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Science, Religion and the Quest for Secular Morality
Can religion and science co-exist peacefully? Many wish they could. But alas, it isn’t so, for science and religion are not actually two sides of the same coin—as many desperately wish to believe—but they’re entirely different currencies. Where science limits its trade to the natural world, religion traffics in the supernatural, and the two just don’t mix.
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Posted by iPlant on 03/25 at 10:58 AM
("I've heard it said that science and technology are complementary" - you mean "science and religion") -- [Corrected; thank you!]
You seem to assume a moral compass can be discovered/created. Starting from that assumption, without seriously considering the implications of failure, seems biased. Alternatively, the moral compass might be profoundly alien and socially dislocating. Consider, for instance, Scott Bakker's semantic apocalypse.
You mention the issue of stem cells/abortion. Where do you draw the line? As far as I can tell, there is no secular solution to this problem. Say a country starts growing fetuses till 8 months of age before destroying/killing them and harvesting their bodies and brains for tissue. How is this wrong? It feels wrong but you call for a morality that rests on empirical evidence rather than faith.
As I see it, morality is a worryingly unstable phenomena. I know evolution promotes some pro-social predispositions that most of us share, but they only inform our decisions-making with regard to basic human interaction - they don't extrapolate very far.
Posted by Tim Dean on 03/25 at 07:23 PM
Yes I assume a (naturalistic) moral compass can be discovered/created. For if it can be done at all, it can be done by the right kind of philosophy. Consider the alternative - that the supernatural is the foundation of our morality. As we learn more about the natural world, this position will become increasingly untenable, if it's not entirely untenable at the moment.
As for the Semantic Apocalypse - nice essay, that. However it looks to me like Bakker is just retelling the revelation that consciousness (and free will) are illusory from the perspective of neuroscience. But I don't think the fact of this illusion undermines the quest for a secular morality in any way.
I've already posted something about why free will doesn't matter (http://ockhamsbeard.wordpress.com/2009/01/25/why-free-will-doesnt-matter/). And I'm even comfortable with the notion that morality might be an illusion - I don't think it undermines secular morality.
Let me put it another way by quoting that other great philosopher, Shakespeare: "There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so." To which I would simply add: "But thinking makes it so."
On stem cells/abortion, I don't draw a hard line. I think our best understanding of the natural world indicates there are no hard distinctions to be drawn on such issues. They're inevitable fuzzzy, vague, grey areas, depending on your preferred nomenclature.
So a secular morality might have to take that into account. It might have some rules with inbuilt fuzziness and flexibility. If you're concerned that might mean we make some practical moral errors - well, we probably will. But again, consider the alternative. Is a supernatural morality going to lead to *less* errors? At least a secular morality can revise itself, update itself according to new facts about the world and can continue to improve to minimise errors. That would all be built in.
Posted by Mike Treder on 03/25 at 08:26 PM
I think humans have evolved a built-in sense of morality that gives most of us a feeling of what's "right" and what's "wrong" without the need for external input. Obviously that innate morality gauge can be influenced or overridden by external circumstances such as upbringing, social pressure, etc.
But I believe we are on safe ground by trusting in the general "goodness" of human kind and allowing secular society to determine norms without any guidance from supernatural sources. That was, if I am not mistaken, precisely the view of the men who founded the first modern democratic republic, here in America.
Posted by Lincoln Cannon on 03/25 at 09:11 PM
I am (or at least aspire to being) peer-reviewed religious, I'm not alone, and (for what it's worth) I'm confident such persons are not going away any time soon.
Posted by Russell Blackford on 03/26 at 01:44 AM
One problem is that some of us may actually prefer something like existentialism or libertarianism, or deny that we (as individuals) want or need a moral compass. We may even find something objectionable in the term "empty hedonism" - a lot of contestable assumptions lurk behind that phrase, and it can't just be used uncontroversially.
Another problem is that the naturalistic justifications for a secular morality may be plural. Even if we can agree what they are, we may weight them differently ... and there may be no way to settle the issue definitively. I suspect that that is, in fact, the situation we face, and that morality will always be contested to some extent even by people who are maximally well-informed and who make no mistakes of reasoning. We are unlikely ever to develop a moral code that everyone who is not a psychopath will sign up to.
On the other hand, I see no reason why well-informed and rational people may not come to A LOT of agreement. I.e., much of the disagreement is probably traceable to disagreements about empirical, religious, metaphysical, etc., issues, rather than about, say, whether pain and suffering are desirable. It's just that I see reasons why moral agreement won't be complete and the "true" morality may be something indeterminate (at least at the margins).
Finally, I wonder whether these problems are as great as all that sounds. In practice, children have to be socialised into certain virtues. Though some of these are controversial (is chastity a virtue or a vice? what about a certain degree of pride?), some are not (no one seriously claims that honesty is a bad thing or tries to socialise children to be dishonest). In practice, parents are virtue theorists, and this more or less works. Almost all of us prefer kindness to cruelty, honesty to dishonesty, loyalty to treachery, and so on, and we agree pretty much on which is which. Most of our day-to-day moral judgments involve a folk virtue theory that is contested at the margins but is relatively uncontroversial for the more central cases.
Posted by Joseph K. on 03/26 at 02:11 PM
Good discussion, and well said.
Perhaps the non-supernatural moral guide you're looking for is already contained in the Jefferson Bible (and many other places, like Nietzsche's body of work-- though the issue of "workability" is certainly problematic there)?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jefferson_Bible
Regardless, what I'm most struck by in your article is the ease with which the concepts "religion" and "science" are employed-- as though they are universally understood. I'm tempted to complicate the meanings of those terms further. Particularly absent from the discussion is the issue of interpretation.
The Bible need not be dogmatic (and by most interpretations, it isn't), nor do all the supernatural issues need to be interpreted as such (ie, the resurrection). This issue of interpretation is central to the idea of all religions, and would most certainly be at issue in any new reformulation you wish for.
http://religionscienceart.blogspot.com/
Posted by Tim Dean on 03/26 at 07:31 PM
@Russel Blackford: I think we're actually in broad agreement. The points you raise are all pertinent and will all need to be addressed by a secular morality.
First off - and perhaps I should have made this more clear in my rant - I fully expect to see *multiple* secular moralities, some differing on their cardinal values, some differing on implementation on how to fulfill them.
Some may end up being libertarian, some existentialist, some hedonist, although I have serious doubts about all three and their ability to replace religion and increase wellbeing. But that would be part of the discussion in trying to create secular morality/ies.
And I agree that the naturalistic justifications will likely vary. In fact, I'm proposing such an idea, called Moral Diversity, as part of my PhD thesis. It's based on findings by Jon Haidt and others that moral intuitions differ amongst self-proclaimed liberals and conservatives in the US. And I think there could be a game theory explanation of this phenomenon which, if correct, suggests an evolved diversity in moral sentiments across humanity. If this is true, then secular morality will have to accommodate that rather than just appeal to one side (Marx versus Rand, for example).
Finally, I think the problem is great. I agree that most people subscribe to similar values, but the way they employ them differs greatly. In-group attributions, for example, can mean the difference between helping or harming someone. Then there's the natural facts that need to plug in to our values - such as the definition of a 'human' before birth. These problems are huge.
@Joseph K.
The Jefferson Bible is fascinating, but I'd ask this: if one were to construct a moral system without supernatural content, why limit oneself to the words of one man spoken two millennia past? Why not employ our best scientific knowledge as well? Or our best philosophical knowledge? The words of Jesus and many other wise figures through history can be sources of inspiration, but they, alone, will not be sufficient for this programme.
And I appreciate there are different conceptions of religion and science. I also appreciate that some support a notion of religion without dogma or the supernatural - but that is a minority view, and one I feel is the antithesis of the personal god promoted by the main theistic religious traditions.
Besides, even a bible stripped of the supernatural would only be a part of the quest to develop a new moral system, for it lacks many of the insights provided by science that would be crucial in making the moral system compatible with the natural world.
That said, a 'secular' morality could feasibly be compatible with a pantheism of sorts.
Posted by Tim Dean on 03/26 at 07:39 PM
Also, Russell, on the topic of hedonism etc, my recent review of Clive Hamilton's Freedom Paradox might clarify my views.
Posted by Joseph K. on 03/27 at 11:09 AM
Don't we already have a secular morality in the US Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and all subsequent amendments?
On a basic level there is little reason to regard the US Constitution as something wholly different from the Bible (or other 'sacred' texts)-- all are documents aimed at structuring society with particular moral aims in sight. The main difference being the times in which they were written and the contemporary (scientific) frames of reference that come along with that difference.
I'm certainly aware of differences between moral law and judicial law, but I'd like to hear someone articulate why the US constitution doesn't fit your programme for a secular morality? Is it, by chance, that you'd like something more workable, readable, and accessible?
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Posted by Mike Treder on 03/27 at 11:59 AM
I agree, Joseph, and I'd also put forward the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, from 1948.
Posted by Tim Dean on 03/27 at 06:48 PM
There is a gulf of difference between the US Constitution and the kind of secular morality(ies) I'm talking about.
First, as you mention, is the difference between moral and judicial. Laws can never be intrinsically moral, for laws are contingent and it must always be morally permissible to break an immoral law.
Second, the Constitution sets the boundaries for how a state is to be governed. To some extent this is informed by the values of the state, but it doesn't become a part of the values themselves.
Also, the Constitution - or other legal documents - don't serve as a moral system in themselves; they don't inform the individual on how to live a good life. In the Declaration of Independence it explicitly talks of "the pursuit of happiness" but doesn't inform *how* this is to be achieved. That's quite deliberate.
Finally, the Constitution et al are mediated by politicians and lawyers. I think that point makes itself...
As for the UDHR, that is also not a moral system in its own right, although it's informed by liberal moral values.
It explicitly limits the laws of a nation to allow for an individual's morality, which is left open:
Article 29, clause 2:
"In the exercise of his rights and freedoms, everyone shall be subject only to such limitations as are determined by law solely for the purpose of securing due recognition and respect for the rights and freedoms of others and of meeting the just requirements of morality, public order and the general welfare in a democratic society."
The kind of secular morality I'm talking about is a fully fledged moral system, covering what's permissible and impermissible, but also serving the role that religion has played in society for millennia.
It would have shared customs and traditions; it would bring people together as a community; it would perform charity work; it would encourage people to give of themselves to their community and those in need; it would educate people in how to live a good life and how to get through difficult times (eg, divorces and deaths in the family are a major cause for non-religious individuals to turn to religion); it would inspire awe in the natural world etc.
That's how I envisage it, although I leave open many other interpretations of the specifics. But it must be as psychologically fulfilling as religion - just without the supernatural bits. Constitutions and Declarations just can't swing that.
Posted by Russell Blackford on 03/29 at 01:35 AM
This is mainly to say that I'm looking forward to further discussion with Tim, though I'll have a bit more to say than that.
My own recently completed PhD thesis ended up being very much a defence of Millian liberalism in public policy relating to new technologies. But an earlier draft developed a concept of what I called "naturalistic moral pluralism". The whole thesis was getting far too ambitious, and I eventually dropped this, but I've written about it a bit over on my blog and have done quite a lot of relevant research, and would still like to write a book about it some time.
I've discussed the idea
here http://metamagician3000.blogspot.com/2007/08/naturalistic-moral-pluralism-rant.html
and here http://metamagician3000.blogspot.com/2007/09/moral-scepticism-revisited.html
... but would now express it slightly differently.
It's meant to be consistent with JL Mackie's error theory of meta-ethics in his book Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong ... and is inspired partly by the much-neglected (but IMO brilliant) second half of that book.
Basically, the idea is that there is a naturalistic explanation of how we come to have morality. There are also naturalistic reasons why beings like us, given our actual capacities, values, and situations, might give some endorsement, upon rational reflection, to the moral systems we encounter (and why we would have to construct the institution of morality if we didn't already have it).
However, those reasons are pluralistic in something like the way I described above. They depend on a variety of values that most of us actually share, but for which rational justification eventually runs out. Those values include but are not necessarily limited to:
1. The value of avoiding or ameliorating suffering.
2. The value of collective peace and security.
3. The value of leading flourishing lives in a non-moralised sense that includes being able to enjoy such goods as love from others.
Different people will put different relative weights on these things and will also weigh them differently compared to other values that don't so obviously underpin morality (such as the value of competitive success) - not to mention values that do seem to underpin some actual moralities but which many of us reject, such as the value of "purity" of some kind.
Accordingly, it can't be guaranteed that we can ever be compelled by reason to reach complete agreement, though it's likely that we will reach a lot of agreement with fellow human beings if we are all sufficiently well-informed.
However, people who weigh different values differently, or who may even put almost no weight on some values that others weigh heavily (or vice versa), may not be making any intellectual error.
Furthermore, we cannot say that a psychopath or a man-eating Martian is making any intellectual error in not acting in accordance with something in the ball-park of typical human morality.
Still, morality isn't just arbitrary. We can be confident that there will be much resemblance between the moral systems of various human societies and even more resemblance between the moral standards of most individuals in the same society. Almost all of us will have good reasons to uphold much of the morality of the people around us - it has a point, judged against our own values.
This allows for slippage at the margins, and indeed for legitimate proposals to alter existing socially-approved moral norms.
Where Tim disagreed with me was in saying that the problem is great, where my earlier post was kind of playing it down. The first thing I'd like to say is that I think that the problem is inevitable. The only way I can see to reduce it is to try to reach agreement on as many non-moral propositions as possible, but even that will leave some differences in the most fundamental relevant values.
How great will the problem be among very rational and well-informed people? I must say that I remain quite optimistic. Even now, with enormous amounts of empirical, metaphysical, religious, etc., disagreement, we mostly get by very well from day to day. In fact, modern cities are very safe places for the majority of people. Most of the people we encounter are, at least most of the time, honest, kind, and non-violent.
But maybe I'd agree with Tim if he could clarify the sense in which he thinks the problem is "great". I can certainly think of limited, yet important, senses in which that's true. E.g. there are specific issues of disagreement that currently seem intractable, and while these may not have much effect on the day-to-day life of a coddled middle-class person like me, they certainly do have effects elsewhere. E.g., an issue such as the moral acceptability of abortion seems intractable for practical purposes. Moreover, if Haidt is correct, we can expect to see people with different clusters of ultimate values (or weightings of values) sometimes diverging systematically on a whole range of issues. Furthermore, reason seems almost powerless to resolve their differences.
When I said in my earlier comment that the problem is not as great as all that sounds, I had in mind something more mundane. E.g., if I walk around the corner and buy a cake, the person behind the counter, regardless of her religion, political persuasion, etc., will probably take the same attitude to the transaction as I do. It won't even cross her mind to think of a way to use force or fraud to get my money while keeping the cake. Most of us, most of the time, in most of our transactions, have no trouble operating with the same morality as the people we are transacting with.
But there is still plenty of room for intractable disagreements, not only over abortion but also many other things, such as sexual mores, enhancement technologies, etc.
Posted by bryce on 04/03 at 04:25 PM
"Where science limits its trade to the natural world, religion traffics in the supernatural, and the two just don't mix."
In a way I have to agree, but in another way, I think that Sir Francis Bacon, Blaise Pascal, Sir Isaac Newton,
Michael Faraday, James Clerk Maxwell, Gregor Mendel, and Louis Pasteur would disagree. I guess it depends on exactly what is meant by "mix."
Posted by Joseph K on 04/03 at 10:04 PM
Buddhism is a perfect example of a religion that "mixes" just fine with science.
See this article:
http://religionscienceart.blogspot.com/2009/03/buddhism-and-science.html
When the writer(s) above discuss "religion," I get the impression they mean literalist followers of the abrahammic faiths-- a very small group of religious followers indeed.
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