice to be a theist. This seems like a strange point to make when arguing that theists do not bother trying to live life as pleasantly as possible. I think there is a fundamental contradiction here.QuadFather_{March 17, 2009
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Tim [39], I think you have made a jump by concluding that a pleasure-seeking life comes from "a narrow focus of what the human experience could be all about." What things, in your judgment, lie in the peripheral? Quality time with family? A deep romantic relationship? Giving to charity? Did I miss anything? All of these things can be accomodated by a pleasure-seeking life - in fact, if you seek this things, are you not pleasure-seeking in some sense or another? I do acknowledge that the described pleasures may betray a narrow view of the human experience. But this mentality is described as a life conducted as pleasantly as possible, and that does not necessitate a narrow view of life or the evils associated with "pleasure-seeking". Therefore, I cannot say that the described mentality is false or harmful, particularly when I see no evidence that anybody conducts their lives any other way.QuadFather_{March 17, 2009
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