Over at City of Tongues, James Bradley has a post on the future of books (I like his choice of illustration for it). Abridged large sample:
In part this is an argument about the material culture of the book, and the material culture of the tablet computer or ereader, and about the complex web of relationships and assumptions that shape our experience of text on a page and text on a screen. But it’s also about the way the medium shapes the message, and about the way our desire to replicate an old technology with a new one reveals a failure to come to grips with the real possibilities of the new. Think for a moment about the silly page-turning animations ereaders insist on inserting: aren’t they really the textual equivalent of curtains on a television? Indeed why do we need to retain the notion of the “page” at all? Why can’t text just continue down as we read, like a scroll? And if it did, what would this do to the metaphors and devices we use to shape and organise information, the chapters and sections of the analog world?
Part of the problem is the fact that codex books feel so natural to us we forget they are themselves a technology. An extremely successful one to be sure (indeed if one wanted a test of true technological success it might well be precisely this capacity to disappear, to be subsumed and naturalised into the culture). And like any technology they use us just as we use them, shaping not just the way we consume information but the way we think. Many of our important narrative forms – the novel, for instance, or narrative non-fiction – are forms which depend in fundamental ways on the physical nature of the codex book, and its emphasis upon linearity, closure, as well as the more subtle questions about page length and internal organisation I alluded to above.
This question is usually framed as one about literary form, a David Shieldsesque argument against the hegemony of the unifying narrative. But I’d suggest we need to take it a step further. Because as I’ve said before, if we’re reading books on a device that can handle video and sound, how long will it be before publishers and creators start taking advantage of those possibilities?
[...]
But I think it also makes it necessary to question some of the assumptions underpinning what ebooks are, and what they mean for literary culture and publishing more generally. Because while I’m less convinced than I was a year or two ago that long-form narratives like the novel and narrative non-fiction are going to go the way of the dinosaurs, I do think they’ll change, and that just as the novel evolved to take advantage of the codex book new forms will evolve to take advantage of tablets and ereaders.
About Me
- Russell Blackford
- Australian philosopher, literary critic, legal scholar, and professional writer. Based in Newcastle, NSW. My latest books are THE TYRANNY OF OPINION: CONFORMITY AND THE FUTURE OF LIBERALISM (2019); AT THE DAWN OF A GREAT TRANSITION: THE QUESTION OF RADICAL ENHANCEMENT (2021); and HOW WE BECAME POST-LIBERAL: THE RISE AND FALL OF TOLERATION (2024).
Monday, November 22, 2010
Ethics classes to go ahead
See this story in The Sydney Morning Herald. Sample:
PARENTS will have the right to ethics classes as an alternative to scripture in their child's school even if the principal and the majority of the school community opposes them.
The state cabinet is expected to approve the introduction of ethics classes to primary schools today after a successful trial this year. They will begin as early as term one next year.
While the classes will be voluntary for schools, the Herald has confirmed that parents who want their children to attend the classes will be able to appeal to the Education Department if the principal opposes them.
As long as the St James Ethics Centre, which will run the classes, is able to provide volunteers and there is a reasonable number of children to attend them, the department will ensure they are offered.
Students in years 5 and 6 are likely to be the first to be offered the classes, because they are the years in which the trial was run. Eventually classes will be offered in years K-6.
PARENTS will have the right to ethics classes as an alternative to scripture in their child's school even if the principal and the majority of the school community opposes them.
The state cabinet is expected to approve the introduction of ethics classes to primary schools today after a successful trial this year. They will begin as early as term one next year.
While the classes will be voluntary for schools, the Herald has confirmed that parents who want their children to attend the classes will be able to appeal to the Education Department if the principal opposes them.
As long as the St James Ethics Centre, which will run the classes, is able to provide volunteers and there is a reasonable number of children to attend them, the department will ensure they are offered.
Students in years 5 and 6 are likely to be the first to be offered the classes, because they are the years in which the trial was run. Eventually classes will be offered in years K-6.
Do clones have souls?
Here's a long message-board thread about whether comic-book clones are real characters (the point is illustrated in the scan in the original post, featuring a clash between the demonic-looking superhero Nightcrawler and the mercenary supervillain Scalphunter - the information you need is that the latter is a 6th Day-style clone of his original self).
You probably won't have time to read the whole thread, but it may amuse you to dip into it. At various points, it gets down to some serious and not-so-serious debate on such issues as whether clones would have souls and whether comics are corrupting children by presenting more-or-less sympathetic characters who have come into existence through cloning - thus undermining the idea that reproductive cloning would be morally wrong.
Some of the comments are quite insightful, as with the remark that Frankenstein's monster was a sensitive and intelligent being who was corrupted only by the unenlightened treatment he received from prejudiced humans. Whatever Mary Shelley's intentions, Frankenstein's crime wasn't defying God or violating nature but bringing into the world a person who would inevitably be mistreated. That's the real issue we'd face with cloning, or so the commenter seems to be saying.
There's much humorous discussion of how clones are handled as characters, but also some people expressing what seems like real unease. The argument about corrupting young readers is interesting - but of course, young people are exposed to an enormous amount of propaganda that reinforces popular moral ideas, including the idea that cloning is wrong or yucky. Why shouldn't they also be exposed to some narratives that implicitly present an opposed viewpoint? If the current manufactured consensus (which I, for one, have not joined) about the evil of reproductive cloning depends on the socialisation of children into the "correct" view, how much respect should we give it?
Not very much at all, I argue. If we had a safe technology for reproduction via somatic cell nuclear transfer, I'd have only slight misgivings about using it. The slight misgivings would relate mainly to the prejudice that the resulting children might face. Much of the opposition to human reproductive cloning strikes me as simply irrational, and it's a pity that we've moved so swiftly and often mindlessly to a supposed consensus that it ought to be banned.
You probably won't have time to read the whole thread, but it may amuse you to dip into it. At various points, it gets down to some serious and not-so-serious debate on such issues as whether clones would have souls and whether comics are corrupting children by presenting more-or-less sympathetic characters who have come into existence through cloning - thus undermining the idea that reproductive cloning would be morally wrong.
Some of the comments are quite insightful, as with the remark that Frankenstein's monster was a sensitive and intelligent being who was corrupted only by the unenlightened treatment he received from prejudiced humans. Whatever Mary Shelley's intentions, Frankenstein's crime wasn't defying God or violating nature but bringing into the world a person who would inevitably be mistreated. That's the real issue we'd face with cloning, or so the commenter seems to be saying.
There's much humorous discussion of how clones are handled as characters, but also some people expressing what seems like real unease. The argument about corrupting young readers is interesting - but of course, young people are exposed to an enormous amount of propaganda that reinforces popular moral ideas, including the idea that cloning is wrong or yucky. Why shouldn't they also be exposed to some narratives that implicitly present an opposed viewpoint? If the current manufactured consensus (which I, for one, have not joined) about the evil of reproductive cloning depends on the socialisation of children into the "correct" view, how much respect should we give it?
Not very much at all, I argue. If we had a safe technology for reproduction via somatic cell nuclear transfer, I'd have only slight misgivings about using it. The slight misgivings would relate mainly to the prejudice that the resulting children might face. Much of the opposition to human reproductive cloning strikes me as simply irrational, and it's a pity that we've moved so swiftly and often mindlessly to a supposed consensus that it ought to be banned.
Sunday, November 21, 2010
About those Danish cartoons ...
As is well known, the publication in September 2005 of the notorious Danish cartoons - a set of satirical cartoons depicting Muhammad, printed in the newspaper Jyllands-Posten - led to widespread violence, political debate, high-profile litigation, and numerous attempts to explain the depth of anger among (at least some) Muslims.
One such attempt is that of Talal Asad, who offers an explanation of distinctively Muslim attitudes to free speech, blasphemy, and anti-religious satire. His analysis stresses the sanctity of private thought in the Islamic tradition - religious and government authorities will not inquire into individual's hidden motives and beliefs, scrutinizing them for heresy - as opposed to freedom to express thoughts in public. According to Asad, Islam differs from Christianity in its commitment to the privacy of thought. However, it does not protect attempts to seduce the thoughts of others away from their bond with God, their responsibility to coreligionists, and what it sees as metaphysical and moral truth. In Islam, so Asad assures us, such "seduction" is regarded as a kind of violence; it is dangerous to individuals and the social order, threatening discord and violence. For Muslims who take this seriously, "it is impossible to remain silent when confronted with blasphemy … blasphemy is neither 'freedom of speech' nor the challenge of a new truth but something that seeks to disrupt a living relationship."
Saba Mahmood takes a different, though perhaps complementary, approach. She describes a special form of pain felt by (some) pious Muslims, which amounts to a sense of personal loss and sorrow when confronted by ridicule of the Prophet. On this account, the loss and sorrow relate to Muhammad's role as a moral exemplar, someone to be imitated in many of the quotidian aspects of life - such as how he walked, slept, spoke, ate, and dressed. Thus, these Muslims respond to ridicule of the prophet not with anger that a moral interdiction has been violated, but with a sense of having been violated and wounded. Like many other commentators, Mahmood also insists that such phenomena as the Danish cartoons involve an element of "racism" - extending this idea beyond biological notions of race to groups marked by religious and cultural characteristics. This characterization tends to undermine the value of satire directed at Islam, or at radical forms or manifestations of Islam, associating it with mere racial slurs, a form of speech that many of us see as essentially worthless.
How should a secular state respond to these analyses, which appear in Talal Asad, et. al., Is Critique Secular? Blasphemy, Injury, and Free Speech, Townsend Center/University ofCalifornia
One such attempt is that of Talal Asad, who offers an explanation of distinctively Muslim attitudes to free speech, blasphemy, and anti-religious satire. His analysis stresses the sanctity of private thought in the Islamic tradition - religious and government authorities will not inquire into individual's hidden motives and beliefs, scrutinizing them for heresy - as opposed to freedom to express thoughts in public. According to Asad, Islam differs from Christianity in its commitment to the privacy of thought. However, it does not protect attempts to seduce the thoughts of others away from their bond with God, their responsibility to coreligionists, and what it sees as metaphysical and moral truth. In Islam, so Asad assures us, such "seduction" is regarded as a kind of violence; it is dangerous to individuals and the social order, threatening discord and violence. For Muslims who take this seriously, "it is impossible to remain silent when confronted with blasphemy … blasphemy is neither 'freedom of speech' nor the challenge of a new truth but something that seeks to disrupt a living relationship."
Saba Mahmood takes a different, though perhaps complementary, approach. She describes a special form of pain felt by (some) pious Muslims, which amounts to a sense of personal loss and sorrow when confronted by ridicule of the Prophet. On this account, the loss and sorrow relate to Muhammad's role as a moral exemplar, someone to be imitated in many of the quotidian aspects of life - such as how he walked, slept, spoke, ate, and dressed. Thus, these Muslims respond to ridicule of the prophet not with anger that a moral interdiction has been violated, but with a sense of having been violated and wounded. Like many other commentators, Mahmood also insists that such phenomena as the Danish cartoons involve an element of "racism" - extending this idea beyond biological notions of race to groups marked by religious and cultural characteristics. This characterization tends to undermine the value of satire directed at Islam, or at radical forms or manifestations of Islam, associating it with mere racial slurs, a form of speech that many of us see as essentially worthless.
How should a secular state respond to these analyses, which appear in Talal Asad, et. al., Is Critique Secular? Blasphemy, Injury, and Free Speech, Townsend Center/University of
Steven Paul Leiva on the future of printed books
With the popularity of readers really taking off just in the last year or two, this post over Steven Paul Leiva's This 'n That blog is more than timely.
I share many of Leiva's biases, no doubt in part because we are from roughly the same generation, but people coming along after us are going to see the world differently. He has produced a long, meditative, and I think wise and insightful post.
Sample:
The book, what we are now calling the traditional book, “...a written or printed work consisting of pages glued or sewn together along one side and bound in covers,” has been both a more successful and less successful delivery system than the vacuum-packed can. It never alters the “taste” of its contents, but, because it is prone to wear and tear, mold and mildew, not to mention the evil of dust and the negligence of borrowers, it does not always have a long shelf life. However it is quite user friendly—portable with pages not difficult to turn, easy on the eyes depending on the type size, and usually of a warm, inviting feel. You can underline and write in the margins if you so choose to desecrate it. In essence, books travel well with us. Books can be boon companions. If you are a book reader—and who reading this blog wouldn’t be—books might well figure into highlights of your personal history. That book or series of books you shared with your best childhood buddy, say those Frazzeta cover-illustrated paperbacks of the Mars novels by Edgar Rich Burroughs; that beat up copy of Siddhartha you were reading while sitting around the collage quad that attracted the attention of that long-haired blonde beauty who looked just liked Michelle Phillips of The Mamas and the Papas; that Saul Bellow novel that kept dogging you when you were in your twenties—you loved it, you hated it, you loved it, you hated it—; that rare book of short stories from her favorite author that you “scored” in finding at a used book store and gave to her, her smile back convincing you that she was indeed the love of your life; those Dr. Seuss books you read out loud to your kids, acting them out in a gloriously foolish performance; that dark, dangerous, bloody serial-killer novel you read while sitting on a warm, sunny beach somewhere during your most wonderful vacation ever; that great jazz musician’s biography you read while on a long train trip, the train providing the rhythm section. You can remember the look, the feel, the touch, the cover, the heft of all of these books and you remember them with great fondness, yet isn’t it the content that really deserves to be part of your memory? Wasn’t the delivery system—the look, the feel, the touch, the cover, the heft—really just, dare I call it, an appendix to the content?
Smells can bring on a flood of memories, but are they memories of smells? The aroma of a great meal is delightful, but it is not the aroma that will nourish you.
I share many of Leiva's biases, no doubt in part because we are from roughly the same generation, but people coming along after us are going to see the world differently. He has produced a long, meditative, and I think wise and insightful post.
Sample:
The book, what we are now calling the traditional book, “...a written or printed work consisting of pages glued or sewn together along one side and bound in covers,” has been both a more successful and less successful delivery system than the vacuum-packed can. It never alters the “taste” of its contents, but, because it is prone to wear and tear, mold and mildew, not to mention the evil of dust and the negligence of borrowers, it does not always have a long shelf life. However it is quite user friendly—portable with pages not difficult to turn, easy on the eyes depending on the type size, and usually of a warm, inviting feel. You can underline and write in the margins if you so choose to desecrate it. In essence, books travel well with us. Books can be boon companions. If you are a book reader—and who reading this blog wouldn’t be—books might well figure into highlights of your personal history. That book or series of books you shared with your best childhood buddy, say those Frazzeta cover-illustrated paperbacks of the Mars novels by Edgar Rich Burroughs; that beat up copy of Siddhartha you were reading while sitting around the collage quad that attracted the attention of that long-haired blonde beauty who looked just liked Michelle Phillips of The Mamas and the Papas; that Saul Bellow novel that kept dogging you when you were in your twenties—you loved it, you hated it, you loved it, you hated it—; that rare book of short stories from her favorite author that you “scored” in finding at a used book store and gave to her, her smile back convincing you that she was indeed the love of your life; those Dr. Seuss books you read out loud to your kids, acting them out in a gloriously foolish performance; that dark, dangerous, bloody serial-killer novel you read while sitting on a warm, sunny beach somewhere during your most wonderful vacation ever; that great jazz musician’s biography you read while on a long train trip, the train providing the rhythm section. You can remember the look, the feel, the touch, the cover, the heft of all of these books and you remember them with great fondness, yet isn’t it the content that really deserves to be part of your memory? Wasn’t the delivery system—the look, the feel, the touch, the cover, the heft—really just, dare I call it, an appendix to the content?
Smells can bring on a flood of memories, but are they memories of smells? The aroma of a great meal is delightful, but it is not the aroma that will nourish you.
Saturday, November 20, 2010
A better (non-spooky) account of human rights
This time I'm quoting from AC Grayling's Towards the Light: The Story of the Struggles for Liberty and Rights (Boomsbury, 2007), pp. 260-61:
Critics have focused on the arbitrariness of the claim that nature or a deity has somehow magically endowed people with rights to life, liberty, property and happiness, when in fact the idea of these things is a human invention, and their existence as rights (in those dispensations where they indeed are rights) is the result of decisions to regard them as such. I call this the "arrogatory theory of rights"; experience and rational reflection show what is required to give individuals the best chance of making flourishing lives for themselves, and these framework requirements we institute as rights in order to make the chance of that flourishing available.
So we do not need to be wedded to the idea of "natural" rights at all. The proceeding just described - of people coming to see what they should lay claim to as the basis of their social and institutional arrangements - is acceptable and justifiable on its merits; one can make out an excellent case for saying that over time a consensus has been reached about the kinds of basic laws and principles required to so arrange things for individuals and groups that they can exist in ways we ("we" in those societies) recognise as desirable. It is for this that a robust and generalised concept of liberty is needed. As has often enough been pointed out (for example, by the philosopher H.L.A. Hart), if any idea of rights is to have content, the basic one must be liberty, for without it none of the others can apply.
Critics have focused on the arbitrariness of the claim that nature or a deity has somehow magically endowed people with rights to life, liberty, property and happiness, when in fact the idea of these things is a human invention, and their existence as rights (in those dispensations where they indeed are rights) is the result of decisions to regard them as such. I call this the "arrogatory theory of rights"; experience and rational reflection show what is required to give individuals the best chance of making flourishing lives for themselves, and these framework requirements we institute as rights in order to make the chance of that flourishing available.
So we do not need to be wedded to the idea of "natural" rights at all. The proceeding just described - of people coming to see what they should lay claim to as the basis of their social and institutional arrangements - is acceptable and justifiable on its merits; one can make out an excellent case for saying that over time a consensus has been reached about the kinds of basic laws and principles required to so arrange things for individuals and groups that they can exist in ways we ("we" in those societies) recognise as desirable. It is for this that a robust and generalised concept of liberty is needed. As has often enough been pointed out (for example, by the philosopher H.L.A. Hart), if any idea of rights is to have content, the basic one must be liberty, for without it none of the others can apply.
The Australian Book of Atheism - a review
Nice review of Warren Bonnet's book in Bookseller and Publisher, quoted on Scribe's site for the book. (I'm not mentioned, but that's cool; I'll get my glory or otherwise some other time.)
More from Wolterstorff
As I indicated in the Preface, I engage myself in the practice of philosophy as a Christian. That remained in the background for large stretches of the discussion: here, in our discussion of natural human rights, it has come into the foreground.
The following should be added: if one believes that there are natural inherent human rights, then the fact that the secularist cannot account for those rights, whereas the theist who holds convictions about God's love that I have delineated can do so, is an argument for theism (of that sort). Not a foundationalist argument, but an argument nonetheless. I believe that there are natural human rights. Human beings, all of them, are irreducibly precious.
(It won't surprise you that I think this is arguing backwards. I don't deny the usefulness of a body of international human rights law, though what we have is imperfect. But to me it's pretty obvious that all talk of "natural inherent human rights" is nonsense on stilts - certainly not the kind of thing that you can use as a premise in an argument for the existence of God.)
The following should be added: if one believes that there are natural inherent human rights, then the fact that the secularist cannot account for those rights, whereas the theist who holds convictions about God's love that I have delineated can do so, is an argument for theism (of that sort). Not a foundationalist argument, but an argument nonetheless. I believe that there are natural human rights. Human beings, all of them, are irreducibly precious.
(It won't surprise you that I think this is arguing backwards. I don't deny the usefulness of a body of international human rights law, though what we have is imperfect. But to me it's pretty obvious that all talk of "natural inherent human rights" is nonsense on stilts - certainly not the kind of thing that you can use as a premise in an argument for the existence of God.)
Wolterstorff on "doing" philosophy
From Nicholas Wolsterstorff, Justice: Rights and Wrongs. Note that I am providing this for interest and/or comments, not because I endorse it, though there is clearly, I think, something to it:
Seldom anymore does the analytic philosopher assume that he is obligated qua philosopher to ground rationally what he says in certitudes; analytic philosophy as a whole is on the way to becoming "Anselmian." ... The philosopher, approaching the practice of philosophy from his life in the everyday, finds himself believing many things, both large and small. Perhaps he finds himself believing in physicalism. He then regards the challenge facing him as a philosopher not to be that of discarding all those convictions unless he can rationally ground them in certitudes; the challenge facing him is that of working out the nature and implications of his physicalist convictions in various areas of thought, doing so in such a way as to cope not only with the complications in his own mind but with the objections lodged against this line of thought by others. In principle these objections might prove so powerful that he gives up his physicalism. In place of the old foundationalist picture, the picture of an academic enterprise now being taken for granted by philosophers in the analytic tradition is what I call dialogic pluralism. The academic enterprise is a dialogue among persons of different perspectives. The goal of the enterprise remains to achieve agreement.
First, let me just note that the continual use of masculine pronouns is unfortunate. But having noted it, I'll pass over it.
I'll have some more to say about Wolterstorff over the next couple of days, but let me repeat that the passage has some force. It's not as if the man's a fool. On the other hand, there's something disappointing about it, and also something unnecessarily conservative: I just "find" myself with certain beliefs (perhaps, as in Wolsterstorff's case, religious beliefs), so I try to do philosophy in a way that, in the first instance at least, tries to sort out the ramifications of those beliefs. So it seems to go. To Wolterstorff's credit, he thinks that objections to my starting beliefs may, in principle, lead me to revise them, but note that my aim is not to interrogate my starting beliefs sceptically or ruthlessly, or even with any vigour. Objections will occur to me, and I'll hear them from others in the philosophical enterprise, but my goal is to work out a view of the world based on whatever starting point I happen to have.
The admitted force of this approach is that foundationalist enterprises have been unsuccessful over the past four centuries, and there is little prospect of agreement on what the foundations even are or on how they could ever be established in the face of disagreement (after all, the things to be established include the methods by which we establish such things).
Nonetheless, I doubt that philosophy has yet become so tame, or that it should do so. Sure, we have to start somewhere, if only tacitly. For example, it's hard to see how we'd get anywhere unless we assumed that it is legitimate to apply logical rules such as modus ponens; that the senses are, if not exactly reliable, at least sufficiently useful and open to correction to help us investigate the world; that our memories are, once again, not totally reliable, but not so wildly in error as to be useless. We may not be able to state in any exhaustive and convincing way what rock-bottom assumptions we wish to use, and the quest for foundations of this kind may well be frustrating. It has been to date.
Still, it seems a bit much, when doing philosophy, simply to start with whatever ideas we have been socialised into accepting, even though they may be quite remote from anything that looks even like a reasonable candidate for being foundational. There is a difference between taking a fairly pragmatic approach to foundations and giving a free pass, in the first instance, to whatever you find yourself believing, however unreliable may be the process by which you came to the beliefs, and however shaky may be your grounds for justifying them.
As so often with such issues, there's much to say, but I don't think Wolsterstorff can simply help himself to a whole heap of religious doctrine - as he does - simply because he "finds himself" believing it.
This is, I suppose, why I'll always be a sceptic about religions, moral codes, and the like. They contain claims that are truly remote from ordinary beliefs about physical reality or social reality, and I think that we should do philosophy with a consciousness that the onus is on us to establish them in ways that are generally acceptable to others - not to people who are gung-ho epistemological sceptics, but at least to people who don't find themselves with whatever religious and moral convictions we happen to have been socialised into. Some morality may be indispensable, of course, to avoid disaster ... but much of it may not be.
When we engage in philosophical reflection, we don't have to start with something as comprehensive as physicalism, just with ordinary knowledge of the physical and social worlds, some widely-accepted assumptions about such things as sense perception, memory, and logic, and some of the healthy scepticism that has provided the fuel for science. Poke around, see what you find if you bracket off your more specific system of disbelief ... if you have one. Maybe you'll be surprised.
I think that philosophy is still a much more penetrating and unsettling enterprise than Wolterstorff wants it to be, and from my viewpoint that's the good thing about it.
Seldom anymore does the analytic philosopher assume that he is obligated qua philosopher to ground rationally what he says in certitudes; analytic philosophy as a whole is on the way to becoming "Anselmian." ... The philosopher, approaching the practice of philosophy from his life in the everyday, finds himself believing many things, both large and small. Perhaps he finds himself believing in physicalism. He then regards the challenge facing him as a philosopher not to be that of discarding all those convictions unless he can rationally ground them in certitudes; the challenge facing him is that of working out the nature and implications of his physicalist convictions in various areas of thought, doing so in such a way as to cope not only with the complications in his own mind but with the objections lodged against this line of thought by others. In principle these objections might prove so powerful that he gives up his physicalism. In place of the old foundationalist picture, the picture of an academic enterprise now being taken for granted by philosophers in the analytic tradition is what I call dialogic pluralism. The academic enterprise is a dialogue among persons of different perspectives. The goal of the enterprise remains to achieve agreement.
First, let me just note that the continual use of masculine pronouns is unfortunate. But having noted it, I'll pass over it.
I'll have some more to say about Wolterstorff over the next couple of days, but let me repeat that the passage has some force. It's not as if the man's a fool. On the other hand, there's something disappointing about it, and also something unnecessarily conservative: I just "find" myself with certain beliefs (perhaps, as in Wolsterstorff's case, religious beliefs), so I try to do philosophy in a way that, in the first instance at least, tries to sort out the ramifications of those beliefs. So it seems to go. To Wolterstorff's credit, he thinks that objections to my starting beliefs may, in principle, lead me to revise them, but note that my aim is not to interrogate my starting beliefs sceptically or ruthlessly, or even with any vigour. Objections will occur to me, and I'll hear them from others in the philosophical enterprise, but my goal is to work out a view of the world based on whatever starting point I happen to have.
The admitted force of this approach is that foundationalist enterprises have been unsuccessful over the past four centuries, and there is little prospect of agreement on what the foundations even are or on how they could ever be established in the face of disagreement (after all, the things to be established include the methods by which we establish such things).
Nonetheless, I doubt that philosophy has yet become so tame, or that it should do so. Sure, we have to start somewhere, if only tacitly. For example, it's hard to see how we'd get anywhere unless we assumed that it is legitimate to apply logical rules such as modus ponens; that the senses are, if not exactly reliable, at least sufficiently useful and open to correction to help us investigate the world; that our memories are, once again, not totally reliable, but not so wildly in error as to be useless. We may not be able to state in any exhaustive and convincing way what rock-bottom assumptions we wish to use, and the quest for foundations of this kind may well be frustrating. It has been to date.
Still, it seems a bit much, when doing philosophy, simply to start with whatever ideas we have been socialised into accepting, even though they may be quite remote from anything that looks even like a reasonable candidate for being foundational. There is a difference between taking a fairly pragmatic approach to foundations and giving a free pass, in the first instance, to whatever you find yourself believing, however unreliable may be the process by which you came to the beliefs, and however shaky may be your grounds for justifying them.
As so often with such issues, there's much to say, but I don't think Wolsterstorff can simply help himself to a whole heap of religious doctrine - as he does - simply because he "finds himself" believing it.
This is, I suppose, why I'll always be a sceptic about religions, moral codes, and the like. They contain claims that are truly remote from ordinary beliefs about physical reality or social reality, and I think that we should do philosophy with a consciousness that the onus is on us to establish them in ways that are generally acceptable to others - not to people who are gung-ho epistemological sceptics, but at least to people who don't find themselves with whatever religious and moral convictions we happen to have been socialised into. Some morality may be indispensable, of course, to avoid disaster ... but much of it may not be.
When we engage in philosophical reflection, we don't have to start with something as comprehensive as physicalism, just with ordinary knowledge of the physical and social worlds, some widely-accepted assumptions about such things as sense perception, memory, and logic, and some of the healthy scepticism that has provided the fuel for science. Poke around, see what you find if you bracket off your more specific system of disbelief ... if you have one. Maybe you'll be surprised.
I think that philosophy is still a much more penetrating and unsettling enterprise than Wolterstorff wants it to be, and from my viewpoint that's the good thing about it.
Thursday, November 18, 2010
Thanks to all who sent me that review of 50 Voices of Disbelief
Youse are great!
I'd actually seen this review somewhere along the line - I think an advance copy was sent to Udo or to Wiley-Blackwell - but confirming that is still useful.
Sample:
Whether you are an atheist or not this volume contains a plurality of viewpoints and certainly stimulates all readers concerned by providing challenging discussions on a variety of vital issues such as the problem of evil (theodicy), the plurality of religious beliefs in the world and religious fanaticism, the bad influence of religion on the social life of human beings, the suffering and pain of all animals (and human beings) in the past and present, the supposed validity of the different rational proofs of God’s existence, and personal stories of why atheism is the only reasonable stance.
Good! Overall it's a positive review, though it's a little on the lukewarm side. The author seems to be a liberal-ish Christian who bemoans the fanaticism of religious fundamentalists and other extremists. He is unwilling to acknowledge the tendency for comprehensive apocalyptic worldwiews to press in the direction of totalitarianism and fanaticism unless this is positively opposed. He also offers what strikes me as a remarkably lame response to the Problem of Evil, which I'll quote in the interests of fairness:
First, it would undermine the autonomy of human the sense that they are absolved from preventing evil deeds themselves; secondly, it would promote laziness in people with regard to solving moral problems themselves and thereby human beings would be unable to develop important social and ethical virtues such as compassion, care etc.; and thirdly, such a world would obviously face the same difficult problems utilitarians have when they try to prevent evil (what is morally bad for one person is not necessarily morally bad for another person).
Leave aside the fact that the contributors anticipate and reply to most or all of these points.
Briefly, you don't get let off the hook for allowing suffering that it was in your power to prevent on the basis that preventing it would absolve someone else of the responsibility. Instead, you do whatever you can. That is not usually regarded as taking away the autonomy of others who are not stuck with the problem. On the contrary, it would usually be seen as manipulating other people if you deliberately refused to prevent suffering that is within your powers, deciding instead to offload the problem on those others. In controlled circumstances, it is okay to delegate a problem to subordinates, but an omnipotent being does not need subordinates. It can also be okay to give certain kinds of problems to students or trainees for educational purposes, but that is a controlled and justifiable interference with autonomy ... and it's not something you do if serious suffering is at stake should they foul up.
The business about the virtues is unconvincing. First, it gets things horribly back to front: virtues such as kindness are valuable because they are needed to counter suffering. Arguing that suffering is valuable because it brings about, among other things, the development of kindness is, frankly, not only illogical but also morally abhorrent.
In any event, an omnipotent God could give us all the neurology, etc., on which virtues such as kindness supervene, without having to put us through some sort of history of encountering actual suffering. We could be equipped, in our "programming", for the counterfactual possibility of suffering without it ever actually arising, and we could even be offered choices whether or not to bring it about (we'd freely decide not to, because that's what we'd be like).
Indeed, God himself, if he existed, would presumably be kind or compassionate whether any actual suffering existed or not - it's not something God had to learn. So the theological story itself considers kindness or compassion something that a being could possess with no particular history. It could simply be part of our nature, as created by God, just as it is part of God's nature.
All this is not to mention the millions of years of suffering that existed before any beings with the capacity to decide to oppose it ever existed. Why all that suffering, on such a vast scale and for so long, when it had no formative or educational value?
I don't know what utilitarianism has to do with the isue. The important point in the vicinity is that allowing intense and extensive suffering that you could have prevented is regarded as morally bad (to say the least) by ordinary human standards, and is certainly not a hallmark of benevolence. There may be a thought lurking here, somewhere, that our moral norms for each other should not be so demanding as to require that we seriously think or act like utilitarians, always trying to maximise global utility, given that, as individuals, we have interests of our own to pursue and it may not be reasonable to demand that we drop these or divert too many of our resources from pursuing them. There's much more to say about this, but, in short, human moral codes should (arguably) make some allowances so that they are not too burdensome for finite creatures. Or rather, they are developed for the needs of finite creatures and inevitably contain trade-offs.
But none of this applies to God: God is not a finite creature with limited resources and specific interests of the ordinary kind. He is supposed to be omnipotent, transcendent, and all-benevolent. It's not just that he works within certain relatively lenient deontic constraints that are (arguably) reasonable for finite creatures like us. His goodness, or at least his beneficence, goes far beyond that.
Like so many theodicies, the one under discussion shows two vitiating tendencies. First, it assumes that it's okay to assign God human limitations (rather covertly), wherever needed, thus failing to take his superlative abilities (particularly his omnipotence) seriously. At the same time, secondly, it allows him motivations that would be seen as monstrous if they appeared in finite beings like us. Thus, God is actually held to a more lenient moral standard than the rest of us.
Believe in such a God if you wish, but don't be surprised if others find this being appalling even if he exists. It's logically possible, of course, that we live in a world that is controlled by a God who is morally horrible by our ordinary standards. Fortunately, the motivation for believing in any God at all starts to dry up once you realise that no such being meets the warrants offered by theodicists.
All in all, it's a thoughtful review, but none its criticisms do much to shake the arguments in the book.
I'd actually seen this review somewhere along the line - I think an advance copy was sent to Udo or to Wiley-Blackwell - but confirming that is still useful.
Sample:
Whether you are an atheist or not this volume contains a plurality of viewpoints and certainly stimulates all readers concerned by providing challenging discussions on a variety of vital issues such as the problem of evil (theodicy), the plurality of religious beliefs in the world and religious fanaticism, the bad influence of religion on the social life of human beings, the suffering and pain of all animals (and human beings) in the past and present, the supposed validity of the different rational proofs of God’s existence, and personal stories of why atheism is the only reasonable stance.
Good! Overall it's a positive review, though it's a little on the lukewarm side. The author seems to be a liberal-ish Christian who bemoans the fanaticism of religious fundamentalists and other extremists. He is unwilling to acknowledge the tendency for comprehensive apocalyptic worldwiews to press in the direction of totalitarianism and fanaticism unless this is positively opposed. He also offers what strikes me as a remarkably lame response to the Problem of Evil, which I'll quote in the interests of fairness:
First, it would undermine the autonomy of human the sense that they are absolved from preventing evil deeds themselves; secondly, it would promote laziness in people with regard to solving moral problems themselves and thereby human beings would be unable to develop important social and ethical virtues such as compassion, care etc.; and thirdly, such a world would obviously face the same difficult problems utilitarians have when they try to prevent evil (what is morally bad for one person is not necessarily morally bad for another person).
Leave aside the fact that the contributors anticipate and reply to most or all of these points.
Briefly, you don't get let off the hook for allowing suffering that it was in your power to prevent on the basis that preventing it would absolve someone else of the responsibility. Instead, you do whatever you can. That is not usually regarded as taking away the autonomy of others who are not stuck with the problem. On the contrary, it would usually be seen as manipulating other people if you deliberately refused to prevent suffering that is within your powers, deciding instead to offload the problem on those others. In controlled circumstances, it is okay to delegate a problem to subordinates, but an omnipotent being does not need subordinates. It can also be okay to give certain kinds of problems to students or trainees for educational purposes, but that is a controlled and justifiable interference with autonomy ... and it's not something you do if serious suffering is at stake should they foul up.
The business about the virtues is unconvincing. First, it gets things horribly back to front: virtues such as kindness are valuable because they are needed to counter suffering. Arguing that suffering is valuable because it brings about, among other things, the development of kindness is, frankly, not only illogical but also morally abhorrent.
In any event, an omnipotent God could give us all the neurology, etc., on which virtues such as kindness supervene, without having to put us through some sort of history of encountering actual suffering. We could be equipped, in our "programming", for the counterfactual possibility of suffering without it ever actually arising, and we could even be offered choices whether or not to bring it about (we'd freely decide not to, because that's what we'd be like).
Indeed, God himself, if he existed, would presumably be kind or compassionate whether any actual suffering existed or not - it's not something God had to learn. So the theological story itself considers kindness or compassion something that a being could possess with no particular history. It could simply be part of our nature, as created by God, just as it is part of God's nature.
All this is not to mention the millions of years of suffering that existed before any beings with the capacity to decide to oppose it ever existed. Why all that suffering, on such a vast scale and for so long, when it had no formative or educational value?
I don't know what utilitarianism has to do with the isue. The important point in the vicinity is that allowing intense and extensive suffering that you could have prevented is regarded as morally bad (to say the least) by ordinary human standards, and is certainly not a hallmark of benevolence. There may be a thought lurking here, somewhere, that our moral norms for each other should not be so demanding as to require that we seriously think or act like utilitarians, always trying to maximise global utility, given that, as individuals, we have interests of our own to pursue and it may not be reasonable to demand that we drop these or divert too many of our resources from pursuing them. There's much more to say about this, but, in short, human moral codes should (arguably) make some allowances so that they are not too burdensome for finite creatures. Or rather, they are developed for the needs of finite creatures and inevitably contain trade-offs.
But none of this applies to God: God is not a finite creature with limited resources and specific interests of the ordinary kind. He is supposed to be omnipotent, transcendent, and all-benevolent. It's not just that he works within certain relatively lenient deontic constraints that are (arguably) reasonable for finite creatures like us. His goodness, or at least his beneficence, goes far beyond that.
Like so many theodicies, the one under discussion shows two vitiating tendencies. First, it assumes that it's okay to assign God human limitations (rather covertly), wherever needed, thus failing to take his superlative abilities (particularly his omnipotence) seriously. At the same time, secondly, it allows him motivations that would be seen as monstrous if they appeared in finite beings like us. Thus, God is actually held to a more lenient moral standard than the rest of us.
Believe in such a God if you wish, but don't be surprised if others find this being appalling even if he exists. It's logically possible, of course, that we live in a world that is controlled by a God who is morally horrible by our ordinary standards. Fortunately, the motivation for believing in any God at all starts to dry up once you realise that no such being meets the warrants offered by theodicists.
All in all, it's a thoughtful review, but none its criticisms do much to shake the arguments in the book.
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