The Lack of Reason for God, Chapter 9
Nov. 20th, 2014 06:33 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
blimixThis is part of a series examining the the logic of Timothy Keller's book The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism.
Standard disclaimer: This, despite being a public post, is not an invitation for a religion debate with strangers. Been there, done that, still jaded.
Last week: Chapter 8 tried to give evidence for the existence of god.
Chapter 9
In which Keller tells us that atheists really believe in god but don't know it, because they get their moral sense from somewhere.
(Page numbers are from the hardcover version of the book.)
p. 146. Keller repeats his exact argument from chapter 3, page 47, but this time invokes it to discredit moral relativism: Even moral relativists believe that some people behave immorally, which therefore means that they are not consistently relativist.
Here, he repeats the very first mistake he made in the Introduction: Pretending that moral relativism means that all moralities are equally valid, making it an easy straw man to knock down. He later uses this confusion to pretend that people cannot come up with their own moral systems, which makes the source of morality a mystery to which god is the solution.
p. 146. "All human beings have moral feelings. We call it a conscience."
So then, what is Dick Cheney? A macaque in a human suit?
pp. 146-147. "We [all human beings] also believe that there are standards 'that exist apart from us' by which we evaluate moral feelings."
We don't all believe that. For example, I don't.
p. 147. "Moral obligation is a belief that some things ought not to be done regardless of how a person feels about them within herself, regardless of what the rest of her community and culture says, and regardless of whether it is in her self-interest or not. The young couple had no doubts that people in other cultures should honor women's rights, for example."
That just means that different people have different ideas of morality. It in no way implies that their idea of "moral obligation" is divinely inspired. (And what if it were? Does god tell the young couple that all women should be respected, and tell "other cultures" that women should not be respected? If not both, then how could a sense of moral obligation, which must have happened without god's guidance in at least one of those cases, imply divine inspiration?)
pp. 147-148. Keller addresses theories of an evolutionary origin for altruism. He disagrees with those theories at length, and cites others who also disagree, but he presents no facts and almost no reasoning behind that disagreement. He acts as though he has presented an argument: "Evolution, therefore, cannot account for the origin of our moral feelings..."
His footnote here quotes C.S. Lewis, who thinks that if we do something because of nature, then we haven't done it because it is right, and since we know we are doing it because it's right, nature can't possibly be the source of our actions. This represents a problem of holism versus reductionism, which we explored in chapter 6 (pp. 91-92). In this case, Lewis misses the fact that actions can be described as resulting from multiple causes. The fact that the holistic (moral) cause is more intuitively relatable does not discredit the reductionistic (natural) cause.
pp. 150-151. Keller asks where human rights come from. He quotes Alan Dershowitz quoting Ronald Dworkin: "It is no answer to say that if individuals have these rights then the community is better off in the long run... because when we say someone has a right to speak his mind freely, we mean he is entitled to do so even if this would not be in the general interest." Keller argues that since rights protect the minority from the majority, they cannot be created by people to serve the interest of the majority, and thus "we must try to discover something beyond utility that argues for these rights."
Free speech is a good thing, even if not everything that is ever said freely is good. Despite their ridiculous argument, I doubt that Keller, Dershowitz, and Dworkin would disagree with this statement. Thus, there is a utilitarian reason for the right to free speech. In fact, if you claim that any right is a good thing, then you have just made a utilitarian case for the creation and codification of that right by people. Utility is inescapable as a possible reason for any code of conduct that one might consider good.
pp. 153-154. Keller asks, if not god, then who has the right to declare what is right (that is, to make laws based on morality)? "You may say 'the majority has the right to make the law,' but do you mean that then the majority has the right to vote to exterminate a minority? If you say 'No, that is wrong,' then you are back to square one."
He seems confused about about the "right" (ability) to do something and a thing's moral rightness. The majority, or the king, or the Koch brothers, or anyone else, might have a right (ability) to vote to exterminate a minority, but they also have a responsibility not to do so. In addition, the question "Who has the right...?" has two interpretations: It could mean "Who ought to have the ability...?" or "Who actually has the ability...?" A disparity in the answers to these can make the question seem unanswerable.
pp. 155-156. Keller argues that, because nature is amoral and animals behave violently, humans' sense of morality must come from outside of nature.
My book club friend points out that Keller uses the word "nature" inconsistently, and indeed, this argument hinges on changing the definition of "nature" midway through. "The violence of nature" refers to non-human animals. But then he contrasts it with the supernatural, that which is outside the natural world we humans experience. By excluding humans from both nature and the supernatural, he thereby omits the possibility that morality can result from the decisions and experience of humans.
Keller also presents (again) an extremely narrow and incomplete view of nature. Animals sometimes behave with love and compassion. How does your dog treat you? Does it try to kill and eat you? Bonobos are extremely peaceful and empathetic. Unlike other primates, they never war with each other. Humans aren't nearly that moral. Is this evidence of a bonobo god that's better than any god that humans worship? (Also, do check out this diver befriending an eel, because it's awesome.)
p. 156. Keller says that there is only one way to explain moral sense: "If the world was made by a God of peace, justice, and love, then that is why we know that violence, oppression, and hate are wrong."
My book club friend notes that in chapter 5, Keller was firmly opposed to the idea that god is a "god of love"! Apparently, god is a "god of love" when Keller thinks about human morality, but not when he thinks about people going to Hell. Could the doublethink be any more explicit?
pp. 156-157. Keller quotes fictional character Quentin, in Arthur Miller's play After the Fall. Quentin complains that he has spent his life proving his good qualities, until he realized that it was pointless because there was no god to whom to prove anything.
Wow. If celebration of egotism fails for lack of a judge to show off for, what other meaning is possible in life? Poor Quentin.
p. 157. "If the Bench is truly empty, then the whole span of human civilization, even if it lasts a few million years, will be just an infinitesimally brief spark in relation to the oceans of dead time that preceded it and will follow it. There will be no one around to remember any of it. Whether we are loving or cruel in the end would make no difference at all." Keller then argues that atheists have no consistent reason to be moral, because morality should ultimately make no difference without god.
Life doesn't become pointless just because it is finite. It makes a difference to us. It has meaning now. I have written more on the subject here.
Throughout the chapter, Keller has tried to establish that we have no earthly reason to behave morally. Since we do anyway, he says, we must be doing it for god, whether or not we believe. Even if we atheists didn't know why we have moral sense, appeasing a fantasy father figure would be very far down the list of possible explanations. Those of us who have a modicum of self-awareness, however, do know why we behave morally. Empathy provides us with an emotional impetus for moral behavior. The fact that moral behavior benefits the people whom we value provides rational justification for it.
Next week: Keller claims that building your identity without god is untenable.
The whole series.
Standard disclaimer: This, despite being a public post, is not an invitation for a religion debate with strangers. Been there, done that, still jaded.
Last week: Chapter 8 tried to give evidence for the existence of god.
In which Keller tells us that atheists really believe in god but don't know it, because they get their moral sense from somewhere.
(Page numbers are from the hardcover version of the book.)
p. 146. Keller repeats his exact argument from chapter 3, page 47, but this time invokes it to discredit moral relativism: Even moral relativists believe that some people behave immorally, which therefore means that they are not consistently relativist.
Here, he repeats the very first mistake he made in the Introduction: Pretending that moral relativism means that all moralities are equally valid, making it an easy straw man to knock down. He later uses this confusion to pretend that people cannot come up with their own moral systems, which makes the source of morality a mystery to which god is the solution.
p. 146. "All human beings have moral feelings. We call it a conscience."
So then, what is Dick Cheney? A macaque in a human suit?
pp. 146-147. "We [all human beings] also believe that there are standards 'that exist apart from us' by which we evaluate moral feelings."
We don't all believe that. For example, I don't.
p. 147. "Moral obligation is a belief that some things ought not to be done regardless of how a person feels about them within herself, regardless of what the rest of her community and culture says, and regardless of whether it is in her self-interest or not. The young couple had no doubts that people in other cultures should honor women's rights, for example."
That just means that different people have different ideas of morality. It in no way implies that their idea of "moral obligation" is divinely inspired. (And what if it were? Does god tell the young couple that all women should be respected, and tell "other cultures" that women should not be respected? If not both, then how could a sense of moral obligation, which must have happened without god's guidance in at least one of those cases, imply divine inspiration?)
pp. 147-148. Keller addresses theories of an evolutionary origin for altruism. He disagrees with those theories at length, and cites others who also disagree, but he presents no facts and almost no reasoning behind that disagreement. He acts as though he has presented an argument: "Evolution, therefore, cannot account for the origin of our moral feelings..."
His footnote here quotes C.S. Lewis, who thinks that if we do something because of nature, then we haven't done it because it is right, and since we know we are doing it because it's right, nature can't possibly be the source of our actions. This represents a problem of holism versus reductionism, which we explored in chapter 6 (pp. 91-92). In this case, Lewis misses the fact that actions can be described as resulting from multiple causes. The fact that the holistic (moral) cause is more intuitively relatable does not discredit the reductionistic (natural) cause.
pp. 150-151. Keller asks where human rights come from. He quotes Alan Dershowitz quoting Ronald Dworkin: "It is no answer to say that if individuals have these rights then the community is better off in the long run... because when we say someone has a right to speak his mind freely, we mean he is entitled to do so even if this would not be in the general interest." Keller argues that since rights protect the minority from the majority, they cannot be created by people to serve the interest of the majority, and thus "we must try to discover something beyond utility that argues for these rights."
Free speech is a good thing, even if not everything that is ever said freely is good. Despite their ridiculous argument, I doubt that Keller, Dershowitz, and Dworkin would disagree with this statement. Thus, there is a utilitarian reason for the right to free speech. In fact, if you claim that any right is a good thing, then you have just made a utilitarian case for the creation and codification of that right by people. Utility is inescapable as a possible reason for any code of conduct that one might consider good.
pp. 153-154. Keller asks, if not god, then who has the right to declare what is right (that is, to make laws based on morality)? "You may say 'the majority has the right to make the law,' but do you mean that then the majority has the right to vote to exterminate a minority? If you say 'No, that is wrong,' then you are back to square one."
He seems confused about about the "right" (ability) to do something and a thing's moral rightness. The majority, or the king, or the Koch brothers, or anyone else, might have a right (ability) to vote to exterminate a minority, but they also have a responsibility not to do so. In addition, the question "Who has the right...?" has two interpretations: It could mean "Who ought to have the ability...?" or "Who actually has the ability...?" A disparity in the answers to these can make the question seem unanswerable.
pp. 155-156. Keller argues that, because nature is amoral and animals behave violently, humans' sense of morality must come from outside of nature.
My book club friend points out that Keller uses the word "nature" inconsistently, and indeed, this argument hinges on changing the definition of "nature" midway through. "The violence of nature" refers to non-human animals. But then he contrasts it with the supernatural, that which is outside the natural world we humans experience. By excluding humans from both nature and the supernatural, he thereby omits the possibility that morality can result from the decisions and experience of humans.
Keller also presents (again) an extremely narrow and incomplete view of nature. Animals sometimes behave with love and compassion. How does your dog treat you? Does it try to kill and eat you? Bonobos are extremely peaceful and empathetic. Unlike other primates, they never war with each other. Humans aren't nearly that moral. Is this evidence of a bonobo god that's better than any god that humans worship? (Also, do check out this diver befriending an eel, because it's awesome.)
p. 156. Keller says that there is only one way to explain moral sense: "If the world was made by a God of peace, justice, and love, then that is why we know that violence, oppression, and hate are wrong."
My book club friend notes that in chapter 5, Keller was firmly opposed to the idea that god is a "god of love"! Apparently, god is a "god of love" when Keller thinks about human morality, but not when he thinks about people going to Hell. Could the doublethink be any more explicit?
pp. 156-157. Keller quotes fictional character Quentin, in Arthur Miller's play After the Fall. Quentin complains that he has spent his life proving his good qualities, until he realized that it was pointless because there was no god to whom to prove anything.
Wow. If celebration of egotism fails for lack of a judge to show off for, what other meaning is possible in life? Poor Quentin.
p. 157. "If the Bench is truly empty, then the whole span of human civilization, even if it lasts a few million years, will be just an infinitesimally brief spark in relation to the oceans of dead time that preceded it and will follow it. There will be no one around to remember any of it. Whether we are loving or cruel in the end would make no difference at all." Keller then argues that atheists have no consistent reason to be moral, because morality should ultimately make no difference without god.
Life doesn't become pointless just because it is finite. It makes a difference to us. It has meaning now. I have written more on the subject here.
Throughout the chapter, Keller has tried to establish that we have no earthly reason to behave morally. Since we do anyway, he says, we must be doing it for god, whether or not we believe. Even if we atheists didn't know why we have moral sense, appeasing a fantasy father figure would be very far down the list of possible explanations. Those of us who have a modicum of self-awareness, however, do know why we behave morally. Empathy provides us with an emotional impetus for moral behavior. The fact that moral behavior benefits the people whom we value provides rational justification for it.
Next week: Keller claims that building your identity without god is untenable.
The whole series.
