C.S. Lewis and the Argument From Morality

[Kingpin]

Jenny thank you for your candor and admitting the uneasiness of the proposition.

Those that hold a naturalistic view must realize that the logical out working is morality/ethics is pure pragmatism or relativism. Yet we do not actually live that way. You use the sentences: "evil comes down to hurting what you should have empathy for" and "but from our perspective it would be dire if not evil".

Did you notice something. You used the words "should" and "our" as if to appeal to an "oughtness" that transcends human subjectivism. That what I mean when I said we don't live in accordance to the logical out working of a naturalistic ethic.

We all appeal to something outside of social constructs or our own subjective standard but if naturalism is all there is then logically all we have is social construct and our own subjective morality.

I will get in to Hume and Kant tomorrow hopefully but I hope you understand what I am saying.

One last thing about mentioning the dehumanizing and religion being the most common culprit. While I will never deny religious atrocities and could easily argue that the "death of God" movement popularized in the 19th century by Nietzsche accurately predicted that the 20th century would be the bloodiest century (hitler, Stalin, Mussolini), it is still not an argument against a worldview to judge it based on its abuses. I would readily condemn religious atrocities right along side you.

[Jenny A]

Jenny thank you for your candor and admitting the uneasiness of the proposition.

Those that hold a naturalistic view must realize that the logical out working is morality/ethics is pure pragmatism or relativism. Yet we do not actually live that way. You use the sentences:  "evil comes down to hurting what you should have empathy for" and "but from our perspective it would be dire if not evil".

Indeed I do use such sentences and they do indeed reflect real thought patterns both of mine and those of others.  I agree we humans have those thought patterns.  Where we differ is about where we think such though patterns come from.  You, or at least I think you do, think that a god is the origin of such thought patterns.  I think god is no more an explanation than "cause" is an explanation.  In the absence of any other explanation I'd go with we don't know why.  However, evolution of humans provides a perfectly good explanation.  So my answer is because as a social species we evolved to have a sense of what we call evil and that sense of evil is very useful to our continuation as a species.

Did you notice something. You used the words "should" and "our" as if to appeal to an "oughtness" that transcends human subjectivism. That what I mean when I said we don't live in accordance to the logical out working of a naturalistic ethic.

We all appeal to something outside of social constructs or our own subjective standard but if naturalism is all there is then logically all we have is social construct and our own subjective morality.

Yes, because evolutionary constraints affect which individuals and which species as a whole survive.  Morality or "oughtness" is a combination of both constraints in any social species.  We are a very social species.

The interesting thing about humans is that we are also a very rational species with the ability to pass information from person to person and to future persons in a way that other species do not.  That makes us self reflective and adds complexity to our sense of morality.  It is the deepest ancient parts of our brains and the upper most rational ones that question our current sense of morality.  The oldest parts are reflexively self and young protecting.  The newest parts can rationalize behavior that doesn't comport to that standard.

I will get in to Hume and Kant tomorrow hopefully but I hope you understand what I am saying.

Both are better thinkers than Lewis.  You said Lewis convinced you so I went with Lewis.  But by all means use Hume and Kant if you find they better articulate your position.   It's your position and not some other man's no matter how well known that should be addressed.  And yes I think get what you are saying, I simply think you miss the other explanations for the feeling of oughtness.

One last thing about mentioning the dehumanizing and religion being the most common culprit. While I will never deny religious atrocities and could easily argue that the "death of God" movement popularized in the 19th century by Nietzsche accurately predicted that the 20th century would be the bloodiest century (hitler, Stalin, Mussolini), it is still not an argument against a worldview to judge it based on its abuses. I would readily condemn religious atrocities right along side you.

Not sure where you are going here.  There are and have been religious atrocities and god says so fuels many of them.  I agree it's a double edged sword in that religious belief can also fuel peace.  But I don't think the death of god added fuel to the violence fire.  I think that the ability to mass murder did.  It's a technological, not a moral escalation.

[Foxaèr]

I received that book as a gift in high school when I was religious.

However, reading it was probably part of the reason I sought something more enlightening.

C.S. Lewis is a great word saladist.

[Jenny A]

I received that book as a gift in high school when I was religious.

However, reading it was probably part of the reason I sought something more enlightening.  

C.S. Lewis is a great word saladist.

Mostly I think Lewis thinks the average Englishman of 1940 is the average man.  His ability to see beyond that his circumstance was even more limited than your average thinker.

[Kingpin]

Jenny thank you for your candor and admitting the uneasiness of the proposition.

Those that hold a naturalistic view must realize that the logical out working is morality/ethics is pure pragmatism or relativism. Yet we do not actually live that way. You use the sentences:  "evil comes down to hurting what you should have empathy for" and "but from our perspective it would be dire if not evil".

Indeed I do use such sentences and they do indeed reflect real thought patterns both of  mine and those of others.  I agree we humans have those thought patterns.  Where we differ is about where we think such though patterns come from.  You, or at least I think you do, think that a god is the origin of such thought patterns.  I think god is no more an explanation than "cause" is an explanation.  In the absence of any other explanation I'd go with we don't know why.  However, evolution of humans provides a perfectly good explanation.  So my answer is because as a social species we evolved to have a sense of what we call evil and that sense of evil is very useful to our continuation as a species.

Did you notice something. You used the words "should" and "our" as if to appeal to an "oughtness" that transcends human subjectivism. That what I mean when I said we don't live in accordance to the logical out working of a naturalistic ethic.

We all appeal to something outside of social constructs or our own subjective standard but if naturalism is all there is then logically all we have is social construct and our own subjective morality.

Yes, because evolutionary constraints affect which individuals and which species as a whole survive.  Morality or "oughtness" is a combination of both constraints in any social species.  We are a very social species.

The interesting thing about humans is that we are also a very rational species with the ability to pass information from person to person and to future persons in a way that other species do not.  That makes us self reflective and adds complexity to our sense of morality.  It is the deepest ancient parts of our brains and the upper most rational ones that question our current sense of morality.  The oldest parts are reflexively self and young protecting.  The newest parts can rationalize behavior that doesn't comport to that standard.

I will get in to Hume and Kant tomorrow hopefully but I hope you understand what I am saying.

Both are better thinkers than Lewis.  You said Lewis convinced you so I went with Lewis.  But by all means use Hume and Kant if you find they better articulate your position.    It's your position and not some other man's no matter how well known that should be addressed.  And yes I think get what you are saying, I simply think you miss the other explanations for the feeling of oughtness.

One last thing about mentioning the dehumanizing and religion being the most common culprit. While I will never deny religious atrocities and could easily argue that the "death of God" movement popularized in the 19th century by Nietzsche accurately predicted that the 20th century would be the bloodiest century (hitler, Stalin, Mussolini), it is still not an argument against a worldview to judge it based on its abuses. I would readily condemn religious atrocities right along side you.

Not sure where you are going here.  There are and have been religious atrocities and god says so fuels many of them.  I agree it's a double edged sword in that religious belief can also fuel peace.  But I don't think the death of god added fuel to the violence fire.  I think that the ability to mass murder did.  It's a technological, not a moral escalation.

Ok, here is my take evolutionary morality.  It does not take in to effect motives/intent.  Evolutionary morality always comes down to what should be done for the good of the species or survival of the species.  This leads to selfishness when morality is really about altruism.  Ask the question, "why ought someone be unselfish?"  It circles back, for the good of the species, why do i care, for the survival of the species, why do i care, if species dies out so do I, so why ought someone be unselfish is for their own survival (selfishness).  This is not what we mean by morality.  The animal kingdom does not have morality in the sense we are discussing.  Animal kingdom is about survival.  Our actions towards one another and their effects are not solely "for the good of the species".  How does evolutionary ethics handle moral dilemmas?

I've heard the argument that evolution and genetics is where we derive our moral framework.  You even mention it that we pass this information and complexity on to other generations.  This is a naturalistic fallacy, you assume something ought to be the case just because it is the case.  Naturalists argue:

1.  We care for others because of our genetics and evolved morality
2.  Therefore, we ought to care for others.

However, this argument conversely works for immoral behavior.

1.  We commit horrible crimes because of our genetics and evolved morality
2.  Therefore, we ought to commit horrible crimes.

The fact that we can describe moral behavior as being caring for others and the caring for others happens thanks to evolution does not make caring for others rational (something you ought to do).  

In the Judeo-Christian worldview, we believe this oughtness is derivative of being created by a personal God who gives humanity intrinsic worth or value.  What worth does naturalism offer?  Naturalists cannot raise the problem of evil or even define evil without invoking a personal ontic referent.  Without that it is incoherent.  Define evil in terms of naturalism.  There is no way to make logical sense of it without being an individual egoist or invoking a moral first cause.  

Many have seen this problem.  One of the most vociferous atheists of the 20th century, Canadian philosopher Kai Nielsen said this:  “We have not been able to show that reason requires the moral point of view, or that all really rational persons should not be individual egoists or classical amoralists. Reason doesn’t decide here. The picture I have painted for you is not a pleasant one. Reflection on it depresses me… Pure practical reason, even with a good knowledge of the facts, will not take you to morality.” (Kai Nielsen, “Why Should I Be Moral?” American Philosophical Quarterly 21 (1984), p. 90)

This was Lewis' point.  We as humans consistently appeal to a moral standard in which we feel all humanity is keenly aware when we raise the problem of right and wrong.  We are not just appealing to social constructs or cultural normative behaviors.  It is about violating purpose, but where do we get this innate idea of purpose?  Purpose does not exist in a naturalistic worldview.  We just are.  Everything just is.  The world is bleak, meaningless, without purpose, hope or destiny.  But people do not live thinking that way.  Sure you may value other humans lives but there is no logical reason to.  This was the key driving force in the Stalin and Hitler regimes, creating the "superman", creating a supreme species which is natural selection would dictate, to eradicate what is not helpful and increase what is helpful for survival. 

People who espouse to a naturalist view of morality live in contradiction to the logical outworking of that worldview.  Even Dawkins sees this when he makes statements like, "DNA neither knows nor cares.  DNA just is.  And we dance to its music." and "The universe that we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but pitiless indifference.”

[Jenny A]

---

Indeed I do use such sentences and they do indeed reflect real thought patterns both of  mine and those of others.  I agree we humans have those thought patterns.  Where we differ is about where we think such though patterns come from.  You, or at least I think you do, think that a god is the origin of such thought patterns.  I think god is no more an explanation than "cause" is an explanation.  In the absence of any other explanation I'd go with we don't know why.  However, evolution of humans provides a perfectly good explanation.  So my answer is because as a social species we evolved to have a sense of what we call evil and that sense of evil is very useful to our continuation as a species.


Yes, because evolutionary constraints affect which individuals and which species as a whole survive.  Morality or "oughtness" is a combination of both constraints in any social species.  We are a very social species.

The interesting thing about humans is that we are also a very rational species with the ability to pass information from person to person and to future persons in a way that other species do not.  That makes us self reflective and adds complexity to our sense of morality.  It is the deepest ancient parts of our brains and the upper most rational ones that question our current sense of morality.  The oldest parts are reflexively self and young protecting.  The newest parts can rationalize behavior that doesn't comport to that standard.


Both are better thinkers than Lewis.  You said Lewis convinced you so I went with Lewis.  But by all means use Hume and Kant if you find they better articulate your position.    It's your position and not some other man's no matter how well known that should be addressed.  And yes I think get what you are saying, I simply think you miss the other explanations for the feeling of oughtness.


Not sure where you are going here.  There are and have been religious atrocities and god says so fuels many of them.  I agree it's a double edged sword in that religious belief can also fuel peace.  But I don't think the death of god added fuel to the violence fire.  I think that the ability to mass murder did.  It's a technological, not a moral escalation.

---

Ok, here is my take evolutionary morality.  It does not take in to effect motives/intent.  Evolutionary morality always comes down to what should be done for the good of the species or survival of the species.  This leads to selfishness when morality is really about altruism.  Ask the question, "why ought someone be unselfish?"  It circles back, for the good of the species, why do i care, for the survival of the species, why do i care, if species dies out so do I, so why ought someone be unselfish is for their own survival (selfishness).  This is not what we mean by morality.  The animal kingdom does not have morality in the sense we are discussing.  Animal kingdom is about survival.  Our actions towards one another and their effects are not solely "for the good of the species".  How does evolutionary ethics handle moral dilemmas?

The term evolutionary morality is in itself a misunderstanding of evolution.

DNA is neither moral nor immoral.  It is tempting to attribute motives to DNA because language deals in motives, but DNA has none.  It does not think. It has no emotions.  It has no instincts. .  Similarly, natural selection is not an entity with motives any more than gravity is an entity with motives.  It is not a moral process or an immoral process, it is an amoral process.  It occurs because some DNA is replicated more frequently than other DNA due to the reproductive success or failure of the organisms which replicate it.  It is not a process designed to create an ideal organism of some kind superhuman or otherwise.  It is limited by natural variation and natural variation is not a moral or immoral process either.  It too is amoral.

However the process of evolution produces all sorts of things that DNA is not beginning with living organisms and including organisms that do feel and think, and have instincts and emotions and in the case of humans and some other organisms, morality.  But calling human morality, or even a brand of human morality, evolutionary morality is no more useful than calling our legs evolutionary legs, or our skin evolutionary skin.  Everything about us is the result of the process of evolution.  

I've heard the argument that evolution and genetics is where we derive our moral framework.  You even mention it that we pass this information and complexity on to other generations.  This is a naturalistic fallacy, you assume something ought to be the case just because it is the case.  Naturalists argue:

1.  We care for others because of our genetics and evolved morality
2.  Therefore, we ought to care for others.

However, this argument conversely works for immoral behavior.

1.  We commit horrible crimes because of our genetics and evolved morality
2. Therefore, we ought to commit horrible crimes.

No organism, with the possible exception of some human beings, says to itself, I ought to protect and feed my young so I will be evolutionarily successful.  But many species do just that, sometimes at great physical cost.  It's altruistic behavior.  And it's one way of getting genes into the next generation but a mother bear isn't thinking about evolutionary advantages when she protects her cubs, she's just doing what her successfully reproducing ancestors did..Other animals get the same result by laying thousands of eggs and not rearing any of them.   There is no ought, there is simply what has facilitated reproductive success.

The same is true for people.  We do not say to ourselves, I ought to have children and care for them because if I do, my genes will be passed on the the next generation and thus evolution will be fulfilled (at least most people don't).  Rather people who do have children will be represented in the next generation and people who don't will not.  That does not mean that we ought to have children.  It does mean that most people will have children because they come from a long line of people who had children and saw to it that those children grew up to have children.  

But changes in the environment lead to changes in what kind of people will most likely have children.  Children were once an inevitability for the sexually active, and an economic asset. .In the developed world neither of those things are true anymore.  Consequently, the type of person who has children is changing and many people who are intelligent, hard working, healthy, and otherwise successful, are choosing not to have children..  That is because what we do is not based on our understanding of evolution but rather on how we have evolved.  But evolution works based on what we do in the environment we inhabit now, not the one we evolved in, and those people who choose not to have children because of the the incentives in this environment will not be represented in the next generation.  People who choose to have children will be whether their reasons for having children are economic, sexual, or altruistic.  There is no ought about it.  

Like our tendency to sacrifice time and resources for our young which is moral behavior, our other moral instincts, and they are instincts, are displayed by other animals.  Chimpanzees and other social animals have ways of preventing conflicts:

Social living requires empathy, which is especially evident in chimpanzees, as well as ways of bringing internal hostilities to an end. Every species of ape and monkey has its own protocol for reconciliation after fights, Dr. de Waal has found. If two males fail to make up, female chimpanzees will often bring the rivals together, as if sensing that discord makes their community worse off and more vulnerable to attack by neighbors. Or they will head off a fight by taking stones out of the males’ hands.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/20/science/20moral.html

Notice that like people apes have both the instinct to end hostilities as well as the instinct to fight.  Both instincts have evolutionary advantages even though they conflict.  

And other primates have a basic sense of fairness:

Macaques and chimpanzees have a sense of social order and rules of expected behavior, mostly to do with the hierarchical natures of their societies, in which each member knows its own place. Young rhesus monkeys learn quickly how to behave, and occasionally get a finger or toe bitten off as punishment. Other primates also have a sense of reciprocity and fairness. They remember who did them favors and who did them wrong. Chimps are more likely to share food with those who have groomed them. Capuchin monkeys show their displeasure if given a smaller reward than a partner receives for performing the same task, like a piece of cucumber instead of a grape.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/20/scienc...gewanted=2

And fairness may well be disadvantageous to them from time to time, just as it is disadvantageous to particular people from time to time.

Where we differ is in degree.  We are highly social.  And we have far greater think ability.  Consequently, or systems for resolving conflict and caring for others include, police, courts, schools, and yes, religion.

However, like other things we have evolved, our sense of fairness and empathy and our desire to keep the peace come from a specific environment.  Our sense of fairness does not always translate to current conditions all that well.  We feel empathy for those close to us, but less or none for those far from or different looking than ourselves.  We are profoundly tribal in nature.  We instinctively protect our own.   That leads to war.  

In the Judeo-Christian worldview, we believe this oughtness is derivative of being created by a personal God who gives humanity intrinsic worth or value.  What worth does naturalism offer?  Naturalists cannot raise the problem of evil or even define evil without invoking a personal ontic referent.  Without that it is incoherent.  Define evil in terms of naturalism.  There is no way to make logical sense of it without being an individual egoist or invoking a moral first cause.  

Christianity produces no better definition of evil.  In world view without woo, evil is what humans generally perceive to be profoundly wrong behavior on the part of other humans.  What we consider to be profoundly wrong is the result of human evolution and culture.  

Some theists say evil is what god considers to be profoundly wrong behavior on the part of humans (though most gods engage in much behavior that would be considered evil were it done by humans).  Interestingly, what theists think god finds evil appears to vary with time and place and it tends to mirror the current morals of the people speaking for god.  In other words, god tends to find define evil at that which humans find to be profoundly wrong behavior on the part of humans.  

One of the most vociferous atheists of the 20th century, Canadian philosopher Kai Nielsen said this:  “We have not been able to show that reason requires the moral point of view, or that all really rational persons should not be individual egoists or classical amoralists. Reason doesn’t decide here. The picture I have painted for you is not a pleasant one. Reflection on it depresses me… Pure practical reason, even with a good knowledge of the facts, will not take you to morality.” (Kai Nielsen, “Why Should I Be Moral?” American Philosophical Quarterly 21 (1984), p. 90)

This was Lewis' point.  We as humans consistently appeal to a moral standard in which we feel all humanity is keenly aware when we raise the problem of right and wrong.  We are not just appealing to social constructs or cultural normative behaviors.  It is about violating purpose, but where do we get this innate idea of purpose?  Purpose does not exist in a naturalistic worldview.  We just are.  Everything just is.  The world is bleak, meaningless, without purpose, hope or destiny.  But people do not live thinking that way.  Sure you may value other humans lives but there is no logical reason to.

If the human brain were an entirely rational enterprise this might make sense.  But quite frankly, it is not.  And there is nothing about evolution that suggests it should be.  And the emotional and instinctive bits of it are just as much the product of evolution as the rational bits.