Comments (68)

• Tim Kern

  Perception, we should note, is not reality. Reality is reality.

  The closer one's perception aligns with reality, the more sane is that person.

  The more realities the person grasps, the more-knowledgable is that person.

  The more that reality guides the person's actions, and the wider the scope of those realities, the more wise is that person.

  Yeah, I made that up. Quote me, if you like.

  Published: July 11, 2008 10:09 AM

• Tim Kern

  Perception, we should note, is not reality. Reality is reality.

  The closer one's perception aligns with reality, the more sane is that person.

  The more realities the person grasps, the more-knowledgeable is that person.

  The more that reality guides the person's actions, and the wider the scope of those realities, the more wise is that person.

  Yeah, I made that up. Quote me, if you like.

  Published: July 11, 2008 10:09 AM

• Larry N. Martin

  Yeah, I made that up. Quote me, if you like
  
  Sounds worth quoting to me:

  "Perception, we should note, is not reality. Reality is reality.

  The closer one's perception aligns with reality, the more sane is that person.

  The more realities the person grasps, the more knowledgeable is that person.

  The more that reality guides the person's actions, and the wider the scope of those realities, the more wise is that person."

  Published: July 11, 2008 10:43 AM

• fundamentalist

  Tim: "The more that reality guides the person's actions, and the wider the scope of those realities, the more wise is that person."

  That's very true. But which version of reality is the most accurate? That's where the discussion gets interesting.

  Published: July 11, 2008 11:13 AM

• jaqphule

  
  Of course, to a solipsist, reality is whatever you perceive.

  Or rather, what *I* perceive. You are all figments of my 100% sane imagination.

  
  What were we talking about again? Ethical relativism? I think the discussion has moved far afield from the topic at hand.

  One point on the article, since no one else seems to be addressing it directly: Magic frequently works as a medical cure, because of the placebo/nocebo effect. You can study this effect scientifically, but you can't administer a "magical" cure if either the doctor or the patient believes it's a placebo. It works because it's "magic"; whether something works or not has nothing to do with the methodology by which you study it.

  Seen any doctored physicists playing pro football lately?

  
  

  Published: July 11, 2008 12:02 PM

• fundamentalist

  I think Rothbard is completely wrong about Mises. Mises wasn't a moral relativist. He simply thought that questions of morality didn't belong in an economics discussion. And Mises was right about irrationality. Rothbard tries to make a distinction between magic and penicillin and calls magic irrational. But based on what Mises wrote, the only distinction that can be made is one of knowledge: people knew more about medicine when penicillin was discovered than they knew in the days of magic.

  Rothbard clearly displays his real motive for attacking Mises on the subject of rationality and ethics: Rothbard wants to drag ethics into economics and Mises wouldn't let him. It could be that Mises understood the history of the debate over ethics better than Rothbard and knew that ethics requires religion and Mises didn't want to get into that debate. Rothbard, on the other hand, ventured where most great philosophers had failed and tried to invent ethics without religion. Does he solve the problems that had cast the greatest philosophers in history into despair? No. He simply ignores them and proceeds as if they don't even need to be addressed. Mises showed the greater wisdom.

  Published: July 11, 2008 1:02 PM

• Michael A. Clem

  It could be that Mises...knew that ethics requires religion and Mises didn't want to get into that debate.
  
  Oh, no! I'm not getting into that debate again--at least not this soon. ;-)

  Published: July 11, 2008 1:16 PM

• Joe Stoutenburg

  I have to go with Ayn Rand on this though I think that I may deviate from how she would apply her principles.

  First, existence exists. A is A. There is reality. Even if the metaphysical acrobats are right, there is some fact to nature. Reality changes every instant? If so, that is a reality. Reality is different for every person. Okay, but if so that fact is also itself a part of reality. Only I exist and all of the rest of you are my imaginations? Well... you get the drift.

  Second, each of us assigns a value to what we perceive. It is by these values (subjective - whether arrived at emotionally or by intellectual reasoning - whether deemed to come from absolute ethics from a belief in no ethical absolutes) that we interact with the world. As we act upon our values, reality exposes itself (though our perception of its exposure is itself a subjective reality). It may be said that those who correctly value reality will tend to achieve their chosen goals.

  To these two basic Objectivist axioms, I add a third. No one may ever with certainty correctly perceive all of reality. I propose that this is true both because of the complexity of nature and by its ever changing. In the first place, nature may be infinitely complex - within the realm of physics, having discovered a new "elementary particle", one may question of what it's composed. Secondly, nature is dynamic. Even within realms of which we think we have significant knowledge, nature is so chaotic as to defy complete understanding. And if we are honest, we can not with certainty deny that nature could fundamentally change during the next instant.

  All of this has been to sharply criticize both of Rothbard's notions. I might also argue against Mises for his denial of the term "irrational". To be honest, I think that a debate on this point could quickly become semantic. Within the definitions that I attach to the words, we ought to consider degrees of rationality. Furthermore, I suggest that rationality is both temporal and relative to the values of any individual. It is temporal in that an individual may decide a posteriori that an action was irrational. From an individual's point of view, prior to action I do agree with Mises. That individual is acting as rational as he could. Otherwise, he would have acted differently. From the perspective (and values) of another individual, an act may appear irrational. Who is rational, and who is irrational? Let's wait and see. In any case, whatever happens will we really be confident that we can accurately explained what happened?

  The second notion was the idea of absolute ethics. While such absolutist arguments do not initiate violence, I do see them as attempts at coercion. A person attempting to impose his ethics upon another by absolutist argument is intellectually battering the target into accepting a new ethic by appeal to authority (whose authority?). In my opinion (according to my subjective value), this is intellectually lazy and as prone to abuse and unintended consequence as overt acts of aggression.

  In any case, wishing for ethical absolutes will not make them so. Neither will our will impel the rest of the world to adopt our ethics. So how do we proceed?

  I suggest that we act by reasoned appeals to self-interest. When we can not so succeed, we must act within our own values to resolve conflict. I, and I alone, judge that it would be wrong to steal the property of my neighbor who refuses to sell it at a price that I like. However, to deal with the person enjoys tortue for its own sake my preference would be to show him the point of a gun. We can have discussions about what subjective value we would assign to various actions and how they might promote our self-interest. But were I to badger someone by appeals to an absolutist authority, I could only succeed with a weak-willed person.

  Published: July 11, 2008 1:19 PM

• Michael A. Clem

  No one may ever with certainty correctly perceive all of reality.Secondly, nature is dynamic. Even within realms of which we think we have significant knowledge, nature is so chaotic as to defy complete understanding.
  
  This seems very reasonable. I think certainty is only possible within a defined context. Analytic statements, which are true by definition, are absolutely true because they are in a very narrowly defined context. But even synthetic statements can be considered true within the proper context.
  I don't see why ethics/morality cannot also be absolute within a context.
  

  Published: July 11, 2008 1:45 PM

• Joe Stoutenburg

  I don't see why ethics/morality cannot also be absolute within a context.

  But aren't ethics supposed to provide the context themselves? To propose absolute ethics appears to be the same as proposing an absolute context.

  I dunno. I won't follow that debate too far. It feels like it could become semantic to me. What is more important is to consider how advocates of liberty ought (yes, I am suggesting my own value judgement) to interact with others to convince them to adopt liberty philosophies.

  Published: July 11, 2008 2:29 PM

• David C

  In this extract:
  For irrationality or rationality of ends involve an ethical judgment, ...... To Mises, there is no such a thing as absolute ethics; man, by the use of his mind, cannot discover a true, "scientific" ethics by insight into what is best for man's nature. Ultimate ends, values, ethics, are simply subjective, personal, and purely arbitrary. If they are arbitrary, Mises never explains where they come from: how any individual arrives at them. I can't see how he could arrive at any answer except the subjective, relative emotions of each individual.'

  
  ...Rothbard raises an interesting point, and a prescient one. In Mises's day, we really had no scientific clue about what drove these, um, (to use a Keynesian phrase accurately for once), 'animal spirits'.

  Behavioural economics has done much in recent times to dig into this question. And even if it lies in a domain beyond the praxological framework, it helps to explain the pernicious state of mind that makes socialists so wilfully blind to the fallacies of their doctrine - that is, if the outcomes of the various iterations of the Ultimatum games are any indication.
  I
  

  Published: July 11, 2008 3:01 PM

• fundamentalist

  Joe: "In any case, wishing for ethical absolutes will not make them so. Neither will our will impel the rest of the world to adopt our ethics. So how do we proceed?"

  Have you read any of the ethical reasoning by the old natural law theorists? I think they did the best job of reasoning about ethics of anyone. There's a small book that contains the gist of their reasoning called "Natural Law and the Theory of Property: Grotius to Hume" by Stephen Buckle. It' really quite good. Rothbard claimed to follow in their tradition, but he added the strange twist of making property an absolute, which none of his predecessors would have considered.

  One of the problems with ethical theory is enforcement. For example, if someone in society murders another person, then what right does the rest of society have to punish the murderer? Of course, the term "murder" is loaded with ethical meaning. If no man has moral authority over other men, then all that society has the right to do is to exclude the offender from their group. They have no right to imprison let alone execute him.

  As for a strategy for advancing liberty, I would argue against dragging ethics into it. Socialists have their own ethical system which they think is superior and you'll lose every time. Based on socialist ethics, Cuba is paradise (minus the 70 black-eyed virgins) and the US is hell. Socialists worship at the altar of economic equality. Nothing else matters to them. They would destroy the entire world and murder millions of people (as they did during the 20th century) to honor their god "Equality."

  When discussing econ with less devout socialists, I focus on alleviating poverty. Nothing in history has rescued more people from poverty than capitalism, and nothing committed more people to poverty than socialism.

  Published: July 11, 2008 3:13 PM

• gene berman

  Rothbard's dead wrong on this--in effect placing himself among those claiming access to a higher truth, though these varied from thinker to thinker. Mises was merely more modest (and more accurate) in realizing that there was no way to get an answer to the question that wouldn't fit the "metaphysical" definition.

  Count me among those not so fond of Rothbard. My knowledge of his writing is very limited. But I do have some general impressions. First, that he's an inspired and inspiring writer--among the best of the type. But he was also dissatisfied that what Mises taught didn't have final answers--even stated that these are likely beyond the capacity of the minds of men. Rothbard wanted those answers--and furnished them in his own writings. They may be more satisfactory as intellectual arguments shoring up particular political movements or the solidarity of like-minded groups of individuals. Those are not elements of economic knowledge, however, and contribute nothing to the advancement of such knowledge.

  Published: July 11, 2008 3:40 PM

• Joe Stoutenburg

  fundamentalist: If no man has moral authority over other men, then all that society has the right to do is to exclude the offender from their group. They have no right to imprison let alone execute him.

  That's a strange way to argue someone who doesn't buy absolutist ethics. To say that "no man has moral authority over other men" is itself an absolute ethic.

  Within my relativistic paradigm, people with like values may subjectively decide what they term right or wrong and what to do to people who violate the standards that emanate from that set of standards.

  Published: July 11, 2008 3:40 PM

• Joe Stoutenburg

  fundamentalist: If no man has moral authority over other men, then all that society has the right to do is to exclude the offender from their group. They have no right to imprison let alone execute him.

  That's a strange way to argue someone who doesn't buy absolutist ethics. To say that "no man has moral authority over other men" is itself an absolute ethic.

  Within my relativistic paradigm, people with like values may subjectively decide what they term right or wrong and what to do to people who violate the standards that emanate from that set of standards.

  Published: July 11, 2008 3:43 PM

• Joe Stoutenburg

  Sorry about the double post. I didn't think it went through the first time.

  Published: July 11, 2008 3:46 PM

• fundamentalist

  Joe: "Within my relativistic paradigm, people with like values may subjectively decide what they term right or wrong and what to do to people who violate the standards that emanate from that set of standards."

  I don't doubt that people make up their own ethics and decide how to handle those who violate them. I see it all around me. I'm just saying that those of like values who fabricate a set of ethics have no right to enforce them against violators because the violator my hold to a different ethical standard. By doing anything more than exiling the violator, the others are forcing their ethical standard upon another. Human fabricated ethics can never me anything more than a housing covenant.
  

  Published: July 11, 2008 4:11 PM

• Michael Hamlin

  I agree with fundamentalist concerning Rothbard's critique of Mises' use of the word, 'irrational'. Mises' use of 'irrational' is not misleading, it is, in fact, accurate.

  It may be true that medieval man was irrational in believing that magic would cure disease, or accomplish whatever task was his goal. However, as Mises points out, this is irrelevant. Praxeology fully accounts for the subjective nature of valuation. Even if a man's valuations are irrational his actions are not.

  Published: July 11, 2008 4:16 PM

• Telpeurion

  Mises was right, ethics are completely relative. The whole 'natural law' argument ultimately ends with "because God said so". Enough of this nonsense, if we want to talk about reality than we should REALIZE that the universe doesn't care whatsoever if you steal, cheat, lie, murder, rape, pillage, etc.

  I never argue the case for liberalism based on morality, I contend, as Mises did, that the liberal goal is the greatest material well-being to the greatest number; it is a purely materialistic movement.

  See Liberalism by Ludwig von Mises.

  Published: July 11, 2008 6:01 PM

• fundamentalist

  I don't think that Rothbard demonstrated that Mises was a moral relativist at all. I found nothing in Gusmann's biography of him that would suggest he was. If someone knows something I don't I would love to look at it. Mises simply did not want to contaminate economics with moral issues. And he insisted many times that economics was not just materialistic. He refused to separate materialistic and non-materialistic goals. If someone wants to give to charity, they must have something to give, unless they are socialists and prefer to give other people's money. Capitalism shows people how to get the material goods to support their non-material goals.

  Published: July 12, 2008 8:06 AM

• Michael A. Clem

  if we want to talk about reality than we should REALIZE that the universe doesn't care whatsoever if you steal, cheat, lie, murder, rape, pillage, etc.
  
  But here's the point to natural law: humans are part of nature, too. The universe may not care what you do, but other people do. And even the universe cares to some degree: no human can consume what has not been produced. Now whether you consume what you, yourself produced, you buy it from the producer, or you steal it, is a matter of concern for humans, and clearly affects human relations. And it is there that natural law applies.

  Published: July 12, 2008 8:12 AM

• Inquisitor

  Telpeurion, it'd help if you even knew what natural law ethics consisted in. So far, the nonsense is all yours (appeals to god? this is your imagination). Please read a book on it before dismissing it so stridently. The funny thing is, your utilitarian principle is itself an absolute ethic. Why utilitarians think otherwise is beyond me. They must be deluded beyond reason to think it isn't.

  Subjectivists should take a course on metaethics. It isn't so simple as "absolutist" vs relativist ethics. There's a lot more to it than this, and subjectivists will be alarmed when they see just how few of their premises can survive rational scrutiny, or at least retain their supposed "self-evidence". I have yet to see a NR ethicist arguing our knowledge is infallible. Strawman. Avoid such nonsense. Fundamentalist, thanks for asserting without proof that ethics requires religion. Pfft.

  Published: July 12, 2008 7:09 PM

• fundamentalist

  Inquisitor: "Fundamentalist, thanks for asserting without proof that ethics requires religion. Pfft."

  We just recently had a very long discussion on that and I didn't think people wanted to revisit it. But here's a short version:

  No man, or group of men, have moral authority over any other man. So no morality invented by men has any authority over anyone who doesn't agree to abide by it. Therefore no man has the right to force his opinion of morality on others. This means that no one has the right to enforce their morality through imprisonment, confiscation of property, or any other form of punishment. Like a housing covenant, all that a group has the right to do to a violator of their fabricated morality is exile that person from the group.

  Telpeurion understands that, as did most of the great philosophers of history. Modern ethical philosophers don't understand that. Have they resolved the problem? No. They simply ignore it and proceed as if there were no problem. What does modern ethical thinking consists of? Mostly it defines terms, but if it tries to establish ethics, it does so mostly by sticking a finger in the wind and trying to determine what most people believe is right.

  Published: July 13, 2008 8:14 AM

• EnEm

  This sentence in the article does not seem right.
  "This something else may be different things, and so there can be many kinds of relativist;". I think if you analyze the sentence prior to it then the word 'relativist' should be replaced with 'truths'.

  One other thing: There is only one Reality. To explain this more philosophically in a modern frame of reference, Reality is the Operating System; our lives are the programs running under its control.

  There can be instances of Reality just as there are instances of different data under a single data-element.

  Fundamentalist: Yor statement: "What does modern ethical thinking consists of? Mostly it defines terms, but if it tries to establish ethics, it does so mostly by sticking a finger in the wind and trying to determine what most people believe is right".

  My question to you is: Do you agree with what modern ethical thinking consists of? You didn't tell us that.

  I for one do not accept the claim that right and wrong are a matter of numbers. A million people may claim something to be right or wrong just because there are a million of them. A thing is right or wrong because I see it in Reason to be right or wrong. Reason is the tool and Logic is the methodology. That, on the other hand, does not necessarily make me infallible.

  Published: July 13, 2008 10:28 AM

• Michael A. Clem

  No man, or group of men, have moral authority over any other man...no one has the right to enforce their morality through imprisonment, confiscation of property, or any other form of punishment.
  
  So let's try a different angle and see if it meets with your approval. If no man has moral authority over any other man, then clearly no man has the right to initiate force or fraud over another man, i.e. basic libertarian ethics. One is morally justified in using force for self-defense against initiations of force or fraud. Secondly, retaliatory force for the purpose of restitution, is also justified. If a person didn't have the right to take my property from me, then it is clearly justified to seek restitution from the thief. This is not forcing a morality on another person, but a reaction to the other person forcing their morality on the victim. The purpose of a public trial in that case is not so much to get approval for retaliatory action, but simply to create public awareness that such actions will take place, and thus avoid confusion in the legal enforcement area (that is, someone mistakenly defending the criminal from retaliation).
  
  One subtle form of libertarianism does, in fact, hold that punishment above and beyond restitution is never justified, and would seem to fit your criteria for "no moral authority".

  Published: July 13, 2008 10:47 AM

• TLWP Sam

  What the hell crap was that Fundamentalist? People should use pussy pacifists and use 'exile' as some sort of punishment? Natural rights = nonsense on stilts. Rights are only defined by your ability to defend your preferred definition of what you think your rights are. It's akin to asking 'should women have the right not to be raped as men should respect the individual right of a woman regardless of her marital status?'. The modern misty-eyed response should be 'yes' however no such right was recognised in the West until the last one hundred or so years. Talking of how you have the right not to be robbed is cute in the discussion room but meaningless if you find yourself in an alleyway with a gun or knife at your throat with someone who's not in mood for quaint moral philosophy discussion. You only have rights if you can defend yourself or get others do to so when those who would deprive you begin their attack. Similarly it's kind of funny to hear those who protest 'I don't have to taxes you know' but dutifully does so because they're not about to enforce their perceived right outside their comfort zone.

  Published: July 13, 2008 10:54 AM

• Michael A. Clem

  Come on, Sam. Surely you know enough by now to realize you're not talking about normative rights, but simply about the enforcement of rights. To say that someone only has the rights that are defended is to essentially say that might makes right. After all, if you think some particular right should be defended but it currently isn't, how do you persuade other people to defend it? What argument do you use?

  Published: July 13, 2008 11:01 AM

• fundamentalist

  EnEm: "Do you agree with what modern ethical thinking consists of?"

  I agree with a lot of the conclusions that they reach. After all, nothing but socialism is 100% wrong all of the time. I'm a fundamentalist Christian, but a lot of the ethics arrived at through the reasoning in the field of ethics are similar.

  Michael: "If no man has moral authority over any other man, then clearly no man has the right to initiate force or fraud over another man..."

  The problem is that the second part doesn't follow from the first. If no man has moral authority over another, then every man is free to invent his own morality and there are no moral absolutes. Therefore there are no rights of any kind, to anything. Initiating force against another, for whatever reason, is good or bad only in the eye of the beholder. As Camus used to say, you can help the old lady across the street, or you can throw her under the bus; it doesn't matter.

  TLWP: "Natural rights = nonsense on stilts."

  I hope you understand that I wasn't giving the natural rights position. I was giving the position of man without a god to provide to provide the necessary authority for ethics.

  TLWP: "Rights are only defined by your ability to defend your preferred definition of what you think your rights are."

  Without God, you're exactly right. And that's why history has been so bloody, especially the 20th century.

  That doesn't mean that people won't band together and create rights and laws to enforce them. That's human nature and it's necessary for civilization. But it highlights the hypocrasy of mankind that says on the one hand, there is no god, but on the other hand insists on establishing morality and rights.

  The old natural rights theorists (Grotius to Hume) would say look, morals require God and man can't live without morals. That fact of human nature implies (but it doesn't prove) that God exists and that he has provided morality for humanity. And God has given us the ability to reason so that we can discover some of these moral principles. Therefore, if that reasoning is true, then we have the authority to enforce that morality. From there they deduced the right to life and property and issued in the era of greatest freedom the world had ever known. It's no coincidence that natural law, supported by Christianity, gave us the Dutch Republic, England and the US, while atheistic rationality gave us the French revolution, the USSR, NAZI Germany and the People's Republic of China.

  Published: July 13, 2008 4:50 PM

• Peter

  No man, or group of men, have moral authority over any other man. So no morality invented by men has any authority over anyone who doesn't agree to abide by it.

  The fact that 1+1=2 is not "invented by men", men merely discovered it. Same with (valid) ethics/morality. 1+1=2 doesn't rely on the existence of any god for its validity. Same with ethics/morality.

  Published: July 13, 2008 9:56 PM

• Brainpolice

  I've already been through this "ethics cannot exist without god" nonsense with fundamentalist already, and to be brief I consider such a line of thought to belong to the dark ages. What it translates to is a false dichotomy between divine command theory and nihilism. Of course, as I argued over and over to fundamentalist, the idea that belief in a deity or the existance of a deity is necessary for people to discover or apply ethical principles flies in the face of common sense.

  As for the original article, I agree with Rothbard that Mises comes off as an ethical relativist. While such a method is proper when one is confined to economics, I think that Mises seemed to take it to the next step and shy away from talking seriously about ethics altogether, and think that this weakens the case for liberty.

  Published: July 14, 2008 8:44 AM

• Brainpolice

  I've already been through this "ethics cannot exist without god" nonsense with fundamentalist already, and to be brief I consider such a line of thought to belong to the dark ages. What it translates to is a false dichotomy between divine command theory and nihilism. Of course, as I argued over and over to fundamentalist, the idea that belief in a deity or the existance of a deity is necessary for people to discover or apply ethical principles flies in the face of common sense.

  As for the original article, I agree with Rothbard that Mises comes off as an ethical relativist. While such a method is proper when one is confined to economics, I think that Mises seemed to take it to the next step and shy away from talking seriously about ethics altogether, and think that this weakens the case for liberty.

  Published: July 14, 2008 8:45 AM

• Brainpolice

  I've already been through this "ethics cannot exist without god" nonsense with fundamentalist already, and to be brief I consider such a line of thought to belong to the dark ages. What it translates to is a false dichotomy between divine command theory and nihilism. Of course, as I argued over and over to fundamentalist, the idea that belief in a deity or the existance of a deity is necessary for people to discover or apply ethical principles flies in the face of common sense.

  As for the original article, I agree with Rothbard that Mises comes off as an ethical relativist. While such a method is proper when one is confined to economics, I think that Mises seemed to take it to the next step and shy away from talking seriously about ethics altogether, and think that this weakens the case for liberty.

  Published: July 14, 2008 8:45 AM

• fundamentalist

  Peter: "1+1=2 doesn't rely on the existence of any god for its validity. Same with ethics/morality."

  As Mises pointed out, the methods of natural science don't apply to human action. That's why Mises called for epistemological dualism. The "laws" that govern human behavior don't have equations with constant coefficients as do those of physics. In morality, no one or ever has discovered, nor can they discover any laws like gravity that operate outside of humanity and without human input and interaction. For example, economics does not discover laws that exist outside of humanity and would continue to exist without humanity. Economics discovers principles of how humans behave.

  That doesn’t mean that humans can’t invent morality and enforce it. They have done it for millennia. But throughout history it has resulted in “might makes right.” So the Mongols could murder everyone in a city and make mountains of skulls and that was morality for them because they had the power to enforce it. And if morality is nothing but a human invention, we have no right to say the Mongols were immoral, only that they had a different moral system than we have today.

  In past discussions I’ve had a problem explaining the difference between inventing moral systems, acting morally, and having a logical basis for both. I’m not saying that people can’t invent morality. That would be stupid. They do it all the time. Every person has his own ideas of what is right and wrong. And most atheists act morally. But that doesn’t mean they have philosophical reasons for doing so. What I’m saying, and what most great philosophers have said, is that atheists who act morally are contradicting their philosophical position. They act morally for practical reasons, not philosophical ones.

  And every society has morals that it considers valid for all people and all time and they will kill people, confiscate their property and imprison people for violating those morals. But that doesn’t mean they do so because they are following sound reasoning; they do it for the survival of their way of life and they don’t care whether they have the right to do what they’re doing or whether it’s philosophically consistent. What I’m saying, (and I didn’t invent it; I got it from reading the great philosophers), is that unless they can show that those moral principles came from God, they have no right to do what they’re doing. And they have no grounds for criticizing the morality of a different society, such as that of Osama bin Laden.

  Why does it matter? It certainly doesn’t matter for the majority of people on the planet. Most people follow a perversion of the golden rule: those who have the gold make the rules. And that’s alright with most people. It matters only to those people who value integrity. Integrity means wholeness, soundness. In life that means not being a hypocrite who says he believes one thing but acts inconsistently with that belief.
  

  Published: July 14, 2008 9:25 AM

• fundamentalist

  Brainpolice: "Mises comes off as an ethical relativist."

  Can you give an example of something Mises wrote that makes you think that? Or is it just that he refused to discuss ethics?

  Published: July 14, 2008 9:31 AM

• fundamentalist

  Brainpolice: "Mises comes off as an ethical relativist."

  Can you give an example of something Mises wrote that makes you think that? Or is it just that he refused to discuss ethics?

  Published: July 14, 2008 9:32 AM

• Brainpolice

  "What I’m saying, and what most great philosophers have said, is that atheists who act morally are contradicting their philosophical position."

  A problem: there IS no official "atheist philosophical position". The only thing that atheists inherently have in common is a lack of belief in a deity. Anything beyond that has nothing to do with atheism itself. They could theoretically hold to a plethora of various epistemological, ethical and aesthetic views. The same is true, to a slightly lesser extent, of Christians and any other religious group (I.E. there are a plethora of different denominations and interpretations).

  "They act morally for practical reasons, not philosophical ones."

  I fail to see how this is the case, that all atheists have no philosophical reasons for their behavior. Frankly, this notion offends me, and in effect it amounts to a religious claim of monopoly on philosophy.

  "What I’m saying, (and I didn’t invent it; I got it from reading the great philosophers), is that unless they can show that those moral principles came from God, they have no right to do what they’re doing."

  While you present no rational argument to justify this premise, even if I accept it what it reduces to is that noone has a right to do with they are doing because noone can demonstrate that their moral principles came from god. They can only point to the words of other men or appeal to their own reason.

  Published: July 14, 2008 10:19 AM

• Brainpolice

  "What I’m saying, and what most great philosophers have said, is that atheists who act morally are contradicting their philosophical position."

  A problem: there IS no official "atheist philosophical position". The only thing that atheists inherently have in common is a lack of belief in a deity. Anything beyond that has nothing to do with atheism itself. They could theoretically hold to a plethora of various epistemological, ethical and aesthetic views. The same is true, to a slightly lesser extent, of Christians and any other religious group (I.E. there are a plethora of different denominations and interpretations).

  "They act morally for practical reasons, not philosophical ones."

  I fail to see how this is the case, that all atheists have no philosophical reasons for their behavior. Frankly, this notion offends me, and in effect it amounts to a religious claim of monopoly on philosophy.

  "What I’m saying, (and I didn’t invent it; I got it from reading the great philosophers), is that unless they can show that those moral principles came from God, they have no right to do what they’re doing."

  While you present no rational argument to justify this premise, even if I accept it what it reduces to is that noone has a right to do with they are doing because noone can demonstrate that their moral principles came from god. They can only point to the words of other men or appeal to their own reason.

  Published: July 14, 2008 10:19 AM

• fundamentalist

  Brainpolice: "A problem: there IS no official "atheist philosophical position"."

  Doesn't matter. Atheists can hold to any position they want. It's the fact that they deny the existence of a god that destroys a reason for morality. Atheist philosophers with backgrounds in modernism, existentialism and post-modernism have all agreed on this.

  Brainpolice: "I fail to see how this is the case, that all atheists have no philosophical reasons for their behavior. Frankly, this notion offends me, and in effect it amounts to a religious claim of monopoly on philosophy."

  I have explained it as well as I can in the brief space of a blog. I don't know how to explain it any better. Maybe you should try reading some of the philosophers such as Nietzsche, Camus, Sartre, or the post-modernists. It doesn't amount to a religious claim on philosophy, just to one on morality.

  Brainpolice: "While you present no rational argument to justify this premise, even if I accept it what it reduces to is that noone has a right to do with they are doing because noone can demonstrate that their moral principles came from god."

  I have presented a rational argument. It just doesn't convince you. Christian philosophers have demonstrated that their moral principles came from God. Obvsiously they haven't convinced everyone, but that failure doesn't mean it's not true or rational. Austrian econ has failed to win a majority of economists to its side, too.

  The interesting thing about this arguement to me is that is comes from the great philosophers of the 29th and 20th centuries. Christian philosophers merely agree with them on that point. The people who object to it are the laymen and the ethical theorists.

  Published: July 14, 2008 12:31 PM

• gene berman

  fundamentalist:

  The running battle you're having with "brainpolice" is basically just a series of semantic quibbles you've managed to quibble-cobble together. If you really want to get "fundamental," there are no elements preceding man's choices upon which man's reasoning process can focus to trace back logically (in the manner in which it does so in the opposite--forward--direction) to cause(s) of which such choice must be the inevitable outcome. Mens' choices are the ultimate substratum--impenetrable by either empirical (natural) science or the praxeological science of human action. What remains is not "known," in the sense that all men attach to that term. Those who adhere to various of the religious interpretations of phenomena in any sphere may speak of "knowing" that a god exists but do so (use the word "know") with the self-aware recognition that such knowledge is materially different than that related to all other phenomena of existence. In this wise, the use of "know" is a sort of rhetoric used with the intention of strengthening a more proper description of the state of affairs: a believing on the basis of reasons entirely insufficient to cause similar belief in an overwhelming number of other men. Many who hold to such belief yet adopt a more modest (from the standpoint of knowledge) description of their belief being based squarely on faith--as it must.

  But the actual topic on which you and BP are disagreeing is whether "morals" must trace, ultimately, to the operation of a deity on the thought and behavior of men. Those with the belief in deity quite logically ascribe the existence of all that exists to such deity, which would naturally subsume the matter of morality (no matter how different the particular deities might be or the moralities differ). Just as naturally, those whose faith (because it is belief of a similar nature to that of those usually referrred to as "believers") is that there is no such entity as a deity cannot be faulted--on any logical basis--for maintaining that, if we observe the existence and operation of what we call "morality," it must be due to something else than that which doesn't exist.

  Again, I want to emphasize the uselessness of the general discussion and particularly its potential for polarizing the thought of those who would mainly agree on matters of actual substance.

  What is obvious about morality is its universality and its absolute necessity to the survival of the individual within society and the society itself. Man cannot even begin to form a society without developing matters of conduct--purposely--far beyond those of animal herds or insect colonies. We cannot know when sentient men first conceived the possibility that there might be a "creator" behind his existence but--whenever that may have been and, even whether there's actually a creator" or not, man was already a "moral" creature--because he had to be. Everyone need not concur in believing that, for man, morality came before knowledge or belief in a deity; but the alternative seems limited to a literal "Garden of Eden" scenario, in which the first two people or family inhabit a reality in which the deity is a familiar presence and undertakes their instruction in the niceties of behavior which will enable them to have and raise a family eventuating in sufficient numbers to form the society able to benefit from those behaviors.

  Less "stretch of imagination" is needed to believe that a deity (or many) or spirits--magical entities--were inventions of early men intent on exerting disciplinary pressure on youngsters. After all, parents couldn't be ever-watchful and even had to sleep at times. And, from there, the natural course would soon develop those whose specialty consisted precisely in providing an intermediary between the ineffable and the ordinary: it was efficient (and potentially quite profitable and gratifying--to those intermediaries!).

  Published: July 14, 2008 6:09 PM

• Brainpolice

  "I have explained it as well as I can in the brief space of a blog. I don't know how to explain it any better. Maybe you should try reading some of the philosophers such as Nietzsche, Camus, Sartre, or the post-modernists. It doesn't amount to a religious claim on philosophy, just to one on morality."

  I've read most of them. Once again, I can point to plenty of atheist philosophers who disagree with that. And once again, it is fallacious to point to post-modernism and existentialism and nihilism as if it the be all and end all of options for atheists. You're being selective. An atheist doesn't have to buy into any of those philosophies.

  "Christian philosophers have demonstrated that their moral principles came from God."

  Nonsense. At best, it came from their own reason, and far more likely it came from other men.

  "The interesting thing about this arguement to me is that is comes from the great philosophers of the 29th and 20th centuries. Christian philosophers merely agree with them on that point. The people who object to it are the laymen and the ethical theorists."

  Again, you are being willfully ignorant of the segments of atheism that don't buy into that perspective and a whole plethora of atheist philosophers who believe in objective morality. To say that anyone who doesn't fall into the post-modern or existential category is a "laymen" and not a serious philosopher is nonsense.

  Published: July 14, 2008 7:05 PM

• gene berman

  fundamentalist:

  I don't think you will doubt my word when I say to you "I am an atheist." But it would be, technically, at least, not quite accurate. I don't, for instance, believe "There IS no god," though I, of course, don't for a moment believe there is. It's simply that the question itself wouldn't occur independently of its discussion by others. A clever wisecracker's summed it up in the question "Is there a DOG?"

  I can't remember ever "believing" but remember, somewhat vividly--as vividly as any memory over 65 years old--that I was already somewhat amused about others' belief by the time I was in kindergarten.

  A teacher read "The Emperor's New Clothes" to the class. Finished, she asked "Who understands this story?" I raised my hand. She asked, "Would you like to explain the story?"

  I answered, "I understand the story. But I don't think YOU understand it because, if you did, I don't think you'd want me to explain it." She looked mystified for a moment--and then I saw recognition come over her face and she changed the subject. After that, I don't think she ever called on me again. I can't remember whether I'd heard the story before and come to that conclusion or whether it might not have been the first time I'd heard it--it's just too long ago. On the other hand, I'm virtually certain that I hadn't been "taught" not to believe, though neither of my parents were religious.

  Over years (I'm 72), I've known people believing various religions with varying intensity and many describing themselves as atheists or agnostics. (Agnostics are simply, usually, atheists who don't want to invite argument.) Usually, those describing themselves with either term--in my experience and judgment--are telling the truth. On the other hand, a distinctly less clear relationship seems the rule with those professing belief. I'm (reasonably) sure that there are very many who believe just as they say they do; on the other hand, I'm convinced that many professed believers--many very religious and even officials--are entirely insincere--no more believers than I--though possessed of reasons for being secretive about actual belief. But, more practically, in my experience, if I had to express an opinion as to whether a random member of either group were of a "moral" character, I'd admit prejudice against the believing bunch: more of them, I'm convinced, are not only hypocritical regarding their belief but also duplicitous in other moral matters. Just as figurative "hackles" ought to rise when someone habitually intrudes "honestly," "frankly," or "to tell you the truth," into conversation, just so am I put "on guard" when someone tries (as happens more often than many might imagine) to link honor or trustworthiness to their piety.

  I'm aware that entire social regimes based avowedly on atheism have been among the most destructive and murderous in the history of mankind. However, it is simplistic (and erroneous) to identify such as "atheist" or "godless" and to equate those terms, therefore, with such baleful consequences. As has been mentioned by others and for quite some length of time, behavior of such people is not a result of lack of religious belief. Rather, it is quite the case that their fervor in tyranny and destruction is related to elevation of their particular social renorming to the level of religious duty--just of a different kind. In our society, most non-believers don't fall into such category (some do--and usually display an almost visceral hatred for anything related to religion); that is simply an outgrowth of the fact that we live in a society where no one is required to believe in any specific fashion.

  The strongest evidence I can trot out to disabuse you of the idea that morality is independent of and of "higher" origin than man himself (without disputing your contention of and belief in a divine entity) is the fact that different moralities and different types of behaviors may be required to fit circumstances of different geographies, climates, types of societies, and of all of these in different times. The concept of "original sin" cannot be denied: it's recognition that man, as born, is an animal not yet fit for the social mileau into which he must fit as an adult. Further, that, although he may be, by various acculturation processes, rendered entirely acceptable, the nature to which born is not eliminated--only shaped and controlled by the structure of the prevailing morality and the effort and success of the individual to internalize and rationalize it, thereby making himself as successful and happy as possible. In this wise, utilitarian consideration virtually exhausts the scope of man's morality with respect to all material aspects of life.

  Published: July 14, 2008 9:16 PM

• TLWP Sam

  . . . from the 29th century . . .

  Cosmic! 8)

  Published: July 14, 2008 9:31 PM

• fundamentalist

  Gene: “Those who adhere to various of the religious interpretations of phenomena in any sphere may speak of "knowing" that a god exists but do so (use the word "know") with the self-aware recognition that such knowledge is materially different than that related to all other phenomena of existence.”

  Simply not true. Christian philosophers use the term “know” in exactly the same sense as everyone else. However, they insist that the epistemology of natural sciences does not apply to theology in the same way that Mises instisted it doesn’t apply to economics.

  Gene: “What is obvious about morality is its universality and its absolute necessity to the survival of the individual within society and the society itself.”

  What about the morality of Genghis Khan who murdered everyone that was not Mongol and resisted his will? Or Mohammed who encouraged the murder on non-Muslims who won’t submit? Of course there are Hitler, Stalin and Mao who had their own ideas of morality. If morality is a human invention, then all you can say about the morality of those above is that it was different and you don’t like it, but you can’t say it is wrong or immoral.

  Gene: “We cannot know when sentient men first conceived the possibility that there might be a "creator" behind his existence but--whenever that may have been and, even whether there's actually a creator" or not, man was already a "moral" creature--because he had to be.”

  Nonsense. As far as we know, animals don’t follow any morality; they follow a survival instinct and nothing more. If man evolved from animals, then early man did the same thing. The animal kingdom teaches us that nothing is important but survival. No logical reason exists for mankind to develop morality in the process of biological evolution.

  Gene: “Less "stretch of imagination" is needed to believe that a deity (or many) or spirits--magical entities--were inventions of early men intent on exerting disciplinary pressure on youngsters.”

  Actually, that takes a greater "stretch of imagination." It violates everything we know about human behavior. What you propose is that humans invented God in order to frighten their children (as if the parents couldn’t frighten them enough) and then somehow started believing their own lie. That is similar to the ancient claim that the apostles invented the deity of Christ. But if they had, why would they be willing to die for something they knew was a lie?

  Gene: “The strongest evidence I can trot out to disabuse you of the idea that morality is independent of and of "higher" origin than man himself (without disputing your contention of and belief in a divine entity) is the fact that different moralities and different types of behaviors may be required to fit circumstances of different geographies, climates, types of societies, and of all of these in different times.”

  I guess you’re right. Sometimes it’s necessary to murder all of the Jews, Polish, Christians, capitalists or whoever else gets in the way. Sometimes, slavery is required and theft. I suppose with the proper assumptions you could rationalize any behavior.

  Brainpolice: “Once again, I can point to plenty of atheist philosophers who disagree with that. And once again, it is fallacious to point to post-modernism and existentialism and nihilism as if it the be all and end all of options for atheists.”
  Once again, it doesn’t matter. Once again, what matters is have the atheists who don’t agree resolved the problem or are they just ignoring it. Once again, truth is not a popularity contest. I have read atheists who ignore the issue completely and go about inventing morality like sausage. So what? If you can show me an atheist philosopher who confronts the issue and resolves it, I would be happy to read what he has to say.

  Brainpolice: “At best, it came from their own reason, and far more likely it came from other men.”
  How do you know? Have you bothered to read CS Lewis or Francis Schaeffer? Have you read the natural law philosophers such as Grotius? Besides, it did come from their own reasoning. Where else would it come from?

  Brainpolice: “To say that anyone who doesn't fall into the post-modern or existential category is a "laymen" and not a serious philosopher is nonsense.”

  Again, show me a philosopher who does more than ignore the issue and I’ll be happy to read him.
  

  Published: July 15, 2008 8:40 AM

• Jonny

  Fundamentalist 'Atheists can hold to any position they want. It's the fact that they deny the existence of a god that destroys a reason for morality.' and again
  'No logical reason exists for mankind to develop morality in the process of biological evolution. '
  As to the first quote, how does one account for moral atheists, are they being unreasonable? I think not which takes me to the second quote.. clearly there would be an evolutionary advantage for a value system that encouraged many of what we could call Christian morals. e.g. a more nihilistic set of values, I hesitate to use the word morals or it gets rather confusing, would unlikely 'work' very well in such interdependent societies.

  Published: July 15, 2008 2:27 PM

• Jonny

  Fundamentalist 'Atheists can hold to any position they want. It's the fact that they deny the existence of a god that destroys a reason for morality.' and again
  'No logical reason exists for mankind to develop morality in the process of biological evolution. '
  As to the first quote, how does one account for moral atheists, are they being unreasonable? I think not which takes me to the second quote.. clearly there would be an evolutionary advantage for a value system that encouraged many of what we could call Christian morals. e.g. a more nihilistic set of values, I hesitate to use the word morals or it gets rather confusing, would unlikely 'work' very well in such interdependent societies.

  Published: July 15, 2008 2:30 PM

• Michael A. Clem

  Michael: "If no man has moral authority over any other man, then clearly no man has the right to initiate force or fraud over another man..."

  The problem is that the second part doesn't follow from the first. If no man has moral authority over another, then every man is free to invent his own morality and there are no moral absolutes. Therefore there are no rights of any kind, to anything. Initiating force against another, for whatever reason, is good or bad only in the eye of the beholder. As Camus used to say, you can help the old lady across the street, or you can throw her under the bus; it doesn't matter.
  
  Nonsense. Enforcing a morality on another person can be done by initiating force. If one person kills another person because his morality doesn't preclude murder, he has enforced his morality, his moral authority, on the person he killed, unless the victim holds to the same or similar morality. Therefore, if no man has moral authority over another, such actions clearly violate the moral authority of the other person.
  
  On the other hand, if one's morality holds that murder is not wrong, but never engages in it, he is not forcing his morality on others and not preventing them from their own moral views.
  
  Thus, moral authority can exist by force or by consent; there are no other options.
  What you apparently want to say is that without moral authority, anything goes--chaos, war of all against all, etc.--yet that clearly doesn't happen in the real world, even among non-Christians. Claiming Jehovah as a moral authority doesn't change the fact that people have to choose it (unless you can show that He does, in fact, force His morality on people), and doesn't explain the morality of non-Christians or the non-Christian world. Just as Jehovah would not be a moral authority to atheists, He could not be a moral authority for agnostics, Muslims, Buddhists, Taoists, etc. In short, either Jehovah's moral authority exerts itself on everyone absolutely and without fail, regardless of their beliefs, or else there is no such morality and everyone IS free to choose their morality.
  

  Published: July 15, 2008 4:38 PM

• Michael A. Clem

  Sorry, one other thought. If you want to claim that one particular morality is better than others, and that such morality comes from Jehovah (or nature), then you approach the Natural Law position, but even then, men are free to choose such a morality or not. Such a morality is not absolute, but perhaps absolute with a certain context, i.e. if you want to achieve a certain type of society, then you must adhere to this particular morality, because no other morality can achieve it.
  
  If you go with this position, though, it's still not clear how adding a deity into the picture, instead of merely claiming it's part of our nature, makes any real difference, or contributes anything worthwhile.
  

  Published: July 15, 2008 4:49 PM

• fundamentalist

  Jonny: "how does one account for moral atheists, are they being unreasonable?"

  I have answered that above, but to take a different tack, I would say they are unreasonable if they claim their morality has universal authority. They are not unreasonable if they recognize the no universal morality can exist without God and they base their morality on something like the idea that morality is necessary for civilization.

  Jonny: "...clearly there would be an evolutionary advantage for a value system that encouraged many of what we could call Christian morals."

  So then how do you explain the prevalence of immorality? By claiming that it, too, provided an evolutionary advantage? That brings up one of the big problems with the theory of evolution: it can explain anything and its opposite, which makes it pretty much useless.

  Michael: "Therefore, if no man has moral authority over another, such actions clearly violate the moral authority of the other person."

  That would be true only if every individual has a right to his own moral authority. But there is no reason for that to be true. Besides, without God, I'm free to violate your morality. You have no rights and your morality is arbitrary. If I kill you, I have neither acted morally or immorally; I have simply acted.

  Michael: "Thus, moral authority can exist by force or by consent; there are no other options."

  I don't disagree. But you are focusing on the practical application of morality. I have been focusing on the rationale for morality itself, not how to apply it. If God doesn't exist, the categories of right and wrong, good and evil, disappear. All that is left are arbitrary values.

  Ethical philosphers try to determine what is right and wrong sometimes by what the majority thinks and sometimes what is best for society. The problem with this approach is that the majority opinion and what people think is best for society changes. What if you thought killing all Jews was best for society and most people approved? Would that be moral?

  Michael: "If you want to claim that one particular morality is better than others..."

  How would anyone define what is better? That's the whole point. What I think is better differs greatly from what Bin Laden thinks.

  Michael:"...it's still not clear how adding a deity into the picture...makes any real difference..."

  In the practical sense, it may not. As you wrote, you still have to persuade others or use force to implement the morality. However, for most of history and for most people today, morality doesn't mean the arbitray decisions of a particular group; it means principles of right and wrong that are applicable across time and cultures. To use reason to arrive at morals with such universal authority requires that they come from God because only God has authority over all of mankind for all time.

  With God, you can have morals with universal authority; without God you're left with arbitrary ideas that don't apply to anyone. It's similar to the concepts of natural law and positive law. Natural law assumed universality. Positive law applies only to a particular time and place and can easily change.

  The natural law theorists failed in once sense: they didn't persuade a majority of people in the world that they had discovered God's morality. That's the practical application side of the argument. On the other hand, they could take comfort in the fact that they had followed sound reason and logic and had arrived at the truth. And they gave us Western Civilization.

  Published: July 15, 2008 6:17 PM

• Jonny

  Fundamentalist 'I would say they are unreasonable if they claim their morality has universal authority.'
  I did not say this, and I do not disagree but this does not answer my point... I think all one can say of Rothbards natural rights theory is that it is a very fair and soundly thought out set of rules, but there is nothing in what he says that establishes it as somehow THE rules. Calling it 'natural' is quite wily in that to argue against it makes one defend the 'unnatural'.
  Fundamentalist 'the theory of evolution: it can explain anything and its opposite, which makes it pretty much useless' - if you mean the 'just-so' stories to explain pretty much anything and its opposite as somehow a useful evolutionary adaptation I agree with you to a small degree but to use this to dismiss evolutionary theory as useless worries me Fundamentalist. I think as far as this thread goes I am referring to what Dawkins calls memes... immoral (by Christian standards) societies and their memes can prevail, I just hope not... as a Christian I find it unsurprising that those nations with a more Christian flavoured set of morals tend to prevail over time. I might need to clarify that... I am not saying that God will somehow smile kindly on peoples that follow his values but that those values are ones, whether a Christian or not, that allow societies to 'work' better than without. What worries me at the moment is the Dawkins approach that seems to take for granted the atheistic set of morals in an increasingly atheistic world will not deviate from what he may not explicitly recognise as his own Christian based values.
  

  Published: July 16, 2008 4:03 AM

• fundamentalist

  Jonny: “I think all one can say of Rothbards natural rights theory is that it is a very fair and soundly thought out set of rules, but there is nothing in what he says that establishes it as somehow THE rules.”

  Rothbard considered himself as following in the natural rights tradition, but I can’t see it myself. He deviated from the tradition by making property an absolute that ends in the labeling of any state as immoral. The traditional natural rights theorists claimed that the rules they discovered were THE rules to follow because they had discovered God’s rules, which makes them universal and gives them authority over mankind. They recognized that without God, any rules that man came up with were particular and arbitrary.

  Jonny: “…as a Christian I find it unsurprising that those nations with a more Christian flavoured set of morals tend to prevail over time.”

  Taking the long view, most of the “great” empires were ungodly—Babylon, Persia, Greece, Rome, Arab, Mongol, Ottoman. The “Christian” West only began its rise with the Protestant Reformation which introduced capitalism to the world. Capitalism depended upon Protestant Christianity for its moral justification, and with the decline in Christianity in the West, support for capitalism waned. Austrian econ introduced a secular justification for capitalism and the Libertarian movement has furthered it. I wrote all of that to say that the future for Christian morals in the West, and Western dominance, doesn’t look good. The Libertarian movement is still very small and Christian influence is waning. Without a revival of one of those two, the US will continue marching toward greater socialism, poverty and weakness in every sense.

  China is our best hope. Christianity is exploding. The author of “Jesus in Bejing” (he was the Time magazine chief in Hong Kong) thinks China will be a mostly Christian nation in another generation. And they have adopted capitalism with enthusiasm. Of course, things could change. But I’m going to start taking Chinese lessons.

  Jonny: “What worries me at the moment is the Dawkins approach that seems to take for granted the atheistic set of morals in an increasingly atheistic world will not deviate from what he may not explicitly recognise as his own Christian based values.”

  Dawkins has nothing but irrational belief to support his ideas that atheists will continue the moral tradition of Christianity. History proves him wrong. The USSR, People's Republic of China, N. Korea, N. Vietnam, Cambodia under the Kmer Rhouge, and Cuba all represent the apex of atheistic societies.

  By the way, have you seen Ben Stein’s documentary “Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed”? His interviews with Dawkins are quite revealing.
  

  Published: July 16, 2008 8:39 AM

• Michael A. Clem

  If history is any indication, God is clearly not forcing us into His morality, i.e., we have free will. Thus, the closest you can come to a universal morality is in the natural law sense, that is, certain types of morality "work better" than others. You continue to assert that morality is only possible with God, and that reason is unable to provide a universal rationale. Yet if natural law is true, reason can indeed provide such a rationale, even if it's "merely" practical. Alternately, the obvious rationale for natural law is in our nature as natural, rational creatures (as Objectivism is based upon). But once again, history and reality show us that people DO tend to follow some kind of morality, for whatever reasons they hold, and that, while a certain degree of evil and atrocities occur, for the most part people do tend to be good.
  The necessity of God for morality still remains an assertion, and not shown.
  
  The USSR, People's Republic of China, N. Korea, N. Vietnam, Cambodia under the Kmer Rhouge, and Cuba all represent the apex of atheistic societies.
  
  I seriously doubt that the "essence" of these nations is atheism. They just didn't want a competing set of beliefs to interfere with their "grand vision" of society. And you left off Hitler's Germany, Mussolini's Italy, not to mention Venezula, Zimbabwe, Iraq, Iran, Israel, Columbia and others that are clearly not 'atheist' nations by any stretch of the imagination. Indeed, history shows that religion was often co-opted for great evils. The Crusades, the Spanish Inquisition, the adoption of Christianity by Rome, etc.
  

  Published: July 16, 2008 12:46 PM

• ktibuk

  Fundemtalist,

  Why do you suppose the only alternative to ethics based on a personal god, is ethics made up by man?

  Also if man made ethics is arbitrary so is god made ethics. Can god not change what is good and what is evil on a whim, arbitrarily? Or is this a tough question like "can god create a stone that he can not lift?"

  Reality exists, A is A. Reality is also objective. And ethics are a part of reality thus objective. You dont need an imaginary firend that scares with fire for you to be good.

  Being good means increasing chances for survival. And survival is everything to a living organism.

  You dont kill because muder increases your chances of being murdered, or exiled from society (which also increases your chance of dying early). You dont steal because because if everyone steals there can not be social cooperation which is essential to survival and well being.

  So yes, property is essential in ethics because eventually it is about survival and well being of humans.

  And all animals have ethics. Social animals even have morals. They may not be the same as human ethics and morals, but this doesnt change the fact that they act according to a code. A code that increases theit chance of survival.

  Human ethics is based on rationality but everyone doesnt think every move out, because of evolution acting good and moral is almost engraved in our genes. At least majority of humans. It is so essential for our survival for so long (not 6000 years) that we dont think through every action but essentially be kind, good and reaspectable.

  That is why people believing in marduk, ra, jahew, allah, zeus, thor or jujumba act and have been acting very similarly despite having very diffent imaginary friends. Founders of the science of ethics were a bunch of zeus and apollo worshiping greeks but their code is used today almost verbatim.

  That is also why atheists, like myself, arent immoral unethical people.

  I know these arguments wont mean a thing to you since you put faith before reason.

  But these are my 5 cents ayways.

  Published: July 16, 2008 1:08 PM

• fundamentalist

  Michael: “You continue to assert that morality is only possible with God, and that reason is unable to provide a universal rationale.”

  That’s not what I have written or intended. The original natural law theorists used reason to derive universal moral values from the nature of God and God’s creation. Without God, man can use reason, or a Ouiji board, and invent any kind of morality he likes.

  Michael: “…history and reality show us that people DO tend to follow some kind of morality, for whatever reasons they hold, and that, while a certain degree of evil and atrocities occur, for the most part people do tend to be good.”

  I have written exactly that same thing. I don’t think you’re reading my posts. But I have added that they don’t have a sound epistemological reason for doing so.

  Michael: “The necessity of God for morality still remains an assertion, and not shown.”

  I have written that repeatedly. I don’t understand why we have to keep going over the same ground. People don’t need God to act morally; We need God to have a rationale for a universal morality. Otherwise, I can’t criticize another person’s morality if he decides it’s moral to murder left-handed people. I don’t know how to explain it better than I have. It’s not rocket surgery!

  Michael: “I seriously doubt that the "essence" of these nations is atheism.”

  It’s rational to claim that people hijacked Christianity in the past because the crimes committed by Christians violates Christian teaching. On the other hand, the 19 hijackers who attacked the Pentagon and the World Trade Center with airplanes were acting consistently with the teachings of Islam. What of atheists? If no universal morality exists, then you’re wrong to hint that the leadership of the USSR, China and the other nations mentioned had hijacked atheism. All you can claim is that you don’t like their morality and that it’s different from yours, but you have no grounds for claiming that their morality is wrong or that they hijacked atheist morality because there is none.

  Ktibuk: “Why do you suppose the only alternative to ethics based on a personal god, is ethics made up by man?”

  I answered that in previous posts. I’m not going to keep going over the same ground.
  Ktibuk: “Can god not change what is good and what is evil on a whim, arbitrarily?”

  No, he can’t because his morality is based on his nature, who he is. Some things are even impossible with God.

  Ktibuk: “You dont kill because muder increases your chances of being murdered,…”

  Only if I act alone. Genghis Khan was one of the world’s greatest murderers and he established a great kingdom and lived to an old age. But you’re right in that most people refrain from immorality out of a fear of getting caught.

  Ktibuk: “And all animals have ethics. Social animals even have morals.”

  So you can speak to animals?

  Ktibuk: “Human ethics is based on rationality but everyone doesnt think every move out, because of evolution acting good and moral is almost engraved in our genes.”

  Then why do some peope act immorally? Is there an immorality gene also. I haven’t read that anyone on the human genome project has discovered a morality gene.

  Ktibuk: “Founders of the science of ethics were a bunch of zeus and apollo worshiping greeks but their code is used today almost verbatim.”
  Morality goes back much further than the Greeks. Abraham of the Bible lived about 2,000 BC and had a few morals of his own.

  Ktibuk: “That is also why atheists, like myself, arent immoral unethical people.”

  By whose standard of morality? I would bet you’re quite immoral by Hinda, Buddhist and Islamic standards. Have you read the sermon on the mount in the New Testament? Do you think you meet Jesus’s standards of morality?

  Years ago a TV host interviewed a prominent atheist (I believe it was Bertrand Russell). The host asked Russell why people were so quick to accept the theory of evolution. Russell responded that he guessed it was because people wanted to be free to have sex with whomever they wanted when they wanted.
  

  Published: July 16, 2008 1:55 PM

• Michael A. Clem

  The original natural law theorists used reason to derive universal moral values from the nature of God and God’s creation. Without God, man can use reason, or a Ouiji board, and invent any kind of morality he likes.
  
  A belief in God is not necessary to believe in natural law.
  
  We need God to have a rationale for a universal morality.
  
  No we don't. An appeal to man's nature and/or the nature of reality is sufficient for rationale. You only need God if you need some convenient and easy explanation for why nature and reality are the way they are, but it does nothing to further morality itself.
  Those nations didn't "hijack" atheism--they simply wished to avoid religion, or turn the state itself into a religion. And natural law, god or no god, provides a strong rationale for criticizing their morality.
  

  Published: July 16, 2008 3:00 PM

• fundamentalist

  Michael: "natural law, god or no god, provides a strong rationale for criticizing their morality."

  I would like to see you try. On what grounds would you say that Stalin's murder of 30 million Russians was immoral?
  

  Published: July 16, 2008 4:03 PM

• Walt D.

  fundamentalist
  
  Could you comment on Betrand Russell's argument?
  
  Kant, as I say, invented a new moral argument for the existence of God, and that in varying forms was extremely popular during the nineteenth century. It has all sorts of forms. One form is to say that there would be no right and wrong unless God existed. I am not for the moment concerned with whether there is a difference between right and wrong, or whether there is not: that is another question. The point I am concerned with is that, if you are quite sure there is a difference between right and wrong, then you are then in this situation: is that difference due to God's fiat or is it not? If it is due to God's fiat, then for God himself there is no difference between right and wrong, and it is no longer a significant statement to say that God is good. If you are going to say, as theologians do, that God is good, you must then say that right and wrong have some meaning which is independent of God's fiat, because God's fiats are good and not bad independently of the mere fact that he made them. If you are going to say that, you will then have to say that it is not only through God that right and wrong came into being, but that they are in their essence logically anterior to God.
  
  Thanks - Walt
  

  Published: July 16, 2008 4:29 PM

• Michael A. Clem

  I would like to see you try. On what grounds would you say that Stalin's murder of 30 million Russians was immoral?
  
  I'm sure you'd like to practice more selective skepticism. Instead, I'm still waiting to understand why God is necessary for morality.
  For example, "Locke and the other Christian advocates of natural law believe that natural law is in accordance with the will of God not because they claim a divine revelation concerning the will of God, but because they believe that the nature of man and the world reflects the will of God. [from http://jim.com/rights.html ]. In other words, they recognized natural law as coming from the nature of man and the world, and thus it reflected the will of God. But as I already said, "A belief in God is not necessary to believe in natural law." The nature of man and the world is what it is, whether God exists or not. Saying that God created it, or that it is the expression of God's will, adds nothing to our comprehension of natural law, or of morality.

  Published: July 16, 2008 5:01 PM

• fundamentalist

  Michael: "The nature of man and the world is what it is, whether God exists or not."

  That was Grotius's attitude, even though he was a devout believer and one of Protestant Christianity's greatest theologians. But the rest of the natural law theorists reminded him that without God, they could not legitimately claim universal authority for the morality they discovered by using reason. Of course, anyone can claim universal authority for their personal morality, but that's not what the natural law theorists meant. They meant that they had a legitimate claim to universal authority.

  Later, the great atheist philosophers agreed. But they added that without universal authority, such as can only come from God, every man is free to do what he thinks is right, even if it means murdering others. In other words, the categories of right and wrong, good and evil, disappear. That is from a logical perspective. That doesn't mean that people will pop up once in a while and claim that they have discovered a universal morality. It means that without God they can't do so legitimately using reason.

  That's the best I know how to explain it in a short space.
  

  Published: July 17, 2008 7:03 AM

• fundamentalist

  Actually, I thought of another way to explain it. In the ancient Middle East, every nation had its own gods that people thought had power only within the borders of that nation. As a result, their morality extended only to people of their nation. They could not murder or steal from a fellow citizen, but they could do anything they wanted to non-citizens outside their borders. That's how morality operates with many limited gods, or no God at all. But if people realize that there is just one God over all people, then all people become citizens and the morality applies to all.

  Published: July 17, 2008 7:18 AM

• Michael A. Clem

  Since the Christian God is NOT a universal God, how does appealing to His authority provide a universal morality? Or make natural law stronger? Every believer believes HIS deity to be the one true deity over all mankind.
  Ah, heck with it. Either I don't get what you're saying, or you don't get what I'm saying. Or both.

  Published: July 17, 2008 9:48 AM

• TLWP Sam

  Yeah right Fundy! It's been said by theologians that a sin isn't just doing what God has forbidden but it's also not doing what God has commanded. Another said that traditional rights didn't exist per se but were given by God - so if the Hebrews were commanded by God to slaughter the men, women and children of certain tribes then they effectively had the 'right' to do so. It's rather tricky to know what 'rights' are 'God-given' compared what rights people think they should have nowadays. Women rights? Children rights? Animals rights? Being against slavery, polygyny, witchcraft, polytheism, working on the Sabbath, homosexualitiy, etc.? These are perceived rights by some that aren't clear-cut from the Bible.

  Published: July 17, 2008 9:48 AM

• Michael A. Clem

  Sam, if we're talking about natural law and natural rights, then we're not talking about appeals to the Bible, or any form of "God told me so" nonsense. God created nature and natural law is discovered from nature, not a written document.

  Published: July 17, 2008 10:05 AM

• fundamentalist

  Walt, interesting quote. Can you tell me where you got it? Thanks! Here are my thoughts on it:

  Russell: If it is due to God's fiat, then for God himself there is no difference between right and wrong, and it is no longer a significant statement to say that God is good.

  Actually, Kant didn’t invent that defense of God. Natural law theorists recognized it long before Kant came along.

  This gets complicated because now you’re dealing with not just Christian theology, but Hindu, Islamic, Buddhist and other theologies. Russell’s statement reflect Islamic theology well. In Islam Allah determines the difference between good and evil by fiat and neither he nor his prophet Mohammed are constrained by that fiat. So for Allah there is no difference. I’m not a Hindu/Buddhist expert, but my understanding is that their morality is similar since what we consider reality is just a dream of the Supreme Being.

  Christianity is very different. The laws of God come from his nature. Who God is determines what is good and evil. In fact, evil doesn’t exist as a separate entity in Christian theology. In the same way that cold is the abscense of heat, evil is the distortion of God’s will. As CS Lewis wrote, evil comes when man takes what God intended for good and disfigures it.

  From a secular perspective, Russell is absolutely correct. If you look at the evil in the world, the wars, mass murders, disease and natural disasters, it’s hard to claim that God is good. You’re more likely to say what one of my religion professors (a liberal, unbelieving theologian) said: I have met god face to face and he is the devil! This guy had a PhD in theology from Princeton. Muslims face the same problem. In Islamic theology, Allah has predetermined everything, every human action and word, every natural disaster, every disease. How can you assert that Allah is good?

  So how can Christians claim that God is good? Because God created the world and mankind good and none of the evils in the current world existed in the original creation. What happened? God gave man free will to choose between good and evil. Man chose evil and rebelled against God. Some people will assert that since God gave man free will, he also gave man the ability to choose evil and therefore is the creator of evil. OK. I’ll accept that. God has a choice to make—either create more animals without a free will, or take his chances with a being who had free will. He seems to have valued the being who freely chose to follow him over having more animals. No one knows why. But when man rebelled against him, God took a step back from our world and let us have our way. That’s why the existence of God isn’t so obvious. There is some truth in the liberal theological idea that God is distant. That doesn’t mean that he is totally asleep at the wheel. He intervenes when it suits him. But for the most part, people are free to choose good and evil and we all suffer the consequences when people chooses evil.
  

  Published: July 17, 2008 10:27 AM

• fundamentalist

  Michael: “Since the Christian God is NOT a universal God, how does appealing to His authority provide a universal morality?”

  I think you’re looking at it from the practical side of how to implement morality. There never will be universal agreement on morality because people have so many different religions and philosophies. What philosophers are trying to determine is something different. They’re trying to determine how we can have a rational basis for any morality at all. There isn’t much motivation to try to determine right and wrong if you don’t have a sound rationale for why right and wrong exist in the first place. Christians assert that their God is universal, and it’s not based on a leap of faith but real solid reasoning and logic. With that foundation, they can logically claim universality for Christian morality. Practically speaking that doesn’t mean anything. To implement that morality you still have to convince others of its truth and validity and you’ll never convince everyone.

  TLWP: “These are perceived rights by some that aren't clear-cut from the Bible.”

  As Michael wrote, we’re mainly discussing natural law, not revelation. But as natural law theorists recognized, reason can only uncover the most important moral laws, such as prohibitions of murder and theft. More refined morality requires revelation. Unfortunately, most theologian are terrible at hermeneutics, the principles of interpreting texts. Properly applied hermeneutics untangles a lot of what theologian have written. The New Testament has very few moral principles and they’re basically the same as the Ten Commandments minus the one about the sabbath. Outside of those, we a free to determine for ourselves how we want to act. Unfortunately, most Christians chafe at that freedom and invent thousands of more laws that God never intended, just as the Pharisees had.
  

  Published: July 17, 2008 11:13 AM

• Walt D.

  fundamentalist
  
  Thank you for you interesting reply. The Bertrand Russell quote is from his book "Why I am not a Christian", which you can find online with Google.
  You may also be interested in a historic debate he had with Jesuit Catholic Theologian, Father Frederick Copleston.
  
  There is an old adage - When you take away somebody's ability to fail you take away their ability to succeed. That would be a rationale for God to give us free will. However, the question then arises as to what happens when my failure,(by choosing evil) impacts on someone else's ability to succeed?
  Libertarian philosophy addresses this by concepts such as non-aggression and property rights.
  

  Published: July 17, 2008 6:33 PM

• TLWP Sam

  Dang! What I meant that trying to define 'natural rights' with a religious/Biblical angle is tricky at best. 'Natural rights' would say that a woman would have the same rights as men yet they are considered secondary to men in the Bible. Likewise slavery would be wrong in 'natural law' (except for maybe bond slavery) but is condoned the Bible.

  On the other hand, how is law 'natural' per se as though it was tied into our biology? Moralistic biologists have used the term that humans 'mate for life' to justify monogamy. In real biology that means a male and female pair up to make babies and don't ever leave each or cheat or find a new partner if one dies let alone have multiple partners. The reality is that humans are rather open-minded and polygyny has a longer history than monogamy. Trying to define just laws, I believe, comes from personal morality and not biology nor 'divine writ'.

  Published: July 17, 2008 8:35 PM

• fundamentalist

  TLWP: "Dang! What I meant that trying to define 'natural rights' with a religious/Biblical angle is tricky at best. 'Natural rights' would say that a woman would have the same rights as men yet they are considered secondary to men in the Bible. Likewise slavery would be wrong in 'natural law' (except for maybe bond slavery) but is condoned the Bible."

  I don't think adding a Biblical angle to morality creates any more confusion that already exists in the field of ethics currently. Most people can agree on the basics of murder and theft. Beyond that there is enormous disagreement. But I think you're wrong that the Bible give second place status to women. The NT particularly emphasizes the equality of the two before God. And as for slavery, if you study what the Bible meant by it in the OT, it's more like our concept of indentured servants. The Bible condemns outright the type of slavery the US practiced. That makes it all the more strange that so many pastors and churches supported slavery.

  Published: July 18, 2008 8:11 AM

• Michael A. Clem

  Moralistic biologists have used the term that humans 'mate for life' to justify monogamy. In real biology that means a male and female pair up to make babies and don't ever leave each or cheat or find a new partner if one dies let alone have multiple partners. The reality is that humans are rather open-minded and polygyny has a longer history than monogamy.
  
  I agree. While there is some justification for monogamy (sexually-transmitted diseases, for example), I don't see any natural law justification for permanent or even long-term monogamy, and suspect that it's largely cultural, not biological.
  

  Published: July 18, 2008 10:51 AM