Consider all. Test All. Hold on to the good.

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Common Cause

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This comes up again in Craig and Krauss debate.

Luke at Common Sense recently asked Challies about on what atheists and Christians could make common cause.

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Kant’s Godless Morality

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It starts off with deontology and ends in radical consequentialism:

  1. The reflective structure of consciousness requires that in order for me to act at all, “I”, the persistent I, must have a set of rules from which to endorse or reject possible courses of action.
  2. Not only am I free to endorse or reject possible courses of action, I am also free to endorse or reject the very set of rules from which I choose to endorse or reject actions.
  3. Such a set of rules will be obligatory for me only because I have chosen them myself, and
  4. The only standard for whether a set of rules will be valid is whether I can reasonably choose them.
  5. I should, therefore, only act on a rule if I can rationally choose it to be the rule I will always behave by.
  6. But since the relevant domain of rules we are evaluating (possible acts) does not distinguish between agents
  7. I should, therefore, only act on a rule if I can rationally choose it to be a universal law for all agents.
  8. Since there is nothing irrational about willing that everyone acting to bring about the best results overall was a universal law, I am permitted to act in that way.
  9. Moreover, since
    (9-1) no other rule than “act to bring about the best results overall” does, in fact, bring about the best results overall, and
    (9-2) I and all agents always want the best results,
  10. The only universal law I can rationally will is that I act to bring about the best results overall. So,
  11. I and all other rational beings are required to promote the best results overall, even if the cost to me is greater than the benefit, as long as the overall benefits are maximized.

Obviously there is much to be said about all of these points, but so far this is the most compelling answer I’ve found to the normative question. Propositions 8-11 are Kagan’s, and I’m much less sure about them, but Kant’s original argument, 1-7 seems only to grow more convincing as I think about them.

What do you think on first look? Although I’m sure I’m doing a bad job representing it, it’s honestly one of the most brilliant and compelling arguments I’ve ever seen.

So as of late I have been obsessing over the apparent attractiveness of Kant’s answer to the normative question, i.e. “Why be moral?” Have you encountered such an approach seriously before? I hadn’t, and it’s blowing my mind. Today I had some time to synthesize my latest understanding, though it’s simply a sketch. It’s taken completely from Shelly Kagan, Christine Korsgaard, who all rely on Kant.

Thoughts

Two ironies immediately come to mind. First, that far from being an analysis that does away with the need for God, Kant saw his own ethic as an argument for God’s existence. Second, as you note, that Kant’s deontological ethics are seen as a rival to consequentialism, not an antecedent to them. So, it’s ironic that Kant’s own thinking led in exactly the opposite direction as your own. What is intriguing then, will be to understand how the categorical imperative fits within the context of his other views and yours. One argument in particular that comes to mind is Kant’s view that categories, like space and time, are features of human consciousness, not of the world in itself.

Kant’s Moral Argument for God

  1. Moral behaviour is rational.
  2. Moral behaviour is only rational if justice will be done.
  3. Justice will only be done if God exists.
  4. Therefore: God exists.

What do you think? Can moral behavior be rational if there is no ultimate justice? If Kant is right, his categorical imperative would be necessary but not sufficient for the rationality of moral action.

In your premise (8), you may be smuggling consequentialism into Kant’s argument where it doesn’t belong.

The theist may step back a level to the Argument from Reason.

A God of Love or of Hate

The quote from Mark: “Some of you, God hates you. Some of you, God is sick of you. God is frustrated with you. God is wearied by you. God has suffered long enough with you. He doesn’t think you’re cute. He doesn’t think it’s funny. He doesn’t think your excuse is meritous <sic>. He doesn’t care if you compare yourself to someone worse than you, He hates them too. God hates, right now, personally, objectively hates some of you.”
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The handful of Fred Phelps’ family members who comprise Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kansas have garnered national notoriety with a simple message: God hates gays, soldiers, you, me, and basically everyone. Their message is carefully crafted to maximize offense, as are the venues they choose, very often funerals. Their knack for inflammatory rhetoric and self-promotion has earned them almost universal disapprobation. Nevertheless, the Phelps take themselves to be God’s prophets. Their website is replete with biblical references. Their biblical rationale is clearly highlighted. I find myself asking a troubling question. Biblically and theologically, is their gospel of hate defensible? After all, I hear echoes of their theology elsewhere. The Phelps are extreme exemplars of a virulent strain within Calvinistic theology whose mission is the proclamation of what I will call a “gospel of condemnation”. Pickets, placards, and bullhorns are very often their preferred prophetic tools. (Is the medium the message?) God’s imminent judgment in Hell is the predominant theme. Like the Phelps, they are more than eager to play at blblical prooftexting with any and all comers. Indeed, they are especially fond of picketing “Laodicean” Christian events where they can expect to be rifling through scripture with a host of challengers and onlookers. They’ll be chomping at the bit at any mention of John 3:16. And so again, I ask, are they faithfully representing the Bible? Does God hate people? Does God hate wrongdoers? Recently (October 7, 2011), Mark Driscoll of Mars Hill Church sounded similar notes in his thoroughgoing series on the gospel of Luke, stating and restating that “God hates you”, before doubling back confusingly to reassure the listener that “God loves you”. Driscoll is not at all marginal. He is a gifted and highly influential exegete and pastor within Reformed circles. He does his homework and cares about accurately teaching the Bible. Hearing a similar theology of God’s hate from the likes of Driscoll makes it clear that the theology itself cannot be dismissed out of hand. If you had thought, like me, that the Christian gospel was one of God’s boundless, unmerited love for sinners, this theology of God’s hatefulness must be considered on its own terms. So, what does the Bible say?

About Afterall.net

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Afterall.net is more or less an online filing cabinet of collected articles and snippets from my quest to find answers to the big questions, especially of faith and reason, plus a fair share of reflections and commentaries from yours truly, Nathan Jacobson. As such, it is my hope that Afterall.net reflects some of my core values: an honest search for the truth of the matter, an appropriate humility regarding our human abilities as truthseekers, and a profound respect for all who presume to address the question, no matter their point of view. For the sake of full disclosure, I come at the question as a Christian, inclined to think (and yes, also hoping) that Christian theism is true. However, my whole adult life my faith has been beset by doubt, and it is this unrelenting uncertainty that compels me to return to the question earnestly, again and again. Doubting Thomas, I guess, is my patron saint. And like Thomas, I really do want to know.

Our Kind of Skepticism

Dr. Trevor in Evenings with the Skeptics: Free Discussion on Free thinkers, pp. 34-5.
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I come lastly to a third type of intellect, in which Twofold Truth presents itself in a moderate and altogether commendable shape; in which the disparity is not so much antagonistic as complementary, and the result of its functions is not disunion and hostility so much as a broad comprehensive solidarity. For our purpose we may call intellects of this class ‘dual-sighted’ or ‘two- eyed.’ … This ‘double-sighted man’ is by no means the synonym of the nickname common in Puritan history, ‘Mr. Facing-both-ways.’ It rather implies the possession of faculties which enable the observer to see every object in the solid, substantial manner, in the full relief, and with the true perspective that pertain essentially to all double vision. It is the instinctive power and tendency to discern a specific object or a given truth not merely as it is in itself or in one of its prima facie aspects, but in its completeness as a whole and relatively to all its surroundings. We see this quality in the artist who simultaneously with the perception of an object also sees all its different phases as well as its relations to surrounding objects; or again in the general who apprehends by a single glance of his mental vision all the characteristics, bad as well as good, of a given position or military movement. So the philosophers I speak of catch every truth or doctrine, not in its simple and uniform, but in its complex biform or multiform aspect. They are men to whom every affirmation suggests, if only as a possibility, a negative; who intuitively meet every dogmatic pronouncement with an objection, just as a painter infers shadow from light. These are the men who in my judgment have rendered the best service to the progress of knowledge by their comprehensive vision, their cautious Skeptical attitude, their fearless criticism. …

Gaps or Chasms

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The fourth chapter of The God Delusion is the gravamen of Dawkins’ case that God “almost certainly does not exist”. Here we find Dawkins in his element, tromping through the natural world in awe and wonder, and no one is a better field guide than he, whose descriptions of its beauty and complexity are breathtaking. It’s not surprising that he calls the desire to infer a designer from all this a “temptation”, albeit a temptation that must be resisted. But Dawkins’ evolutionary narrative of what he finds there is as bare as his . So with that in mind, I go where I fear to tread.

John Stuart Mill on Silencing Opinion

On Liberty (Longmans, Green, Reader, & Dyer: 1863), p. 95.
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If all mankind minus one, were of one opinion, and only one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person, than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind. Were an opinion a personal possession of no value except to the owner; if to be obstructed in the enjoyment of it were simply a private injury, it would make some difference whether the injury was inflicted only on a few persons or on many. But the peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is, that it is robbing the human race; posterity as well as the existing generation; those who dissent from the opinion, still more than those who hold it. If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth: if wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error.