Ayn Rand and her followers have a bee in their bonnet when it comes to religion. In particular, contemporary Objectivists often fret about the influence on the Religious Right on politics. It doesn’t appear, however, that they have spent much time studying the topic of religion because the same old chestnuts keep popping up again and again..
Showing posts with label Religion. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Religion. Show all posts
Monday, January 24, 2022
Objectivism on Christianity and Religion
[Here is another article by Neil Parille:]
Ayn Rand and her followers have a bee in their bonnet when it comes to religion. In particular, contemporary Objectivists often fret about the influence on the Religious Right on politics. It doesn’t appear, however, that they have spent much time studying the topic of religion because the same old chestnuts keep popping up again and again..
Ayn Rand and her followers have a bee in their bonnet when it comes to religion. In particular, contemporary Objectivists often fret about the influence on the Religious Right on politics. It doesn’t appear, however, that they have spent much time studying the topic of religion because the same old chestnuts keep popping up again and again..
Friday, March 23, 2012
Ayn Rand & Human Nature 21
Innate components of religion. Objectivism considers religion a mere execrescence of irrationality, a product of wrong premises misintregrated into the subconscious. What evidence do Objectivists present on behalf of this hypothesis? None whatsoever. In fact, Rand herself does not appear to have even considered the issue of evidence.
One problem that Objectivism runs into right from the start is the near universality of religion. We find it nearly everywhere, even among isolated peoples. If religion were merely a product of premises, we would expect to find more variety in the world at large, as some cultures would choose religious premises and hence become religious, while other cultures would choose non-religious premises and hence become secular. Moreover, since religion (at least according to Objectivism) is "irrational," and since the irrational is impractical and even "evil," we would expect non-religious cultures to have a competitive advantage over religious cultures, so that over time, the non-religious, through a kind of natural selection, would triumph over and replace the religious. Oddly enough, this has not happened.
There is one major exception to the universality of religion: contemporary Europe. Soviet Russia and communist China could also be seen as exceptions as well, except for the fact that religion was brutally repressed in those countries, and that communism itself is a sort of secular religion. Europe, however, is one example that might fit within Rand's theory. The problem is, it might not fit. There may exist special circumstances in Europe which enable the natural proclivities toward religion to be supressed. After all, if Europeans have chosen non-religious premises, there must be a reason for this. While Objectivism often ignores the whole issue of why individuals in a special set of circumstances might choose one premise rather than another, it nonetheless would appear an important question to address if one is interested in discovering the truth of the matter.
In the United States, religion still remains a fairly strong force. More than half of Americans attend church at least once a month, and more than a third attend church once a week. Over three-quarters of Americans identify themselves as Christian. Nonetheless, 20% of Americans never attend church, and another 25% "seldom" attend church. Oddly, church attendance rose in the weeks following the 9/11 terrorist attacks, but returned to pre-9/11 levels within two months. This suggests that religiousity increases, not as a result of any inexplicable or causeless acceptance of "religious" premises, but because many (perhaps even most) people are hardwired to turn to religious constructs when they feel seriously threatened. It might very well be that Europe is predominantly secular and non-religious because Europeans are wealthy and they feel safe. Take away the wealth and the safety, and Europe would return to religion (or the secular equivalent thereof).
One problem that Objectivism runs into right from the start is the near universality of religion. We find it nearly everywhere, even among isolated peoples. If religion were merely a product of premises, we would expect to find more variety in the world at large, as some cultures would choose religious premises and hence become religious, while other cultures would choose non-religious premises and hence become secular. Moreover, since religion (at least according to Objectivism) is "irrational," and since the irrational is impractical and even "evil," we would expect non-religious cultures to have a competitive advantage over religious cultures, so that over time, the non-religious, through a kind of natural selection, would triumph over and replace the religious. Oddly enough, this has not happened.
There is one major exception to the universality of religion: contemporary Europe. Soviet Russia and communist China could also be seen as exceptions as well, except for the fact that religion was brutally repressed in those countries, and that communism itself is a sort of secular religion. Europe, however, is one example that might fit within Rand's theory. The problem is, it might not fit. There may exist special circumstances in Europe which enable the natural proclivities toward religion to be supressed. After all, if Europeans have chosen non-religious premises, there must be a reason for this. While Objectivism often ignores the whole issue of why individuals in a special set of circumstances might choose one premise rather than another, it nonetheless would appear an important question to address if one is interested in discovering the truth of the matter.
In the United States, religion still remains a fairly strong force. More than half of Americans attend church at least once a month, and more than a third attend church once a week. Over three-quarters of Americans identify themselves as Christian. Nonetheless, 20% of Americans never attend church, and another 25% "seldom" attend church. Oddly, church attendance rose in the weeks following the 9/11 terrorist attacks, but returned to pre-9/11 levels within two months. This suggests that religiousity increases, not as a result of any inexplicable or causeless acceptance of "religious" premises, but because many (perhaps even most) people are hardwired to turn to religious constructs when they feel seriously threatened. It might very well be that Europe is predominantly secular and non-religious because Europeans are wealthy and they feel safe. Take away the wealth and the safety, and Europe would return to religion (or the secular equivalent thereof).
Thursday, April 02, 2009
Objectivism & Politics, Part 3
Pareto and the Objectivist. G. Stolyarov, a “science fiction” writer strongly influenced by Rand, wrote a review in 2004 of Pareto’s The Rise and Fall of Elites which allows a convenient glimpse of the contrast between ideological and non-ideological forms of thinking. Stolyarov, like most Objectivist ideologues, is more interested in finding “intellectual ammunition” to support preconceived positions than he is in discovering truths about the real world of fact; and as a consequence, he falls into several misrepresentations and errors of fact and analysis. Pareto, Stolyarov claims, “repeatedly and eloquently demonstrates aversion and loathing” to the “socialist elite.” Stolyarov obviously approves of this alleged “aversion and loathing” and wishes to make Pareto an intellectual ally. But before doing this, he must acknowledge that Pareto’s “groundwork ... is immensely shaky.”
This a typical example of muddled Rand-inspired analysis. First, we find the mania for polarizing arguments. Pareto, complains Stolyarov, believes in the “inherent irrationality” of human motivation. But that isn’t quite true. Human motivation is not, for Pareto, “irrational,” but “non-rational”—an important difference. Nor is Pareto required to use “rational thought” to justify his view: his book is not a treatise on psychology, and he addresses the issue in greater detail in The Mind and Society, which Stolyarov conveniently ignores. Even more curious is Stolyarov ad hominem attack on Pareto. Despite all their virtuous noise about logic, rank and file Objectivists frequently resort to ad hominem arguments, particularly of Stolyarov’s type. Stolyarov simply cannot admit that perhaps Pareto had reached his judgment about human beings from his own personal experience and his extensive knowledge of history! No, the only possible explanation is that Pareto himself is an irrationalist!
Yet if this is so, why does Stolyarov spend the rest of his review extolling Pareto’s analysis and making use of Pareto’s intellectual tools for his own ends? If Pareto’s “inner state” is that of an irrationalist, then what can he possibly say that is of any value to a follower of Rand, particularly when what Pareto says about elites is partially based on the very theory about human nature which Stolyarov, in deference to Rand, presumes to reject?
Stranger still, Stolyarov finds in Pareto an important Objectivist principles: the sanction of the victim! Can this really be? Can an individual whose inner state is confounded with irrational motivations be capable of anticipating a discovery of Rand by a half century? Well, not quite. While there are points of similarity between Pareto’s view and Rand’s on this issue, there are important difference as well. For Rand, the sanction of the victim occurs when the victim accepts the morality of the victimizer. According to Rand, businessmen allow themselves to be attacked because they agree with the morality of the attackers. That is not quite Pareto’s view. Pareto believes that businessmen who allow themselves to be attacked are merely cowards who are afraid to fight. Any agreement with the morality of their attackers is merely a rationalization to hide this pusillanimity.
Stolyarov concludes by attempting to enlist Pareto as a supporter of an optimistic scenario in which free market values triumph over the leftist elite:
Alas, those very same “bland, predictable rehashers” of the Left have retaken power and are in the process of extending government well beyond what FDR or LBJ would, in their wildest dreams, ever imagined. Stolyarov’s analysis, posted in 2004, does not, in retrospect, appear in the least prescient. Where did he go wrong? Well, to start out with, perhaps Pareto was right after all about human beings being motivated by non-rational sentiments. Stolyarov also failed to note that, unlike Italy at the turn of the last century, American society is not threatened by any violent domestic faction. Stolyarov’s “socialist/hippie elite” is not going to be attacked with force by any neo-conservatives, libertarians, or Objectivists any time soon. As long as they feel safe, the Left will continue to hold its own on the political stage.
Note that Stolyarov omits the religious right among his “multiple constituencies” opposing the “socialist/hippie” elite. Here is another possible source of error in Stolyarov: he would like to see the Left opposed by a “rational” elite. In this wish, he clearly misunderstands Pareto’s position. Pareto doesn’t necessarily conclude that all non-rational motivations will have a bad issue. Some may prove helpful. In politics, one can’t be too squeamish about alliances. The religious right was an important component of the Reagan revolution. Reagan doesn’t beat Carter without the help of religious conservatives. This very alliance, however, is regarded as sinister by Leonard Peikoff and other orthodox Objectivists, who regard it as a precursor of a theocracy! They believe they can “change the culture” by refuting Kant’s obscure subjectivist philosophical legerdemain. What would Pareto think of such a view? He would find it silly and patently non-rational. He might even suspect it of being a mere rationalization of powerless intellectuals afraid to own up to their own powerlessness. What do Objectivists want? A society in which all initiation of force is verboten. How do they expect to reach this state of affairs? By doing what intellectuals do best: caviling about obscure ideas. How wonderfully convenient! Too bad it isn’t true.
[Pareto’s] basic premise with respect to human nature is that people’s motivations are inherently irrational and based on sentiment rather than logic, and that any reasons that individuals ostensibly present for their actions are in fact post-rationalizations. To this my response to Pareto would be a paraphrase of Rand: “If you do not consider people capable of genuine rational judgment, do not check their premises, check yours.” Certainly, some individuals, perhaps most of those who lack a systematic worldview, do act on whim and impulse, and Pareto may well have been one of them, which might have led him to attribute his own inner state to all others. Indeed, he had not presumed to use rational thought to justify the very premise about people’s sentimental motivations! He merely stated that the matter is out of the scope of the given treatise.
This a typical example of muddled Rand-inspired analysis. First, we find the mania for polarizing arguments. Pareto, complains Stolyarov, believes in the “inherent irrationality” of human motivation. But that isn’t quite true. Human motivation is not, for Pareto, “irrational,” but “non-rational”—an important difference. Nor is Pareto required to use “rational thought” to justify his view: his book is not a treatise on psychology, and he addresses the issue in greater detail in The Mind and Society, which Stolyarov conveniently ignores. Even more curious is Stolyarov ad hominem attack on Pareto. Despite all their virtuous noise about logic, rank and file Objectivists frequently resort to ad hominem arguments, particularly of Stolyarov’s type. Stolyarov simply cannot admit that perhaps Pareto had reached his judgment about human beings from his own personal experience and his extensive knowledge of history! No, the only possible explanation is that Pareto himself is an irrationalist!
Yet if this is so, why does Stolyarov spend the rest of his review extolling Pareto’s analysis and making use of Pareto’s intellectual tools for his own ends? If Pareto’s “inner state” is that of an irrationalist, then what can he possibly say that is of any value to a follower of Rand, particularly when what Pareto says about elites is partially based on the very theory about human nature which Stolyarov, in deference to Rand, presumes to reject?
Stranger still, Stolyarov finds in Pareto an important Objectivist principles: the sanction of the victim! Can this really be? Can an individual whose inner state is confounded with irrational motivations be capable of anticipating a discovery of Rand by a half century? Well, not quite. While there are points of similarity between Pareto’s view and Rand’s on this issue, there are important difference as well. For Rand, the sanction of the victim occurs when the victim accepts the morality of the victimizer. According to Rand, businessmen allow themselves to be attacked because they agree with the morality of the attackers. That is not quite Pareto’s view. Pareto believes that businessmen who allow themselves to be attacked are merely cowards who are afraid to fight. Any agreement with the morality of their attackers is merely a rationalization to hide this pusillanimity.
Stolyarov concludes by attempting to enlist Pareto as a supporter of an optimistic scenario in which free market values triumph over the leftist elite:
If Pareto’s theory is to be extended to today’s conditions, the socialist/hippie elite is clearly in decline. No more does it arouse college campuses in waves of violent activism [that’s because there’s no draft]; no more do its youngest heirs champion “saving the world” (though the hippies could only have ruined it), but rather they seek to pay ritual homage to left wing principles in order to get acceptance into elite academic institutions and thus “get ahead in life.” Gradually, the young elites are falling prey to the rising doctrines of materialism, self-interest, and prudence, which are to overturn all remaining vestiges of socialism. Government continues to expand and redistribution of wealth continues to occur, but this more due to cultural inertia rather than any deliberate, devious, and coordinated scheme from the New Deal or the Great Society. In the meantime, a growing, vigorous, dynamic, principled, and broad-based ideological backlash is emerging [Really?]; it covers multiple constituencies, as Pareto said it well might; from the neo-conservatives to the libertarians to the Objectivists, [but Objectivists hate libertarians!] the advocates of limiting government, liberating free enterprise, and making more room for individuals to exercise their own self-responsibility, are colorful, creative, industrious, and vocal personalities. The spokesmen of the leftist elite, on the other hand, are bland, predictable rehashers of the same credos they had espoused forty or even seventy years ago. [But this rehashing is very effective at stimulating the sentiments of the lower classes.] They have nothing new to offer, and are gradually themselves being infused with bits of free enterprise materialism in their personal lives, if not their explicit statements. [In other words, they are perfect exponents for a European style welfare state.]
Alas, those very same “bland, predictable rehashers” of the Left have retaken power and are in the process of extending government well beyond what FDR or LBJ would, in their wildest dreams, ever imagined. Stolyarov’s analysis, posted in 2004, does not, in retrospect, appear in the least prescient. Where did he go wrong? Well, to start out with, perhaps Pareto was right after all about human beings being motivated by non-rational sentiments. Stolyarov also failed to note that, unlike Italy at the turn of the last century, American society is not threatened by any violent domestic faction. Stolyarov’s “socialist/hippie elite” is not going to be attacked with force by any neo-conservatives, libertarians, or Objectivists any time soon. As long as they feel safe, the Left will continue to hold its own on the political stage.
Note that Stolyarov omits the religious right among his “multiple constituencies” opposing the “socialist/hippie” elite. Here is another possible source of error in Stolyarov: he would like to see the Left opposed by a “rational” elite. In this wish, he clearly misunderstands Pareto’s position. Pareto doesn’t necessarily conclude that all non-rational motivations will have a bad issue. Some may prove helpful. In politics, one can’t be too squeamish about alliances. The religious right was an important component of the Reagan revolution. Reagan doesn’t beat Carter without the help of religious conservatives. This very alliance, however, is regarded as sinister by Leonard Peikoff and other orthodox Objectivists, who regard it as a precursor of a theocracy! They believe they can “change the culture” by refuting Kant’s obscure subjectivist philosophical legerdemain. What would Pareto think of such a view? He would find it silly and patently non-rational. He might even suspect it of being a mere rationalization of powerless intellectuals afraid to own up to their own powerlessness. What do Objectivists want? A society in which all initiation of force is verboten. How do they expect to reach this state of affairs? By doing what intellectuals do best: caviling about obscure ideas. How wonderfully convenient! Too bad it isn’t true.
Friday, July 25, 2008
Objectivism & Religion, Part 18
Conclusion. In Reason in Religion, the naturalist philosopher George Santayana sought to show how religion could be the “embodiment of reason.” At the conclusion of the work, he presented a view of religion that is both eminently fair and nuanced, distinguishing with great sensitivity the good from the bad:
Now my primary argument against the hostility toward religion manifested in Objectivism and other brands of uncompromising or intolerant atheism is that it clouds the understanding. Disbelief in God becomes bigotry against all forms of theism and most adherents of religion. It introduces into the intellect a pernicious astigmatism which causes the individual to see far more of the bad than the good side of religion. Religion, when seen through this astigmatism, becomes a kind of bogeyman. A form of unbelief that began in rationality terminates in a kind of prejudice and dogmatism that is contrary to the scientific spirit. Atheism soon becomes a kind of obverse religion. In its zeal, it adopts some of the most extreme views found in the rubbish heap of outmoded scientific theories, such as physicalism, determinism, and a dogmatic form of Darwinism that would turn natural selection into the sole principle behind the evolution of human life.
While Rand and her apologists managed to avoid the absurdities of the materialistic atheists, this did not prevent them from stumbling into other absurdities, the worst of which is Rand’s ideal man, who experiences “no inner conflicts” and whose “consciousness is in perfect harmony.” The ideal man was the object of Rand’s religious worship. Her fictional heroes were her gods, the principle objects of whatever piety existed in her.
Although she disliked religion, Rand nonetheless appreciated religious emotion. She recognized its importance. Yet one must question the objects to which she addressed these emotions. Consider Santayana’s view of the rational elements of religion. He identifies piety, which he describes as “ loyalty to necessary conditions,” as one of the two phases of rational religion. Santayana’s piety, then, his religious emotions, are focused on the sources of his being: on nature, the past, his innate talents and abilities, and his “mission” in life—the goals to which his organism are naturally directed. In short, Santayana’s piety is focused on things that are real. Rand’s piety, on the other hand, is focused on a figment: on her ideal man as portrayed in such extravagant works of fiction as The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged.
By remaining friendly to religion, Santayana was able to recognize those aspects of religion that could enrich his naturalist philosophy. In the essay “Ultimate Religion,” Santayana outlined his basic method, which involved, as he put it, an “examination of conscience” in which he found “a sort of secret or private philosophy perhaps more philosophical than [my public philosophy]: and while I set up no gods, not even Spinoza’s infinite Deus sive Natura, I do consider on what subjects and to what end we might consult those gods, if we found that they existed: and surely the aspiration that would prompt us, in that case, to worship gods, would be our truest heart-bond and our ultimate religion.”
In other words, theology, for Santayana, becomes a Socratic exercise in determining what we really value. If a God or gods did exist, what kind of ideals would they represent? What kind of ideals would they wish us to pursue? Those theists who look to theology to provide matters of fact about an existing God or gods, and those atheists who are hell-bent on denying the factual claims of dogmatic theists, have both missed the point. Theology is not about facts, it is about ideals and plumbing the depths of the human heart. But it requires a true naturalist who harbors no animus against religion or religious believers to understand and appreciate the extent to which religion, when surveyed rationally and without rancor, can enrich one’s existence and deepen one’s philosophy.
The preceding analysis of religion, although it is illustrated mainly by Christianity, may enable us in a general way to distinguish the rational goal of all religious life. In no sphere is the contrast clearer between wisdom and folly; in none, perhaps, has there been so much of both. It was a prodigious delusion to imagine that work could be done by magic; and the desperate appeal which human weakness has made to prayer, to castigations, to miscellaneous fantastic acts, in the hope of thereby bending nature to greater sympathy with human necessities, is a pathetic spectacle.…
No less useless and retarding has been the effort to give religion the function of science. Mythology, in excogitating hidden dramatic causes for natural phenomena, or in attributing events to the human values which they might prevent or secure, has profoundly perverted and confused the intellect; it has delayed and embarrassed the discovery of natural forces, at the same time fostering presumptions which, on being exploded, tended to plunge men, by revulsion, into an artificial despair….
Through the dense cloud of false thought and bad habit in which religion thus wrapped the world, some rays broke through from the beginning; for mythology and magic expressed life and sought to express its conditions. Human needs and human ideals went forth in these forms to solicit and to conquer the world; and since these imaginative methods, for their very ineptitude, rode somewhat lightly over particular issues and envisaged rather distant goods, it was possible through them to give aspiration and reflection greater scope than the meaner exigencies of life would have permitted. Where custom ruled morals and a narrow empiricism bounded the field of knowledge, it was partly a blessing that imagination should be given an illegitimate sway. Without misunderstanding, there might have been no understanding at all; without confidence in supernatural support, the heart might never have uttered its own oracles. So that in close association with superstition and fable we find piety and spirituality entering the world.
Rational religion has these two phases: piety, or loyalty to necessary conditions, and spirituality, or devotion to ideal ends. These simple sanctities make the core of all the others. Piety drinks at the deep, elemental sources of power and order: it studies nature, honours the past, appropriates and continues its mission. Spirituality uses the strength thus acquired, remodelling all it receives, and looking to the future and the ideal. True religion is entirely human and political, as was that of the ancient Hebrews, Romans, and Greeks. Supernatural machinery is either symbolic of natural conditions and moral aims or else is worthless.
Now my primary argument against the hostility toward religion manifested in Objectivism and other brands of uncompromising or intolerant atheism is that it clouds the understanding. Disbelief in God becomes bigotry against all forms of theism and most adherents of religion. It introduces into the intellect a pernicious astigmatism which causes the individual to see far more of the bad than the good side of religion. Religion, when seen through this astigmatism, becomes a kind of bogeyman. A form of unbelief that began in rationality terminates in a kind of prejudice and dogmatism that is contrary to the scientific spirit. Atheism soon becomes a kind of obverse religion. In its zeal, it adopts some of the most extreme views found in the rubbish heap of outmoded scientific theories, such as physicalism, determinism, and a dogmatic form of Darwinism that would turn natural selection into the sole principle behind the evolution of human life.
While Rand and her apologists managed to avoid the absurdities of the materialistic atheists, this did not prevent them from stumbling into other absurdities, the worst of which is Rand’s ideal man, who experiences “no inner conflicts” and whose “consciousness is in perfect harmony.” The ideal man was the object of Rand’s religious worship. Her fictional heroes were her gods, the principle objects of whatever piety existed in her.
Although she disliked religion, Rand nonetheless appreciated religious emotion. She recognized its importance. Yet one must question the objects to which she addressed these emotions. Consider Santayana’s view of the rational elements of religion. He identifies piety, which he describes as “ loyalty to necessary conditions,” as one of the two phases of rational religion. Santayana’s piety, then, his religious emotions, are focused on the sources of his being: on nature, the past, his innate talents and abilities, and his “mission” in life—the goals to which his organism are naturally directed. In short, Santayana’s piety is focused on things that are real. Rand’s piety, on the other hand, is focused on a figment: on her ideal man as portrayed in such extravagant works of fiction as The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged.
By remaining friendly to religion, Santayana was able to recognize those aspects of religion that could enrich his naturalist philosophy. In the essay “Ultimate Religion,” Santayana outlined his basic method, which involved, as he put it, an “examination of conscience” in which he found “a sort of secret or private philosophy perhaps more philosophical than [my public philosophy]: and while I set up no gods, not even Spinoza’s infinite Deus sive Natura, I do consider on what subjects and to what end we might consult those gods, if we found that they existed: and surely the aspiration that would prompt us, in that case, to worship gods, would be our truest heart-bond and our ultimate religion.”
In other words, theology, for Santayana, becomes a Socratic exercise in determining what we really value. If a God or gods did exist, what kind of ideals would they represent? What kind of ideals would they wish us to pursue? Those theists who look to theology to provide matters of fact about an existing God or gods, and those atheists who are hell-bent on denying the factual claims of dogmatic theists, have both missed the point. Theology is not about facts, it is about ideals and plumbing the depths of the human heart. But it requires a true naturalist who harbors no animus against religion or religious believers to understand and appreciate the extent to which religion, when surveyed rationally and without rancor, can enrich one’s existence and deepen one’s philosophy.
Friday, July 18, 2008
Objectivism & Religion, Part 17
Abortion. Rand and her followers tend to be unapologetic defenders of abortion, including abortion right up to the moment of birth. Objectivists are not only uncompromising on this issue, they also give it a high priority as a cause to champion. According to the Objectivist site abortionisprolife.com, “Any one who advocates the outlawing of abortion (especially in the first few months of pregnancy)—like Steve Forbes—is an enemy of individual rights in principle, and thus an enemy of capitalism.” Since many advocates of the free market are opposed to abortion, the uncompromsing stance of Objectivism on this issue serves merely to prevent Rand’s followers from making alliances with other pro-market forces.
The issue of abortion rests on whether the fetus is regarded as a human being. Peikoff recognizes this in his article celebrating the Roe vs. Wade decision. “[A]bortion-rights advocates [should not] keep hiding behind the phrase ‘a woman's right to choose.’” Peikoff wrote. “Does she have the right to choose murder? That's what abortion would be, if the fetus were a person.” Objectivists are certain that a fetus is not a human life. How do they know this? Because, as Rand argued, a fetus is only a “potential” human life. But why is it only a potential life? To say that a fetus is only a potential, rather than an actual life, is merely to repeat that it is not an actual life in other words. It is, in short, to assume the point at issue. If we are to be strictly honest about his issue, we have to admit that it is not obvious whether a fetus should be regarded as a human life or not. At the stage of conception, it is only a few cells—and how can a few cells consitute a human life? Quickly, however, in the matter of a few weeks, it develops into something more interesting and substantial, gradually taking on human form and characteristics. Perhaps the most reasonable position would be to regard a fetus as an emerging life. Granted, this would mean that we couldn’t quite determine when a fetus becomes a human life. Abortion would thus remain what it is for most people: morally problematic. That, indeed, appears to be the attitude of the majority of Americans who, while regarding abortion as immoral, nevertheless believe it should remain legal in the first (and possibly second) trimester(s). Where many Americans differ decisively from Objectivism is in their view that late term abortions (i.e., partial-birth abortion) should in most instances be illegal.
Objectivists in their own way are every bit as unhinged and extreme on the issue of abortion as are those “pro-lifers” who would charge those who have abortions with first degree murder. They are constantly comparing fetuses to tissues, useless body organs, collections of cells, etc. Peikoff goes so far as to describe a fetus as a “cluster of lifeless cells”—a contradictio in adjecto if ever there was one! Such descriptions, besides betraying an imbalance of mind, are in bad taste. Whether we are for or against the criminalization of abortion, surely there is no reason to regard a fetus as only a clump of meaningless cells!
The arbitrary and inconclusive nature of the Objectivist argument for abortion rights can easily be appreciated if we compare it to Objectivist-based arguments against abortion. Yes, such arguments do exist: there are indeed self-proclaimed Objectivists who delight in using Objectivist modes of argumentation to reach the opposite conclusion on the question of abortion. Mark La Vigne argues as follows:
La Vigne makes a few good points against Peikoff’s arguments, but his points hardly constitute an argument for the pro-life position. It is merely an argument against Peikoff’s bad arguments. Nor does the “A is A” reference help one jot (unless it is inserted for reasons of satire).
A more serious argument (perhaps too serious) along Objectivist lines is presented by G. Stolyarov.
Although hardly a convincing argument, I must give Stolyarov credit for originality. A fetus is not a “potential” human life because, once conception takes place, there exists a guarantee of a particularly genetic code for a uniquely adjusted rational faculty! Okay, if you say so Mr. Stolyarov! Yet once again I must belabor the obvious: all such verbalist arguments, regardless of which side of the debate they come down on, are utterly futile precisely because no one would ever change their mind after being exposed to them. They seem effective only to those who have already made up their minds and agree with the positions asserted in them.
The issue of abortion rests on whether the fetus is regarded as a human being. Peikoff recognizes this in his article celebrating the Roe vs. Wade decision. “[A]bortion-rights advocates [should not] keep hiding behind the phrase ‘a woman's right to choose.’” Peikoff wrote. “Does she have the right to choose murder? That's what abortion would be, if the fetus were a person.” Objectivists are certain that a fetus is not a human life. How do they know this? Because, as Rand argued, a fetus is only a “potential” human life. But why is it only a potential life? To say that a fetus is only a potential, rather than an actual life, is merely to repeat that it is not an actual life in other words. It is, in short, to assume the point at issue. If we are to be strictly honest about his issue, we have to admit that it is not obvious whether a fetus should be regarded as a human life or not. At the stage of conception, it is only a few cells—and how can a few cells consitute a human life? Quickly, however, in the matter of a few weeks, it develops into something more interesting and substantial, gradually taking on human form and characteristics. Perhaps the most reasonable position would be to regard a fetus as an emerging life. Granted, this would mean that we couldn’t quite determine when a fetus becomes a human life. Abortion would thus remain what it is for most people: morally problematic. That, indeed, appears to be the attitude of the majority of Americans who, while regarding abortion as immoral, nevertheless believe it should remain legal in the first (and possibly second) trimester(s). Where many Americans differ decisively from Objectivism is in their view that late term abortions (i.e., partial-birth abortion) should in most instances be illegal.
Objectivists in their own way are every bit as unhinged and extreme on the issue of abortion as are those “pro-lifers” who would charge those who have abortions with first degree murder. They are constantly comparing fetuses to tissues, useless body organs, collections of cells, etc. Peikoff goes so far as to describe a fetus as a “cluster of lifeless cells”—a contradictio in adjecto if ever there was one! Such descriptions, besides betraying an imbalance of mind, are in bad taste. Whether we are for or against the criminalization of abortion, surely there is no reason to regard a fetus as only a clump of meaningless cells!
The arbitrary and inconclusive nature of the Objectivist argument for abortion rights can easily be appreciated if we compare it to Objectivist-based arguments against abortion. Yes, such arguments do exist: there are indeed self-proclaimed Objectivists who delight in using Objectivist modes of argumentation to reach the opposite conclusion on the question of abortion. Mark La Vigne argues as follows:
[The Objectivist position on abortion], of all things I have read and understood of objectivism, as advocated by A.R.I., is the single most inconsistent area of the Institute's intellectual endeavors. Human life is human life. "A is A." Mr. Peikoff would lead a reader to believe that an infant developed instantaneously, at the moment of birth, into a "real human being." This defies all known logic. Rather than simply stating the facts, perhaps what is needed is a further demonstration of them:
Mr Peikoff claims that the embryo "exists as part of the woman's body." True or false? False. It is dependent upon the woman's body, but the real test of it as an integral part of her body is whether it can successfully be removed without harm to her, and implanted in another woman without harm to either the surrogate or the embryo. The answer is "yes" in each instance. Can it, at this stage, exist independent of some woman's body, other than by freezing? No. That does not, however, make it part of a woman's body.
La Vigne makes a few good points against Peikoff’s arguments, but his points hardly constitute an argument for the pro-life position. It is merely an argument against Peikoff’s bad arguments. Nor does the “A is A” reference help one jot (unless it is inserted for reasons of satire).
A more serious argument (perhaps too serious) along Objectivist lines is presented by G. Stolyarov.
The question then becomes, “When does a potential cease being a mere alternative among many?” Prior to the conception of a child, there is absolutely no guarantee that a particular genetic code will be furnished to serve as the basis for the uniquely adjusted rational faculty of a child-to-be. Therefore it is moral to prevent conception by means of abstinence or contraceptives, and the couple will therefore possess a genuine choice of whether or not to expend a substantial portion of their lives and finances on the upbringing of offspring. However, once conception has occurred, the peculiar genome is already in place, which will result in the inevitable development of a rational creature absent intervention. Granted, the fetus does not yet possess volitional consciousness, but neither does a man who is asleep. Does that grant a serial murderer the right to enter his home, loot his property and kill one whom he mistakenly judges to be “potentially awake”? The fact that that particular man (or child) will, if unhindered, be able to exercise his volitional consciousness, classifies him as a human being.
Although hardly a convincing argument, I must give Stolyarov credit for originality. A fetus is not a “potential” human life because, once conception takes place, there exists a guarantee of a particularly genetic code for a uniquely adjusted rational faculty! Okay, if you say so Mr. Stolyarov! Yet once again I must belabor the obvious: all such verbalist arguments, regardless of which side of the debate they come down on, are utterly futile precisely because no one would ever change their mind after being exposed to them. They seem effective only to those who have already made up their minds and agree with the positions asserted in them.
Sunday, July 13, 2008
Objectivism & Religion, Part 16
Religion and the underclass. One of the most witty and clever critics of organized religion is Voltaire, the most popular intellectual of the Enlightenment. At dinner parties Voltaire and his guests would routinely scoff at religion. One day, however, Voltaire’s servants were setting the table when his guests began making derisive remarks about religion. Voltaire immediately rose to his feet and ordered the servants out of the room. He then turned to his guests and admonished them, saying, “If you let these people hear that, they will become savage as lions. It’s all very well for us to say these things among ourselves, but if these people hear us scoffing at their religion, they won’t obey a word I tell them because religion is what makes them good.”
Now while I suspect that Voltaire over-stated the case for the moral effect of religion on the “lower” classes, there is still an element of truth in what he said. In any case, whether Voltaire was right or wrong, the underclass represents a growing problem in the West that secularists have not solved. The British underclass, which, in the last half century, has become completely secularized, presents a chilling example of this, particularly as limned in Dr. Theodore Dalrymple’s series of sobering essays entitled Life at the Bottom. In an essay entitled “Tough Love,” Dalrymple describes the effects of sexual liberation on the underclass:
Dalrymple summarizes the condition of the underclass in the following terms:
What role, if any, has secularization played in the social disintegration of the British underclass? To answer this question, we turn to French historian Elie Halevy, author of an important history of England during the 19th century. Halevy wanted to explain how Britain, despite profound contradictions, was spared a violent revolution during the 19th century. Halevy maintained that the stability of the British order came about through the stabilizing influence of evangelical religion, particularly Methodism, which enabled Great Britian to establish itself as a country of freedom, “of voluntary obedience, of an organization freely initiated and freely accepted.” The key concept here is “voluntary obedience.” In every society, there exists a class of individuals incapable of governing themselves. “Society cannot exist unless a controlling power upon will and appetite be placed somewhere,” warned Edmund Burke, “and the less of it there is within, the more there must be without. It is ordained in the eternal constitution of things, that men of intemperate minds cannot be free. Their passions forge their fetters.”
How, then, is society to deal with with those individuals of “intemperate mind” who cannot control their appetites. As usual, there is no perfect solution, but of the imperfect remedies at our disposal, voluntary religion of traditional, Christianized is as good as any, and may be better than most. After all, it worked a lot better in 19th Century Britain than secularism has worked in contemporary Great Britain. In 1815, despite difficult economic conditions, Great Britain managed to maintain a commendable degree of order despite lacking a police force, a welfare state, or any kind of bureaucratic government management. Social order in 1815 was maintained voluntarily. Yet, despite this voluntarism, there were far fewer crimes either against persons or property. What would happen today either in the inner cities of the United States or the United Kingdom if there were no police force and extensive judicial system, with its concomitant prisons and jails, probation officers and court psychiatrists?
In the last year, several houses in my neighborhood have been burglarized. A few months ago I forgot to lock my vehicle and several hundred dollars of stuff was immediately filched from it. According to statistics, ninety-nine percent of Americans will be victims of theft at least once in their lives. Eight-seven percent will have property stolen from them three or more times. This level of thievery did not exist 100 years ago, when this country was considerably more religious. While there are other factors involved in this massive demoralization of society other than religion, it would be naive to believe that religion has played no role in it at all. When Marx called religion the opium of the masses, he meant it as an attack. But perhaps Marx was right in a way he would have been loathe to imagine. Perhaps the drug-like qualities of religion are a necessary tool for maintaining a tolerable degree of social order among the underclass. In any case, secularists have not come up with anything better. Nor did Rand have anything to offer on this issue, besides the naive conviction that, since people have free will, everyone can be rational. Poppycock, however, grinds no flour. The fact remains: some people are not capable of being rational. Refuting Kant will not change this fact. What, then, are we to do with these people? Evading the problem will not make it go away.
Now while I suspect that Voltaire over-stated the case for the moral effect of religion on the “lower” classes, there is still an element of truth in what he said. In any case, whether Voltaire was right or wrong, the underclass represents a growing problem in the West that secularists have not solved. The British underclass, which, in the last half century, has become completely secularized, presents a chilling example of this, particularly as limned in Dr. Theodore Dalrymple’s series of sobering essays entitled Life at the Bottom. In an essay entitled “Tough Love,” Dalrymple describes the effects of sexual liberation on the underclass:
Today’s disastrous insouciance about so serious a matter as the relationship between the sexes is surely something new in history: even thirty years ago, people showed vastly more circumspection in the formation of liaisons than they do now. The change represents, of course, the fulfillment of the sexual revolution. The prophets of that revolution wished to empty the relationship between the sexes of all moral significance and destroy the customs and institutions that governed it…. [They] believed that if sexual relations could be liberated from artificial social inhibitions and legal restrictions, something beautiful would emerge: a life in which no desire need be frustrated, a life in which human pettiness would melt away like snow in spring…. The grounds for such petty bourgeois emotions as jealousy and envy would vanish: in a world of perfect fulfillment, each person would be as happy as the next.
The program of the sexual revolutionaries has more or less been carried out, especially in the lower reaches of society, but the results have been vastly different from those so foolishly anticipated. The revolution foundered on the rock of an unacknowledged reality: that women are more vulnerable to abuse than men by virtue of biology alone, and that the desire for the exclusive sexual possession of another has remained just as strong as ever. This desire is incompatible, of course, with the equally powerful desire—eternal in the human breast but hitherto controlled by social and legal inhibitions—for complete sexual freedom. Because of these biological and psychological realities, the harvest of the sexual revolution has not been a brave new world of human happiness but rather an enormous increase in violence between the sexes…
[T]he reality of this increase meets angry denial from those with a vested ideological interest… Still, the fact remains that a hospital such as mine has experienced in the last two decades a huge increase in the number of injuries to women, most of them the result of domestic violence…. About one in five of the women aged sixteen to fifty living in my hospital’s area attends the emergency department during the year as a result of injuries sustained during a quarrel with a boyfriend or husband… In the last two years I have treated at least two thousand men who have been violent to their wives, girlfriends, lovers, and concubines. It seems to me that violence on such a vast scale could not easily have been overlooked in the past—including by me.
Dalrymple summarizes the condition of the underclass in the following terms:
Here the whole gamut of folly, wickedness, and misery may be perused at leisure—in conditions, be it remembered, of unprecedented prosperity. Here are abortions procured by abdominal kung fu; children who have children, in numbers unknown before the advent of chemical contraception and sex education; women abandoned by the father of their child a month before or a month after delivery; insensate jealousy, the reverse of the coin of general promiscuity, that results in the most hideous oppression and violence; serial stepfatherhood that leads to sexual and physical abuse of children on a mass scale; and every kind of loosening of the distinction between the sexually permissible and the impermissible.
The connection between this loosening and the misery of my patients is so obvious that it requires considerable intellectual sophistication (and dishonesty) to be able to deny it.
What role, if any, has secularization played in the social disintegration of the British underclass? To answer this question, we turn to French historian Elie Halevy, author of an important history of England during the 19th century. Halevy wanted to explain how Britain, despite profound contradictions, was spared a violent revolution during the 19th century. Halevy maintained that the stability of the British order came about through the stabilizing influence of evangelical religion, particularly Methodism, which enabled Great Britian to establish itself as a country of freedom, “of voluntary obedience, of an organization freely initiated and freely accepted.” The key concept here is “voluntary obedience.” In every society, there exists a class of individuals incapable of governing themselves. “Society cannot exist unless a controlling power upon will and appetite be placed somewhere,” warned Edmund Burke, “and the less of it there is within, the more there must be without. It is ordained in the eternal constitution of things, that men of intemperate minds cannot be free. Their passions forge their fetters.”
How, then, is society to deal with with those individuals of “intemperate mind” who cannot control their appetites. As usual, there is no perfect solution, but of the imperfect remedies at our disposal, voluntary religion of traditional, Christianized is as good as any, and may be better than most. After all, it worked a lot better in 19th Century Britain than secularism has worked in contemporary Great Britain. In 1815, despite difficult economic conditions, Great Britain managed to maintain a commendable degree of order despite lacking a police force, a welfare state, or any kind of bureaucratic government management. Social order in 1815 was maintained voluntarily. Yet, despite this voluntarism, there were far fewer crimes either against persons or property. What would happen today either in the inner cities of the United States or the United Kingdom if there were no police force and extensive judicial system, with its concomitant prisons and jails, probation officers and court psychiatrists?
In the last year, several houses in my neighborhood have been burglarized. A few months ago I forgot to lock my vehicle and several hundred dollars of stuff was immediately filched from it. According to statistics, ninety-nine percent of Americans will be victims of theft at least once in their lives. Eight-seven percent will have property stolen from them three or more times. This level of thievery did not exist 100 years ago, when this country was considerably more religious. While there are other factors involved in this massive demoralization of society other than religion, it would be naive to believe that religion has played no role in it at all. When Marx called religion the opium of the masses, he meant it as an attack. But perhaps Marx was right in a way he would have been loathe to imagine. Perhaps the drug-like qualities of religion are a necessary tool for maintaining a tolerable degree of social order among the underclass. In any case, secularists have not come up with anything better. Nor did Rand have anything to offer on this issue, besides the naive conviction that, since people have free will, everyone can be rational. Poppycock, however, grinds no flour. The fact remains: some people are not capable of being rational. Refuting Kant will not change this fact. What, then, are we to do with these people? Evading the problem will not make it go away.
Tuesday, July 08, 2008
Is Orthodox Objectivism a Religion?
As the ARCHNblog runs its lengthy series on Objectivism and religion, regular contributor Neil Parille asks the obvious question:
The claim that Objectivism is a religion goes back to Albert Ellis’s 1968 book Is Objectivism a Religion? Calling Objectivism a religion seems upon first glance quite odd, given its atheism and anti-supernaturalism. At the same time, many critics of Objectivism have noted quite a few “ominous parallels” between Rand’s writings and religion, and between the Objectivist movement and established religious bodies. I’ll review a few here, more in this spirit of provoking conversation than in coming to any definite conclusions. (My reference to Objectivism is limited to those Objectivists associated with Leonard Peikoff’s Ayn Rand Institute.)
1. Rand saw herself as something of a secular prophet. In the first edition of Anthem, published in 1936, she wrote, “I have broken the tables of my brothers, and my own tables do I now write with my own spirit.” Rand’s writing is frequently apocalyptic as well. She begins John Galt’s sermon in Atlas Shrugged with an Old Testament-like rebuke of a sinful world facing judgment. “I am the man who loves his life. I am the man who does not sacrifice his love or his values. I am the man who has deprived you of victims and thus has destroyed your world, and if you wish to know why you are perishing—you who dread knowledge—I am the one who will now tell you . . . .”
2. Orthodox Objectivism has its official canon of scripture. As Harry Binswanger says to those who consider joining his email list:
3. Like religions, Orthodox Objectivism has the tendency to turn disagreements about doctrine into moral issues. For example, Leonard Peikoff once said to Rand,
5. Also, like many religious people, Orthodox Objectivists abhor the “backslider,” the person who appears to give assent to the truth but is working behind the scenes to circumvent it. Leonard Peikoff mentions the type of people Rand attracted in the above article:
7. Orthodox Objectivism has its official church, the Ayn Rand Institute, which proselytizes on behalf of Objectivism. Leonard Peikoff and his small college of cardinals (Harry Binswanger and Peter Schwartz) supervise the movement. Peikoff occasionally speaks ex cathedra, as he did at the time of the Kelley break.
8. Those who are associated with the ARI must take care that they do not demonstrate their “worldliness” by fraternizing with Kelleyites and other deviationists.
The claim that Objectivism is a religion goes back to Albert Ellis’s 1968 book Is Objectivism a Religion? Calling Objectivism a religion seems upon first glance quite odd, given its atheism and anti-supernaturalism. At the same time, many critics of Objectivism have noted quite a few “ominous parallels” between Rand’s writings and religion, and between the Objectivist movement and established religious bodies. I’ll review a few here, more in this spirit of provoking conversation than in coming to any definite conclusions. (My reference to Objectivism is limited to those Objectivists associated with Leonard Peikoff’s Ayn Rand Institute.)
1. Rand saw herself as something of a secular prophet. In the first edition of Anthem, published in 1936, she wrote, “I have broken the tables of my brothers, and my own tables do I now write with my own spirit.” Rand’s writing is frequently apocalyptic as well. She begins John Galt’s sermon in Atlas Shrugged with an Old Testament-like rebuke of a sinful world facing judgment. “I am the man who loves his life. I am the man who does not sacrifice his love or his values. I am the man who has deprived you of victims and thus has destroyed your world, and if you wish to know why you are perishing—you who dread knowledge—I am the one who will now tell you . . . .”
2. Orthodox Objectivism has its official canon of scripture. As Harry Binswanger says to those who consider joining his email list:
"It is understood that Objectivism is limited to the philosophic principles expounded by Ayn Rand in the writings published during her lifetime plus those articles by other authors that she published in her own periodicals (e.g., The Objectivist) or included in her anthologies."Pride of place goes to Atlas Shrugged, which Rand had the unfortunate tendency of quoting as if it were the Bible. Like a pastor using characters from the Bible, Rand and her followers constantly refer to characters in Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead to draw moral lessons.
3. Like religions, Orthodox Objectivism has the tendency to turn disagreements about doctrine into moral issues. For example, Leonard Peikoff once said to Rand,
"You are suffering the fate of a genius trapped in a rotten culture," I would begin. 'My distinctive attribute," she would retort, "is not genius, but intellectual honesty." "That is part of it," I would concede, "but after all I am intellectually honest, too, and it doesn't make me the kind of epochal mind who can write Atlas Shrugged or discover Objectivism." "One can't look at oneself that way," she would answer me. "No one can say: 'Ah me! the genius of the ages.' My perspective as a creator has to be not 'How great I am' but 'How true this idea is and how clear, if only men were honest enough to face the truth.'" So, for understandable reasons, we reached an impasse. She kept hoping to meet an equal; I knew that she never would. For once, I felt, I had the broad historical perspective, the perspective on her, that in the nature of the case she could not have. (Peikoff, "My Thirty Years with Ayn Rand: An Intellectual Memoir," The Objectivist Forum, 1987, pg. 12-13.)4. As can be seen from the above quote, adulation of the group’s founder is paramount in Orthodox Objectivist circles. In particular, Rand’s sacred name is given great reverence by her followers. Rarely is she referred to as just “Rand.” She may be called “Ayn Rand,” “Miss Rand,” or “AR.” Leonard Peikoff is now commonly called “Leonard Peikoff” and “LP.”
5. Also, like many religious people, Orthodox Objectivists abhor the “backslider,” the person who appears to give assent to the truth but is working behind the scenes to circumvent it. Leonard Peikoff mentions the type of people Rand attracted in the above article:
"They absorbed the surface features of Ayn Rand's intellectual style and viewpoint as though by osmosis and then mimicked them. Often, because she was so open, they knew what she wanted them to say and they said it convincingly. Though uninterested in philosophy and even contemptuous of fundamentals, they could put on an expert act to the contrary, most often an act for themselves first of all. Ayn Rand was not the only person to be taken in by it. I knew most of these people well and, to be fair here, I must admit that I was even more deluded about them than she was."6. Orthodox Objectivism has its official villains and heretics of the type described by Peikoff. The two most evil figures in this pantheon are, of course, Nathaniel and Barbara Branden. There are lesser fallen angels, such as David Kelley.
7. Orthodox Objectivism has its official church, the Ayn Rand Institute, which proselytizes on behalf of Objectivism. Leonard Peikoff and his small college of cardinals (Harry Binswanger and Peter Schwartz) supervise the movement. Peikoff occasionally speaks ex cathedra, as he did at the time of the Kelley break.
"Now I wish to make a request to any unadmitted anti-Objectivists reading this piece, a request that I make as Ayn Rand's intellectual and legal heir. If you reject the concept of "objectivity" and the necessity of moral judgment, if you sunder fact and value, mind and body, concepts and percepts, if you agree with the Branden or Kelley viewpoint or anything resembling it — please drop out of our movement: drop Ayn Rand, leave Objectivism alone."Unlike many religions, however, Objectivists are intent on charging high prices for their material, which would seem to run counter to their movement’s aim. Objectivist retreats, called "Objectivist Conferences,” are quite expensive to attend.
8. Those who are associated with the ARI must take care that they do not demonstrate their “worldliness” by fraternizing with Kelleyites and other deviationists.
No member of the Objectivist movement may associate with Kelley’s Atlas Center, for example. While an Objectivist might be permitted to publish in a mainstream philosophical journal (notwithstanding the fact that such journals routinely publish articles devoted to the destruction of man’s mind), no Objectivist may publish in Chris Sciabarra’s Journal of Ayn Rand Studies. No word yet on whether the lapsed may be restored to a state of grace.
9. It is unclear whether Orthodox Objectivism will develop an iconography of its departed saints, but at least one Objectivist artist has done so.
9. It is unclear whether Orthodox Objectivism will develop an iconography of its departed saints, but at least one Objectivist artist has done so.
Friday, July 04, 2008
Objectivism & Religion, Part 15
Christian morality versus Objectivist Morality. For the rational critic of religion, it is not belief in God and the afterlife that create the chief problems. It is, rather, the conviction of many religious people that God demands that people behave a certain way. Indeed, I would go farther: I would say that the main, vital point of disagreement between religious and anti-religious is over morality. Dislike of traditional religious morality is the primary motivation of most that passes for uncompromising or militant atheism.
Most attacks against religion are motivated by a kind hedonistic antinomianism. The main target is religious sex morality. Objectivism, in this respect, represents an improvement over most secular critiques. Rand was neither antinomian nor an apologist for hedonism. Her criticism of traditional Christian sex morality is, consequently, fairly reasonable—despite her tendency to over-generalize and draw inferences from Christian doctrines that only a handful of fanatics would ever embrace. Indeed, if there is besetting weakness in the Objectivist critique of religious morality, it is the tendency to assume that Christians routinely follow the letter of Christian precept. But that is not the way Christian precepts work. Christian morality tries to counteract potentially destructive traits in human nature by presenting the opposite extreme as the ideal. Men, particularly pre-modern men, tend to be over-obsessed with status and “face,” predisposed towards violence, and short in empathy for strangers. So Christianity tells them the last will be first, the meek shall inherit the earth, that one should turn the other cheek and love one’s neighbors as oneself. Most of these precepts would be dangerous if taken literally. But, aside from a few fanatics, they are never taken literally. So the extent that they have any affect at all, it will generally be a positive one. Violent and status obsessed people will tend to be less violent, less obsessed with status, and kinder to strangers.
The most problematical element of Christian morality have to do with questions regarding sex. To our modern sensibility, the obsession by many conservative Christians with sexual behavior is pathological. Why should the militant fundamentalist be obsessed with the sexual lives of other people? Why should he care one way or another? Here we confront one of the most unedifying aspects of modern conservative Christianity. Too much weight is given to questions of personal sexual conduct. The inflexibility, the misapplied absolutism, the moralism, the intolerance with which some Christian traditionalists approach these problems represents a black mark against religion.
However, as unappetizing as sexual puritanism, in its religious guise, may be to the contemporary mind, it would be a mistake to regard it as a complete tissue of irrationality and fanaticism. Liberated attitudes regarding sex mores are made possible, not by the greater moral wisdom of contemporary man, but merely by the wealth and improved technology of modern society. In poor societies lacking sophisticated birth control techniques and effective medicines for sexually transmitted diseases, sexual puritanism becomes a necessary evil. Sexual appetites have to be reigned in when the consequences of unbridled sexual activity are so dire. This is little appreciated in the age of penicillin, planned parenthood, and the pill.
So the real problem with Christian morals is not that they were irrational from the start, but that they have outlived their usefulness. However, even here, there may exist a possible exception to this general assessment. If we examine the underclass, we find an astonishing range of blatantly irrational and dysfunctional sex behavior. It is precisely when we begin examining those individuals who dwell on the left side of the intelligence bell curve that we discover problems for which Rand and her Objectivist apologists have no realistic answers. This issue, and its possible relation with religion, will be the subject of my next post.
Most attacks against religion are motivated by a kind hedonistic antinomianism. The main target is religious sex morality. Objectivism, in this respect, represents an improvement over most secular critiques. Rand was neither antinomian nor an apologist for hedonism. Her criticism of traditional Christian sex morality is, consequently, fairly reasonable—despite her tendency to over-generalize and draw inferences from Christian doctrines that only a handful of fanatics would ever embrace. Indeed, if there is besetting weakness in the Objectivist critique of religious morality, it is the tendency to assume that Christians routinely follow the letter of Christian precept. But that is not the way Christian precepts work. Christian morality tries to counteract potentially destructive traits in human nature by presenting the opposite extreme as the ideal. Men, particularly pre-modern men, tend to be over-obsessed with status and “face,” predisposed towards violence, and short in empathy for strangers. So Christianity tells them the last will be first, the meek shall inherit the earth, that one should turn the other cheek and love one’s neighbors as oneself. Most of these precepts would be dangerous if taken literally. But, aside from a few fanatics, they are never taken literally. So the extent that they have any affect at all, it will generally be a positive one. Violent and status obsessed people will tend to be less violent, less obsessed with status, and kinder to strangers.
The most problematical element of Christian morality have to do with questions regarding sex. To our modern sensibility, the obsession by many conservative Christians with sexual behavior is pathological. Why should the militant fundamentalist be obsessed with the sexual lives of other people? Why should he care one way or another? Here we confront one of the most unedifying aspects of modern conservative Christianity. Too much weight is given to questions of personal sexual conduct. The inflexibility, the misapplied absolutism, the moralism, the intolerance with which some Christian traditionalists approach these problems represents a black mark against religion.
However, as unappetizing as sexual puritanism, in its religious guise, may be to the contemporary mind, it would be a mistake to regard it as a complete tissue of irrationality and fanaticism. Liberated attitudes regarding sex mores are made possible, not by the greater moral wisdom of contemporary man, but merely by the wealth and improved technology of modern society. In poor societies lacking sophisticated birth control techniques and effective medicines for sexually transmitted diseases, sexual puritanism becomes a necessary evil. Sexual appetites have to be reigned in when the consequences of unbridled sexual activity are so dire. This is little appreciated in the age of penicillin, planned parenthood, and the pill.
So the real problem with Christian morals is not that they were irrational from the start, but that they have outlived their usefulness. However, even here, there may exist a possible exception to this general assessment. If we examine the underclass, we find an astonishing range of blatantly irrational and dysfunctional sex behavior. It is precisely when we begin examining those individuals who dwell on the left side of the intelligence bell curve that we discover problems for which Rand and her Objectivist apologists have no realistic answers. This issue, and its possible relation with religion, will be the subject of my next post.
Saturday, June 28, 2008
Objectivism & Religion, Part 14
Evidence for religion. A widespread prejudice among the anti-religious is that no evidence exists for religious phenomena as miracles, God, and the after-life. This is a bit of an exaggeration. There are, as a matter of fact, evidentiary claims made on behalf of all religious phenomena. The religious, for instance, consider their scriptures to constitute evidence, arguing that such scriptures constitute the history of actual events as related by eyewitnesses. And it would be a mere semantic quibble to deny that such things are evidence. The question is whether they constitute valid or relevant evidence. In this light, scriptural evidence, once subjected to rigorous textual criticism, falls way short of the mark.
There are, to be sure, other types of evidence. In Patrick Glynn’s book, God: The Evidence we find a sample of some of the evidentary claims made on behalf of religious faith. First, there is the run through of the improbable universe evidence which, though greatly strengthens the case for agnosticism and gives a generous toehold to deism, hardly gets us to a legitimate position of actual religious faith, with all the concomitant theological bells and whistles. Glynn then offers us some intriguing though hardly conclusive evidence of the utility of religion as psychological therapy and medical placebo. But evidence of utility can hardly be equated with evidence of truth or existence. We know from Sorel and Pareto that false views, or “myths,” can be useful despite being false. So what, then, is Glynn left with? He presents, in his last chapter on evidence, one of the stranger and more confounding phenomena to confront human intelligence in recent years, so-called near death experiences (NDE), with their bizarre tunnels, “mystical” lights, out-of-body experiences and “life reviews.”
Objectivism, of course, would reject the very notion that such experiences could be evidence of anything other than a warped epistemology. The so-called “paranormal,” as Objectivists have told me, is a contradiction, and therefore can’t exist. It’s a claim that a person can sense things that don’t come from the senses—a palpable absurdity. This view, however, is based on a confusion regarding logic. Contradictions can only exist between two propositions. No single claim about a matter of fact, regardless of how strange or incongruous with normal experience, can ever be a contradiction. It can only be a contradiction in relation to another claim of truth; and it is only false if it contradicts a claim that is actually true. Hence what Objectivists are really saying is that the paranormal contradicts some principle of reality which the Objectivists regard as true. Yet in making that claim, the Objectivist is surreptitiously assuming the very point at issue, and is himself committing a logical fallacy.
The first prerequisite for attaining any kind of rational understanding of such strange phenomena as NDEs and the like is to overcome the modern assumption that such things are impossible. Such an assumption may be practical and prudent in everyday life. The historical evidence, however, when impartially collected, is, as the philosopher Santayana noted, “far from supporting it, and logically it is untenable. Logically everything is possible; and if a certain sequence of events happens not to be found in our experience, nothing proves that it may not occur beyond.”
With this in mind, let us examine the naturalistic explanation of NDE, known as the “dying brain hypothesis,” compliments of Susan Blackmore:
For the most part, this is a respectable hypothesis—though it is only a hypothesis, as Blackmore herself has stated. I would merely quibble with the relevance of playing the temporal-lobe-stimulation card. Blackmore is not bringing up lobe stimulations merely to disprove that NDEs provide a glimpse into another world: she is also using them to reaffirm the epiphenomenal nature of consciuosness. The fact that specific characteristics of NDEs can be artificially stimulated allegedly proves that NDEs are brain events arising from physical processes. This is the steam-whistle theory of consciousness smuggled into the discussion on NDEs. It should raise alarms even among those who believe that NDEs are purely “natural” phenomenon.
What about the other side of the argument? Is there any possibility that these NDEs constitute a veritable intimation of immortality—a glimpse into the “undiscover’d country from whose bourne no traveller returns”? Those who regard NDEs as evidence for an after-life attempt to stress the difficulty of explaining them on materialistic or conventionally naturalistic grounds. Even Blackmore concedes that some phenomenon associated with NDEs could potentially raise problems for materialism. She relates the experience of a 44 year old man who, while still comatose, had his dentures removed by a nurse. When he saw the same nurse for the first time a week later, he said, “Oh, that nurse knows where my dentures are.” (Supposedly, during his NDE, this individual had seen the nurse remove his dentures.) There are other reports of individuals having out-of-body experiences during NDEs and remembering seeing things they could not have possibly witnessed while comatose. One of the strangest episodes involves singer and songwriter Pam Reynolds, who was subjected to a desperate procedure to remove a grossly swollen blood in the brain stem in which her body temperature was lowered to sixty degrees. All her vital signs, including her EEG brain waves, flattened to silence. As the surgeon began cutting her skull, Reynold’s felt herself “pop” outside her body and hover above the operating table. She would later describe, with considerable accuracy for a person who knew nothing about surgical practice, the Midas Rex bone saw used to cut into her head. She also described the nurses in the operating room and listened to what they were saying. In short, a very strange experience all way around, very difficult to explain on materialistic grounds. “These cases are potentially important,” admits Blackmore, “because if they are true, then there is something seriously wrong with all materialist and functionalist theories of consciousness.”
Do such experiences constitute, not merely proof against materialism, but evidence for God and the after-life? That is difficult to say. While NDEs aren’t easily explicable on conventionally naturalistic grounds, perhaps its the narrowness of this conventional naturalism that is at fault. Nature, after all, may be as strange as she likes. Yet I can hardly blame those who have experienced NDEs for regarding them as a glimpse into the after-life and as evidence for their religious convictions. To be sure, whether they are or not, no one really knows. But it is not irrational or “mystical” to suspect they might be. We will all find out one way or the other at some point. Until then, we’re all just guessing.
There are, to be sure, other types of evidence. In Patrick Glynn’s book, God: The Evidence we find a sample of some of the evidentary claims made on behalf of religious faith. First, there is the run through of the improbable universe evidence which, though greatly strengthens the case for agnosticism and gives a generous toehold to deism, hardly gets us to a legitimate position of actual religious faith, with all the concomitant theological bells and whistles. Glynn then offers us some intriguing though hardly conclusive evidence of the utility of religion as psychological therapy and medical placebo. But evidence of utility can hardly be equated with evidence of truth or existence. We know from Sorel and Pareto that false views, or “myths,” can be useful despite being false. So what, then, is Glynn left with? He presents, in his last chapter on evidence, one of the stranger and more confounding phenomena to confront human intelligence in recent years, so-called near death experiences (NDE), with their bizarre tunnels, “mystical” lights, out-of-body experiences and “life reviews.”
Objectivism, of course, would reject the very notion that such experiences could be evidence of anything other than a warped epistemology. The so-called “paranormal,” as Objectivists have told me, is a contradiction, and therefore can’t exist. It’s a claim that a person can sense things that don’t come from the senses—a palpable absurdity. This view, however, is based on a confusion regarding logic. Contradictions can only exist between two propositions. No single claim about a matter of fact, regardless of how strange or incongruous with normal experience, can ever be a contradiction. It can only be a contradiction in relation to another claim of truth; and it is only false if it contradicts a claim that is actually true. Hence what Objectivists are really saying is that the paranormal contradicts some principle of reality which the Objectivists regard as true. Yet in making that claim, the Objectivist is surreptitiously assuming the very point at issue, and is himself committing a logical fallacy.
The first prerequisite for attaining any kind of rational understanding of such strange phenomena as NDEs and the like is to overcome the modern assumption that such things are impossible. Such an assumption may be practical and prudent in everyday life. The historical evidence, however, when impartially collected, is, as the philosopher Santayana noted, “far from supporting it, and logically it is untenable. Logically everything is possible; and if a certain sequence of events happens not to be found in our experience, nothing proves that it may not occur beyond.”
With this in mind, let us examine the naturalistic explanation of NDE, known as the “dying brain hypothesis,” compliments of Susan Blackmore:
Severe stress, extreme fear and cerebral anoxia all cause cortical disinhibition and uncontrolled brain activity, and we already have most of the ideas needed to understand why this should cause NDEs. Tunnels and lights are frequently caused by disinhibition in visual cortex, and similar noises occur during sleep paralysis. OBEs [i.e., Out-of-Body-Experiences] and life reviews can be induced by temporal lobe stimulations… The visions of other worlds and spiritual beings might be real glimpses into another world, but against that hypothesis is evidence that people generally describe other worlds that fit their cultural upbringing. For example, Christians report seeing Jesus, angels and a door or gate to heaven, while Hindus are more likely to meet the king of the dead and his messengers, the Yamdoots.
For the most part, this is a respectable hypothesis—though it is only a hypothesis, as Blackmore herself has stated. I would merely quibble with the relevance of playing the temporal-lobe-stimulation card. Blackmore is not bringing up lobe stimulations merely to disprove that NDEs provide a glimpse into another world: she is also using them to reaffirm the epiphenomenal nature of consciuosness. The fact that specific characteristics of NDEs can be artificially stimulated allegedly proves that NDEs are brain events arising from physical processes. This is the steam-whistle theory of consciousness smuggled into the discussion on NDEs. It should raise alarms even among those who believe that NDEs are purely “natural” phenomenon.
What about the other side of the argument? Is there any possibility that these NDEs constitute a veritable intimation of immortality—a glimpse into the “undiscover’d country from whose bourne no traveller returns”? Those who regard NDEs as evidence for an after-life attempt to stress the difficulty of explaining them on materialistic or conventionally naturalistic grounds. Even Blackmore concedes that some phenomenon associated with NDEs could potentially raise problems for materialism. She relates the experience of a 44 year old man who, while still comatose, had his dentures removed by a nurse. When he saw the same nurse for the first time a week later, he said, “Oh, that nurse knows where my dentures are.” (Supposedly, during his NDE, this individual had seen the nurse remove his dentures.) There are other reports of individuals having out-of-body experiences during NDEs and remembering seeing things they could not have possibly witnessed while comatose. One of the strangest episodes involves singer and songwriter Pam Reynolds, who was subjected to a desperate procedure to remove a grossly swollen blood in the brain stem in which her body temperature was lowered to sixty degrees. All her vital signs, including her EEG brain waves, flattened to silence. As the surgeon began cutting her skull, Reynold’s felt herself “pop” outside her body and hover above the operating table. She would later describe, with considerable accuracy for a person who knew nothing about surgical practice, the Midas Rex bone saw used to cut into her head. She also described the nurses in the operating room and listened to what they were saying. In short, a very strange experience all way around, very difficult to explain on materialistic grounds. “These cases are potentially important,” admits Blackmore, “because if they are true, then there is something seriously wrong with all materialist and functionalist theories of consciousness.”
Do such experiences constitute, not merely proof against materialism, but evidence for God and the after-life? That is difficult to say. While NDEs aren’t easily explicable on conventionally naturalistic grounds, perhaps its the narrowness of this conventional naturalism that is at fault. Nature, after all, may be as strange as she likes. Yet I can hardly blame those who have experienced NDEs for regarding them as a glimpse into the after-life and as evidence for their religious convictions. To be sure, whether they are or not, no one really knows. But it is not irrational or “mystical” to suspect they might be. We will all find out one way or the other at some point. Until then, we’re all just guessing.
Sunday, June 15, 2008
Objectivism & Religion, Part 13
Deism. In December of 2004, Anthony Flew, who for most of his career had championed atheism, announced his "conversion" to theism. Most theists were delighted by the news. Francis Collins, head of the Human Genome Project and a devout Christian, called Flew's book There is a God, in which Flew explicates his reasons for his change of mind, as "Towering and courageous." Atheists, as to be expected, were less pleased. Dawkins described Flew's embrace of deism as an "over-publicized tergiversation" and made reference to Flew's advanced age. To characterize Flew's abandonment of atheism as a "tergiversation," as well as to bring up his age (Flew was eighty when the "tergiversation" happened) suggests a strong degree of petulance on Dawkin's part. But in examining Flew's book, one wonders what the fuss is all about. Having read the slender tome, I find little in it that would offend the non-militant, fair-minded atheist; nor do I find much in it that would give comfort to the devoutly religious. The theism that Flew "converted" to is of an entirely non-religious nature. Flew accepts no specific religious creed. He continues to be a mortalist (that is, he doesn't believe in life after death). He has made it clear that he is deist who now believes that the argument of design provides a more convincing hypothesis for the universe than any of the rival theories put forth by atheists.
Not surprising, most of the arguments Flew presents for his deistic theism run along the typical "argument from design" paradigm. He notes, for example, the gross improbability of the universe, which has led to some rather fanciful attempts by atheistical scientists to assume the existence of multiple universes (i.e., the theory of multiverse). To what extent such design-probability arguments support theism is, of course, debatable. Flew doesn't discuss, for example, the classic arguments advanced by Hume against design theology. Yet, to be fair, Flew does manage to present one argument that, if not entirely convincing, nevertheless constitutes an immense challenge to the scientific pretensions of the new atheists. This involves the perplexing question of abiogenesis:
Whether this argument advances the case for theism, even of the minimal, deist sort, is open to question. But even if it doesn't advance the cause of theism, it does manage to provide a strong case against any version of militant atheism. Confronted with arguments such as this one, I cannot see how any Objectivist can continue to regard belief in God as patently irrational. Indeed, if you compare the claims of atheism with those of rational theism, it's not easy to determine which view is more rational. The rational theist argues that, because it's grossly implausible to assume that a coded chemistry could have emerged spontaneously from inorganic matter (see this article for greater explication of the point), it is not unreasonable to assume that life has its origin in some sort of intelligence or understanding that is beyond human comprehension. The atheist, on the other hand, argues that life emerges out of matter spontaneously, by "chance," as it were—that in other words, we all evolved from rocks. Is this really the more plausible view?
I'm not aware that any prominent Objectivist has said anything about abiogenesis. Perhaps it's too empirical subject for the typical orthodox Objectivist, given his unfortunate penchant for trying to determine matters of fact through logical, moral, and rhetorical constructions. Objectivists have, however, commented on deism and not with complete disfavor, either. It's not that they advocate the position; but they are not inclined to criticize it. Peikoff recognizes that it is not a religious position. Yet his view that deism is merely "the step between Christianity and outright atheism" is a bit of an exaggeration. That may have been true in the eighteenth century, but it isn't true any longer. Now the traffic tends to move in the opposite direction. Nor is it necessary to regard deism as way station between atheism and Christianity. Deism seems an entirely rational position in and of itself—perhaps the most plausible outside of agnosticism. In any case, there doesn't seem any strong reasons to object to it.
If, however, deism is not a religious doctrine (as even Peikoff admits), this raises questions as to the point of atheism, particularly of the uncompromising or militant type. What is objectionable in specific religions is not the belief in God per se, but the belief that God wants everyone to act in certain ways. If so, then the real point of issue is the morality put forth by the religious, not their belief in God. Why, then, bring up the issue of God at all?
Not surprising, most of the arguments Flew presents for his deistic theism run along the typical "argument from design" paradigm. He notes, for example, the gross improbability of the universe, which has led to some rather fanciful attempts by atheistical scientists to assume the existence of multiple universes (i.e., the theory of multiverse). To what extent such design-probability arguments support theism is, of course, debatable. Flew doesn't discuss, for example, the classic arguments advanced by Hume against design theology. Yet, to be fair, Flew does manage to present one argument that, if not entirely convincing, nevertheless constitutes an immense challenge to the scientific pretensions of the new atheists. This involves the perplexing question of abiogenesis:
Most studies on the origin of life are carried out by scientists who rarely attend the philosophical dimension of their findings [writes Flew]. Philosophers, on the other hand, have said little on the nature and origin of life. The philosophical question that has not been answered in origin-of-life studies is this: How can a universe of mindless matter produce beings with intrinsic ends, self-replication capabilities, and "coded chemistry"?
Paul Davies "observes that most theories of biogenesis have concentrated on the chemistry of life, but "life is more than just complex chemical reactions. The cell is also an information storing, processing and replicating system. We need to explain the origin of information, and the way in which the information processing machinery came to exist." [Davies] emphasizes the fact that the gene is nothing but a set of coded instructions with a precise recipe for manufacturing proteins. Most important, these genetic instructions are not the kind of information you find in thermodynamics and statistical mechanics; rather, they constitute semantic information. These instructions can be effective only in a molecular environment capable of interpreting the meaning in the genetic code. The origin question rises to the top at this point. "The problem of how meaningful or semantic information can emerge spontaneously from a collection of mindless molecules subject to blind and purposeless forces presents a deep conceptual challenge."
It is true that protobiologists do have theories of the evolution of the first living matter, but they are dealing with a different category of problem. They are dealing with the interaction of chemicals, whereas our questions have to do with how something can be intrinsically purpose-driven and how matter can be managed by symbol processing.
Whether this argument advances the case for theism, even of the minimal, deist sort, is open to question. But even if it doesn't advance the cause of theism, it does manage to provide a strong case against any version of militant atheism. Confronted with arguments such as this one, I cannot see how any Objectivist can continue to regard belief in God as patently irrational. Indeed, if you compare the claims of atheism with those of rational theism, it's not easy to determine which view is more rational. The rational theist argues that, because it's grossly implausible to assume that a coded chemistry could have emerged spontaneously from inorganic matter (see this article for greater explication of the point), it is not unreasonable to assume that life has its origin in some sort of intelligence or understanding that is beyond human comprehension. The atheist, on the other hand, argues that life emerges out of matter spontaneously, by "chance," as it were—that in other words, we all evolved from rocks. Is this really the more plausible view?
I'm not aware that any prominent Objectivist has said anything about abiogenesis. Perhaps it's too empirical subject for the typical orthodox Objectivist, given his unfortunate penchant for trying to determine matters of fact through logical, moral, and rhetorical constructions. Objectivists have, however, commented on deism and not with complete disfavor, either. It's not that they advocate the position; but they are not inclined to criticize it. Peikoff recognizes that it is not a religious position. Yet his view that deism is merely "the step between Christianity and outright atheism" is a bit of an exaggeration. That may have been true in the eighteenth century, but it isn't true any longer. Now the traffic tends to move in the opposite direction. Nor is it necessary to regard deism as way station between atheism and Christianity. Deism seems an entirely rational position in and of itself—perhaps the most plausible outside of agnosticism. In any case, there doesn't seem any strong reasons to object to it.
If, however, deism is not a religious doctrine (as even Peikoff admits), this raises questions as to the point of atheism, particularly of the uncompromising or militant type. What is objectionable in specific religions is not the belief in God per se, but the belief that God wants everyone to act in certain ways. If so, then the real point of issue is the morality put forth by the religious, not their belief in God. Why, then, bring up the issue of God at all?
Thursday, June 05, 2008
Objectivism & Religion, Part 12
Agnosticism. Peikoff has this to say of agnosticism:
Peikoff here misrepresents agnosticism. He equates agnosticism with the creed of “I don’t know” and “Anything is possible." Is Peikoff right in his description of agnosticism? Perhaps we should turn to some actual agnostics to find out. And there is no better witness to call to the stand than the man who originally coined the term, Thomas Henry Huxley. Here is Huxley’s description of agnosticism:
Now many Objectivists will protest Huxley’s use of the word faith, but here it is important to understand that Huxley is not advocating a blind faith (he was scientist, after all) but a justified faith—justified by the fruits of experience. Huxley understands that you cannot prove your starting points; that you have to begin with faith and then see how it works out. If your faith is corroborated by experiential trials that you subject it to, you are justified in keeping fast to it. Otherwise, you try something else. Agnosticism, then, for Huxley is simply the critical method of thinking. It means always keeping an open mind to new evidence. As Huxley puts it: “The results of the working out of the agnostic principle will vary according to individual knowledge and capacity, and according to the general condition of science. That which is unproven today may be proven by the help of new discoveries to-morrow. The only negative fixed points will be those negations which flow from the demonstrable limitation of our faculties. And the only obligation accepted is to have the mind always open to conviction.”
“Do not block the path of inquiry!” insisted philosopher C. S. Peirce. This is the great danger for those who believe that knowledge, in order to be useful, must be "certain:" that they will close their minds to new evidence, because, after all, the debate is over, certainty has been achieved! The path to inquiry is blocked by the de facto dogmatism of all claims to certainty. All Huxley’s agnosticism is trying to insist upon is to keep the mind open, keep the path to inquiry clear.
Peikoff mischaracterizes agnosticism as insisting on the proof of negatives. But that’s not in the least true. Agnosticism is merely pointing out that lack of evidence does not constitute proof that something doesn’t exist. This is not the same thing as saying that the all things are possible. Nor is it claiming we can’t have any beliefs or suspicions about extra-empirical entities such as the God of the Bible. There is nothing contradictory in an agnostic saying he doesn’t believe in that sort of God. But he doesn’t regard this belief as “certain” and determined for all time. The agnostic remains a steadfast fallibilist. He remains open to any new evidence that might be brought forth on the question. And so, when the agnostic H. L. Mencken was asked what he would do if, following his earthly demise, he suddenly found himself confronted by the twelve apostles, he answered: “I would simply say, ‘Gentlemen, I was mistaken.’”
[There is] a widespread approach to ideas which Objectivism repudiates altogether: agnosticism. I mean this term in a sense which applies to the question of God, but to many other issues also, such as extra-sensory perception or the claim that the stars influence man’s destiny. In regard to all such claims, the agnostic is the type who says, “I can’t prove these claims are true, but you can’t prove they are false, so the only proper conclusion is: I don’t know; no one knows; no one can know one way or the other.”
The agnostic viewpoint poses as fair, impartial, and balanced. See how many fallacies you can find in it. Here are a few obvious ones: First, the agnostic allows the arbitrary into the realm of human cognition. He treats arbitrary claims as ideas proper to consider, discuss, evaluate—and then he regretfully says, “I don’t know,” instead of dismissing the arbitrary out of hand. Second, the onus-of-proof issue: the agnostic demands proof of a negative in a context where there is no evidence for the positive. “It’s up to you,” he says, “to prove that the fourth moon of Jupiter did not cause your sex life and that it was not a result of your previous incarnation as the Pharaoh of Egypt.” Third, the agnostic says, “Maybe these things will one day be proved.” In other words, he asserts possibilities or hypotheses with no jot of evidential basis.
Peikoff here misrepresents agnosticism. He equates agnosticism with the creed of “I don’t know” and “Anything is possible." Is Peikoff right in his description of agnosticism? Perhaps we should turn to some actual agnostics to find out. And there is no better witness to call to the stand than the man who originally coined the term, Thomas Henry Huxley. Here is Huxley’s description of agnosticism:
Agnosticism … is not a creed, but a method, the essence of which lies in the rigorous application of a single principle. That principle is of great antiquity; it is as old as Socrates; as old as the writer who said, "Try all things, hold fast by that which is good" it is the foundation of the Reformation, which simply illustrated the axiom that every man should be able to give a reason for the faith that is in him; it is the great principle of Descartes; it is the fundamental axiom of modern science. Positively the principle may be expressed: In matters of the intellect, follow your reason as far as it will take you, without regard to any other consideration. And negatively: In matters of the intellect do not pretend that conclusions are certain which are not demonstrated or demonstrable. That I take to be the agnostic faith, which if a man keep whole and undefiled, he shall not be ashamed to look the universe in the face, whatever the future may have in store for him.
Now many Objectivists will protest Huxley’s use of the word faith, but here it is important to understand that Huxley is not advocating a blind faith (he was scientist, after all) but a justified faith—justified by the fruits of experience. Huxley understands that you cannot prove your starting points; that you have to begin with faith and then see how it works out. If your faith is corroborated by experiential trials that you subject it to, you are justified in keeping fast to it. Otherwise, you try something else. Agnosticism, then, for Huxley is simply the critical method of thinking. It means always keeping an open mind to new evidence. As Huxley puts it: “The results of the working out of the agnostic principle will vary according to individual knowledge and capacity, and according to the general condition of science. That which is unproven today may be proven by the help of new discoveries to-morrow. The only negative fixed points will be those negations which flow from the demonstrable limitation of our faculties. And the only obligation accepted is to have the mind always open to conviction.”
“Do not block the path of inquiry!” insisted philosopher C. S. Peirce. This is the great danger for those who believe that knowledge, in order to be useful, must be "certain:" that they will close their minds to new evidence, because, after all, the debate is over, certainty has been achieved! The path to inquiry is blocked by the de facto dogmatism of all claims to certainty. All Huxley’s agnosticism is trying to insist upon is to keep the mind open, keep the path to inquiry clear.
Peikoff mischaracterizes agnosticism as insisting on the proof of negatives. But that’s not in the least true. Agnosticism is merely pointing out that lack of evidence does not constitute proof that something doesn’t exist. This is not the same thing as saying that the all things are possible. Nor is it claiming we can’t have any beliefs or suspicions about extra-empirical entities such as the God of the Bible. There is nothing contradictory in an agnostic saying he doesn’t believe in that sort of God. But he doesn’t regard this belief as “certain” and determined for all time. The agnostic remains a steadfast fallibilist. He remains open to any new evidence that might be brought forth on the question. And so, when the agnostic H. L. Mencken was asked what he would do if, following his earthly demise, he suddenly found himself confronted by the twelve apostles, he answered: “I would simply say, ‘Gentlemen, I was mistaken.’”
Monday, June 02, 2008
Philosophy and Conduct
Does belief in the relativity of truth lead to dishonesty? A fascinating article in the San Francisco Examiner looks into the differences between conservatives and liberals on the question of honesty. The empirical evidence on the question leads to some interesting questions regarding the relation between philosophical ideas and a commitment to honest dealing.
A number of studies have found that conservatives tend to place more emphasis on honesty than liberals. Far more liberals than conservatives are willing to condone dishonesty on taxes, welfare benefits, illegal downloads, academic tests, and in business. “A study in the Journal of Business Ethics involving 392 college students found that stronger beliefs toward “conservatism” translated into “higher levels of ethical values. ” Academics concluded in the Journal of Psychology that there was a link between ‘political liberalism’ and ‘lying in your own self-interest,’ based on a study involving 156 adults. Liberals were more willing to ‘let others take the blame’ for their own ethical lapses, ‘copy a published article’ and pass it off as their own, and were more accepting of ‘cheating on an exam,’ according to still another study in the Journal of Business Ethics."
How can we explain this dishonesty gap between right and left? Peter Schweitzer, the author of the Examiner article, advances the following thesis:
Is the greater dishonesty among liberals a logical consequence of philosophical premises, as Schweitzer suggests? If so, what role, if any, does religion play in this? After all, conservatives tend to be more religious than liberals. Can religion make people more honest?
I personally find Schweitzer’s thesis to be somewhat implausible. In the first place, most people, whether they regard themselves as liberals or conservatives, right or left, aren’t sophisticated enough in their thinking to logical deduce dishonesty from the relativity of truth. Moreover, if you examine reasons people give to justify their dishonesty, it quickly becomes apparent that these reasons are mere rationalizations. Hence, illegal downloading is justified on the grounds that it only hurts big corporations. Evading taxes is justified on the grounds that the money will go to fund an “illegal war.” Cheating on an exam is justified on the grounds that “everybody does it.” These reasons for dishonesty are themselves crude and poorly thought out that they are obviously rationalizations. But what, specifically, are they rationalizations? They are rationalizing psychological complexes that lack strong moral sentiments in favor of honesty. In other words, these are people who suffer from a weak moral conscience. They may also lack the discipline required to keep to the “straight and narrow” demanded by honesty. Remaining honest can be difficult. It involves resisting temptations of immediate gratification. Dishonesty allows people to achieve goals and acquire things without earning them—that is, without doing the hard work necessary to pass an exam or purchase legal music online or pull of the rewarding business deal.
One way in which religion may actually help people be honest is through using community-based pressure to motivate people to do the right thing. One thing I have noticed examining studies of the relation between religion and conduct is that religious belief per se does not seem to make much difference: it is church attendance that is critical. Church attendance motives people to honest because they are afraid that if they lie or cheat, they will lose face with the other members of the church. Secularism has struggled to develop an institution that has the same motivational effect on people.
A number of studies have found that conservatives tend to place more emphasis on honesty than liberals. Far more liberals than conservatives are willing to condone dishonesty on taxes, welfare benefits, illegal downloads, academic tests, and in business. “A study in the Journal of Business Ethics involving 392 college students found that stronger beliefs toward “conservatism” translated into “higher levels of ethical values. ” Academics concluded in the Journal of Psychology that there was a link between ‘political liberalism’ and ‘lying in your own self-interest,’ based on a study involving 156 adults. Liberals were more willing to ‘let others take the blame’ for their own ethical lapses, ‘copy a published article’ and pass it off as their own, and were more accepting of ‘cheating on an exam,’ according to still another study in the Journal of Business Ethics."
How can we explain this dishonesty gap between right and left? Peter Schweitzer, the author of the Examiner article, advances the following thesis:
The honesty gap is ... not a result of “bad people” becoming liberals and “good people” becoming conservatives. In my mind, a more likely explanation is bad ideas. Modern liberalism is infused with idea that truth is relative. Surveys consistently show this. And if truth is relative, it also must follow that honesty is subjective.
Sixties organizer Saul Alinsky, who both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton say inspired and influenced them, once said the effective political advocate “doesn’t have a fixed truth; truth to him is relative and changing, everything to him is relative and changing. He is a political relativist.”
Is the greater dishonesty among liberals a logical consequence of philosophical premises, as Schweitzer suggests? If so, what role, if any, does religion play in this? After all, conservatives tend to be more religious than liberals. Can religion make people more honest?
I personally find Schweitzer’s thesis to be somewhat implausible. In the first place, most people, whether they regard themselves as liberals or conservatives, right or left, aren’t sophisticated enough in their thinking to logical deduce dishonesty from the relativity of truth. Moreover, if you examine reasons people give to justify their dishonesty, it quickly becomes apparent that these reasons are mere rationalizations. Hence, illegal downloading is justified on the grounds that it only hurts big corporations. Evading taxes is justified on the grounds that the money will go to fund an “illegal war.” Cheating on an exam is justified on the grounds that “everybody does it.” These reasons for dishonesty are themselves crude and poorly thought out that they are obviously rationalizations. But what, specifically, are they rationalizations? They are rationalizing psychological complexes that lack strong moral sentiments in favor of honesty. In other words, these are people who suffer from a weak moral conscience. They may also lack the discipline required to keep to the “straight and narrow” demanded by honesty. Remaining honest can be difficult. It involves resisting temptations of immediate gratification. Dishonesty allows people to achieve goals and acquire things without earning them—that is, without doing the hard work necessary to pass an exam or purchase legal music online or pull of the rewarding business deal.
One way in which religion may actually help people be honest is through using community-based pressure to motivate people to do the right thing. One thing I have noticed examining studies of the relation between religion and conduct is that religious belief per se does not seem to make much difference: it is church attendance that is critical. Church attendance motives people to honest because they are afraid that if they lie or cheat, they will lose face with the other members of the church. Secularism has struggled to develop an institution that has the same motivational effect on people.
Sunday, June 01, 2008
Objectivism & Religion, Part 11
Peikoff’s arguments against God. Peikoff, in his book Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand, provides several arguments against the existence of God. The arguments are all “metaphysical” in the bad (i.e., Aristotelean) sense of the word; that is to say, they are all guilty of attempting to determine matters of fact by means of logical or moral or rhetorical constructions. The existence of God, however, is an entirely empirical question: either there’s convincing evidence for God’s existence or there isn’t. It is in respect to the evidence that we must judge the question. Metaphysical reasonings based on so-called “axioms” are cognitively useless.
Peikoff claims that all the arguments for God’s existence contradict the Objectivist axioms:
These arguments against theism are even worse than the rationalistic arguments made on the theistic side, such as the wretched cosmological and ontological “proofs” for God’s existence. They all seek to leverage the scandalous vagueness of abstruse terms to reach conclusions that the premises cannot support.
Two of the three Objectivist axioms are tautologies. The problem with tautologies is not that they are false, but that they are trivial: nothing of any consequence can be derived from them. The tautology existence exists is logically consistent with every proposition about existence, including the proposition God exists.
Peikoff’s first argument makes uses of the one non-tautological axiom, the axiom of consciousness, which claims that “one exists possessing consciousness, consciousness being the faculty of perceiving that which exists.” Rand believed that from this axiom (with assistance from the other two) sprung a further principle, known as the primacy of existence over consciousness. This is a rather incoherent distinction. Since consciousness (as Rand’s second axiom declares) exists, then consciousness must be part of existence. So what then does it mean to say that existence is primary over consciousness? What Rand is really asserting is the primacy of that portion of existence that is not conscious: that is, she is asserting the primacy of matter. Primacy in what sense? Well, here’s where we run into problems of ambiguity. Rand claims that those who deny the primacy of existence believe that existence is “created” by consciousness. Plato, Christianity, and German Idealism are all presented as advocates of this view. Unfortunately, no Objectivist has ever provided any evidence of a genuine platonist or Christian or German Idealist who actually holds that view. Idealists don’t believe consciousness creates existence. Nor do they believe in the primacy of consciousness. What they believe in is the primacy of the contents of consciousness—which is something different. Where those contents ultimately come from is a matter of debate between various idealist factions; but I’m not aware of any faction that declares that all of existence is “created” by consciousness.
When Peikoff declares that God can’t be the creator of existence because existence is primary, what has he established? He’s established nothing. No theist, Christian or otherwise, ever asserted that God created existence. God, it is claimed, created the “heavens and the earth” or the “universe”—which, again, is something different. Since God existed before the creation of the universe, any notion of God creating “existence” is absurd. Peikoff is here playing fast and loose with the term existence, trying to use it as if it were a precise synonym for universe or material world.
When Peikoff declares that God can’t be the designer of the universe, because that would violate A is A, he is once more trying to draw non-tautological rabbits from tautological hats. A is A merely asserts the identity of any specific symbol of consciousness to itself. Objectivists try to extend this self-evident but tautological notion of identity into a kind of declaration of the intelligibility of reality. Things must have identity, or else how could we ever come to know them? This implicit premise of Objectivism, masked by the often repeated mantra A is A, is problematic in several directions. While it is true that intelligibility is a precondition of knowledge, this does not mean that intelligibility is also a precondition of existence as well—not if we wish to be consistent with realism. Realism asserts that material objects have a place, movement, origin and destiny of their own, regardless of what the individual may think or fail to think about them. Embedded in this view is the possibility of both error and unintelligibility. Since the object of knowledge lays beyond the realm of consciousness, the possibility not only of error, but of partial unknowability cannot be ruled out of hand. As Santayana once noted: "There may be surds, there may be hard facts, there may be dark abysses before which intelligence must be silent, for fear of going mad." Although every existent must have a nature, that does not mean that every existent is identifiable to consciousness. Not every aspect of the universe exists for the convenience of our intellects. To think otherwise is to flounder into the morass of idealism.
While implicit notions of intelligibility indicate the essential incoherency of the third Objectivist axiom, even more serious is its lack of specificity. Objects, this axiom asserts, must have identity, but it may be any identity. Therefore no specific identity can be ruled out of hand. For this reason, Peikoff’s is wrong to assume that A is A contradicts the theistic premise of God as a designer. If the universe actually was “designed” by God, then that is the identity the universe manifests—end of issue.
Peikoff next asserts that God cannot be omnipotent because “no one can alter the metaphysically given.” But how does he know this? That statement cannot be deduced from any of the axioms, because the axioms don’t contain any empirical content. If God exists and is capable of altering the “metaphysically given,” then his existence and identity are included in these supposed facts. There is nothing in the Objectivist axioms, if taken in their self-evident sense, that would necessarily over-rule this.
Peikoff’s take on infinity is bizarre. “ An infinite quantity would be a quantity without identity,” he asserts. But here he commits the error pointed out earlier of confusing what is identifiable to the human mind with what exists in reality. On realist premises you cannot assume that everything that exists must be intelligible (i.e., identifiable) to the human mind. It is possible that some things may be unintelligible. Hence we cannot rule out the possible existence of infinity.
Nor do miracles violate the so-called “law of identity.” If nature of the universe is such that miracles are possible, then miracles are part of the identity of the universe. Again, it’s important to appreciate how useless metaphysical arguments are to ascertaining facts of reality.
The final objection that Peikoff raises to theism may be the silliest. If reduced to essentials, it would read as follows: God cannot be purely spiritual because a purely spiritual entities are impossible. And not only that, but since non-spiritual entities lack both the means and the content of perception, they can’t be all-knowing. Yet this all rests of the assumption that only physical bodies can be conscious. While this may be true, it doesn’t follow from the Objectivist axioms. As to Peikoff’s additional assertion—I don’t see what the point Peikoff is trying to make in raising it. On the (gratuitous) assumptions of his own argument, a non-physical spiritual entity cannot possibly exist. But if such an entity is impossible, why is he claiming that this impossible entity can’t also be all-knowing? If it can’t exist, questions about whether it is all-knowing are beside the point. So why bring it up?
Peikoff concludes with the following assertion: “At every point, the notion [of God] clashes with the facts of reality and with the precondition of thought.” For better or worse, Peikoff’s metaphysical arguments only address the second of these two problems, i.e., the preconditions of thought. He doesn’t make a factual case against God. Facts involve presenting evidence, and Peikoff provides no evidence, just rationalistic speculation. Even worse, his “precondition of thought” arguments rest on idealist premises. Reality cannot be solely judged on the basis of preconditions of thought—not unless you assume that all of reality is amenable to human thought. That is an assumption accepted by various forms of idealism. But a realist must recognize the possibility that some aspects reality might be unknowable; and this assumption defeats Peikoff’s “preconditions of thought” argumentation at its core.
Peikoff claims that all the arguments for God’s existence contradict the Objectivist axioms:
Is God the creator of the universe? Not if existence has primacy over consciousness.
Is God the designer of the universe? Not if A is A. The alternative to “design” is not “chance.” It is causality.
Is God omnipotent? Nothing and no one can alter the metaphysically given.
Is God infinite? “Infinite” does not mean large; it means larger than any specific quantity, i.e., of no specific quantity. An infinite quantity would be a quantity without identity. But A is A. Every entity, accordingly, is infinite.
Can God perform miracles? A “miracle” does not mean merely the unusual…. A miracle is an action not possible to the entities involved by their nature; it would be a violation of identity.
Is God purely spiritual? “Spiritual” means pertaining to consciousness, and consciousness is a faculty of certain living organisms…. A consciousness transcending nature would be a faculty transcending organism and object. So far from being all-knowing such a thing would have neither means nor content of perception; it would be nonconscious. [OPAR, 31-32]
These arguments against theism are even worse than the rationalistic arguments made on the theistic side, such as the wretched cosmological and ontological “proofs” for God’s existence. They all seek to leverage the scandalous vagueness of abstruse terms to reach conclusions that the premises cannot support.
Two of the three Objectivist axioms are tautologies. The problem with tautologies is not that they are false, but that they are trivial: nothing of any consequence can be derived from them. The tautology existence exists is logically consistent with every proposition about existence, including the proposition God exists.
Peikoff’s first argument makes uses of the one non-tautological axiom, the axiom of consciousness, which claims that “one exists possessing consciousness, consciousness being the faculty of perceiving that which exists.” Rand believed that from this axiom (with assistance from the other two) sprung a further principle, known as the primacy of existence over consciousness. This is a rather incoherent distinction. Since consciousness (as Rand’s second axiom declares) exists, then consciousness must be part of existence. So what then does it mean to say that existence is primary over consciousness? What Rand is really asserting is the primacy of that portion of existence that is not conscious: that is, she is asserting the primacy of matter. Primacy in what sense? Well, here’s where we run into problems of ambiguity. Rand claims that those who deny the primacy of existence believe that existence is “created” by consciousness. Plato, Christianity, and German Idealism are all presented as advocates of this view. Unfortunately, no Objectivist has ever provided any evidence of a genuine platonist or Christian or German Idealist who actually holds that view. Idealists don’t believe consciousness creates existence. Nor do they believe in the primacy of consciousness. What they believe in is the primacy of the contents of consciousness—which is something different. Where those contents ultimately come from is a matter of debate between various idealist factions; but I’m not aware of any faction that declares that all of existence is “created” by consciousness.
When Peikoff declares that God can’t be the creator of existence because existence is primary, what has he established? He’s established nothing. No theist, Christian or otherwise, ever asserted that God created existence. God, it is claimed, created the “heavens and the earth” or the “universe”—which, again, is something different. Since God existed before the creation of the universe, any notion of God creating “existence” is absurd. Peikoff is here playing fast and loose with the term existence, trying to use it as if it were a precise synonym for universe or material world.
When Peikoff declares that God can’t be the designer of the universe, because that would violate A is A, he is once more trying to draw non-tautological rabbits from tautological hats. A is A merely asserts the identity of any specific symbol of consciousness to itself. Objectivists try to extend this self-evident but tautological notion of identity into a kind of declaration of the intelligibility of reality. Things must have identity, or else how could we ever come to know them? This implicit premise of Objectivism, masked by the often repeated mantra A is A, is problematic in several directions. While it is true that intelligibility is a precondition of knowledge, this does not mean that intelligibility is also a precondition of existence as well—not if we wish to be consistent with realism. Realism asserts that material objects have a place, movement, origin and destiny of their own, regardless of what the individual may think or fail to think about them. Embedded in this view is the possibility of both error and unintelligibility. Since the object of knowledge lays beyond the realm of consciousness, the possibility not only of error, but of partial unknowability cannot be ruled out of hand. As Santayana once noted: "There may be surds, there may be hard facts, there may be dark abysses before which intelligence must be silent, for fear of going mad." Although every existent must have a nature, that does not mean that every existent is identifiable to consciousness. Not every aspect of the universe exists for the convenience of our intellects. To think otherwise is to flounder into the morass of idealism.
While implicit notions of intelligibility indicate the essential incoherency of the third Objectivist axiom, even more serious is its lack of specificity. Objects, this axiom asserts, must have identity, but it may be any identity. Therefore no specific identity can be ruled out of hand. For this reason, Peikoff’s is wrong to assume that A is A contradicts the theistic premise of God as a designer. If the universe actually was “designed” by God, then that is the identity the universe manifests—end of issue.
Peikoff next asserts that God cannot be omnipotent because “no one can alter the metaphysically given.” But how does he know this? That statement cannot be deduced from any of the axioms, because the axioms don’t contain any empirical content. If God exists and is capable of altering the “metaphysically given,” then his existence and identity are included in these supposed facts. There is nothing in the Objectivist axioms, if taken in their self-evident sense, that would necessarily over-rule this.
Peikoff’s take on infinity is bizarre. “ An infinite quantity would be a quantity without identity,” he asserts. But here he commits the error pointed out earlier of confusing what is identifiable to the human mind with what exists in reality. On realist premises you cannot assume that everything that exists must be intelligible (i.e., identifiable) to the human mind. It is possible that some things may be unintelligible. Hence we cannot rule out the possible existence of infinity.
Nor do miracles violate the so-called “law of identity.” If nature of the universe is such that miracles are possible, then miracles are part of the identity of the universe. Again, it’s important to appreciate how useless metaphysical arguments are to ascertaining facts of reality.
The final objection that Peikoff raises to theism may be the silliest. If reduced to essentials, it would read as follows: God cannot be purely spiritual because a purely spiritual entities are impossible. And not only that, but since non-spiritual entities lack both the means and the content of perception, they can’t be all-knowing. Yet this all rests of the assumption that only physical bodies can be conscious. While this may be true, it doesn’t follow from the Objectivist axioms. As to Peikoff’s additional assertion—I don’t see what the point Peikoff is trying to make in raising it. On the (gratuitous) assumptions of his own argument, a non-physical spiritual entity cannot possibly exist. But if such an entity is impossible, why is he claiming that this impossible entity can’t also be all-knowing? If it can’t exist, questions about whether it is all-knowing are beside the point. So why bring it up?
Peikoff concludes with the following assertion: “At every point, the notion [of God] clashes with the facts of reality and with the precondition of thought.” For better or worse, Peikoff’s metaphysical arguments only address the second of these two problems, i.e., the preconditions of thought. He doesn’t make a factual case against God. Facts involve presenting evidence, and Peikoff provides no evidence, just rationalistic speculation. Even worse, his “precondition of thought” arguments rest on idealist premises. Reality cannot be solely judged on the basis of preconditions of thought—not unless you assume that all of reality is amenable to human thought. That is an assumption accepted by various forms of idealism. But a realist must recognize the possibility that some aspects reality might be unknowable; and this assumption defeats Peikoff’s “preconditions of thought” argumentation at its core.
Saturday, May 31, 2008
Objectivism & Religion, Part 10
Religion and freedom. Peikoff, in his essay “Religion Versus America,” argues that religion is logically incompatible with freedom and individual rights.
Apologists of Christianity make the opposite claim: rights come from God, they argue, just as the Declaration of Independence asserts. Freedom rests on a religious base.
Who is right on this issue, Peikoff and Objectivism or the apologists of Christianity? The answer is: neither side is right. Both make the erroneous assumption that rights derive from a doctrinal or logical base. There is no convincing evidence that this is true.
Rights are far more the product of the give and take between various political factions than they are of any specific doctrine of rights. Most people have only vague notions of rights. Since the majority people are not logically consistent in their beliefs, issues about where specific claims about rights originate and whether they are based on sound logical foundations is utterly vain. The overly-intellectualized views of Rand and her orthodox apologists leads to vague and impossible dreams about the causal determinants of the social order, as if metaphysical, logical, rhetorical, and other philosophical concepts are supposed to manifest themselves on the strength of their own logic!
Perhaps it would be better to rephrase the issue and ask whether religion is compatible with freedom? which is the real question at stake. Here only history can be our guide; and what we find when we examine the historical record is that freedom doesn’t appear to flourish in societies that are either excessively religious or excessively secular; that freedom seems to work best when there exists a healthy balance between the secular and the profane.
In the last three centuries, the two countries in which freedom has most flourished are England and the United States. Yet in the Western world, these are the nations that came closest to maintaining a healthy balance between the religious and the secular (although since World War 2, England has lost its religiosity, along with its empire). On the European continent, secular opinion became rabidly anti-clerical, eventually leading to widespread secularism in the 20th century. On the surface, this may not seem so bad. For the most part, life is good in Western Europe. Most people enjoy an unprecedented combination of personal freedom and economic security. Secularism never had it so good. But this secularism contains several fatal flaws. In the first place, it could never have existed without the protection of the United States. And secondly, even with America’s protection, it is doomed to be overrun by the demographics of an Islamic tide.
The failure of secularism is that it depends on two things that, in the long-run, are at odds: military security and a high standard of living. Any nation that lives well for several generations becomes soft. Its citizens give way to hedonistic mores and excesses of welfare economics. Religion, as a conservative force in society, can serve as a partial brake against this sort of hedonistic disintegration. Religion tends to support traditional ethical norms that go against the grain of hedonistic mores. Religion also imposes forms of discipline on its adherents which reinforce those traditional, anti-hedonistic moral ideals. It is no coincidence that the United States, the most religious in the West, remains the primary defender of freedom in the world today; nor is it a coincidence that the those Americans that are most supportive of the military and the use of force to defend freedom also tend to be religious, whereas those Americans that tend to oppose the military and the use of force tend to be secular.
Of course, the opposite extreme also poses a danger, when nations become too religious. But that is so obvious that it doesn’t require further comment.
The principle of individual rights does not derive from or depend on the idea of God as man's creator. It derives from the very nature of man, whatever his source or origin; it derives from the requirements of man's mind and his survival. In fact, as I have argued, the concept of rights is ultimately incompatible with the idea of the supernatural. This is true not only logically, but also historically.
Apologists of Christianity make the opposite claim: rights come from God, they argue, just as the Declaration of Independence asserts. Freedom rests on a religious base.
Who is right on this issue, Peikoff and Objectivism or the apologists of Christianity? The answer is: neither side is right. Both make the erroneous assumption that rights derive from a doctrinal or logical base. There is no convincing evidence that this is true.
Rights are far more the product of the give and take between various political factions than they are of any specific doctrine of rights. Most people have only vague notions of rights. Since the majority people are not logically consistent in their beliefs, issues about where specific claims about rights originate and whether they are based on sound logical foundations is utterly vain. The overly-intellectualized views of Rand and her orthodox apologists leads to vague and impossible dreams about the causal determinants of the social order, as if metaphysical, logical, rhetorical, and other philosophical concepts are supposed to manifest themselves on the strength of their own logic!
Perhaps it would be better to rephrase the issue and ask whether religion is compatible with freedom? which is the real question at stake. Here only history can be our guide; and what we find when we examine the historical record is that freedom doesn’t appear to flourish in societies that are either excessively religious or excessively secular; that freedom seems to work best when there exists a healthy balance between the secular and the profane.
In the last three centuries, the two countries in which freedom has most flourished are England and the United States. Yet in the Western world, these are the nations that came closest to maintaining a healthy balance between the religious and the secular (although since World War 2, England has lost its religiosity, along with its empire). On the European continent, secular opinion became rabidly anti-clerical, eventually leading to widespread secularism in the 20th century. On the surface, this may not seem so bad. For the most part, life is good in Western Europe. Most people enjoy an unprecedented combination of personal freedom and economic security. Secularism never had it so good. But this secularism contains several fatal flaws. In the first place, it could never have existed without the protection of the United States. And secondly, even with America’s protection, it is doomed to be overrun by the demographics of an Islamic tide.
The failure of secularism is that it depends on two things that, in the long-run, are at odds: military security and a high standard of living. Any nation that lives well for several generations becomes soft. Its citizens give way to hedonistic mores and excesses of welfare economics. Religion, as a conservative force in society, can serve as a partial brake against this sort of hedonistic disintegration. Religion tends to support traditional ethical norms that go against the grain of hedonistic mores. Religion also imposes forms of discipline on its adherents which reinforce those traditional, anti-hedonistic moral ideals. It is no coincidence that the United States, the most religious in the West, remains the primary defender of freedom in the world today; nor is it a coincidence that the those Americans that are most supportive of the military and the use of force to defend freedom also tend to be religious, whereas those Americans that tend to oppose the military and the use of force tend to be secular.
Of course, the opposite extreme also poses a danger, when nations become too religious. But that is so obvious that it doesn’t require further comment.
Sunday, May 25, 2008
Objectivism & Religion, Part 9
Aquinas and Rand. Peikoff, in his essay “Religion Versus America,” credits Thomas Aquinas, the great philosopher of Catholicism, for leading Europe out of the Middle Ages.
Rand’s admiration for the greatest philosopher of Catholic Christianity may seem odd at first glance. The saintly Aquinas, known for being “frequently abstracted and in ecstasy," devoted his life to rationalizing faith. What could Rand have possibly seen in Aquinas?
There are a number of reasons why Rand had to regard this intensely religious thinker as one of the few philosophers to have a positive impact on history. The Objectivist philosophy of history needed to explain how the Middle Ages ended. What accounts for the progress of European Civilization beginning with the Renaissance? Since Objectivism believes that only philosophy can determine history, there had to be a philosophical cause. The problem is, all the philosophers of the Middle Ages were Christians. Luckily Rand never paid much attention to details: only broad abstractions interested her. So using the cover of vague abstractions, she was able to declare Aquinas a champion of Aristotle, because Aquinas is broadly linked to the Stagyrite. “The prelude to the Renaissance was the return of Aristotle via Thomas Aquinas,” she wrote. [FTNI, 21] Problem solved: henceforth no need for any true believing Objectivist to go into the matter in any more detail.
But it is precisely in the details that the Objectivist view can be seen for what it is: namely, as bad all the way through—bad as philosophy, as biography, as history. If we were to take Peikoff’s account seriously, we would have to believe that human beings are too stupid to figure out how to make any progress in this world until some philosopher comes along and tells them that they can use “reason” to gain knowledge of this world. This view leads to some immense absurdities, including, most infamously, Rand’s preposterous panegyric of Aristotle:
One has to be appalling ignorant of history (and linguistics and science) to give any credence to these this baseless patter. If Aristotle is responsible for “everything that makes us civilized,” does this mean that everyone who lived before Aristotle was uncivilized? If so, that would pretty much place Periclean Athens beyond the civilized pale. It is strange that Aristotle’s philosophy should have preceded “everything that makes us civilized beings.” Of this notion Rand gives us not a shred of evidence. Yet this is no coincidence, because no shreds of evidence exist. Rand is simply making things up in order to justify her belief that philosophy determines the course of history.
Implicit in Rand’s contention about Aristotle’s influence is the idea that thinking is something that has to be invented. Before Aristotle, no rational values were possible because people did not know how to think rationally. They needed Aristotle’s logic for that. Logic, then, is critical to human thought. People aren’t really civilized without it.
There are no compelling reasons to believe that Rand is right on this point. Logic may be critical in mathematics and in specialized scientific work; but in everyday life, its uses are limited. Human beings can get along without it, using, instead (as they always have) trial and error experimentation mixed with loose analogical reasoning and other informal (and often logically invalid) inferences. Aristotle’s contribution to human civilization, though significant, is not anywhere as momentous as Rand makes it out to be.
Aristotle’s formulation of logic, though important, is somewhat vitiated by a critical error he (or his followers) made in relation to it. Aristotle decided that logic was the model of how people should think. As late as the 19th century, J. S. Mill could declare that nearly all of our knowledge of science and human conduct “is amenable to the authority of logic.” Since Mill’s view, more or less accepted by Rand, is not true, any attempt to put it in practice will inevitably have unintended results. When people consciously try to follow the classical reason of Aristotle and his followers, instead of reaching truth, they merely wind up coming up with reasons for what they wanted to believe all along. In other words, Aristotelian reason, in practical terms, is little more than rationalization.
With this in mind, we can understand why Aquinas, the great rationalizer of medieval Christianity, was drawn to Aristotelian reason. Rationalization is what "reason" is all about. If you want to give a pseudo-scientific varnish to your pet ideas, you dip into the toolbox of reason and you can rationalize to your heart's content. If, on the other hand, you want to learn facts about the real world, you have to adopt a much more critical approach involving an exhaustive examination of the relevant evidence, experimentation, and criticism through peer review. The scientific method is not the equivalent of Aristotle’s “reason”; it is, in many respects, a rejection of such vapid scholasticism.
If we consult the facts, rather than merely our “reason,” what, then, do we discover about the ending of the Middle Ages? Well, it certainly wasn’t ended by Aquinas: that much is clear. Outside of the fairly closed world of scholars, no one knew anything about Aquinas. Keep in mind: Aquinas lived before the age of the printing press, when books were scarce and few could read. The ending of the Middle Ages, far from having obscure intellectual causes, came about initially through the diminishment of feudal anarchy. The ninth and tenth centuries had been eras of extreme social disorganization—mostly brought about, not by the influence of Augustine or the Catholic Church, but by the terribly excursions of fierce barbarians from the north and east.
It was the development of capitalistic, market-based institutions that, ultimately, ended the Middle Ages. In the eleventh century, the birth rate went up appreciably, providing Western Europe with plenty of cheap labor. With the greater social stability brought about by the pacification (via conversion to Christianity) of the barbarian invaders, enterprising men could now begin the slow process of developing a mercantile system. By the beginning of the twelfth century, the growing prosperity of merchant colonies enabled them to build ramparts of stone, flanked by towers, adding greater protection against attack. Cities capable of defense were critical to Europe’s growing merchant class, since the rights of trade must everywhere be defended with force. Medieval cities provided the seed bed for the birth and growth of modern capitalism.
The early developments of medieval trade and the resurgence of Western Europe occurred well before the birth of Thomas Aquinas in the thirteenth century. Indeed, Aquinas came along at the high tide of the Middle Age renaissance. Societal decadence, culminating in the black plague of the fourteenth century, when a third of Europe’s population perished within a few years time, coincided with the life of Aquinas. The Renaissance of the 15th century was merely the third in a series of upswings that Western Europe experienced after the fall of the western half of the Roman Empire (the others being the Carolingian Renaissance of the eighth century and Renaissance of the Middle Ages). The first two post-Empire renaissances had nothing to do with Thomas Aquinas, since they occurred before he was born. Nor was Aquinas the “bridge” to the final renaissance. Indeed, this last renaissance, which ushers in the modern world, involved elements that sharply conflicted with Aquinas, such as a renewed interest in Plato and the emergence non-Aristotelian empirical and mechanistic epistemological paradigms in the 16th and 17th centuries.
The Christian church played a much larger role in the development of Western Civilization than Aquinas or his scholastic philosophy ever did. Critical to the revival of the West was the conversion of the fierce Scandinavian and Slavic barbarians to Christianity. No civilization was possible until this happened. Also critical was the church’s role as a unifying force. Governments in the Middle Ages were weak. Internecine warfare was tearing society apart. What was needed was a unifying force to keep infighting to a minimum. The church, by making use of crusades against Islam, managed to direct the energies of the warlike barons that ruled Europe against foreign targets, instead of against each other (and against the emerging merchant cities).
Whatever role ideas played in the course of European history, their affect is always greatly influenced by the development of institutions that are not the product of human design. Capitalism is not caused by the application of philosophical, political, or economic ideas. The Middle Ages were not economically or politically sophisticated enough to understand the workings of a complex free market, or to develop them a theory that would allow them to create a capitalist system. Such an understanding would only begin to develop in the 18th century. As a matter of fact, the nascent capitalism of the Middle Ages had to develop in the teeth of several ideas that went against its fundamental grain, such as notions concerning rank and birth, the honor codes of the feudal barons, and deep-rooted prejudices against usury (prejudices, I might add, shared by Aquinas and his philosophical idol, Aristotle).
What--or who--ended the Middle Ages? My answer is: Thomas Aquinas, who introduced Aristotle, and thereby reason, into medieval culture. In the thirteenth century, for the first time in a millennium, Aquinas reasserted in the West the basic pagan approach. What--or who--ended the Middle Ages? My answer is: Thomas Aquinas, who introduced Aristotle, and thereby reason, into medieval culture. In the thirteenth century, for the first time in a millennium, Aquinas reasserted in the West the basic pagan approach. Reason, he said in opposition to Augustine, does not rest on faith; it is a self-contained, natural faculty, which works on sense experience. Its essential task is not to clarify revelation, but rather, as Aristotle had said, to gain knowledge of this world.
Rand’s admiration for the greatest philosopher of Catholic Christianity may seem odd at first glance. The saintly Aquinas, known for being “frequently abstracted and in ecstasy," devoted his life to rationalizing faith. What could Rand have possibly seen in Aquinas?
There are a number of reasons why Rand had to regard this intensely religious thinker as one of the few philosophers to have a positive impact on history. The Objectivist philosophy of history needed to explain how the Middle Ages ended. What accounts for the progress of European Civilization beginning with the Renaissance? Since Objectivism believes that only philosophy can determine history, there had to be a philosophical cause. The problem is, all the philosophers of the Middle Ages were Christians. Luckily Rand never paid much attention to details: only broad abstractions interested her. So using the cover of vague abstractions, she was able to declare Aquinas a champion of Aristotle, because Aquinas is broadly linked to the Stagyrite. “The prelude to the Renaissance was the return of Aristotle via Thomas Aquinas,” she wrote. [FTNI, 21] Problem solved: henceforth no need for any true believing Objectivist to go into the matter in any more detail.
But it is precisely in the details that the Objectivist view can be seen for what it is: namely, as bad all the way through—bad as philosophy, as biography, as history. If we were to take Peikoff’s account seriously, we would have to believe that human beings are too stupid to figure out how to make any progress in this world until some philosopher comes along and tells them that they can use “reason” to gain knowledge of this world. This view leads to some immense absurdities, including, most infamously, Rand’s preposterous panegyric of Aristotle:
If we consider the fact that to this day everything that makes us civilized beings, every rational value that we possess—including the birth of science, the creation of the United States, even the structure of our language—is the result of Aristotle’s influence, of the degree to which, explicitly or implicitly, men accept his epistemological principles, we would have to say: never have so many owed so much to one man. [FTNI, 20]
One has to be appalling ignorant of history (and linguistics and science) to give any credence to these this baseless patter. If Aristotle is responsible for “everything that makes us civilized,” does this mean that everyone who lived before Aristotle was uncivilized? If so, that would pretty much place Periclean Athens beyond the civilized pale. It is strange that Aristotle’s philosophy should have preceded “everything that makes us civilized beings.” Of this notion Rand gives us not a shred of evidence. Yet this is no coincidence, because no shreds of evidence exist. Rand is simply making things up in order to justify her belief that philosophy determines the course of history.
Implicit in Rand’s contention about Aristotle’s influence is the idea that thinking is something that has to be invented. Before Aristotle, no rational values were possible because people did not know how to think rationally. They needed Aristotle’s logic for that. Logic, then, is critical to human thought. People aren’t really civilized without it.
There are no compelling reasons to believe that Rand is right on this point. Logic may be critical in mathematics and in specialized scientific work; but in everyday life, its uses are limited. Human beings can get along without it, using, instead (as they always have) trial and error experimentation mixed with loose analogical reasoning and other informal (and often logically invalid) inferences. Aristotle’s contribution to human civilization, though significant, is not anywhere as momentous as Rand makes it out to be.
Aristotle’s formulation of logic, though important, is somewhat vitiated by a critical error he (or his followers) made in relation to it. Aristotle decided that logic was the model of how people should think. As late as the 19th century, J. S. Mill could declare that nearly all of our knowledge of science and human conduct “is amenable to the authority of logic.” Since Mill’s view, more or less accepted by Rand, is not true, any attempt to put it in practice will inevitably have unintended results. When people consciously try to follow the classical reason of Aristotle and his followers, instead of reaching truth, they merely wind up coming up with reasons for what they wanted to believe all along. In other words, Aristotelian reason, in practical terms, is little more than rationalization.
With this in mind, we can understand why Aquinas, the great rationalizer of medieval Christianity, was drawn to Aristotelian reason. Rationalization is what "reason" is all about. If you want to give a pseudo-scientific varnish to your pet ideas, you dip into the toolbox of reason and you can rationalize to your heart's content. If, on the other hand, you want to learn facts about the real world, you have to adopt a much more critical approach involving an exhaustive examination of the relevant evidence, experimentation, and criticism through peer review. The scientific method is not the equivalent of Aristotle’s “reason”; it is, in many respects, a rejection of such vapid scholasticism.
If we consult the facts, rather than merely our “reason,” what, then, do we discover about the ending of the Middle Ages? Well, it certainly wasn’t ended by Aquinas: that much is clear. Outside of the fairly closed world of scholars, no one knew anything about Aquinas. Keep in mind: Aquinas lived before the age of the printing press, when books were scarce and few could read. The ending of the Middle Ages, far from having obscure intellectual causes, came about initially through the diminishment of feudal anarchy. The ninth and tenth centuries had been eras of extreme social disorganization—mostly brought about, not by the influence of Augustine or the Catholic Church, but by the terribly excursions of fierce barbarians from the north and east.
Europe [in the tenth century] ceased to be overrun by ruthless hordes [testified historian Henri Pirenne]. She recovered confidence in the future, and, with that confidence, courage and ambition. The date of the renewal of a cooperative activity on the part of the people might well be ascribed to the tenth century. At that date, likewise, social authorities began once more to acquit themselves in the role which it was their place to play… The prime need of that era, hardly rising above anarchy, was the need of peace, the most fundamental and most essential of all needs of society.
The first Truce of God was proclaimed in 989. Private wars, the greatest of the plagues that harassed those troubled times, were energetically combated by the territorial counts in France and by the prelates of the imperial Church in Germany….
[The eleventh century] is characterized, in contrast with the preceding one, by a recrudescence of activity so marked that it could pass for the vigorous and joyful awakening of a society long oppressed by a nightmare of anguish. In every demesne was to be seen the same burst of energy and, for that matter, optimism. The Church, revivified by the Clunisian reform, undertook to purify herself of the abuses which had crept into her discipline and to shake off the bondage in which the emperors held her.
It was the development of capitalistic, market-based institutions that, ultimately, ended the Middle Ages. In the eleventh century, the birth rate went up appreciably, providing Western Europe with plenty of cheap labor. With the greater social stability brought about by the pacification (via conversion to Christianity) of the barbarian invaders, enterprising men could now begin the slow process of developing a mercantile system. By the beginning of the twelfth century, the growing prosperity of merchant colonies enabled them to build ramparts of stone, flanked by towers, adding greater protection against attack. Cities capable of defense were critical to Europe’s growing merchant class, since the rights of trade must everywhere be defended with force. Medieval cities provided the seed bed for the birth and growth of modern capitalism.
The early developments of medieval trade and the resurgence of Western Europe occurred well before the birth of Thomas Aquinas in the thirteenth century. Indeed, Aquinas came along at the high tide of the Middle Age renaissance. Societal decadence, culminating in the black plague of the fourteenth century, when a third of Europe’s population perished within a few years time, coincided with the life of Aquinas. The Renaissance of the 15th century was merely the third in a series of upswings that Western Europe experienced after the fall of the western half of the Roman Empire (the others being the Carolingian Renaissance of the eighth century and Renaissance of the Middle Ages). The first two post-Empire renaissances had nothing to do with Thomas Aquinas, since they occurred before he was born. Nor was Aquinas the “bridge” to the final renaissance. Indeed, this last renaissance, which ushers in the modern world, involved elements that sharply conflicted with Aquinas, such as a renewed interest in Plato and the emergence non-Aristotelian empirical and mechanistic epistemological paradigms in the 16th and 17th centuries.
The Christian church played a much larger role in the development of Western Civilization than Aquinas or his scholastic philosophy ever did. Critical to the revival of the West was the conversion of the fierce Scandinavian and Slavic barbarians to Christianity. No civilization was possible until this happened. Also critical was the church’s role as a unifying force. Governments in the Middle Ages were weak. Internecine warfare was tearing society apart. What was needed was a unifying force to keep infighting to a minimum. The church, by making use of crusades against Islam, managed to direct the energies of the warlike barons that ruled Europe against foreign targets, instead of against each other (and against the emerging merchant cities).
Whatever role ideas played in the course of European history, their affect is always greatly influenced by the development of institutions that are not the product of human design. Capitalism is not caused by the application of philosophical, political, or economic ideas. The Middle Ages were not economically or politically sophisticated enough to understand the workings of a complex free market, or to develop them a theory that would allow them to create a capitalist system. Such an understanding would only begin to develop in the 18th century. As a matter of fact, the nascent capitalism of the Middle Ages had to develop in the teeth of several ideas that went against its fundamental grain, such as notions concerning rank and birth, the honor codes of the feudal barons, and deep-rooted prejudices against usury (prejudices, I might add, shared by Aquinas and his philosophical idol, Aristotle).
Sunday, May 18, 2008
Objectivism & Religion, Part 8
Did Christianity cause the Dark Ages? Peikoff, in his essay “Religion Versus America,” more or less claims that Christianity was responsible for the Dark Ages.
You have to be very ignorant not merely of human nature and sociology, but of history to buy into this explanation of the Dark Ages. Peikoff is basically asserting that the medieval Europe was little more than the practical application of Christian doctrine. The Christians, he claims, “proceeded to create a society that was anti-materialistic and anti-intellectual.” The Dark Ages, then, were an intentional creation: they were the product of the application of a system of ideas (that is, of Christian ideas) to society.
This view of the Dark Ages is hopelessly naive. The political and economic systems prevailing after the collapse of the Western half of the Roman Empire were not the consequences of anyone’s intention, as implied in Peikoff’s statement. They were brought about by causes that had nothing to do with Christian doctrine.
Rome had initially been a conquering peasant state. But after Hannibal decimated the Roman peasantry during the Second Punic War, slave labour became central to the economy of Rome and its expanding territories. But it was a particularly pernicious form of slavery that prevailed in the ancient world. Roman slaves live in collectivist barracks. They had no property, nor did they have families. Consequently, they failed to reproduce themselves. As sociologist Max Weber explained: “The ancient plantation consumed slaves the way a modern blast furnace consumes coal.”
When the Roman Empire ceased to expand in the second century, the supply of fresh slaves, so necessary to replenish the collectivized slave system of the plantations, ceased. This led to an acute shortage of slave labor and the eventual decline of the slave system. Now Rome did not have a terribly flexible or strong market economy. The decline of the slave system led to a corresponding economic decline. Interlocal commerce gradually disappeared; trade “relapsed to the level of peddling left to foreigners.” As a consequence of this, Rome could no longer raise taxes to pay for its mercenary armies. Barbarians from the north over-ran the Empire and assumed political supremacy of a completely demoralized civilization. The Muslims seized control of the Mediterranean, shutting off Western Europe from rest of the civilized world. Thus began the Dark Ages. But Christian doctrine had nothing to do with any of these developments. Rome’s collectivized slave system was the primary cause of the Empire’s fall. When the Empire ceased expanding and no more slaves were captured in war, the Empire went into decline. This decline greatly demoralized society. Intellectual life became vapid and inefficacious. The schools of Athens were hopelessly corrupt by the third century. Their teaching was confined mostly to rhetoric and neo-Platonism. Competition among various Athenian schools for students often lead to brawls and even murder.
Facing the huge challenges of waning economy and a demoralized populace, the Emperor Constantine decided to make Christianity the official religion of the Empire. He did so entirely for political reasons, as a desperate means to consolidate his power and save the Empire. He probably made the right choice. The Christian church was better organized, its members more disciplined, than any of the rival religions. Thes Christian church would help preserve some of the forms of the Roman Empire well into the Dark Ages, so that the re-civilization of Western Europe could begin as early as the Carolingian renaissance.
The Dark Ages were dark because of the complete absence of commercialized trade in Western Europe. Without commerce there can be no cities and without cities there can be no civilization. To again quote Max Weber: “It was only when the mediaeval city developed out of free division of labour and commercial exchange, when the transition to a natural economy made possible the development of burgher freedoms, and when the bonds imposed by outer and inner feudal authorities were cast off, that … the cultural heritage of Antiquity revived in the light of modern bourgeois civilization.”
What were the practical results of the medieval approach [i.e., of Christianity]? The Dark Ages were dark on principle. Augustine fought against secular philosophy, science, art; he regarded all of it as an abomination to be swept aside; he cursed science in particular as "the lust of the eyes." … [T]he medievals took religion seriously. They proceeded to create a society that was anti-materialistic and anti-intellectual.... The economic and social results of this kind of value code were inevitable; mass stagnation and abject poverty, ignorance and mass illiteracy, waves of insanity that swept whole towns, a life expectancy in the teens. "Woe unto ye who laugh now," the Sermon on the Mount had said. Well, they were pretty safe on this count. They had precious little to laugh about.
You have to be very ignorant not merely of human nature and sociology, but of history to buy into this explanation of the Dark Ages. Peikoff is basically asserting that the medieval Europe was little more than the practical application of Christian doctrine. The Christians, he claims, “proceeded to create a society that was anti-materialistic and anti-intellectual.” The Dark Ages, then, were an intentional creation: they were the product of the application of a system of ideas (that is, of Christian ideas) to society.
This view of the Dark Ages is hopelessly naive. The political and economic systems prevailing after the collapse of the Western half of the Roman Empire were not the consequences of anyone’s intention, as implied in Peikoff’s statement. They were brought about by causes that had nothing to do with Christian doctrine.
Rome had initially been a conquering peasant state. But after Hannibal decimated the Roman peasantry during the Second Punic War, slave labour became central to the economy of Rome and its expanding territories. But it was a particularly pernicious form of slavery that prevailed in the ancient world. Roman slaves live in collectivist barracks. They had no property, nor did they have families. Consequently, they failed to reproduce themselves. As sociologist Max Weber explained: “The ancient plantation consumed slaves the way a modern blast furnace consumes coal.”
When the Roman Empire ceased to expand in the second century, the supply of fresh slaves, so necessary to replenish the collectivized slave system of the plantations, ceased. This led to an acute shortage of slave labor and the eventual decline of the slave system. Now Rome did not have a terribly flexible or strong market economy. The decline of the slave system led to a corresponding economic decline. Interlocal commerce gradually disappeared; trade “relapsed to the level of peddling left to foreigners.” As a consequence of this, Rome could no longer raise taxes to pay for its mercenary armies. Barbarians from the north over-ran the Empire and assumed political supremacy of a completely demoralized civilization. The Muslims seized control of the Mediterranean, shutting off Western Europe from rest of the civilized world. Thus began the Dark Ages. But Christian doctrine had nothing to do with any of these developments. Rome’s collectivized slave system was the primary cause of the Empire’s fall. When the Empire ceased expanding and no more slaves were captured in war, the Empire went into decline. This decline greatly demoralized society. Intellectual life became vapid and inefficacious. The schools of Athens were hopelessly corrupt by the third century. Their teaching was confined mostly to rhetoric and neo-Platonism. Competition among various Athenian schools for students often lead to brawls and even murder.
Facing the huge challenges of waning economy and a demoralized populace, the Emperor Constantine decided to make Christianity the official religion of the Empire. He did so entirely for political reasons, as a desperate means to consolidate his power and save the Empire. He probably made the right choice. The Christian church was better organized, its members more disciplined, than any of the rival religions. Thes Christian church would help preserve some of the forms of the Roman Empire well into the Dark Ages, so that the re-civilization of Western Europe could begin as early as the Carolingian renaissance.
The Dark Ages were dark because of the complete absence of commercialized trade in Western Europe. Without commerce there can be no cities and without cities there can be no civilization. To again quote Max Weber: “It was only when the mediaeval city developed out of free division of labour and commercial exchange, when the transition to a natural economy made possible the development of burgher freedoms, and when the bonds imposed by outer and inner feudal authorities were cast off, that … the cultural heritage of Antiquity revived in the light of modern bourgeois civilization.”
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