Is religion natural? Is science unnatural?

You and I, Richard Dawkins and Daniel Dennett, even the late Christopher Hitchens, are all religious. So you should all stop complaining about religion and trying to change people’s religious beliefs. It’s just not possible to eradicate religion, so we might as well accept whatever crazy stuff they want to believe.

Bob McCauley [Update: McCauley is this guy who blogs here.) argues that science is a fragile flower in need of precisely the right conditions in order to survive, but religion is a durable and universal part of human experience. Thus, science is no threat to religion; religion will continue whether science conflicts with it or not, and if there really is a conflict between science and religion, science will be the inevitable loser. More than that, every single person is religious; religion is part of everyone’s character whether they like it or not. Perhaps in some instances it might seem that science undermines a particular religion to some degree in some sufficiently advanced country, but in the long run, religion will survive, indeed thrive, in one form or another while science will undoubtedly disappear into the mists of time.

McCauley reasons that science involves a counterintuitive set of processes and products. The content, or product, of scientific theories is counterintuitive. Quantum physics, cosmology, microbiology, biology all involve exotic entities (from the perspective of ordinary experience) acting in complex and unexpected ways. [I’ll see if I can find a video of this. Just ask people where the mass of a tree comes from. Even people who ‘understand’ photosynthesis are unlikely to answer, “From the carbon dioxide I the air.” It is intuitively difficult to conceive of air as providing the enormous mass of a tree.] Religion involves no such counterintuitive entities: the content of religion is magical people who control events by mystical means but who are essentially like us in psychology. In other words, the key concept of religion is the agent-cause, the person or intelligent agent as a cause of events that otherwise are not explained (and, hell, really many of them that are explained in non-agent terms). You might think that religions appeal to mysterious invisible, intangible, sky-beings who operate in untestable ways with minds that are infinitely powerful, infinitely complex, and thus incomprehensible to mortals, but this is not the case. All these trappings of contemporary religion are not really religious at all but belong to theology, a highly intellectualized explanatory endeavor more akin to science or abstract fields such as mathematics or logic, than to religion. Theology, of course, could disappear, and this would have no bearing on religion whatsoever. In short, the product of the scientific method, the content of science, is counterintuitive and hard to grasp, and so cannot be considered an enduring part of human belief.

Religion, on the other hand, is simply the tendency to believe in anthropomorphic causes for events. I got the job; there must be an agent behind my good luck, a being who worked behind the scenes to get me the job. Mary got cancer; there must be someone acting to give her cancer. That’s religion, and that’s really (almost) all that religion is.

However, the product is not the main part of McCauley’s argument. The main issue for him is the process of science, not its content. “The scientific method” is not an easy or intuitive process for people to grasp and follow. (Let’s assume there is a single, albeit complex, method of science.) Ordinary people, and even trained scientists, have difficulty following the strictures of the scientific method: blind, or double-blind, experiments, mathematical models for inferring correlations, clear distinctions between correlation and causation, etc. These and other aspects of science are difficult to grasp and follow, and even trained scientists are prone to abandon them in ordinary life.

Science further requires a complex set of social relations and institutions such as publication and peer review. Religion, on the other hand, depends only on processes that are quite ‘natural’, even innate—if you believe in innateness. Religion has two main essential features: explaining events in terms of agents (intelligent beings) as causes (noted above) and treating certain items, areas, or events, as “sacred” or ”contaminated” (or treating ourselves as contaminants of the sacred). McCauley equates religion with this subset of largely erroneous reasoning tendencies and processes. Since people inevitably reason poorly in these ways, religion can never disappear.

Similarly, as it turns out, my toddler (and possibly my dog) is religious since he is prone to the same errors. Taking this poor reasoning as partly constitutive of religion does not mean that this is all there is to religion. It might be that these two features are universal to all religions, but there is more required for something to count as religion. Alas, McCauley does not offer any further definienda for religion. This failure conveniently leaves him lots of leeway to argue that religion must be natural since he considers only attributes that are shown to be ‘natural’ (what McCauley calls “maturationally natural”) by cognitive psychology.

I hope it’s obvious at this point what’s wrong with this reasoning. He’s defined science narrowly, to include only the highly sophisticated social institution of science as it is practiced in the modern world, but he’s defined religion very generally so that virtually any supernatural thinking qualifies as religion. Obviously if science were defined equally generally, as, for example, a systematic method of learning about the world by means of observation and experiment, then it would be impossible to find anyone who did not have some cognitive capacity for it and tendency to use it. My toddler certainly experiments with the world and tries to understand it, often inferring unobservable mechanisms. And there are lots of experiments in developmental psychology that show children using such inference patterns. Certainly not everyone would do science well, but it’s also obvious that not everyone does religion well either. (Hey, look at the Scientologists!) Similarly, there is a narrow definition of religion that requires it to have the kind of sophisticated social apparatus that we find in contemporary Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. These types of religion clearly include counterintuitive doctrines and concepts far removed from common experience. The Catholic doctrines of transubstantiation and the triune God are highly counterintuitive. Even the processes of religion in the contemporary world can be unnatural. Do we need priests in cassocks to interpret the will of God for us? Why must these priests be sexually abstinent men? So, contemporary organized religion is just as unnatural and contingent as contemporary science (unless misogyny is intrinsic to religion); and simple science is just as unavoidable and intrinsic to human nature as is simple religion. My toddler has the same supernaturalist tendencies as religious believers, but my toddler also experiments with complex machines to try to discover their inner workings.

McCauley’s argument is an equivocation. The only thing that makes it appear plausible is the reliance on different standards or scopes for the two concepts. Religion and science are both contingent and unnatural when viewed one way (narrowly, if you will), and they are both necessary and natural when viewed another way (broadly, generally, or simply).

So, if this was obvious to me, wasn’t it also obvious to McCauley?

Ironically, McCauley identified confirmation bias as an error people commit that makes them poor scientists. He noted that people are often quite good at finding rationalizations that allow them to maintain failed theories even in the face of overwhelming counterevidence. Perhaps McCauley might do well to diagnose himself.

McCauley attempts to avoid my objection by labeling the sophisticated and unnatural activity that appears to relate to religion theology. So, there is little unnatural about religion since religion is defined as that activity that psychologists have discovered to be natural, and any unnatural aspect of religion (as we would ordinarily understand the term) is theology. Obviously, then theology could disappear without religion disappearing. Theology appears to be a set of doctrines, beliefs, rules of inference involving religion, but it does not appear to involve the practices of religion (such as the priesthood or gender discrimination). I suppose McCauley could add some other term for narrowly defined practices of a particular religion, and argue that these practices are not essential to religion either. Should we dispute McCauley’s rather arbitrary distinction between the theology (and theological processes involving, say, confession or the priesthood)? It’s probably not worth it; McCauley can define his terms in whatever way he wants as long as we can explain them in ordinary terms that anyone can understand. So, here’s how to state McCauley’s claims in those ordinary terms:

There are supernaturalist tendencies in human reasoning that tend to persist even when people are aware that this reasoning is fallacious. Similarly, humans have difficulty in applying good scientific reasoning; instead, they often rely on or apply poor scientific reasoning. Of course, humans are capable of good scientific reasoning on their own, but they are more effective if they have complex social institutions that allow for critique and debate.

Given these facts, it is also entirely possible that people can reason well enough together that they will not be taken in by supernaturalist reasoning. McCauley doesn’t exactly emphasize the last point, but it’s implicit in his discussion of science since science succeeds despite our tendency towards error.

Take that, Dawkins! Religion 1, Science 0.

My friend who brought in McCauley for the lecture explains that Dawkins and Dennett think that the demise of religion is inevitable and that McCauley is merely providing a dose of realism. I cannot speak for Dawkins/Dennett, or the rest of the Four Horsemen of the Theopocalypse. So, this claim may be true or it may not. Still, I have two questions. (1) What do we do about religion if some important aspect of it is difficult to eradicate from human psychology? And (2) are societies in which religion has a strong grip more successful (in the sense that they are more likely to survive, spread their belief systems) than those that are less religious? Will the religious or non-religious societies compete more effectively?

To the first question: If we believe, as McCauley does, that religion is essentially irrational, then we ought to do everything possible to limit its power and influence, to educate people sufficiently so that they cease to be religious, and implement social policies that will make it more likely that religions will slowly fade away. Clearly these things can be done, and they would not require mistreatment of the religious or religions. We need only cease to give religion special treatment in order for it to lose at least some of its power. The most effective thing to do would be to stop giving special support for religion. For example, religions are given a prominent role in all sorts of social circumstances that their actual contribution to society does not merit. We could stop giving invocations at public events as a way of reducing religion’s influence. We could stop giving religions special treatment in funding for their activities. For example, drop all the federal government’s ‘faith-based initiatives’ and make social spending based on evidence, not faith. We could work harder to educate our children in science and limit the role of religion in schools. We can improve our social support for the poor and disadvantaged in order to limit the need for social services religions provide. We could make it easier for people to live without religion. We do not need just to imagine doing these things either because most European nations already do them, and those nations fare better on basically any measure of social welfare or happiness than America does.

To the second question: I do not know whether religious or non-religious societies will thrive in a kind of evolutionary free-for-all, but I know that public policies based on religion and religious thinking cause tremendous problems for our society. America is, I think, dropping from the ranks of the developed world. And it’s fairly clear that the benighted policies of our conservative leaders, supported by their religious followers, have led to this trend. The authoritarian-follower personality of the conservative movement in America, dominated by religious believers, has enabled the looting of the government by the wealthy and the gradual decay of our infrastructure and our important social institutions (such as public education). Societies that are free of religion do better in promoting the welfare of their citizens and fit better in a community of nations. I do not know if this means they will continue to exist longer or spread their values more effectively than will more religious nations (such as America or Saudi Arabia), but it is devoutly to be hoped that they will, and it seems a worthwhile goal to work towards achieving that end.

There are successful nations with majority atheist populations. There are organizations of scientists who inculcate good reasoning into scientists at young ages, and they are capable of leaving behind most of their errors and superstition. There are millions of atheists worldwide. All of these people may be prone to errors of reasoning, but these millions appear to have avoided or corrected this reasoning in adherence to ‘the’ scientific method and/or in rejecting religion. So, the relative naturalness of superstition is not sufficient evidence that superstition cannot be overcome or replaced with more careful reasoning.

McCauley reasons that religion is, at bottom, a kind of fallacious or erroneous reasoning, so he cannot reasonably object to the attempts by the new atheists to limit, even eradicate, its influence. Perhaps it will be harder to do this than some think, but if you really think that religion is basically superstition and cognitive error, then you really cannot accept religion with equanimity. If superstition can be fought at all, which it clearly can be, then our goal, whether it is easy or difficult, should be to fight it. I can only hope that McCauley’s overall purpose is to warn atheists away from false optimism, but, if so, that was not the tenor of his talk. I cannot help feeling that McCauley's argument is really a counsel to despair, that we should accept that people cannot change this aspect of their psychology. To me, even if he is correct about these kinds of cognitive errors being universal, if religion really is rooted in fallacious reasoning, then this fact should provide more motivation to oppose it.

Universals and an Argument for the Existence of God: More on Edward Feser's The Last Superstition an Unpublishable Review, part 2

This post is the second installment in a review of Edward Feser’s The Last Superstition, a polemic against the New Atheists, their movement and their beliefs. In this installment I discuss Feser's presentation of an argument for the existence of God based on the existence of universals or abstract objects.

Universals are properties or features common to many individual things or concrete particulars, as philosophers call them. An example makes this a whole lot clearer. Bob is a tall human being with a limp. Bob is the particular thing that instantiates (are instances of), exemplifies (are examples of), partakes of, or participates in certain attributes or features which are not strictly parts of himself, and in his case these are the properties humanity, tallness, and gimpiness (the limp being not a thing that Bob has like a coin in his pocket but a feature or aspect of Bob’s gait which itself a property of Bob). Now, there are philosophers who think these features are real aspects or features of the world, and others who deny this. There are so many subtle distinctions among the different beliefs one can have about these supposed features of the world, and the reasons for and against each such position, that even the most basic introduction to the question takes about 65 pages in Michael Loux’s excellent introductory volume Metaphysics: A Contemporary Introduction (which I highly recommend). So it is difficult for Feser, and it is more difficult for me, to provide any fair, balanced, and complete explanation of this issue. So, I will settle for a link to this excellent article by one of my former teachers on the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy on Properties and the following brief categorization of the views. Some of my terminology is standard, but I'm not sure about the term "conceptualism", and I make no attempt to comprehensively describe the alternative positions.

Realism

Features of concrete particulars are real properties that are shared among these particulars.

Two subcategories of Realism are Platonism and Aristotelianism.

Platonism

These features are real properties that exist independently of the individuals that have them.

Aristotelianism

These features are real properties shared by individuals but they depend on those individuals and cannot exist without any instantiations.

Nominalism

There are no such features; there are no shared properties that particulars instantiate.

Two (non-exhaustive) subcategories of Nominalism are trope theory and conceptualism. This is not all the ways one could be a nominalist, but they are worthy of mention given Feser's argument.

Trope theory

There are features that particulars have, but these features are themselves individual or particular (so there is no such thing as a redness that is shared among all red things, but each individual red thing has its own particular redness).

Conceptualism

There are no universal features of particulars; categorizations of particulars under the same type (red things) is only an idea in people’s minds. There is no external or real feature of the world that justifies the categorization into types of things; the categorization is taken as basic.

My point here is not really to attack or defend these positions, but to note the distinction between different positions that Feser does not distinguish and which lead to incoherence in his conclusions.

Feser argues for the existence of abstract objects, universals, that exist independently of their instantiations. Feser presents a set of arguments for Platonism, ignores the arguments for the other side, and fails to distinguish different attitudes towards universals which, if noted, would undermine his conclusions. Feser talks about the reasons for the reality of universals but almost none of the problems with them. Presenting only the arguments for your own side but not addressing the arguments for the other side is like claiming to have won a basketball game while only mentioning your team’s score. Yeah, a hundred points is a lot, but. . .

More problematic is Feser’s incoherent view of universals. His arguments for the existence of universals focus on the Platonic notion of abstract objects (the famous Platonic Forms) that exist independently of any instantiation of them. Feser recognizes there are problems with this view and endorses an Aristotelian account of universals without noting that his arguments for them are inconsistent with the Aristotelian concept of them. He can either have the arguments he provides or he can have the Aristotelian he tries to draw from those arguments, not both.

I will attempt to support the above claims in the following post. First, I will outline the Augustinian argument Feser backhandedly endorses. Then I will explain why the premises are actually inconsistent with his Aristotelian account of universals. Then I will show why this argument does not prove the existence of God because treating universals as ideas in God’s mind does not resolve the difficulties in the concept of universals.

Feser introduces the following Augustinian argument for the existence of God as one Alvin Plantinga says must be taken seriously. I assume this means that Feser also thinks it is sound, but there are two levels of plausible deniability here. First, saying that Plantinga endorses it does not mean Feser endorses it. Second, saying that we should take the argument seriously is not the same as saying it is sound. Still, if we are not to think the argument is sound, then Feser is just jerking us around. So, I'm going to assume Feser is not jerking us around. Here's the Augustinian argument following my own standardization.

1. If universals exist, they must exist either as abstract objects, universals that depend for their existence on their instances, concepts in imperfect or in perfect minds.
2. Universals exist.
3. Universals cannot exist as abstract objects.
4. Universals cannot exist as universals that depend for their existence on their instances.
5. Universals cannot exist as concepts in imperfect minds.
6. Therefore universals must exist as concepts in perfect minds.

An abstract object is an object that exists in some Platonic third realm, as a kind of individual thing that exists in the abstract. Potential examples of abstract objects include the number 1, the meaning of sentences, propositions, perfect geometrical figures. The first premise obviously looks a bit like a false dilemma. Why think these are the only ways that universals might exist? I include these because they are the views that Feser implicitly or explicitly argues about. Feser runs together the Platonist and Aristotelian accounts of universals, but I will treat them as distinct since Feser’s failure to distinguish them undermines his argument.

I should take a moment to define the terms I introduced: “perfect minds” and “imperfect minds”. An imperfect mind is either a finite mind, such as a human one, that cannot cover the entirety of the universe in both time and space, or that cannot conceive all possible propositions or all possible mathematical truths. I also wanted to convey the problem that a finite mind might make mistakes in its categorization of objects into groups, and that this could cause problems if one tries to define the existence of properties as being only concepts in minds (thus, an infinite but still fallible mind will not do the trick). If a mind failed to adopt a grouping that we intuitively take to be legitimate, then the property at issue would not exist, and that’s clearly not an acceptable result. So we need to distinguish the kind of mind we have and the kind of mind God is purported to have. There may well be only the one perfect mind, or there may be an infinite number, but I’m not concerned with that claim because I don’t think ultimately solving the problem of universals by appeal to any perfect mind is going to work.

Feser argued for premise 2, the existence of universals, at some length in an earlier chapter of the book. In particular, Feser argues for Platonism. Platonic objects are abstract entities that exist independently of any instances, that can exist without instances. For example, if all physical triangles are imperfect in some way (the angles total something very slightly different from 180 degrees), but triangularity is still real, then triangularity exist independently of any instance. Feser argues for the this view of universals as things that exist independently of any instances. Hence, Feser, in his argument for the existence of universals, argues for a particular view of them, and that I indicate in premise 4.

What are Feser’s arguments for the existence of Platonic universals? There are several, but they all focus on the truth value of claims that Feser thinks can only make sense if universals exist independently of their instances. For example, mathematics, geometry and logic are thought to involve true statements yet none of the terms need refer to any physical existents. If so, then these entities exist independently of their instances (since they exist but possibly have no instances). There are difficult and complex arguments in many areas of philosophy (philosophy of mathematics, philosophy of language) that dispute Feser’s claims, so it is not easy to be as sanguine as Feser that we should accept the conclusions. Nonetheless, I will not worry about these arguments since I am not writing a metaphysics textbook.

Feser does acknowledge that there are problems with Platonism, problems that may or may not be debilitating, and then claims that Aristotelianism provides a better account of universals. Now, these forms of realism about universals are inconsistent with respect to the existence of uninstantiated universals. Platonism says that these abstract objects exist, independently of their instances, in a third realm distinct from our minds and from the physical world. This view causes all sorts of ontological and epistemic problems. By contrast, Aristotelianism says that there are no uninstantiated universals. So, if you argue for the existence of uninstantiated universals, you cannot then take those arguments to support Aristotelianism. If Aristotelianism is the correct view of universals, then it cannot be because the arguments Feser presents are convincing. Still, in chapter 2 of his book, Feser endorses an Aristotelian account of universals despite having just made arguments against it (by arguing for the existence of uninstantiated universals). Perhaps it is because of this inconsistency that Feser then almost-endorses the Augustinian argument for the existence of God. He may be unhappy with the earlier realist solutions to the problem of universals and adopts a different one, especially since he thinks it can be used to prove the existence of God. And if he endorsed either of the other two views of the universals, he would not be able to use them to attempt to prove the existence of God.

In short, Feser thinks we have to accept that there are universals and he thinks that they must exist independently of their instances, so he needs an account of universals that does not endorse either Platonism or Aristotelianism. Existing as ideas in God’s mind is, then, Feser’s way out of his dilemma. If universals are concepts that exist in God’s mind, then they can be objective (God’s mind being perfect after all) and real without entailing all that problematic stuff about a Two Worlds ontology that Plato had. Plus, they get to exist even if there are no instances since God can think about things that do not exist. The problem is that this “solution” contains the worst aspects of Platonism and conceptualism.

Here are some problems with universals that Feser's solution does not actually solve.

Knowledge:
One problem for Platonism is how finite, physical, limited minds can gain information about the world of abstract universals. If these items exist in a Platonic heaven (i.e. without any instances), how could we come in contact with them, how could we know they exist, how could we know facts about reality that depend on them? Plato offers only metaphors (the myth of the cave, the divided line, etc.) in trying to explain how we know them. Other Platonists, such as Kurt Godel and Gottlob Frege, have not been much more help. However, as problematic as Platonism is, placing the ideas in God’s mind does not solve these problems. God’s mind is at least as inaccessible as Plato’s heaven. We have no more access to God’s mind than we do to Plato’s world of the Forms, so Feser’s solution does not solve problems of knowledge for universals.

Communication:
Feser thinks that communication would be impossible if there were not Platonic universals that constitute the meanings of at least some of our terms. There certainly is a good case to make that nominalism can provide no adequate substitute for cases of apparent abstract reference (e.g. “Blue is a friendlier color than red.”) If universals are ideas in God’s mind, however, communication becomes again mysterious. Communication would only be possible if we could refer to ideas in God’s mind. Yet, since we lack any access to God’s mind, these ideas cannot show how communication is possible. It’s mysterious enough how I could refer to an idea in someone else’s mind; it is completely mind-boggling to consider how I could refer to an idea in God’s mind. The degree of difficulty involved in referring to ideas in God’s mind is so great that it would seem to be impossible. Hence, on Feser’s Augustinian proposal, communication is apparently impossible.

Objectivity:
Since universals must exist objectively in order to allow for communication, knowledge and the rest, we have to ask: Are God’s ideas objective? One might think so, but answering this question raises a parallel to the classic Euthyphro dilemma (are actions good because the gods love them or do the gods love them because they are good?). Do objects instantiate the universals they do because God conceives of them as doing so? Does God impose universals on the world by his choice? If so, then God can have no reason for ordering the universals as he/she does. (If Fido was a dog this morning could God make Fido a cat this afternoon if God only changed the way he conceived of Fido?) Or does God conceive things as he/she does because they are objectively like that? It’s obvious that if we are to take God’s conceptions as objective, they must be based on an independently existing reality, on independently existing universals. If not, then the distribution of universals to objects must be completely arbitrary and God must have no reason for conceiving of objects as he/she does.

Similarity/one over many:
The problem that universals are primarily introduced to solve, that objects appear to be similar or resemble each other in certain respects, is not really solved by appeal to ideas in God’s mind. Do objects resemble each other because God conceives them as similar, or does God conceive them as similar because they bear an objective resemblance to each other? If we take the former answer, God’s categorizations must be brute unexplainable facts (which is the same answer the nominalist gives, so there is no advantage for the Augustinian here). The answer must again be, for reasons given above, that God must recognize objective resemblances rather than create resemblances. Hence, we must have some other view of the similarity objects appear to have to each other.

This is not to say that the other solutions to the problem of universals are good, but trying to solve the problem by appeal to God does not help matters. It’s possible that one could solve these problems by fiat, and simply claim that the nature of God’s mind is such that these problems are solved. But if you allow that then you might as well allow the Platonist or the conceptualist to solve the problems in the same way. Ultimately, you get nowhere by appeal to God to solve this problem.

In sum, Feser argues that there must be universals understood as Platonic, abstract objects. Then he claims that the best view is Aristotelianism about universals which entails that universals are not Platonic, abstract objects. Then he presents an argument for the existence of God as ideas (and hence not universals or abstract objects) that exist in God’s mind. Thus, according to Feser, universals are apparently all of the following: abstract objects that exist independently of any instance (Platonism), universal resemblances that depend for their existence on their instances (Aristotelianism), and ideas in the mind of God (and hence not independent entities). Feser seems to settle on the last response, but that response does not seem to resolve any problem that universals might be introduced to solve.

One of the oddest facts about Feser’s discussion of nominalism and realism about universals was the weight he placed on it. Somehow nominalism is to blame for the excesses of liberalism, atheism, the sexual revolution, the murdering of millions of helpless babies, and, no doubt the Holocaust and the evil that is Def Leppard too. This is a peculiar stance since some of the most cogent nominalist positions were put forward by theists (most famously, William of Ockham) and many contemporary atheist and materialist philosophers are realists. Bertrand Russell was perhaps the 20th century’s most famous atheist and also a realist (at least in his Problems of Philosophy). Most importantly, there seem no links of entailment or likelihood between any of the supposed social ills and the philosophy of nominalism; nor do there appear to be particular historical connections among them. What could the belief that there are no universals have to do with immorality? Perhaps Feser believes that nominalism entails moral nihilism or relativism, but you can still believe there are individual good or bad actions (tropes), just that there are no universals that explain a resemblances among them. Even if one particular argument that God exists would be rejected by nominalists, it does not immediately follow that they reject the existence of God. So, even if nominalists reject Feser's arguments, there is no necessary connection between nominalism and any moral ills at all.

Since this post has been technical and mostly no fun at all, I wanted to give one more example of the conservadroid mind at work for its sheer humor value. In his second chapter, on the topic of the ancient Greeks, before talking about the universals which are important to the arguments I just discussed, Feser mentions Socrates and his execution. His thoughts on Socrates and the analogy to contemporary politics and society once again indicate the peculiar sense of persecution and victimization so often found on the political right in America. Feser writes,

Socrates (469-399 B.C.) vigorously opposed the Sophists and the moral corruption they had fostered within the Athens of his day. . . When put on trial by a jury of 500 of his fellow citizens for purportedly denying the gods of the city and replacing them with new ones, and in general corrupting the youth . . . he defended himself, Plato tells us, by claiming that he was divinely called to lead others to the improvement of their souls. Naturally, this democratic assembly had him executed. (Today, they’d probably just denounce him as a “neo-con” or part of the “religious right” and haul him off for multicultural sensitivity training.) (p. 31)

Just to get this straight, Feser is claiming that the great iconoclastic thinker Socrates, who was executed for his heretical views on the polis and the nature of the gods, is the equivalent of the religious right, who ran all of the Bush domestic policy and are one of the most powerful domestic interest groups in American politics, and the neo-cons, who ran American foreign policy for the entire Bush era (and who not only have not been reeducated but have, despite demonstrable falsehoods that led the U.S. into a war in Iraq, remained mysteriously unindicted) Let’s just have a little comparison of Socrates, the religious right, the neo-cons, and the new atheist movement.

Socrates

Accused of atheism and impiety

Neo-cons

No

Religious right

No; they’re the ones making these accusations

New atheists

Yes

Socrates

Had no political power

Neo-cons

No—they had a prominent role American foreign policy for years

Religious right

No—one of the most powerful interests in American politics

New atheists

Yes; just for example, there is only one openly non-theist in Congress

Socrates

Represented a minority opinion

Neo-cons

Maybe, but not really in political circles

Religious right

Yes, the religious right is not a majority, but Christians are a majority and the religious right is disproportionately influential because they are seen as representing Christians

New atheists

Yes

Socrates

Committed to critical thought, doubt, and questioning established beliefs

Neo-cons

No

Religious right

It is to laugh.

New atheists

Yes

Socrates

Argued for inconvenient truths that those in power did not want to hear

Neo-cons

Hah!

Religious right

Is that milk coming out of your nose?

New atheists

Yes

Socrates

Said that the gods spoke to him to encourage him to tell the truth

Neo-cons

No; pretty clear they have no divine mandate to tell the truth

Religious right

Yes; they claim a direct line to the divine, but not in any way Socrates would recognize*

New atheists

No but they do see themselves as bringing the truth to people

Socrates

Was executed for his ‘crimes’

Neo-cons

No; strangely unindicted for potential war-crimes

Religious right

No; historically these are the executors not the executes

New atheists

Not lately

So, Feser’s sense of persecution is so strong that he perceives the most politically powerful elements of America, with which he is aligned, as being powerless, besieged by political correctness and crushed under the boot-heel of postmodernist literary theorists and Michael Moore (also on p. 31). Compared to this, the dissociation from reality of Feser’s religious views is fairly mundane stuff.

*In contrast to the contemporary religious right, Socrates never relies on divine inspiration for any of his claims. In the Ion Socrates ridiculed the poets for their inability to defend their beliefs, ironically suggested they must be divinely inspired. Have you ever seen a cogent defense of the religious right’s views? Must be divine inspiration. Socrates doesn’t claim divine knowledge; in fact he denies that anyone has divine knowledge.

Edward Feser, The Last Superstition, an Unpublishable Review, part 1

I had this weird idea, since I blog about atheism some, that I might look at the theist books that have been written in response to the new atheist movement. So I ordered a book, The Last Superstition: A Refutation of the New Atheism, that was highly touted in its Amazon reviews (which, admittedly, could have been written by his friends), to see in what way the new atheists were fundamentally wrong, overly-simplistic, misguided, and just plain wrong. (I wrote ‘wrong’ twice. That’s just how wrong they are!) I thought it might be fun if there were some ridiculous arguments to pick apart.

This book operates in the tradition of Jonah Goldberg’s Liberals Are the Real Big Poopyheads! (no, not that one, the first one). Feser either is part of the right-wing movement or he knows them well, because the book constantly pushes the victimization of all right thinking people by the atheists running the universities, the media, and the government. (They’re even hiding under your bed!) I must confess I was forced to skim some of the more tedious parts. The preface, for example, is a typical polemic about gay marriage undermining our God-given moral values, secular humanism destroying our society, etc. The true surprise in this volume is the extent to which he insults the intelligence, scholarship, and character of his atheists (on pages viii, ix, xi, 2, 3, 4, 8, 9, 14, 15, 16, 17, and 19 on the first 20 pages [and that doesn’t include distortions or problematic interpretations of their ideas]), especially in the context of accusing his opponents of acting superior and insulting theists. Clearly, he commits ad hominem fallacies and strawmen, but the irony is his use of ad hominem attacks on someone while accusing the opponent of committing ad hominems. This style of reasoning deserves a special name, and I’ve come to think of it as a defining feature on the right. The website Sadly, No has the motto: "It’s always projection." Since it takes other fallacies as subsidiary parts, it cannot be taken as a subset of another fallacy, so I propose to call it the “Double Wingnut” because wingnuts are doing exactly what they are accusing the other side of doing. "Look at how condescending and insulting that uneducated dolt is being!" (I cannot help having the feeling that even diagnosing the fallacy counts as a triple wingnut, but I refuse to get any more self-referential.)

Given the quantity of these insults, one wonders what the purpose of the book is. It purports to present a more convincing argument for the existence of God than the new atheists have addressed, or even could address. But, again, given the excessive insults, it cannot be intended to reach the atheists themselves, or anyone sympathetic to the atheist position, and it is unlikely to appeal to anyone in the broad middle of American political or religious thought (for example, claiming "Its [the rejection of the Aristotelian scientific and metaphysical picture] logical implications can also be seen in today's headlines: in the abortion industry's slaughter of millions upon millions of unborn human beings. . ."). Given these outrageous assertions, the work cannot reach out to people of good conscience who disagree (since, apparently, atheists, or even just non-Aristotelian theists, are moral monsters) or to those as yet undecided on the issue. Thus, I believe the purpose of the book is to preach to the choir, to salve the egos of the converted who feel disrespected and humiliated by those smarty-pants atheists with their English accents and academic credentials.

As part of the Goldberg tradition, a Goldberg variation if you will, Feser wants to convince you, dear wingnut reader, that it is really those liberal, atheist academics with their fancy degrees and awards and prizes who are actually stupid, whereas you, the semi-literate mouth-breather, are the true illuminated ones. Anyway, reading this book is slow going because so much of it is aimed at massaging the egos of the morons [heavens, I'm so hostile and dismissive!] who constitute his primary audience, and it takes a considerable amount of time actually to get to some of the arguments for the existence of God. I have not done a word count, but it certainly seemed that more words were devoted to gratuitous insults than to actually presenting arguments for the existence of God.

Since it is impossible to refute his points one at a time in a blog post, I thought I would pick out three instances indicating his rather questionable insinuations and inferences.

1. In the preface, Feser attributes the following quote to Richard Dawkins on critics of evolution:

They are “ignorant, stupid, insane and wicked” (Feser p. xi), and this is “evidence of [Dawkins’s] arrogance and intolerance” (as Dawkins himself says in this article).

What Dawkins actually wrote, in an article titled “Ignorance Is No Crime”, is the following (which I also quote from the above link):

"It is absolutely safe to say that if you meet somebody who claims not to believe in evolution, that person is ignorant, stupid or insane (or wicked, but I'd rather not consider that)."

The review (reproduced here) continues, (I couldn’t find the original online.)

If that gives you offense, I'm sorry. You are probably not stupid, insane or wicked; and ignorance is no crime in a country with strong local traditions of interference in the freedom of biology educators to teach the central theorem of their subject. I recently toured East Coast radio stations, doing phone-ins. I came away optimistic. I had expected hostile barracking from creationists with closed minds. Instead, what I found was genuine curiosity and honest interest. I got sincere questions from intelligent people who really wanted to know because they had literally no education in evolution.

This is clearly not insulting the vast majority of Americans; he is insulting people in the creationist movement who study the issue of evolution enough to understand (apparently) the evidence yet continue to disbelieve in evolution. Most ordinary folk in America who do not believe in the theory of evolution have never had a chance to learn the basic facts (believe me, this is true) and so are, by dint of lacking knowledge, by definition ignorant of the vast amount of evidence for the theory. Some sophists, such as Duane Gish and Henry Morris, who appear to have studied evolution and travel the country arguing against the theory are something other than ignorant. I cannot agree with the “insane” (although there is some moral failing here), but I actually think it’s a more complicated matter of self-deception and motivated error. So, Dawkins’s statement left out some slightly more charitable options, but he was not insulting the common people who do not know the evidence for evolution as ignorant because people who do not know this evidence are, by definition, ignorant of it. (And, as far as I'm concerned, it's not possible to insult Duane Gish too much!)

Still, perhaps Dawkins missed the diagnosis of the sophists running the creationist movement. However, I would like to refer back to Feser’s purported Dawkins quote. Feser claims he called them “ignorant, stupid, insane and wicked” when Dawkins actually said they were “ignorant, stupid or insane (or wicked, but I'd rather not consider that).” I don’t know the source of Feser’s misquotation (although it seems to have dropped the “or” in translation on many Christian apologetics websites, and Feser, presumably, got it from some such source and added the “and” himself to make it more grammatical), but if he cannot tell the difference between an “and” and an “or” (or did not check the quotation for accuracy), then he is in no position to be writing a book involving logic (or research).

2. The second example is from Feser's first chapter on the topic of Antony Flew’s conversion to deism. The chapter begins with the anecdote of that famed atheist’s conversion late in life. Feser does not address most of the significant reasons philosophers had for questioning Flew’s conversion. Mark Oppenheimer, writing in the New York Times Magazine explains reasons to have doubts about the provenance of 'Flew’s' book. It raises many reasons to doubt that Flew wrote this book himself. For example, the new book does not address arguments Flew himself made in the past. There is no indication that the author is aware of Flew’s arguments or has any explanation for why Flew’s view might have changed. Most telling to me is Flew’s unfamiliarity with the authors that “his” book makes primary use of in its arguments. Indeed, Flew essentially confessed, in the interview with the author of the NY magazine article, to not writing or remembering much of what was purported to be primarily his own work. I don’t care much for authority; religious belief depends more on authority and revelation than does atheism. So, my point is It’s unfortunate if Flew was misused by religious friends, as it appears, in order to advance their agenda. I do not place any particular value on authority, so I care little whether Flew changed his mind. But my point now is to critique Feser’s conclusion from the episode:

This episode illustrates, in several respects, the main themes of this book. In their condescending assumption that belief in God could only be the product of wishful thinking, stupidity, ignorance, or intellectual dishonesty; in their corresponding refusal seriously to consider the possibility that that belief might be true and the arguments for it sound; and in their glib supposition that the only rational considerations relevant to the question are scientific ones, rather than philosophical; in all of these attitudes Flew’s critics manifest the quintessential mindset of modern secularism…[i]t is a mindset that echoes the closed-minded prejudice and irrationality it typically attributes to religious believers themselves.

Of course, Oppenheimer does none of these things. He does not assume that belief in God could only be the product of wishful thinking etc. Instead, he considers Flew’s older writings, interviews Flew about ‘his’ newer writings, asks about the inconsistencies, finds Flew unable to respond to them at all (merely admitting to the inconsistency upon prodding) and unable to even recognize the authors that ‘he’ used copiously in ‘his’ own book. Could the reasons given in the book be good ones? The Times author never says, but what looks increasingly clear is that they were not Flew’s reasons. And that is the subject of the article.

What of the other critics who concluded that Flew must have been senile before reading ‘his’ book? That is not so clear. It could be that the ground covered by intelligent design and cosmological arguments is so well known that they thought it unlikely that ‘Flew’s’ book could provide convincing new reasons to accept them. Given Flew’s previous philosophical work and acumen, and, perhaps, the known inadequacies of the arguments, the best explanation for his conversion might be given in terms of psychological debilitation and manipulation by religious friends. There is good reasons to doubt that Flew was the author of these works, and the ‘condescending’ attitudes of the atheists might reflect this article as much as their preexisting beliefs about the arguments ‘Flew’ presented.

There is some possibility that some of the critics were rejecting ‘Flew’s’ arguments out of hand. It’s not obvious that this is closed-minded. No one has time to read everyone else’s work. Am I close-minded for thinking that Absolute Idealism is an untenable philosophical position despite my never having read Professor M.Q. Snerdley’s learned dissertation on the topic? Not really. The arguments in the given field are mostly well-known, and philosophers (or professional atheists) have worked out their views on them in some detail.

Moreover, Feser is a bit carried away by his rhetoric. How does this episode illustrate anything about atheists’ “glib supposition that the only rational considerations relevant to the question are scientific ones, rather than philosophical” (Feser p. 2)? Seriously, where did that come from? No one quoted said anything about scientific considerations superceding philosophical ones. Some noted Flew’s exposure to recent scientific ideas all came through the religious friends who may have presented evidence to him in a misleading or biased way. Science is clearly relevant to the intelligent design argument, so there was some mention of science in the Flew affair, but no one insinuated that science alone was relevant to the issue.

More generally, Feser takes great offense at the condescension, hostility, and distortions of the new atheist movement while condescendingly distorting their position and reasons. This is the classic Double Wingnut. He drips scorn for the opposition on the basis of their scornfulness. No doubt some atheists responded scornfully in their heart of hearts or in the innermost recesses of their atheist bastions, but he does nothing to address the actual published work on the issue.

3. The third incident illustrates that Feser is writing not just an anti-atheist screed but also a political screed against a perceived atheist-dominated liberal political agenda. So, he connects his book to ongoing political events. This third illustration of the author’s poor presentation of opposing positions involves his claim that atheists ("secularists," as he styles them--although secularism is clearly a distinct position from atheism) see themselves as rational and moral, rather than as the deeply corrupted, hell-bound, Satan’s-sex-slaves that they are. He writes,

[S]ecularists took to defining themselves as members of the “reality-based community,” in contrast to the purportedly “faith-based community” of religious believers.

No doubt many atheists would see things this way, but he inaccurately describes the origin and use of the term “reality-based community”. Here’s the quotation from Ron Suskind talking about his interviews with members of the George W. Bush administration, including an anonymous aide, before the 2004 presidential election:

The aide said that guys like me were "in what we call the reality-based community," which he defined as people who "believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality." I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. "That's not the way the world really works anymore," he continued. "We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do."

The phrase was adopted by political liberals in opposition to the Bush administration as a kind of badge of honor unwittingly bestowed upon them by their opponents. People on the political right tended to view this as an erroneous claim, especially because the quote was anonymous. Liberals liked the idea of being interested in studying reality, understanding it, and devising carefully-crafted responses to it. The Bush administration, on the other hand, created their own reality by their actions. The Bush’s advisor’s phrase had a weirdly post-modern feel to it, but the moniker was taken as an honorific rather than an insult by liberals who believed the Bush administration was insufficiently interested in the study of objective reality and so acted without adequate understanding of it with catastrophic results, as predicted by said members of the reality-based community. Thus, the label was taken by liberals, not secularists; it was adopted as indicating an opposition to their political opponents, not religious believers; and it was contrasted not with “faith-based community” (which would imply an unfortunate contrast between faith and reality) but with the “reality-creating community” of the Bush administration (although those words were never used). Instead, the phrase “faith-based” is a term introduced by the George W. Bush administration to apply to religion, and justify spending federal funds on religious groups, despite the establishment clause of the first amendment that prevents the establishment of a religion (which is taken by most, but not the right wing legal “scholars”, as a prohibition against endorsing religion over non-religion).

Feser’s errors here individually are minor, but they are symptomatic of his general laxity with respect to the opinions and arguments of his opponents (indeed, exactly the same sort of laxity that he accuses his opponents of). These minor errors suggests a failure to make critical distinctions, to paint all opponents with a broad brush (conflating atheists with liberals) despite important distinctions among them, and basing those critiques on things the atheists never said. All of these problems are a disheartening beginning to a work for which I had some hope.

These three examples illustrate a general trend that led me to the following conclusions:
First, the book is polemical. Its purpose is to attack the opposing position, and it is not necessarily going to be fair and considered in doing so.

Second, the book revels in ad hominems. By focusing on the condescension and attitudes of the atheists, one distracts from the arguments and evidence for and against theism (whether this is his purpose or not). While we all enjoy a good ad hominem diatribe against our opponents, these attacks are gratuitous, unseemly, and, largely absent from the books (at least the Dawkins and Dennett books) that he critiques. Even if he were correct about the character, scholarship and intellect of his opponents, these facts would have no bearing on the truth of a position from claims about the individuals espousing it.

Third, Feser cleverly lowers the bar for argumentative quality in the book. If one focuses on the condescension of one’s opponents, one does not need to make one’s arguments fully convincing. All one has to show is that the condescension is unwarranted, and one can do that by showing that a reasonable perhaps might accept them, not that any reasonable person must accept them.

It remains to be seen whether these arguments can meet these standards. That will be the topic for further posts.

Why Jerry Coyne is Wrong (about Ethics)

Every few days I find something on the internet to blog about. I start typing, and then I get busy and give up on it. I will try to do better with today’s entry: Why Jerry Coyne is Wrong (about Ethics). Catchy, huh?

So, I like the stuff Coyne posts, and mostly I agree with it. I wish that I were in a position that I could make my colleagues take some responsibility for their friendly, no-strings-attached, totally-not-supporting-right-wing-crazies, and they-never-tell-me-what-to-conclude-even-though-strangely-all-the-many-opinions-I-have-that-directly-contradict-everything-they-believe-never-see-print Templeton money. Thus, I say with respect, Coyne is here totally wrong about objectivity and truth in non-scientific contexts.

Let’s begin.
Coyne is respectfully disagreeing about scientism, the view that science is the only way to acquire objective knowledge of external reality. His friend Eric McDonald disagrees and argues for the existence of objectivity or truth in other areas besides science.
Coyne writes about McDonald's post (forgive the long quotation, but I want to be fair),

His post, “On the strangely beguiling notion of scientism,” takes the stand that there are indeed ways to apprehend objective truth beyond the purview of science, and that those who claim otherwise are guilty of scientism.
We still disagree about this. I’m sorry to say that Eric’s piece, like nearly all pieces on scientism, fails to make a case for (or even give more than one example of) “truth” apprehended by other than scientific means—and I’m defining “science” as the combination of empirical observation, reason, and (usually) replicated observation and prediction that investigates what exists in the universe.
I’ll be brief here, as I’ve posted a lot on this topic lately, but I want to discuss what Eric sees as “objective knowledge” that goes beyond science.
It’s “moral knowledge”:

And though Jerry Coyne (this is one of the small number of areas where he and I differ significantly in our approach to things) may dismiss ideas concerning value as matters of opinion, it is very doubtful that girls in Afghanistan, who have acid thrown in their faces or see their schools being destroyed, share that view. It is not just a matter of opinion that their right to learn should be recognized and honoured; how we establish what can justly be considered objective moral understanding is something worthwhile considering.

. . .
Now I agree, of course, that throwing acid in the face of Afghan schoolgirls for trying to learn is wrong. But it is not an “objective” moral wrong—that is, you cannot deduce it from mere observation, not without adding some reasons why you think it’s wrong. And those reasons are based on opinions. In this case, the “opinion” is that it’s wrong to hurt anyone for trying to go to school. In other words, Eric claims that moral dicta are objective ones, on the par with the “knowledge” of science.
But such dicta are not “truths,” but “guides for living”. And some people, like the odious Taliban who perpetuate these crimes, do disagree. How do you prove, objectively, that they’re wrong? You need to bring in other subjective criteria.

The problem with “objective” moral truths is much clearer in less clear-cut cases. Is it objectively true that abortion is wrong, or that a moral society must give everyone health care? You can’t ascertain these “truths” by observation; you deduce them from some general principles of right and wrong that are, at bottom, opinion. (Of course, some opinions are more well-founded than others, and that’s what philosophy is good for.)

What precisely is Coyne’s position and reasoning? As far as I can tell, he agrees that certain actions (throwing acid in an Afghan girl’s face for going to school) and people (the Taliban) are morally wrong, but that his agreement or disagreement with McDonald is only a matter of their sharing certain subjective attitudes towards those actions and individuals. What reasons does Coyne offer for his opinion about morality?

Some people (e.g. the Taliban) disagree about the morality of these actions.
Therefore, there is no fact about the morality of these actions.

This is a strange argument coming from a leading voice in the debate with creationists. Clearly those odious individuals disagree about science, but we would not conclude that there is no objective truth in science but only opinion. Clearly, there is more going on. The second point:

“How do you prove, objectively, that they’re wrong?”

So, it is not the mere fact of disagreement that troubles Coyne, it is that he can find no common ground that one could use to prove to the satisfaction of the Taliban that their actions are wrong.

Still, I don’t think this helps much since Coyne himself has shown how difficult it is to find common ground with the creationists in order to convince them that they are wrong. We need not convince the Taliban that they are wrong, just as we need not convince the creationists that they are wrong, in order for there to be objective facts for them to be wrong about.

Coyne’s appeal to problem cases is a red herring. If one were to judge the objectivity of science only by appeal to its most problematic cases (e.g. string theory), one would similarly come to the conclusion that science also is not objective. The fact that there are cases in which we do not have answers is irrelevant as well since every living discipline has problem cases about which more research is needed.

Thus, what we need is a set of procedures or a method that can be used to show objectively that one is right. That is, we need something akin to the scientific method which relies not on the intuitive judgments or subjective opinions of the arguer in order to establish the claims. For example, we would not like to be caught in a debate on the ethics of torture only to have each side bellow at the other that their opinions are right and the other side’s are obviously wrong, as judged by some direct perception or intuition. In science, that independent arbiter is experiment, double-blinded and peer-reviewed, to show that the conclusion does not depend on anything purely internal to an agent.

Indeed, this is a challenge of moral epistemology, to find such an independently verifiable means of testing ethical claims. However, now Coyne has changed the subject from one of the reality or objectivity of ethical claims to our knowledge of those ethical claims. We may lack a clear method for adjudicating disputes about ethics, but it in no way follows that there is no objectivity or truth about ethics. We do not know, for example, whether there is intelligent extraterrestrial life elsewhere in the universe (Let’s hope so because “there’s bugger all down here on earth.”), but it does not follow from this lack of knowledge that there is no fact about the existence of such life. The fact that we do not know, that we may never be in a position to know, does not prove that there is no objectivity or truth.

Still, Coyne says, we need a method. The difference, he would no doubt claim, is that while we do not now know the answer to this question about extraterrestrial life, we do know how we could go about looking for it, and we would know what sorts of things would count as evidence for or against its existence. So, the scientist is apparently one up on the ethicist in having some idea what those methods are, but this is still irrelevant because the existence of standards for verifying or falsifying claims tells us nothing about reality. Epistemology and metaphysics, knowledge and reality, are distinct, and we cannot conclude from our inability (perhaps even a permanent inability) to formulate objective standards for knowing morality that there is no objective moral reality at all. The “How do you know?” question is a good one to ask, but it tells us nothing about the existence of objective reality.

But perhaps we can see what some methods in philosophy and ethics might be. Before that, one more quotation:

In other words, Eric is committing here the very sin he decried (as I recall) in Sam Harris’s book The Moral Landscape: he is saying that there are scientifically establishable truths about ethics. And if that’s true, then let Eric tell us what those truths are—without first defining, based on his taste, what is “moral” and “immoral.” Let him give us a list of all the behaviors he considers objectively immoral.

I don’t know McDonald’s critique of Harris, but I included this to be funny. Please tell us, Dr. Coyne what are all the scientifically establishable truths about science? If there are such truths, Coyne should be able to “give us a list of all” of the ones he considers to be true and all those he considers to be false. Allow me to reiterate, we do not need to know what the truths are in order to know that there are truths. If we did, then science (indeed investigation of any kind) would be pointless. Are there objective truths to discover about the world? We don’t know until we can first say what they are, but, having stated them, we now find ourselves with no need to attempt to discover them.

Wait, sorry. I think what Coyne was trying to say was that McDonald should be able to state in principle what sorts of claims are “scientifically establishable” in ethics. Obviously, if these claims were scientifically establishable, they would not be non-scientific claims, as McDonald says they are, so Coyne appears to be demanding that McDonald explain which non-scientifically establishable claims are scientifically establishable. I have rarely seen a question so begged.

Still, I cannot help feeling dirty, what with the quoting and all, so I will get back to the epistemic issue. Perhaps Coyne would be happy enough with moral skepticism. He might be better off saying that there are objective truths in ethics but no one is ever in a position to say what they are given the lack of intersubjective standards of verification. A reminder:

You can’t ascertain these “truths” by observation; you deduce them from some general principles of right and wrong that are, at bottom, opinion. (Of course, some opinions are more well-founded than others, and that’s what philosophy is good for.)

Should we be skeptical? It depends on what you mean by 'skeptical', of course. At any rate, we need not think that no ethical claim is any better justified than any other. We need not be extreme or Pyrrhonic skeptics. For example, as Coyne notes, philosophy is good for establishing ‘opinions’ as better founded than others. We should, of course, always be cautious and recognize the potential for fallibility in our method. And here’s where we get to the methods of philosophy and ethics. We use reason and argument based on some general principles, perhaps, but often these are based on intuitive judgments of individual cases.

Isn’t this just more subjectivity and opinion? No. How do we know that modus ponens is a valid form of argument? Modus ponens is the following argument form: If p, then q; p; therefore q. This argument form guarantees that true premises will result in a true conclusion, and our judgment of this is not based merely on popular opinion. It is based not on popularity, but on careful consideration of the concept of the conditional.

Psychologists have studied conditional reasoning using the Wason selection task and have shown that undergraduates are more likely to view the fallacy of affirming the consequent as valid than they are to view the valid argument form of modus tollens as valid. Affirming the consequent goes like this: If p then q; q; therefore p. Something like 70% of subjects apparently (given the structure of the selection task) believe that this is valid. Yet we can see that it is not. Here is a parallel argument. If you are driving legally, you must be 16 or older (in America without a learner’s permit etc.). Suppose you are 16 or older. Does it follow that you are driving legally? Obviously not, you might not have a driver’s license; you might be drunk; you might not be wearing your prescription eyewear.

On the other hand, modus tollens (considered by fewer than 10% of the subjects to be valid) is valid. Modus tollens goes like this: If p, then q; not q; therefore not-p. And we can see that this is valid by considering that the conditional indicates a necessary condition (that is, a condition without which the antecedent would not occur). So, using our previous example, we know that being 16 or older is a necessary condition for driving legally. It follows from this that if you are driving legally, you must be 16 or older. Now, consider what happens when the necessary condition is not met. In that case, the possible fact it is necessary for, the driving legally, cannot obtain. In short, supposing you are not over 16, you cannot drive legally.

This reasoning is not difficult to follow; it is familiar to everyone. I do not know how to characterize it. Is it deduction from general principles? Well, there clearly are general principles involved, but the role of the examples is essential in getting people to recognize those principles. In any event, it is not just opinion. Should I use all caps? If Coyne wants to tell us that these principles are just opinions, then he must be willing to agree that other people might have different opinions about basic logic, and so there is no possibility of arguing with, reasoning about, anything at all.

Moreover, consider what Coyne is claiming here. Ethics is merely a matter of opinion. What is the basis of this view? Is it also just opinion? If so, it is not my opinion, so I am perfectly within my rights to reject it. Is it society’s opinion? Not likely. We have consistent public opinions that rely on belief in objective moral fact. We don’t just outlaw murder because we do not prefer it; we outlaw murder because we think it is wrong (because of harm [another moral concept] to innocents [still yet another moral concept] etc.). So, it is not society’s opinion that ethics is mere opinion. Perhaps it is the opinion of the community of experts treated as knowledgeable (!) about such matters? If so, again ethics is not considered mere opinion; if one polls philosophers and ethicists one will find they believe ethics to be objective. So, if Coyne is correct that ethics is a matter of opinion, he must provide some argument for that conclusion that is based on something other than his own opinion.

But still, perhaps we can establish that science is the best way of discovering the truth about reality. If so, everything else would be second-rate. Such an argument would not show that ethics does not traffic in objectivity and truth, but it would puncture the ethicist’s pretensions. Actually, probably not. Most ethicists and philosophers are well aware, better than anyone else, of the limits of their methods. Still, can we establish that science is the best way of discovering objective truth about reality?

Coyne is aware of this argument since he quotes McDonald making exactly this point:

I want to differ with Eric on one other point: his claim that there’s no way to show a priori that science provides truth about reality. (Well, I agree with him in principle, but think it’s completely irrelevant as a criticism of science.):

[There follow quotations from various philosophers noting that the superiority of the scientific method is not itself a scientific question.]

Eric should be careful here, because he’s beginning to tread the road paved by people like Alvin Plantinga—theologians who try to drag science down to the level of faith because science can’t justify logically that it can finds truth.
My answer to this claim is this: “so fricking what?” While philosophers draw their pay by arguing interminably about such stuff (and achieving nothing by so doing), science goes ahead and accomplishes things: we find out what causes disease and then find cures; we put people on the Moon; we build computers and lasers. In other words, by assuming that there are external truths that are apprehended by science, we accomplish what we want to do, including alleviating suffering that no faith-healing could ever relieve. The tuberculosis bacterium is not an illusion. I don’t give a rat’s patootie for the philosophers who tell us that we can’t justify science’s ability to find truth by a priori lucubration. Let them squabble while science moves on. The success of science justifies its assumption of objective truths and its program for apprehending them.

Ahoy, mateys, it’s the dangerous and elusive (well, not really) slippery slope. If we think that science is not capable of justifying itself, then we will soon be like Alvin Plantinga denying evolution, rejecting science, and whatnot; it will be dogs and cats living together, the end of the world. But, as to his substantive answer, “so fricking what?” The what is that one cannot justify science (or induction, in Hume’s terms) in scientific terms on pain of circularity. We could appeal to the success of science on pragmatic grounds (and I would as well), but the point is that this appeal is itself not a kind of scientific knowledge. If it were, the justification would be circular and hence not really a justification at all. The point is that apologists for science must rely on some reason other than science to justify use of science. No one (except the aforementioned Plantingeans) wants to take your science away. At least no one around here does. I have no dispute with this pragmatic justification of science; I am as big a fan as you will find of science and the scientific method. This is not to say that we should not do science, or that science is not effective. But that’s not the issue. The point is, again, that even those who advocate for the superiority of science must base that argument on some non-scientific reasoning. That reasoning is, in this case, reasonable, but it is also absolutely essential if one is to justify science. Thus, there must, if science is to be trusted, be objective truth and knowledge of non-scientific matters (here, the epistemology of science).

One more attempt: Anyone who uses reason and argument to critique philosophy and philosophical method must, in the end, just be engaging in more philosophy. That’s not an attempt to reject science. Neither is it an apology for religion or superstition. It’s a simple recognition of the need for reason and argument that is not purely scientific or observational.

Let’s consider one last possibility. Coyne analogizes morality to religion, and, God forbid, I wouldn’t want to do that. Still, there might be an objection that the intuitive judgments about ethics differ from intuitive judgments about philosophy (and these self-referential arguments about morality and science) and logic. There are, of course, many poor arguments in ethics, just as there are poor papers in science journals, but at bottom there are principles of ethics that seem no less certain than the principles we rely on in these arguments for objective philosophical truth (such as, for example, the pragmatic argument for the value of science).

One such principle is the principle of equality: We should treat everyone in the same way provided there is no relevant difference between them.

I know that Coyne would love this example since it makes use of vague language and requires interpretation to apply. What is it to treat people the same way? Should I give everyone in the universe a size extra large Santa sweatshirt because I am buying one for my brother for Christmas [sorry, dude]? Clearly not. The ‘relevance’ clause also involves considerable potential for abuse. Are African-Americans or women relevantly different from white men so that I am justified in refusing to hire them? Presumably not. However, the vagueness and interpretation are necessary for the statement to have the status of truth. One should resist the temptation to critique the equality principle on the grounds of vagueness or interpretability because such a critique would be implicitly accepting the principle and only disagreeing about its application. There are not likely to be universally correct moral claims such as “Do not kill”. Correct principles will have to be abstract and general, such as the equality principle, in order for them to be true. Does 1 + 1 = 2? Obviously, but if you take one water droplet and add it to another water droplet, you don’t have two water droplets, you just have one bigger water droplet. Does this silly example show that our fundamental mathematical understanding is incorrect? No, we just have to recognize the limits of application of universally true principles. Readers are free to come up with counterexamples to the equality principle, but I would bet that all of them are questions of application, not questions of the truth of the claim.

So, in the end, philosophy is unavoidable no matter how we try. ("Oh, Lord, how I did try!") And ethics is as reliable a part of philosophy as any other (or approximately so). It’s not anti-scientific to believe this, and it’s not superstitious or religious either. There are, as they say, more things [objective truths, that is] in heaven and earth, [Dr. Coyne], than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

I apologize if I have run on at too great a length, but for one brief afternoon I have time to do what I want. So, here it is. I hope that it was at least worth the effort.