Morality is as real and unreal as any other software.

[nemorathwald]

Watch on YouTube

This is a video of Richard Dawkins conducting a Q&A, mostly with students and faculty from Jerry Falwell's Liberty University.

The Christian interlocutors persistently repeated a slightly different question than Dawkins seemed to think they were asking. There are two questions about morality in their context: "First, does any such thing exist at all?" and second, "Once having settled that there exists a distinction between right and wrong, why do any humans abide by it?" Dawkins offered a persuasive explanation from evolution for the existence of a moral sense motivating us to be nice the same way lust motivates us to have sex.

What they really wanted to hear was whether "moral" and "immoral" are distinguishable; whether these are words with any measurable referent. I can show that they are. I've discussed this with Dr. Dawkins over internet relay chat with Universists, but I'm not sure he was sufficiently convinced to start offering it to audiences. In any case, it satisfies me.

In one sense, morality exists; in another sense, it doesn't. Morality exists in the same form that economics, linguistics, and chess exist. It is as real as they are, and also sort of unreal by the same standards by which money and language are partially unreal. These are all systems of rules that people invent, within which they can conduct transactions.

Rule sets are as real and unreal as any other software. Processors juggle electricity from circuit to circuit according to software rules, in a set of transactions. We can observe and measure them, so they're real, but when the electrons stop moving in the circuits, where did the calculation go? It was never "there." It was never any place in particular.

The English language was not floating out there in some metaphysical form, waiting to be discovered by the first English speaker. Neither was the rule set of chess. We can even invent alternatives to them. Neither does morality have independent existence. And yet I hardly think a theist will carry the argument through, and say we have no ability to tell, within broad limits, whether someone is measurably practicing "correct" English and "correct" F.I.D.E. chess.

"I can just carry on hurting people as much as I want" is like saying "I will speak my own language to myself that no one else knows, and play my own chess-like game against myself." Rule sets are not objectively real, and subjectively they can be whatever you want if you never make any interpersonal transactions with them; but intersubjectively they are as real as bedrock. You can carve bedrock, but you can't wish it away. Believe me, I have some experience with artificial languages, chess variants, and artificially-designed religions. You still have to know English, and you won't get many people to play any chess-like game other than Chess.

You can even say "I don't particularly like morality and I don't want to participate in that system", and still meaningfully tell more or less whether someone is doing it.

We have chess pieces, dollar bills, writing and sound waves as physical representations of rule sets. But that's all they do-- represent information systems the way the logic alphabet serves as cognitive ergonomics for formal logic. These are just prosthetic devices to help us measure, the way an abacus would help our primate brains perform arithmetic. I'm not sure there is any such equivalent physical device for moral reasoning, which could be where some of the confusion of godbotherers is coming from.

Yes, we can observe and measure morality without fleeing into irrationalism, the same way we can do so with economics. As with so many Christian philosophical "solutions", their solution utterly destroys what they were using it to support.

Take the argument from First Cause, which they also addressed to Professor Dawkins. The premise is that everything must have a cause. Therefore the universe must have a cause. Therefore that cause is God. But what caused God? An intelligence fully-formed at the beginning of the universe is, as Professor Dawkins so eloquently described, massively more implausible than even the weakest explanation of the Big Bang from physics. Infinite complexity can arise incrementally from simple rules through blind, purposeless evolution, but doesn't spring to life fully-formed. Our primate brains are only familiar with complicated things making simpler things, but that instinct of our primate brains is wrong.

If we are willing to make an exemption to causation, it's less ridiculous to say the universe itself is uncaused than God. At least we know the universe exists, and Occam's Razor says not to multiply entities unnecessarily. I wish Professor Dawkins had replied "Wait a minute. Either everything must have a cause, or not. You posited everything must have a cause, therefore, if that is so, God must." But that is precisely the kind of double standard used by religious apologists. They only find God more plausible as a first cause because matter and energy, time and space aren't the Alpha Monkey in the tribe, to whom our primate brain seeks to give up our responsibility for thinking.

So it is with their own reasons for declaring morality to be a meaningful, measurable distinction. It is; just not for their reasons. The problem is that the primate brain doesn't see right and wrong coming from the suffering of the victim, but coming from the Alpha Male Monkey. Just as in the First Cause argument, God results from an abdication of personal responsibility for reasoning. Right and wrong are whatever the Alpha Male Monkey say they are. The suffering of the victim doesn't matter to an obedience-based morality.

Just as doing all arithmetic with a calculator leaves one innumerate, looking up rules on a list doesn't practice moral reasoning and leaves one morally illiterate.

Comments

[matt-arnold.livejournal.com]

Anyone who really believes doesn't need faith.

The lies are mostly not "malicious", but the fact that they are lies they tell to themselves leaves them no less lies. It's long overdue for faith to be looked on as the practice of self-deception that it is. Remember, I'm talking about those who set themselves up as authority figures. They aren't just misinformed, they're in the business of disinformation.

[http://users.livejournal.com/jer_/]

I guess that makes the implicit assumption that they are, in fact, wrong. I don't believe Xtians are specifically right per se, but I don't think they are any more likely to be wrong than the Hindus, or the atheists, or anyone else for that matter. The important part is, they believe it.

Lets remember that, a lie is a statement that is known or assumed to be false... be it by overt statement, omission, or otherwise. The key is that they KNOW or ASSUME it to be false. If the genuinely believe it to be true, it is no longer a lie, it is incorrect information... but they are, to their perspective, in the business of providing valid and useful information.

By your definition, weathermen should be generate the same degree of betrayal... they are demonstrably incorrect as often as not... but they believe that they are telling the truth. They believe they are imparting wisdom that is useful.

Damn, I hate being an apologist for clergy. I don't find them useful in society... I just don't think it's reasonable to consider what they do lying.

[rachelann1977.livejournal.com]

A weathermn is a bad comparison, because they only claim what they are saying to be as close as possible to the truth based on scientific evidence. A better example would be an herbalist. They don't tend to use true science to back up their claims, although sometimes they are able to make it sound like science.

[matt-arnold.livejournal.com]

Jer, are you seriously saying we don't know if there are virgin births, or people rising from the dead as proof that they are your benevolent dictator, or if dinosaur bones should really be labeled "4,000 years old"? Did you think we were just talking about shaky metaphysics like heaven or reincarnation? Religious teachers make preposterous claims about our physical world of science, and go on believing in the teeth of evidence, because they see faith as giving them a free pass. What's worse, they encourage those in their charge to do this.

Rachel's right. There's no comparison to weathermen. I wish preachers were like weathermen saying there's 10 percent chance of rain this weekend. "Ten percent chance of heaven if you say this prayer." Instead they claim 100% certainty.

If religious faith were like the trust we place in scientists, we would not be considered sinful for withdrawing our trust when we see that the evidence doesn't point that way after all. Like a dollar bill which is supposed to be redeemable for gold on demand, our trust that a scientific claim is true is supposed to be exchangeable for evidence on demand without being accused of a disloyal lack of faith.

"If a man, holding a belief which he was taught in childhood or persuaded of afterwards, keeps down and pushes away any doubts which arise about it in his mind, purposely avoids the reading of books and the company of men that call into question or discuss it, and regards as impious those questions which cannot easily be asked without disturbing it—the life of that man is one long sin against mankind." —W. K. Clifford

http://www.nemorathwald.com/How_to_Choose_Truth_Claims.htm

[http://users.livejournal.com/jer_/]

All of that is very compelling. It is also dramatically off of the topic this particular thread had taken on. The discussion herein what related to whether or not it is a "lie" to teach the religious belief that you genuinely believe in.

Logically, philosophically, and definitionally, it is simply not. It is no more so than the belief that the sun revolved around the earth was a lie... it was WRONG, but not a lie.

[matt-arnold.livejournal.com]

I'd like to be just as sensitive as the next guy to not calling something a lie if it's just a mistake. I've seen that done plenty often enough in my day, and explained the distinction to many religious people who needed it. One of the favorite tactics of the religious is to claim that deep down, you really know they're right. I'm aware how obnoxious that practice is. I wouldn't like to accuse them of it. However, it becomes difficult not to point to their own words about how they form and maintain their beliefs. "Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." "For we walk by faith and not..." by what? "... by sight." "Blessed are they who have not seen, and yet believe." Faith is biblically defined as hostility toward reality. Tell me how that's honesty.

I thought Abraham Lincoln put it pretty well when he said "It is an established maxim and moral that he who makes an assertion without knowing whether it is true or false is guilty of falsehood, and the accidental truth of the assertion does not justify or excuse him." Whether we call it "falsehood", or call it whatever, there is something morally untoward going on, and when those we trust practice it, it's time to be angry.

OK. Look at it this way. I'm sure you have had the experience of being convinced of something. Think of a proposition that looks overwhelmingly more likely than the alternatives to you. After that happened, how much did you need to have a weekly infomercial-style pep rally in which, if only you all shout "amen" loud enough and sing it over and over until you're practically in a self-hypnotic trance, you convince yourself that you truly believe it?

I'll bet you don't need to do that. If you have no beliefs in your life that require you to do that in order to go on thinking they're true, consider the possibility that you have never seen or experienced the phenomenon I am describing as lying. It's possible you've never looked back on decades of preaching and suddenly recognized their crowing and strutting as desperately trying to convince themselves they really, really mean it. Pushing one's sight of reality out of consciousness and brazenly admitting to everybody that you are doing so is not honest. So your point is that not all forms of a lack of honesty are "lying"? I'll revise my words, but it won't make much difference where the anger is concerned.

[http://users.livejournal.com/jer_/]

I think it is important to understand that I make no assertion that Christians are right. In fact, quite the opposite, their beliefs are in almost direct opposition to most of mine. The assertion I make regards intent; let us remember where this all began.

I find it hard to feel "betrayed" by someone who was wrong. Other people feel perfectly comfortable being angry and feeling betrayed merely for being misinformed. That's their thing... and I'm cool with that. I just don't have the time in my life to waste with such (seemingly) unfounded anger. I ahve found much better things to randomly anger myself over....

Science if full of "oops" moments and denials of reality. The Cosmological Constant was adhered to by some scientists with almost religious fervor for WAY too long. I don't get angry that we were wrong about science. I don't get angry when I think of all of the science that we currently believe but will ultimately be disproven years from now. I also don't get angry because some people teach that incorrect science today. People teach what they believe to be true... and I can't find anger or betrayal in myself for that..

I think the most telling thing is this:

Think of a proposition that looks overwhelmingly more likely than the alternatives to you. After that happened, how much did you need to have a weekly infomercial-style pep rally in which, if only you all shout "amen" loud enough and sing it over and over until you're practically in a self-hypnotic trance, you convince yourself that you truly believe it?

I read that to mean, because you dissaprove of their method of belief... because you feel that their way of believing can be characterized as an "infomercial-style pep rally".. it smacks of dishonesty. I disagree... it smacks of comfort. I try not to judge those that need such simple, obvious things as comfort anymore than I judge polytheistic societies that relied on mythology for their science in years gone by. Were they stupid? No, just ignorant.

It is plausible that my belief structure will one day be disproved. That one day, it will be PROVEN that there is no God. I don't believe it will be, because I believe that there is a God... but it is plausible. It is similarly plausible that my belief structure will one day be PROVEN, beyond a shadow of a doubt. Until that time... my assumption is that anyone who genuinely believes, regardless of how *YOU* characterize their belief, is not lying... they're just risking being wrong.

Is it pushing reality out of conciousness? Nope. It's viewing reality the way that makes sense to the individual. As we adopt new scientific theories, are those that are reluctant to give up their old, not-yet-demonstrably disproven theories liars? No, they are clinging to the beliefs that form their view of the world around them... just as theists cling to God and atheists cling to the lack of God... to change requres an amazing mental shift... I know, I once believed in a Christian God... then I became an atheist. I spent some 15 years of my life as an atheist... and a bitter one. Today, I have a relatively recently acquired non-Christian faith in God. It is a distinct shift in intellect, perspective, and thought process... and is therefore resisted...

At the end of the day, this is really a relatively pointless thread to follow. We aren't discussing the same thing. My concern is with the mischaracterization of the teachings of religious parents and clergy as "a statement made by someone who believes or suspects it to be false, in the expectation that the hearers may believe it" (because that is what a lie is)... your contention is that a fiction is a lie... which is simply, definitionally, untrue. A fiction, while it may be false, cannot be a lie unless it is A) known to be false and B) delivered with the intent to deceive. I don't think that your average believer qualifies... regardless of how "foolish" or "self-hypnotic" their method of worship might be.

There are many logically valid and rhetorically sound reasons to bash Christianity... this isn't one of them.

[matt-arnold.livejournal.com]

I do know (and have been happily employed by) clergy who I like and who I believe to be honest and sincere, though delusional. I don't deny their existence.

I could prove to you with many examples of religious leaders I know who know what they are saying is false and deliver it with the intent to deceive. Apparently you have had the good fortune to avoid these charlatans. I haven't. You don't strike me as the sort who would deny the existence of snake-oil salesmen entirely.

I won't hold them guiltless. But I forgive you for doing so.

[http://users.livejournal.com/jer_/]

Okay, now I understand where our POVs diverged. I apologize for being dense earlier, I was clearly misunderstanding your point. No, I certainly haven't been nearly fortunate enough to avoid "snake-oil salesmen" at all... I was understanding you to be saying that *all* peddlers of faith were lying, not a specific subset of those that do not believe but continue to peddle their brand of hokum... I agree, the latter catagory is most certainly lying.

Again, my apologies for being dense.