I find this misleading. The author.seem to claim that in order to accept universal human rights we need to believe in (a Christian?) God. So we either accept these rights without supporting...
They don’t believe in God because there’s no empirical reason to believe in him. But at the same time, they believe in human rights, which can be justified only by the very God they don’t believe in. They also can’t explain what makes human beings special or why the value of a human life should transcend cultural boundaries. Ultimately, there are two ways to justify a belief in human rights: you can either construct a bottom-up, rational argument, or you can surrender to the supreme word of God.
I find this misleading. The author.seem to claim that in order to accept universal human rights we need to believe in (a Christian?) God. So we either accept these rights without supporting evidence OR we accept a God without supporting evidence that then says we should live by these virtues. To start out lets for arguments sake assume this is true. We either accept the statement P or we accept the statements S and S -> P. Where P is something like "human rights are universal" and S is "the Christian God is real". If we are to assume anything without evidence it seems more sound to just believe in P as that has at least one fewer implication.
Further, what "the word of God" seems to vary over time and cultures. Is there any reason to believe that faith in God is something that will always imply human rights?
A better (in my opinion) and secular motivation for believing human rights (and also for in general striving for an egalitarian society) is Rawls' "veil of ignorance". Everyone probably wouldn't arrive in exactly the same universal principles (some might prefer taking their chances with some inequality for instance), but overall I believe most people would prefer something like universal human rights.
To either believe in or support the notion of 'human equality' or not is a value judgement, and as such one's belief in / support of the idea is contingent on one's value system. This is the...
But there’s a problem: human equality isn’t self-evident at all. [...] Human equality is self-evident only if you assume, as Locke did, that God has given us [...] natural rights
To either believe in or support the notion of 'human equality' or not is a value judgement, and as such one's belief in / support of the idea is contingent on one's value system. This is the foundation of moral relativism. The article doesn't address this and so myself and it are already talking past each other: I am a moral relativist, but the article assumes a position of moral universalism.
I've come across this issue so many times now that I just find it tiring. Moral universalism is, in my opinion, extremely difficult to argue, because the burden of proof is extremely high. That is one reason why I am a moral relativist: different individuals, groups, and cultures demonstrably have different moral attitudes, and if my moral arguments are compatible with a wider range of those attitudes, or are less contingent on particular values, then my argument is de facto stronger, and could apply if either moral relativism or moral universalism are true. Inversely, if I assume moral universalism, I am more likely to construct an argument which is predicated on a particular value, or on the universality of values, and this is de facto incompatible with moral relativism.
Moral relativism is also a more respectful position, more compatible across cultures, and places those debating in a more open minded perspective, where absolute agreement does not have to be sought, and ideas and opinions can flow freely and change independently for each person.
More importantly, moral universalism can lead to a perspective that "you can't be moral unless you believe in God". I've had this argument with people, and I find it incredibly judgemental of myself and closed-minded. I've spent years of my life thinking about morality, meta-ethics, political philosophy. To have someone who doesn't know me as well as I know myself, to tell me that I am amoral or immoral, regardless of how much time I spend in self-reflection, is incredibly insulting.
To be clear, I'm not accusing the author of this post of that, but reading those sentences reminded me of those memories. I've had discussions with people from this mindset before, and I've seen first hand how it can lead to an attitude of toxic self-righteousness. Yeah, super Christian of those people.
If your approach to "human equality is an axiom I can't justify" is to instead shift to another axiom which is much harder to justify (the existence of God), then in my opinion that's just bad philosophy. Value systems are axiomatic systems: you have to start with some base set of values that you just assume to be true, and from there you can develop arguments to support/refute other value judgements. That's just how logic and argumentation work. The goal for myself when developing my own value system has always been to find the simplest set of axioms, which are both difficult to argue against, and which allow me to entail all the value judgements I want to be true. If you want to start with "all humans are equal", that's fine, you should explore the consequences of that. It's either self-evident because you made it self-evident as an axiom, or it follows logically from your axioms.
I find some variant of Universalism or Nihilism to be much more reasonable. You can take the perspective, as many have, that morals are not necessarily a "real" thing and vary wildly based on an...
I find some variant of Universalism or Nihilism to be much more reasonable. You can take the perspective, as many have, that morals are not necessarily a "real" thing and vary wildly based on an infinity of factors, which then makes you some variant of nihilist- which, alright, I'm fine with that, I can accept the admittance of the futility of logic and of life- or you can find some kind of reasoning that places somewhere between a few and all moral rules to be set in stone, to be unquestionable, even if some societies haven't yet realized this and are working based on one thing or another that leads to the "wrong" conclusions. For myself, this is a mixture of scientific data and a variety of concepts similar to the Veil of Ignorance/Original Position concept- one of my favorites being the Principle of Generic Consistency proposed by Alan Gewirth, though not for any particular reason- combined to reason out what seems, with all the information we currently have, to be what is, factually, how we should treat each other on moral terms. The best possible solution for every individual and society as a whole in one concept. Rational exploration of the concept of reality and what it means to be human. Which ends up going pretty far down the line of soft universalism and could be considered hard universalism depending on how you define it. And hell, if you approach hard/soft universalism from the right angle, they're almost as malleable as any other justification. The premise of most structures of universalism are predicated upon the idea that there can be a set explanation and logical path to take to the "rules" (be it the Original Position, God Said So, or something else), and frequently claim that the end result is too complex to be 100% known at all times. If other cultures can defend the practices they promote with that same rational explanation, then perhaps the soft/hard universalist will alter to fit that instead of dismissing them. A moral nihilist will just say that's their prerogative and shrug. But what is a moral relativist to do when that other culture wants to impose beliefs?
Furthermore, you bring the idea of someone immediately calling you amoral or immoral, and I think you've shown the worst possible approach there (and I've even tried to rewrite this very comment to prevent falling into the exact same series of events as I'm about to describe because it's so desperately easy to do). Of course, if some holier-than-thou ass comes up, calls you a godless heathen, says you deserve to burn, and then starts explaining how you should act, you're not going to readily respond positively to that. But what if someone comes up, starts up a friendly conversation, tries to give their perspective on reality, and asks you to explain why you think what you think... And then just debates you on those concepts?
I've tried to prevent myself from attacking moral relativism yet, because I want to simply get the answer from you: How do you justify it?
Thanks for your reply :) I'm kinda tired so this might be a bit of a ramble-y response and not address all of your points. Foremost I am a pragmatist: I'm only really interested in philosophical...
Thanks for your reply :) I'm kinda tired so this might be a bit of a ramble-y response and not address all of your points.
Foremost I am a pragmatist: I'm only really interested in philosophical ideas and definitions that are useful to me, and help me to understand my self, other people, or the world around me. That said, perhaps moral relativism isn't exactly correct to describe my own perspective, depending on how we define it. I say this because philosophers also have a range of metaethical stances on the 'truth status' of ethical statements: i.e. can a sentence like "killing is wrong" be true or false?
Honestly I don't really care if ethical statements have a truth value or not, and it's not a discussion that's relevant to me, so my position on that is "I don't know and I don't care". That could position me as some combination of moral relativist, moral anti-realist, moral non-objectivist, moral nihilist, moral skeptic, and/or emotivist.
More specifically, I think the core of my metaethical perspective is that I believe that ethical sentences are often underspecified, but can usually be interpreted as a value judgement which is held by the speaker. So for example "killing is wrong" can be interpreted and questioned in many ways: what is killing? why is it wrong? is it always wrong or are there exceptional circumstances? is it wrong to you personally, or do you mean it is against your society's culture or laws, or that it is or should be universally disparaged? do you want me to agree with you? I would usually re-interpret such a sentence as "I believe that killing is wrong", but it's still an incredibly fuzzy sentence.
This position firmly places ethics in the realm of discourse, because it implies that often people are talking past each other and need to get on the same page, with a very clear and precise definition of their views, through the interrogation of edge cases and the parts which have so far been unstated. If someone starts with "killing is wrong", two people could easily arrive at "we both believe that it would be wrong if either of us, or anybody we know, killed someone, and it should not be permitted in our society". Further interrogation of the statement may reveal a schism on the issue of assisted suicide: is it OK for a person A to aid another person B to commit suicide if they are, or will soon be, in incredible pain or suffering? The discussion would continue as participants outline their perspectives on a set of increasingly refined scenarios.
All of this is informed by my ethical (not metaethical) belief that "usually, forcing people to do or believe something they don't want to do or believe, is bad, and I don't want to do that to people, nor have other people do it to me, or the people I love". So if I met someone who wanted to impose their beliefs, I would very likely take issue with that, but that's more from an ethical perspective than a metaethical perspective. That is, it's not because it goes against moral relativism per se, but because it goes against my personal values, and the values that I advocate more broadly to the world around me (and I advocate them because I believe they bring many benefits).
I love debate, especially of ethical issues, and I would go further to say that ethical debate (both debate about ethics, and debate conducted ethically) is essential for a well-functioning society, and a democracy in particular.
For me relativism boils down to acknowledging that different humans have different values and will disagree with each other on certain ethical statements (even highly specified ones), and that if there is a 'pure form' of 'ultimate morality' somewhere then it is inaccessible. So we are effectively stuck with just our respective, personal value systems, and the dialectical method: talk to other people about them, interrogate them ourselves, try to be highly specific with our propositions.
Different person, but I'd also consider myself a moral relativist. I'd prefer if moral universalism were true for the reasons you list, but justifying moral universalism feels like a hopeless...
Different person, but I'd also consider myself a moral relativist. I'd prefer if moral universalism were true for the reasons you list, but justifying moral universalism feels like a hopeless endeavor.
My moral relativism comes from a naturalist perspective. If the universe simply follows the laws of nature (with no abstract moral "stuff" out there), then moral judgement must be emergent and driven by evolution. Human beings are social and codependent. Our moral judgements reflect that (eg, the golden rule). But what if we had evolved from individualistic lizards instead? As a human being, it would be barbaric to eat your own child; but perhaps, given a predisposition to lay a hundred eggs at a time, it would be normal to do so. Would lizard-people find life sacred without the forces of societal cohesion? Does it even make sense to apply the same ethical standards to lizard-people and human-people?
Personally, my meta-ethical belief is that all human moral judgements are normative. That is, even breaches of etiquette can be immoral under certain circumstances (consider guests wearing white at a wedding). I believe this is why some behaviors are almost universally considered immoral (eg, random acts of violence) while other behaviors are not (eg, politically charged matters). Moral relativism is a straightforward consequence.
That isn't to say that I like this philosophy. If you assume that moral judgements are normative, then there are few limits on what passes for moral behavior. Slavery, for example, was normal a couple hundred years ago. I never want slavery to return and could articulate at length why not. But my disgust in slavery is visceral and emotional, not logical. To what extent do norms manipulate my emotions? How could virtually no white Southerners support slavery today, despite virtually all white Southerners supporting slavery a couple hundred years ago? Undoubtedly these people, on the whole, considered themselves moral. So how could they accept something so obvious wrong?
I found this quite frustrating to read - to the extent that I didn't get past the first third or so, so please correct me if it changes wildly beyond that. It makes huge jumps and acts as if...
Exemplary
I found this quite frustrating to read - to the extent that I didn't get past the first third or so, so please correct me if it changes wildly beyond that.
It makes huge jumps and acts as if they're clear and unquestionable next steps. The starting premise of "human rights are self evident" comes from the Declaration of Independence, and is accepted as a foundation to build on - except I can think of at least a few groups of people who might just challenge the founders on that assertion. That's a pretty shaky start right off the bat.
one of their central beliefs — human rights — is self-evident only if God says so
Why do human rights need to be self evident to be an important belief? Why are they self evident in a religious model when Biblical teachings regularly contradict them?
If you believe in human rights but don’t believe in God, you need a logical explanation for why they’re self-evident
Absolutely, wildly untrue. You need a logical explanation for why they're valuable.
If humans are in the same category of every other animal, there is no intellectual scaffolding to uphold either human rights or the legal equality of man
You don't need to believe in a soul to suggest that humanity's sapience and self awareness are important in how we treat each other. We can be "in the same category" as all other life while still recognising a spectrum of difference from a clam to a dog to a chimp to a human.
In theory, we could base our belief in human rights on rationality and the mutual agreement that some actions are better than others
Yes, we could. In fact, many of us do! Nothing theoretical about it. But then the very next sentence:
Maybe one day, people will worship the United Nations’ Human Rights charter like they worship the Bible today
Just... what?! It seems as though the author truly cannot conceive of a worldview that isn't at least tinged by faith, by worship, by belief.
I try to do good because I want to live in a world where people do good. That's it. I absolutely do struggle with the philosophical underpinnings of why we do anything at all, but that doesn't interfere with the material fact that I want to spend my days in a stable, safe, caring society.
But in practice, no matter how much we’d like it to be otherwise, an objective and unchanging belief in human rights can be justified by faith and faith alone
Where did "objective and unchanging" suddenly come in from?! That doesn't need to be the case. It's a huge leap to bring in that extra baggage apropos of nothing and then act like it's a necessary pillar of the conversation, and I'd call the author intellectually dishonest if I didn't get the impression they truly believed what they were saying.
I did read a bit further than that, but it basically followed the same pattern of me getting more and more annoyed sentence by sentence as the unfounded assumptions first stacked up, and then were used as if they were solid foundations for why clearly god must be at the center of all this.
I tend to enjoy philosophical and sometimes even religious debate, but this wasn't for me.
One problem with this quote by Christopher Hitchens is that the Bible really lends itself well to multiple, often contradictory interpretations (not to mention numerous translations from ancient...
The atheist scholar Christopher Hitchens was once interviewed by a unitarian minister who called herself a “Liberal Christian.” Though she identifies as a Christian, she doesn’t believe Jesus died for her sins. Instead, she reads the scripture metaphorically. Hitchens, who was one of Christianity’s fiercest critics, responded by saying: “I would say that if you don’t believe that Jesus of Nazareth was the Christ and Messiah, and that he rose again from the dead and by his sacrifice our sins are forgiven, you’re really not in any meaningful sense a Christian.”
One problem with this quote by Christopher Hitchens is that the Bible really lends itself well to multiple, often contradictory interpretations (not to mention numerous translations from ancient languages rife with ambiguity). It is not a precise and reliable historical document, or a logically sound metaphysical treaty. The many Bibles are basically anthologies of books by different authors, without any coordination or editorial guidelines (in the time of writing). So, when he says that someone that does not believe in certain interpretations of the books cannot be considered a Christian, I ask: according to whom?
(Speaking as a former Luthern, now atheist) I'm inclined to side with Hitchens on this one. The most important differentiator between the three major branches of Abrahamic religions is the...
(Speaking as a former Luthern, now atheist)
I'm inclined to side with Hitchens on this one. The most important differentiator between the three major branches of Abrahamic religions is the acceptance or denial of Jesus as divine, complete with the ressurection.
I've been in a lot of different churches, all of which fall somewhere on the spectrum between literal and metaphorical interpretation of the Bible. A key differentiator between Christian sects is the belief in transubstantiation (that the ritual of communion is consuming the literal body/blood of Christ). If the sect you belong to proclaims it, and you do not believe it, you're not actually part of that sect. You're divergent.
Paired with the heavy authoritarian nature of churches, it causes all sorts of major problems throughout the world. Like massacre of divergents and nonbelievers.
Edit: Would you like to know more?
Marrying into a very Jewish family, I've learned that for many sects of Judaism, being an atheist is not equivalent to shedding your religion. Because part of being Jewish is questioning and reasoning about your beliefs. They're generally less susceptible to fundementalism, and more grounded in heiritage and tradition. As my glib wife put it: Many Jewish holidays boil down to "they tried to kill us, we survived, let's eat!"
My wife's family is very "Jewish-ish," in the sense they have largely abandoned all the theistic bits, but kept almost all the values and celebration of traditions. My wife herself never even understood she was an atheist until high school, because God was never part of the picture in any significant sense.
So, in our family, we're kinda forming our own traditions as a result. Shedding the theocratic pasts of both Christian and Judaism, and forming new secular (and irreverant) traditions of our own. The various weather-related ones are ending up kinda paganish. Thanksgiving is incorporating talks of imperialism. MLK through Black history month is talking of privilage, power, and abuse therof. Easter is largely abandoned in favor of Pirate Day (the Saturday before) with treasure hunts. So on and so forth. We keep the most significant of the holiday bits we grew up with, fill in the voids where we felt were lacking, and it's turning out quite fun.
I disagree on that. You're stating the interpretation of a cluster of religions. That is not universal. Religions don't just crush non-believers, they also crush faith which does not agree with...
I disagree on that. You're stating the interpretation of a cluster of religions. That is not universal.
Religions don't just crush non-believers, they also crush faith which does not agree with them. If you think of a "Christian" as a follower of Christ, in the broader sense, things suddenly become much less black and white.
Hitchens is basically saying: how dare you not be the kind of Christian I disapprove of?
Here's an analogous syllogism:
All Christian faith is morally or logically questionable
Christian faith A is not morally or logically questionable
I'm not going to go too much farther into it, however: Unitarian, as I've always heard it, is fully "Unitarian Universalist." They're kind of their own thing, they often draw from multiple...
I'm not going to go too much farther into it, however:
Unitarian, as I've always heard it, is fully "Unitarian Universalist." They're kind of their own thing, they often draw from multiple different religions and picking and choosing from the best parts to teach and adopt. Individual pastors and congregates will have their own set of beliefs, and as such Unitarian does not equate to Christian. "Coexist" bumper stickers are likely from Unitarians.
Hitchens (and many, many other atheists) don't really care about that. We care about divinity being used (as in the article) being used as a more elaborate trump card to say "Do as I say, because I said so." The Pope is the embodiment of this, as he supposedly speaks directly to God and relays his will to humanity in hierarchal fashion. Monotheistic religions all generally do this to some degree, given the nature of "The One True God knows best, and I' just so happen to speak for him." Scientology isn't inherintly more strange than Christianity to an atheist, if anything it's more honest than most.
We care greatly about deification because it is a frequent enabler of "the ends justify the means." If you ascribe to Christian values and teachings, that doesn't make you Christian, especially in the sense Hitchens cares about.
Hell, I am a anarcho-communist atheist. But I still ascribe to several Christian values as espoused by Jesus, simply because they do stand apart from divinity and heirarchy. And many of these Abrahamic values do touch on what I consider "Universal good values."
Hitchens's statement is morally charged, and I do not agree with that; but I think the interesting discussion to be had is about semantics. Why is there a collection of things which we call...
Hitchens's statement is morally charged, and I do not agree with that; but I think the interesting discussion to be had is about semantics. Why is there a collection of things which we call 'Christianity', what distinguishes those from other similar things, and what determines if something belongs to that collection?
This aligns to almost all of the surviving christian sects and christian writings Also, I suspect most of the original followers of Jesus thought this as well.
if you don’t believe that Jesus of Nazareth was the Christ and Messiah, and that he rose again from the dead and by his sacrifice our sins are forgiven, you’re really not in any meaningful sense a Christian.”
This aligns to almost all of the surviving christian sects and christian writings
Also, I suspect most of the original followers of Jesus thought this as well.
I'm very much a Christian. There are quite a few million in my religion. You wouldn't recognize us as related to any major cluster. In fact, I never talk about my religion on the English internet...
and that he rose again from the dead and by his sacrifice our sins are forgiven,
I'm very much a Christian. There are quite a few million in my religion. You wouldn't recognize us as related to any major cluster. In fact, I never talk about my religion on the English internet because it is very hard to translate it to Anglo culture. The idea that reasoning and religion are opposites is too ingrained, and I'm not the one who's going to fix that. There's just too much trauma.
Last time I explained on the internet that I was a rational progressive Christian who loves logic and science some people were very confused, others were downright hostile. Which makes me think: people complain so much about backwards believers that when they encounter one who agrees with them, they don't know what to do :P
Anyway, we do not believe Christ sacrificed for our sins. We don't even believe in sin.
We call those people Americans. :) Most of them have never heard of Thomas Jefferson's bible. Oooh, interesting! Does your belief system have a name that I could easily lookup?
Last time I explained on the internet that I was a rational progressive Christian who loves logic and science some people were very confused
We call those people Americans. :)
Most of them have never heard of Thomas Jefferson's bible.
Anyway, we do not believe Christ sacrificed for our sins. We don't even believe in sin.
Oooh, interesting!
Does your belief system have a name that I could easily lookup?
Been a while that I found myself in a theology thread on the internet but I guess on tildes it's safe to actually discuss this. First, I got to acknowledge both the influence of Christianity on...
Been a while that I found myself in a theology thread on the internet but I guess on tildes it's safe to actually discuss this.
First, I got to acknowledge both the influence of Christianity on Western society and its largest overall impact being a positive one. For those who couldn't read through all of this (I get it), the article ultimately makes a secular argument:
I’m not saying that we should force people to be religious. After all, I’m a tepid non-believer myself. But being secular doesn’t give you a hall pass to ignore your Christian influences. We should study religion not to dogmatically accept faith, but to understand the foundations of our worldview. As we do, we should ask ourselves: “Is Christianity true?” And if you think it’s bogus, then: “Why do I let these ideas influence my worldview so strongly?”
So far so good.
Still, I don't get how the belief in god is accepted as some kind of necessary "foundation" when a belief in general morality is not. @archevel already made that argument, so I won't go further into it.
The article only timidly brings it up as a side argument but what a lot of these lines of thinking come down to is that people need "reward" and "punishment" to be good and otherwise would be selfish or downright cruel. I would say that the "punishment" part is the louder argument since the examples given mostly include things like "preventing atrocities".
To me, there is a perfectly rational and, more importantly, selfish argument for human rights. A society that makes sure even its lowest class can live in dignity is almost by default a more peaceful and pleasant one, even if you find yourself in a higher class with little contact to them. With the exception of maybe 1% of people, most are born with a base level of empathy and genuinely feel good about helping people and bad about hurting them. It's not just an act. And, again, it's an efficient way of building a more productive and safe society that can tackle bigger problems.
So what bothers me most, perhaps, about these arguments is that they implicitly paint a very pessimistic view of humanity. Like only the fear of god can prevent us from killing each other. Maybe I'm a bigger optimist than I thought.
This statement follows neither reason nor history. When the “Bible” was compended in 320 or so, the catholics all did exactly this, choosing which texts and ideas mattered or were appropriately...
The problem is that you can’t pick and choose theology without becoming a slave to intellectual fashions or destroying the integrity of those ideas in the first place...[or being] intellectually honest.
This statement follows neither reason nor history. When the “Bible” was compended in 320 or so, the catholics all did exactly this, choosing which texts and ideas mattered or were appropriately divine for inclusion.
And, there’s no reason on any axis-spiritual, intellectual, moral, emotional ir any other-not to read the thing metaphorically. In fact, Jesus often taught in parables, why couldn’t the whole thing be a big parable?
Also, making the story a parable doesn’t mean god doesn’t exist.
Also, most “christians” conception of “God” is really zeus or odin or some combination, capriciosu, arbitrary, jealous and one who plays favorites. This notion is sometimes supported by Biblical readings, and anathema to “human rights” as the author reckons them. In fact, I’m not certain any part of the bible really supports a notion of secular human rights or equality.
No you don't. You need a logical explanation for why humans have an innate sense of right and wrong, regardless of what they believe. Our understanding of human rights has been evolving since time...
If you believe in human rights but don’t believe in God, you need a logical explanation for why they’re self-evident.
No you don't. You need a logical explanation for why humans have an innate sense of right and wrong, regardless of what they believe.
an objective and unchanging belief in human rights can be justified by faith and faith alone.
Our understanding of human rights has been evolving since time began. There is nothing unchanging about these rights, even after the writing of the American Constitution.
I realized that society’s most passionate critics, most of whom claim to be secular, usually have the most Christian values of all
If your understanding of Christian values does not align with the behavior of millions of Christians, then maybe your understanding is wrong.
This creates cognitive dissonance for secular people who advocate for human rights. While they might not realize it, nine times out of ten, they’ve unconsciously inherited a belief in human rights and are unaware of the foundational ideas which underpin that belief.
I think everyone has cognitive dissonance, because most of our beliefs are shaped by those we identify with.
I find this misleading. The author.seem to claim that in order to accept universal human rights we need to believe in (a Christian?) God. So we either accept these rights without supporting evidence OR we accept a God without supporting evidence that then says we should live by these virtues. To start out lets for arguments sake assume this is true. We either accept the statement
Por we accept the statementsSandS -> P. WherePis something like "human rights are universal" andSis "the Christian God is real". If we are to assume anything without evidence it seems more sound to just believe inPas that has at least one fewer implication.Further, what "the word of God" seems to vary over time and cultures. Is there any reason to believe that faith in God is something that will always imply human rights?
A better (in my opinion) and secular motivation for believing human rights (and also for in general striving for an egalitarian society) is Rawls' "veil of ignorance". Everyone probably wouldn't arrive in exactly the same universal principles (some might prefer taking their chances with some inequality for instance), but overall I believe most people would prefer something like universal human rights.
To either believe in or support the notion of 'human equality' or not is a value judgement, and as such one's belief in / support of the idea is contingent on one's value system. This is the foundation of moral relativism. The article doesn't address this and so myself and it are already talking past each other: I am a moral relativist, but the article assumes a position of moral universalism.
I've come across this issue so many times now that I just find it tiring. Moral universalism is, in my opinion, extremely difficult to argue, because the burden of proof is extremely high. That is one reason why I am a moral relativist: different individuals, groups, and cultures demonstrably have different moral attitudes, and if my moral arguments are compatible with a wider range of those attitudes, or are less contingent on particular values, then my argument is de facto stronger, and could apply if either moral relativism or moral universalism are true. Inversely, if I assume moral universalism, I am more likely to construct an argument which is predicated on a particular value, or on the universality of values, and this is de facto incompatible with moral relativism.
Moral relativism is also a more respectful position, more compatible across cultures, and places those debating in a more open minded perspective, where absolute agreement does not have to be sought, and ideas and opinions can flow freely and change independently for each person.
More importantly, moral universalism can lead to a perspective that "you can't be moral unless you believe in God". I've had this argument with people, and I find it incredibly judgemental of myself and closed-minded. I've spent years of my life thinking about morality, meta-ethics, political philosophy. To have someone who doesn't know me as well as I know myself, to tell me that I am amoral or immoral, regardless of how much time I spend in self-reflection, is incredibly insulting.
To be clear, I'm not accusing the author of this post of that, but reading those sentences reminded me of those memories. I've had discussions with people from this mindset before, and I've seen first hand how it can lead to an attitude of toxic self-righteousness. Yeah, super Christian of those people.
If your approach to "human equality is an axiom I can't justify" is to instead shift to another axiom which is much harder to justify (the existence of God), then in my opinion that's just bad philosophy. Value systems are axiomatic systems: you have to start with some base set of values that you just assume to be true, and from there you can develop arguments to support/refute other value judgements. That's just how logic and argumentation work. The goal for myself when developing my own value system has always been to find the simplest set of axioms, which are both difficult to argue against, and which allow me to entail all the value judgements I want to be true. If you want to start with "all humans are equal", that's fine, you should explore the consequences of that. It's either self-evident because you made it self-evident as an axiom, or it follows logically from your axioms.
I find some variant of Universalism or Nihilism to be much more reasonable. You can take the perspective, as many have, that morals are not necessarily a "real" thing and vary wildly based on an infinity of factors, which then makes you some variant of nihilist- which, alright, I'm fine with that, I can accept the admittance of the futility of logic and of life- or you can find some kind of reasoning that places somewhere between a few and all moral rules to be set in stone, to be unquestionable, even if some societies haven't yet realized this and are working based on one thing or another that leads to the "wrong" conclusions. For myself, this is a mixture of scientific data and a variety of concepts similar to the Veil of Ignorance/Original Position concept- one of my favorites being the Principle of Generic Consistency proposed by Alan Gewirth, though not for any particular reason- combined to reason out what seems, with all the information we currently have, to be what is, factually, how we should treat each other on moral terms. The best possible solution for every individual and society as a whole in one concept. Rational exploration of the concept of reality and what it means to be human. Which ends up going pretty far down the line of soft universalism and could be considered hard universalism depending on how you define it. And hell, if you approach hard/soft universalism from the right angle, they're almost as malleable as any other justification. The premise of most structures of universalism are predicated upon the idea that there can be a set explanation and logical path to take to the "rules" (be it the Original Position, God Said So, or something else), and frequently claim that the end result is too complex to be 100% known at all times. If other cultures can defend the practices they promote with that same rational explanation, then perhaps the soft/hard universalist will alter to fit that instead of dismissing them. A moral nihilist will just say that's their prerogative and shrug. But what is a moral relativist to do when that other culture wants to impose beliefs?
Furthermore, you bring the idea of someone immediately calling you amoral or immoral, and I think you've shown the worst possible approach there (and I've even tried to rewrite this very comment to prevent falling into the exact same series of events as I'm about to describe because it's so desperately easy to do). Of course, if some holier-than-thou ass comes up, calls you a godless heathen, says you deserve to burn, and then starts explaining how you should act, you're not going to readily respond positively to that. But what if someone comes up, starts up a friendly conversation, tries to give their perspective on reality, and asks you to explain why you think what you think... And then just debates you on those concepts?
I've tried to prevent myself from attacking moral relativism yet, because I want to simply get the answer from you: How do you justify it?
Thanks for your reply :) I'm kinda tired so this might be a bit of a ramble-y response and not address all of your points.
Foremost I am a pragmatist: I'm only really interested in philosophical ideas and definitions that are useful to me, and help me to understand my self, other people, or the world around me. That said, perhaps moral relativism isn't exactly correct to describe my own perspective, depending on how we define it. I say this because philosophers also have a range of metaethical stances on the 'truth status' of ethical statements: i.e. can a sentence like "killing is wrong" be true or false?
Honestly I don't really care if ethical statements have a truth value or not, and it's not a discussion that's relevant to me, so my position on that is "I don't know and I don't care". That could position me as some combination of moral relativist, moral anti-realist, moral non-objectivist, moral nihilist, moral skeptic, and/or emotivist.
More specifically, I think the core of my metaethical perspective is that I believe that ethical sentences are often underspecified, but can usually be interpreted as a value judgement which is held by the speaker. So for example "killing is wrong" can be interpreted and questioned in many ways: what is killing? why is it wrong? is it always wrong or are there exceptional circumstances? is it wrong to you personally, or do you mean it is against your society's culture or laws, or that it is or should be universally disparaged? do you want me to agree with you? I would usually re-interpret such a sentence as "I believe that killing is wrong", but it's still an incredibly fuzzy sentence.
This position firmly places ethics in the realm of discourse, because it implies that often people are talking past each other and need to get on the same page, with a very clear and precise definition of their views, through the interrogation of edge cases and the parts which have so far been unstated. If someone starts with "killing is wrong", two people could easily arrive at "we both believe that it would be wrong if either of us, or anybody we know, killed someone, and it should not be permitted in our society". Further interrogation of the statement may reveal a schism on the issue of assisted suicide: is it OK for a person A to aid another person B to commit suicide if they are, or will soon be, in incredible pain or suffering? The discussion would continue as participants outline their perspectives on a set of increasingly refined scenarios.
All of this is informed by my ethical (not metaethical) belief that "usually, forcing people to do or believe something they don't want to do or believe, is bad, and I don't want to do that to people, nor have other people do it to me, or the people I love". So if I met someone who wanted to impose their beliefs, I would very likely take issue with that, but that's more from an ethical perspective than a metaethical perspective. That is, it's not because it goes against moral relativism per se, but because it goes against my personal values, and the values that I advocate more broadly to the world around me (and I advocate them because I believe they bring many benefits).
I love debate, especially of ethical issues, and I would go further to say that ethical debate (both debate about ethics, and debate conducted ethically) is essential for a well-functioning society, and a democracy in particular.
For me relativism boils down to acknowledging that different humans have different values and will disagree with each other on certain ethical statements (even highly specified ones), and that if there is a 'pure form' of 'ultimate morality' somewhere then it is inaccessible. So we are effectively stuck with just our respective, personal value systems, and the dialectical method: talk to other people about them, interrogate them ourselves, try to be highly specific with our propositions.
Different person, but I'd also consider myself a moral relativist. I'd prefer if moral universalism were true for the reasons you list, but justifying moral universalism feels like a hopeless endeavor.
My moral relativism comes from a naturalist perspective. If the universe simply follows the laws of nature (with no abstract moral "stuff" out there), then moral judgement must be emergent and driven by evolution. Human beings are social and codependent. Our moral judgements reflect that (eg, the golden rule). But what if we had evolved from individualistic lizards instead? As a human being, it would be barbaric to eat your own child; but perhaps, given a predisposition to lay a hundred eggs at a time, it would be normal to do so. Would lizard-people find life sacred without the forces of societal cohesion? Does it even make sense to apply the same ethical standards to lizard-people and human-people?
Personally, my meta-ethical belief is that all human moral judgements are normative. That is, even breaches of etiquette can be immoral under certain circumstances (consider guests wearing white at a wedding). I believe this is why some behaviors are almost universally considered immoral (eg, random acts of violence) while other behaviors are not (eg, politically charged matters). Moral relativism is a straightforward consequence.
That isn't to say that I like this philosophy. If you assume that moral judgements are normative, then there are few limits on what passes for moral behavior. Slavery, for example, was normal a couple hundred years ago. I never want slavery to return and could articulate at length why not. But my disgust in slavery is visceral and emotional, not logical. To what extent do norms manipulate my emotions? How could virtually no white Southerners support slavery today, despite virtually all white Southerners supporting slavery a couple hundred years ago? Undoubtedly these people, on the whole, considered themselves moral. So how could they accept something so obvious wrong?
I found this quite frustrating to read - to the extent that I didn't get past the first third or so, so please correct me if it changes wildly beyond that.
It makes huge jumps and acts as if they're clear and unquestionable next steps. The starting premise of "human rights are self evident" comes from the Declaration of Independence, and is accepted as a foundation to build on - except I can think of at least a few groups of people who might just challenge the founders on that assertion. That's a pretty shaky start right off the bat.
Why do human rights need to be self evident to be an important belief? Why are they self evident in a religious model when Biblical teachings regularly contradict them?
Absolutely, wildly untrue. You need a logical explanation for why they're valuable.
You don't need to believe in a soul to suggest that humanity's sapience and self awareness are important in how we treat each other. We can be "in the same category" as all other life while still recognising a spectrum of difference from a clam to a dog to a chimp to a human.
Yes, we could. In fact, many of us do! Nothing theoretical about it. But then the very next sentence:
Just... what?! It seems as though the author truly cannot conceive of a worldview that isn't at least tinged by faith, by worship, by belief.
I try to do good because I want to live in a world where people do good. That's it. I absolutely do struggle with the philosophical underpinnings of why we do anything at all, but that doesn't interfere with the material fact that I want to spend my days in a stable, safe, caring society.
Where did "objective and unchanging" suddenly come in from?! That doesn't need to be the case. It's a huge leap to bring in that extra baggage apropos of nothing and then act like it's a necessary pillar of the conversation, and I'd call the author intellectually dishonest if I didn't get the impression they truly believed what they were saying.
I did read a bit further than that, but it basically followed the same pattern of me getting more and more annoyed sentence by sentence as the unfounded assumptions first stacked up, and then were used as if they were solid foundations for why clearly god must be at the center of all this.
I tend to enjoy philosophical and sometimes even religious debate, but this wasn't for me.
One problem with this quote by Christopher Hitchens is that the Bible really lends itself well to multiple, often contradictory interpretations (not to mention numerous translations from ancient languages rife with ambiguity). It is not a precise and reliable historical document, or a logically sound metaphysical treaty. The many Bibles are basically anthologies of books by different authors, without any coordination or editorial guidelines (in the time of writing). So, when he says that someone that does not believe in certain interpretations of the books cannot be considered a Christian, I ask: according to whom?
(Speaking as a former Luthern, now atheist)
I'm inclined to side with Hitchens on this one. The most important differentiator between the three major branches of Abrahamic religions is the acceptance or denial of Jesus as divine, complete with the ressurection.
I've been in a lot of different churches, all of which fall somewhere on the spectrum between literal and metaphorical interpretation of the Bible. A key differentiator between Christian sects is the belief in transubstantiation (that the ritual of communion is consuming the literal body/blood of Christ). If the sect you belong to proclaims it, and you do not believe it, you're not actually part of that sect. You're divergent.
Paired with the heavy authoritarian nature of churches, it causes all sorts of major problems throughout the world. Like massacre of divergents and nonbelievers.
Edit: Would you like to know more?
Marrying into a very Jewish family, I've learned that for many sects of Judaism, being an atheist is not equivalent to shedding your religion. Because part of being Jewish is questioning and reasoning about your beliefs. They're generally less susceptible to fundementalism, and more grounded in heiritage and tradition. As my glib wife put it: Many Jewish holidays boil down to "they tried to kill us, we survived, let's eat!"
My wife's family is very "Jewish-ish," in the sense they have largely abandoned all the theistic bits, but kept almost all the values and celebration of traditions. My wife herself never even understood she was an atheist until high school, because God was never part of the picture in any significant sense.
So, in our family, we're kinda forming our own traditions as a result. Shedding the theocratic pasts of both Christian and Judaism, and forming new secular (and irreverant) traditions of our own. The various weather-related ones are ending up kinda paganish. Thanksgiving is incorporating talks of imperialism. MLK through Black history month is talking of privilage, power, and abuse therof. Easter is largely abandoned in favor of Pirate Day (the Saturday before) with treasure hunts. So on and so forth. We keep the most significant of the holiday bits we grew up with, fill in the voids where we felt were lacking, and it's turning out quite fun.
I disagree on that. You're stating the interpretation of a cluster of religions. That is not universal.
Religions don't just crush non-believers, they also crush faith which does not agree with them. If you think of a "Christian" as a follower of Christ, in the broader sense, things suddenly become much less black and white.
Hitchens is basically saying: how dare you not be the kind of Christian I disapprove of?
Here's an analogous syllogism:
I'm not going to go too much farther into it, however:
Unitarian, as I've always heard it, is fully "Unitarian Universalist." They're kind of their own thing, they often draw from multiple different religions and picking and choosing from the best parts to teach and adopt. Individual pastors and congregates will have their own set of beliefs, and as such Unitarian does not equate to Christian. "Coexist" bumper stickers are likely from Unitarians.
Hitchens (and many, many other atheists) don't really care about that. We care about divinity being used (as in the article) being used as a more elaborate trump card to say "Do as I say, because I said so." The Pope is the embodiment of this, as he supposedly speaks directly to God and relays his will to humanity in hierarchal fashion. Monotheistic religions all generally do this to some degree, given the nature of "The One True God knows best, and I' just so happen to speak for him." Scientology isn't inherintly more strange than Christianity to an atheist, if anything it's more honest than most.
We care greatly about deification because it is a frequent enabler of "the ends justify the means." If you ascribe to Christian values and teachings, that doesn't make you Christian, especially in the sense Hitchens cares about.
Hell, I am a anarcho-communist atheist. But I still ascribe to several Christian values as espoused by Jesus, simply because they do stand apart from divinity and heirarchy. And many of these Abrahamic values do touch on what I consider "Universal good values."
Hitchens's statement is morally charged, and I do not agree with that; but I think the interesting discussion to be had is about semantics. Why is there a collection of things which we call 'Christianity', what distinguishes those from other similar things, and what determines if something belongs to that collection?
This aligns to almost all of the surviving christian sects and christian writings
Also, I suspect most of the original followers of Jesus thought this as well.
I'm very much a Christian. There are quite a few million in my religion. You wouldn't recognize us as related to any major cluster. In fact, I never talk about my religion on the English internet because it is very hard to translate it to Anglo culture. The idea that reasoning and religion are opposites is too ingrained, and I'm not the one who's going to fix that. There's just too much trauma.
Last time I explained on the internet that I was a rational progressive Christian who loves logic and science some people were very confused, others were downright hostile. Which makes me think: people complain so much about backwards believers that when they encounter one who agrees with them, they don't know what to do :P
Anyway, we do not believe Christ sacrificed for our sins. We don't even believe in sin.
We call those people Americans. :)
Most of them have never heard of Thomas Jefferson's bible.
Oooh, interesting!
Does your belief system have a name that I could easily lookup?
I won't divulge the name of my religion to avoid being localized.
But I can send you a link via private message.
I would be fascinated if you would, but I also respect your desire to retain your anonymity.
I'll send you something via PM, probably write you something well. Thank you for the interest ;)
Thank you.
Been a while that I found myself in a theology thread on the internet but I guess on tildes it's safe to actually discuss this.
First, I got to acknowledge both the influence of Christianity on Western society and its largest overall impact being a positive one. For those who couldn't read through all of this (I get it), the article ultimately makes a secular argument:
So far so good.
Still, I don't get how the belief in god is accepted as some kind of necessary "foundation" when a belief in general morality is not. @archevel already made that argument, so I won't go further into it.
The article only timidly brings it up as a side argument but what a lot of these lines of thinking come down to is that people need "reward" and "punishment" to be good and otherwise would be selfish or downright cruel. I would say that the "punishment" part is the louder argument since the examples given mostly include things like "preventing atrocities".
To me, there is a perfectly rational and, more importantly, selfish argument for human rights. A society that makes sure even its lowest class can live in dignity is almost by default a more peaceful and pleasant one, even if you find yourself in a higher class with little contact to them. With the exception of maybe 1% of people, most are born with a base level of empathy and genuinely feel good about helping people and bad about hurting them. It's not just an act. And, again, it's an efficient way of building a more productive and safe society that can tackle bigger problems.
So what bothers me most, perhaps, about these arguments is that they implicitly paint a very pessimistic view of humanity. Like only the fear of god can prevent us from killing each other. Maybe I'm a bigger optimist than I thought.
This statement follows neither reason nor history. When the “Bible” was compended in 320 or so, the catholics all did exactly this, choosing which texts and ideas mattered or were appropriately divine for inclusion.
And, there’s no reason on any axis-spiritual, intellectual, moral, emotional ir any other-not to read the thing metaphorically. In fact, Jesus often taught in parables, why couldn’t the whole thing be a big parable?
Also, making the story a parable doesn’t mean god doesn’t exist.
Also, most “christians” conception of “God” is really zeus or odin or some combination, capriciosu, arbitrary, jealous and one who plays favorites. This notion is sometimes supported by Biblical readings, and anathema to “human rights” as the author reckons them. In fact, I’m not certain any part of the bible really supports a notion of secular human rights or equality.
No you don't. You need a logical explanation for why humans have an innate sense of right and wrong, regardless of what they believe.
Our understanding of human rights has been evolving since time began. There is nothing unchanging about these rights, even after the writing of the American Constitution.
If your understanding of Christian values does not align with the behavior of millions of Christians, then maybe your understanding is wrong.
I think everyone has cognitive dissonance, because most of our beliefs are shaped by those we identify with.