The Unchanged Changer

Over on the aptly named McCabism blog, Gordon McCabe recently wrote about Christopher Hart’s review of Karen Armstrong’s new book, The Case for God: What Religion Really Means. Dr McCabe wrote:

Hart’s proposition that God is not a being, but Being itself, is the familiar doctrine of pantheism, which is inconsistent with the personal nature of God enshrined in Christianity, Judaism and Islam.

However, the proposition that God is Being itself is not the same as pantheism. In fact, pantheism and “God is Being” are mutually exclusive. To explain this — or, more accurately, to explain my understanding of this issue: the whole thing is too damn convoluted and confusing for me to claim to understand it completely — I thought I would attempt to produce my own exposition of the famous “Unmoved Mover” argument.

We start with two premises. The first is pretty uncontroversial so I’ll get it out of the way now: we observe change in the world. Things change.

The second premise is really an attempt to provide an explanation of change. This is rather typical of philosophers: whereas a normal person might quite happily accept that things change and leave it at that, a philosopher cannot help but ask why: why do things change? What is it that makes them change? Can we explain change?

Philosophy is basically an attempt to explain things. I think it revealing that some modern philosophers “solve” the traditionally difficult problems of philosophy not by producing an actual solution but instead by declaring that such and such does not really require an explanation. It smacks of intellectual dishonesty, or at the least a lack of imagination and curiosity unworthy of a philosopher, but that is a cantankerous complaint for another day.

What is change? It is the phenomenon whereby an entity ceases to be in one state and is henceforth in another state, at least until it changes again. There are two extreme views about change, which have come to be associated with two early Greek philosophers: Heraclitus and Parmenides.

Heraclitus held that change is all there is. He claimed that there are no entities, just flux. Even if we can make sense of this idea (which is not easy: one intuitively assumes a substrate when considering flux) it has an obvious problem. We observe entities all the time. If everything is just flux, then how do we explain the fact that we appear to be surrounded by identifiable entities?

Modern science does not help us. The entities of quantum physics may not be much like the everyday entities with which most people are familiar but they are nevertheless things, not pure flux. A quantum state is still a state, whether mixed or pure, so we cannot get away from the fact that there appear to be things that change. Indeed, I suspect the difficulty we have trying to make sense of the notion of pure flux is due to its incompatibility with our experience, both our everyday experience and the most bizarre experiences of esoteric science, in which change is not something that exists alone but is rather something that things do.

Parmenides overshoots in the other direction: he claims that there is no change. All the apparent change that we observe in the world is, according to him, an illusion. The usual interpretation of his argument goes something like this: everything that exists is a part of existence; anything that changes must be changed by something else; but the only thing other than existence is non-existence, i.e. nothing, which obviously can’t change anything because it doesn’t exist; therefore nothing changes.

Well, it’s something like that anyway. To be honest, I don’t really understand Parmenides (and there is considerable controversy among those who claim that they do) but that doesn’t matter for now: it’s not as if my description of the philosophy of Heraclitus was at all fair to the complexities of his thought. For the purposes of this argument, I just want to set up two extremes concerning change: everything is change and there is no change.

This allows me to portray Aristotle’s views on change as a welcome return to common sense, a reasonable middle ground between the two self-evidently absurd extremes. The problem is this: we need to explain how it is that things can change. We can’t just follow Heraclitus and say that change is all there is, because that doesn’t allow for the existence of the things that we see doing the changing. But we can’t follow Parmenides either because then we can’t explain the change that we see the things undergoing.

Aristotle solves this conundrum by proposing that things are both actually in some state and potentially in some other state (or states). Now we can describe change as the process by which a thing moves from its current actual state to one of its potential states. We now have a notion of potential existence. The matches in my matchbox are not actually alight at this moment but they have the potential to be alight, if, for example, I were to strike them.

Instead of one monolithic thing we call existence — which cannot change because the only thing that isn’t existence is non-existence, and something that doesn’t exist can’t change anything — we have many different entities that vary in their actual and potential existence. Because these entities have both actual and potential properties, and the potential can become the actual via the process of change, we can accommodate both the existence of things and the fact that they change. This answers both Heraclitus and Parmenides.

Now, nothing changes unless something causes it to change. A match lights when you strike it and not if you don’t. If a match appeared to spontaneously burst into flame we would look for an explanation — perhaps it was being heated by some other heat-source — and we wouldn’t be satisfied unless we could find some explanation for its ignition. Whenever anything changes we expect there to be something else that caused that change: that is why the change happened then and not at some other time.

But only something that actually exists can cause change. I cannot light my pipe with an unlit match regardless of the fact that the match has the potential to be lit. The match must be actually alight before it can cause change in other things as a result of its burning.

So we arrive at our second premise: change is the phenomenon whereby something that actually exists causes something else to actualise its potential.

It is important to note that this is an immediate effect. We are not talking about causes happening before an effect: that does not make sense in this context. Changes occur precisely when they are caused. The cause precedes the effect only in the sense that it is logically antecedent, not temporally antecedent. To go back to striking matches, it is precisely when the combustible chemicals on the head of the match reach their ignition temperature that they begin to burn. Here the friction caused by striking the match is the cause of the heat that ignites the match head and it all happens at the same time.

The stock example in philosophy textbooks is that of someone pushing a stone along the ground using a stick. The stone is moving because the stick is moving and the stick is moving because the person is moving, but obviously they are all moving at the same time. The movement of the person is logically antecedent to the movement of the stone but not temporally so.

Well, then. According to our first premise, things change. We observe change in the world. According to our second premise, the change that we observe involves the actualisation of potentialities by things that actually exist.

However, there is an obvious danger of infinite regress here. If A was changed by B which was changed by C which was changed by D which was changed by E… where does it end? How can it end?

Obviously the end of the chain cannot be something that can itself be changed. If it were, then it wouldn’t be the end of the chain. So the end of the chain cannot have the potential to be in any way other than the way that it is. So it has no potentiality. But it must, as we have seen, actually exist or it would not be able to cause change. So the end of the chain is purely actual.

You have probably guessed by now that the end of the chain is, as Aquinas would put it, what we call God (et hoc dicimus Deum). You can deduce lots of stuff about the Unchanged Changer, such as that there can only be one of them, but I don’t intend to attempt any of that now. I just want to point out the silliness of a couple of common refutations of this argument.

First, there is this one: “If everything has a cause then what caused God?” As should be evident from the above argument, it is not necessary to suppose that everything has a cause. We only suppose that change has a cause. God, as pure actuality, does not (indeed, by definition, cannot) change and therefore does not need a cause. That is the whole point of the argument.

Second, there is this: “If God caused everything, what came before God?” Again, it should be obvious from the above argument that temporal precedence has nothing to do with it. How or if or when the universe came into being is completely irrelevant. We are talking here only about logical antecedence. As Edward Feser wrote about Aquinas’ proofs:

His aim is to show that given that there are in fact some causes of various sorts, the nature of cause and effect entails that God is necessary as an uncaused cause of the universe even if we assume the universe has always existed and thus had no beginning. The argument is not that the world wouldn’t have got started if God hadn’t knocked down the first domino at some point in the distant past; it is that it wouldn’t exist here and now, or undergo change… here and now unless God were here and now…

I also rather like this metaphor:

The world is not an independent object in the sense of something that might carry on if God were to “go away”; it is more like the music produced by a musician, which exists only when he plays and vanishes the moment he stops.

[The Last Superstition, St Augustine's Press, 2008, pp. 86 & 88]

Embarrassingly, I realised as I was coming to the end of the argument that I’d done the wrong one. I did the one that ends with Pure Actuality and not the one that ends with Being Itself. It is similar but is based on existence rather than change: roughly, contingent existence takes the place of potentiality and necessary existence takes the place of actuality; thus rather than ending up with something that actually exists and has no potential, you end up with something that necessarily exists and is not contingent on the existence of anything else.

Anyway, the point was merely to demonstrate that when theologians say things like “God is Being” they are, or at least might be, referring to the conclusion of a rational argument rather than just spouting mytho-poetic metaphor. Certainly, in that particular instance they are not referring to the doctrine of pantheism. It is also not true to claim that such a statement is “inconsistent with the personal nature of God enshrined in Christianity”, as it is actually a rather old proof, one of many, from which various attributes of God including his personality are deduced at great length by Aquinas and other Scholastic philosophers.

Finally, is the argument sound? I think it is valid. I think if you wish to refute the argument your best bet would be to have a go at the second premise: Aristotle’s metaphysics of change.

My Friend’s Philosophy

Whenever I am uncertain about a philosophical issue, especially when I am on the verge of changing my mind about something that I deem important, I like to run my ideas past a certain friend of mine. This man is extremely sceptical and cynical, in the contemporary meanings of those words. We used to joke, or perhaps half-joke, that he worshipped Richard Dawkins. So when I am considering something decidedly non-scientific, especially something concerning religion or the like, I find it very helpful to discuss the matter with him. He always makes short work of any nonsense or inconsistencies in my arguments.

Some time ago, we argued about the nature of morality. He believes that his sense of right and wrong does not correspond to any objective, external measure of morality. He believes that no system of morality can be said to be correct or incorrect but rather that all moral systems are equally valid or invalid. Indeed, on his account objective validity is not a concept that can be coherently applied to morality.

This understanding of morality seems to accord with current scientific opinion. The origin of our moral sense appears to be explicable solely in terms of biological and cultural evolution. However, since no normative conclusions can be drawn from such a genealogy (as we have seen) we are left with moral nihilism. Morality is revealed to be a convenient fiction.

In the interests of honest disclosure, I must admit that my dissent from this view is motivated in part by my disgust at the above conclusion. I find moral nihilism utterly repellent. However, if that is the truth of the matter then so be it. I am unable to believe something that I know to be false. But it seems likely to me that there is an error in his argument: if morality exists then it is surely not a physical thing, which means that our inability to scientifically deduce a system of morality from physical truth is irrelevant, or at least inconclusive. My friend’s reply is that morality does not exist in any meaningful sense.

He divides reality into the objective and the subjective. That which is objective is the same for everyone, whereas that which is subjective may differ from person to person. He then declares that the objective exists but the subjective does not. He further declares that we may define the objective as that which can be independently observed by different people (or that which different people can logically deduce from independent observations). Thus the truths of physics are objective, whereas the truths of morality are subjective (and hence not really truths at all).

If we were to encounter an alien civilisation, composed of beings utterly different from our own, we could be sure that we would agree on the mathematics of the physical world. If any of our physical or mathematical theories were contradictory, we could resolve the contradiction through observation and logical analysis. In contrast, we should not expect our moral systems to be similar — indeed, we have many wildly divergent moral systems here on Earth — and there is no scientific procedure by which we could resolve our moral differences. It is in this respect that my friend distinguishes between the objective and subjective. The former can be determined by reference to an external, independent reality, while the latter is purely personal.

I am also happy to define the objective as that which is the same for everyone and the subjective as that which might differ for each person. However, I do not see why there could not be something objective that is nevertheless not amenable to scientific enquiry. My friend replies that he does not think it makes sense to talk about the existence of something that cannot be independently observed.

But surely that is begging the question. If you define existence as the potential to be independently observed, then of course that which cannot be independently observed does not exist. But why choose that definition of existence in the first place?

The one thing that I know exists is my personal, subjective experience. No coherent philosophy can deny that. Solipsists may deny that anything else exists but even they cannot deny that thought or personal experience exists. Everything else is a deduction, abstraction or extrapolation from that primary fact which is that I experience.

If we grant ontological validity to the distinction between the subjective and the objective, as my friend would like to do, then we are surely left with either some form of substance dualism or solipsistic idealism. The one thing we cannot coherently do is to define existence as a property that does not belong to the only thing that we cannot deny exists.

Given that both substance dualism and idealism have their own significant problems, I am led to believe that my friend’s distinction between the objective and the subjective is epistemological rather than ontological. This should not really be surprising, since he defined those two categories in terms of the means by which one acquires knowledge about them.

Thus we are forced to accept the existence of some things, or some properties of things, that cannot be identified through independent observation of physical reality, i.e. scientific experimentation. But how do we come to have knowledge of such things?

My friend would say that there is no valid means of acquiring knowledge besides the scientific method, simply because without recourse to independent observation of an external reality we have no means of differentiating between competing claims. I have one moral system, you have another, how can we possibly determine whose is right? This inability to “objectively” distinguish between competing claims is the reason he would deny reality to any such claims.

It is rather a stumbling block. It does not seem necessary, or indeed rational, to deny reality to something merely because it is not amenable to the methods of scientific enquiry. However, it is not unreasonable to declare that there’s no point talking about something if we can never be sure whether what we say is true or false.

But here my friend’s argument becomes circular once again. He has implied a theory of truth whereby “true” and “false” are to be determined by empirical observation and logical deduction therefrom alone. He has taken Sir Karl Popper’s maxim that potential falsifiability differentiates science from non-science and elevated it to a criterion that differentiates between the meaningful and the meaningless. But there is really no rational reason to do this, it is merely the indulgence of an aesthetic preference for “hard science and logic”.

Popper himself preferred Alfred Tarski’s semantic theory of truth. He believed that Tarski had rehabilitated Aristotle’s correspondence theory of truth. Indeed, as Malachi Haim Hacohen writes in Karl Popper – The Formative Years (Cambridge University Press, 2002, pp. 281-282), it is hard to see how one can make sense of falsifiability without some form of correspondence theory of truth.

In the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy’s entry on correspondence theories of truth, Marian David writes:

The metaphysical version presented by Thomas Aquinas is the best known: “Veritas est adaequatio rei et intellectus” (Truth is the equation of thing and intellect), which he restates as: “A judgment is said to be true when it conforms to the external reality”—he tends to use “conformitas” and “adaequatio”, but also uses “correspondentia”, giving the latter a more generic sense (De Veritate, Q.1, A.1-3; cf. Summa Theologiae, Q.16)…

Aquinas’ balanced formula “equation of thing and intellect” is intended to leave room for the idea that “true” can be applied not only to thoughts and judgments but also to things or persons (e.g., a true friend). Aquinas explains that a thought is said to be true because it conforms to reality, whereas a thing or person is said to be true because it conforms to a thought (a friend is true insofar as, and because, he conforms to our, or God’s, conception of what a friend ought to be). Medieval theologians regarded both, judgment-truth as well as thing/person-truth, as somehow flowing from, or grounded in, the deepest truth which, according to the Bible, is God: “I am the way and the truth and the life” (John 14, 6). Their attempts to integrate this Biblical passage with more ordinary thinking involving truth gave rise to deep metaphysico-theological reflection. The notion of thing/person-truth, which thus played a very important role in ancient and medieval thinking, is disregarded by modern and contemporary analytic philosophers but survives to some extent in existentialist and continental philosophy.

I am, in general, antipathetic to continental philosophy. However, as incomprehensible as I find most of his writing, I still retain a deep respect for Heidegger. It appears I am not the only one with analytical tendencies who nevertheless cannot help admiring him; in Atheism and Theism (Wiley-Blackwell, 2003, p. 32), J.J.C. Smart writes:

Despite the fact that I am repelled by Heidegger’s style of philosophical writing, there is nevertheless one respect in which I have a sneaking fellow feeling with him. This is his propensity to ask why there is anything at all.

Although I find his answers baffling, I share with Smart a respect for Heidegger’s propensity to ask important questions. Smart refers to the key question which underlies all of Heidegger’s philosophy but there are two subsidiary aspects of that enquiry that appeal to me strongly. One is his view of death, which I have mentioned before. The other is his view of truth.

Heidegger distinguishes between two different understandings of “truth”. The first, which Bernd Magnus has called the epistemological concept of truth, is the correspondence theory of truth that Heidegger associates with Western metaphysics from Plato onwards. The second, which Magnus has called the ontological concept of truth and which Heidegger claims is an earlier, pre-Socratic understanding, is the concept of alétheia. This is an Ancient Greek word that Heidegger interprets as “un-hiding”, “un-forgetting” or in more natural English: “disclosure”.

Heidegger contrasts the epistemological notion of truth as correspondence with his ontological notion of truth as disclosure. Another friend of mine, rather different in attitude from the friend mentioned above, once told me that the truths of fiction are “more true because they are fiction.” I think that’s a somewhat over-the-top way of making the point but I believe I understand what he is trying to say. In a similar manner to Heidegger, he has rejected the correspondence theory of truth, according to which we divide literature into fact and fiction, in favour of a notion of truth that can better be described as revealing or disclosing the intrinsic nature of the world. Rather than a relationship between propositions and facts about reality, alétheia is the disclosure of reality itself.

Of course, this veering off into continental philosophy would be rejected by those of an unsympathetic scientific bent. Indeed, Heidegger is a figure of hatred and ridicule for many analytical philosophers. This is only slightly unfair: he deserves much of the vituperation sent his way for his writing is so unbelievably obtuse. I get his point that the deep truths of reality elude logical expression, or even expression in everyday language, but is that really a justification for writing enormous tomes in his own convoluted language? Not only does he make up unnecessarily confusing terminology but he also perverts the usual rules of grammar to such an extent that it is pretty much impossible to be sure of what he was trying to say. I blame Heidegger, along with Hegel and Husserl, for encouraging the pretentious nonsense that calls itself postmodern philosophy today. But it may be noteworthy that Heidegger himself had no truck with existentialism and regarded Sartre as having completely misunderstood his work.

Nevertheless, despite his faults of expression, I find much to be admired in Heidegger’s critique of modern Western philosophy. Perhaps Heidegger’s work functions better as a guidebook than a textbook — most of my understanding of Heidegger comes from the commentary of others rather than primary texts, which I have tried but failed to comprehend — but that is no reason to dismiss it out of hand.

In summary, I consider some of the truths about the world — which are not necessarily “higher” or “deeper” than scientific truths, whatever that might mean, but merely of a different order — to be fundamentally unanswerable by empirical observation. I do not think it is reasonable or rational to define either reality or meaningfulness in terms of that which is amenable to the scientific method. Thus any attempt to use such definitions to argue for the non-existence or meaninglessness of morality is doomed to failure before it even begins.

I do not know how seriously I should take Heidegger’s view of truth, although I do find it aesthetically appealing, but I mentioned it here mostly to demonstrate that a correspondence theory of truth is not the only way to save truth from relativism. One advantage of Heidegger’s alétheia, as I see it, is that it provides a possible foundation for truths, especially moral truths, without the need to somehow deduce them from physical fact. It appeals to me especially as a description of the sense in which myths are true: that myths are neither allegory nor history but rather tales that disclose truth makes perfect sense to me.

Finally, just to annoy the Heidegger-haters out there, I quote with admiration a description of Heidegger’s take on Germany in the 1930s:

Heidegger believed in German culture, tradition and a third way between communism and capitalism. He said: “Everything essential and great has only emerged when human beings had a home and were rooted in a tradition.” He was a critic of modern science and what he thought was humanity’s subjugation to technology. He wrote with a sense of impending crisis or catastrophe and spoke of a “darkening of the world” and an “enfeeblement of the spirit.” He referred to Germany caught between the world of Anglo-American democracy to the west and Soviet communism to the east. Germany, he believed, was thereby under pressure and “most endangered.”

Global Warming

There are certain issues which should be matters of objective science but due to their consequences soon become entangled in politics and ideology. Dennett, in Darwin’s Dangerous Idea¹, compares Copernicus’ discovery that the Sun is the centre of the solar system with Darwin’s discovery of natural selection. He notes that by the time Galileo got in trouble with the Inquisition in the early 17^th Century, the heliocentric theory of Copernicus had already been published and discussed by scientists for over fifty years. As such, despite the efforts of the Church, the heliocentric theory of the heavens had already been tested and accepted by the majority of Europe’s scientists with no ideology to hamper or distort the process. In contrast, the deep and powerful consequences of the theory of natural selection were noted right away; and so even today, one hundred and fifty years after Darwin published On the Origin of Species, it is still thoroughly entangled with politics, religion and ideology. This is a pity, for truth should inform ideology, not the other way around.

Global Warming is another such issue. The measurement of global temperatures, the measurement of carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere, the modelling and prediction of climates: all these things are in principle objective scientific endeavours. If there were no political or ideological reasons for doing otherwise, they would be undertaken by various different scientists at various different institutions, who would then share the results of their research in peer-reviewed journals, which would gradually lead to a consensus.

Unfortunately, the prospect of massive climate change has opened a door to politicians and ideologues. If the Earth is in danger, they say, then something must be done. Naturally, whatever it is that must be done, must be done by the government. Only governments can possibly cope with a disaster of this magnitude. Leaving aside, for the moment, the possibility that in fact the government is the last institution one would want to interfere in anything of any real importance, we clearly already have a strong motivation for politicians to wish that Global Warming were real.

If Global Warming is real, then governments must be strong enough to deal with the threat. We need an active, powerful state to thwart this global menace. This appeals not only to politicians, who are usually more than happy to support any notion that grants them greater power and fame, but also to those who dislike capitalism. Global Warming, in economic parlance, is a market externality. A free market, so the theory goes, cannot adequately cope with Global Warming: for the good of the whole planet, we must restrain capitalism.

Thus politicians, pseudo-environmentalists and socialists all have something to gain from promoting the view that Global Warming is a real and imminent threat. Understandably, those that would prefer to keep the state out of the market, not to mention other aspects of our lives, do not like this. They see Global Warming being used as an excuse to expand the state, to take away their economic freedom and impose an authoritarian socialism.

Now Global Warming, which should be a matter for objective scientific investigation, has become an ideological matter. If you are an anti-capitalist and in favour of a powerful state, you support the theory that mankind’s industrial activity is endangering the planet. If you are a capitalist and in favour of a minimal state, you deny that theory and denounce those who claim Global Warming is real as “scare-mongers”.

Being something of a libertarian myself, at least where economics and the modern state is concerned, I have for some time hovered around the outskirts of the latter camp. I still have no doubt that many people who are most vocal about the danger that Global Warming poses are so because the consequences of such a position suit their ideological preferences rather than because they have any understanding of the scientific issues. However, I have been forced to concede that actually the weight of scientific evidence really does support the thesis that Global Warming is real and that it is to a significant degree caused by the emission of greenhouse gases by human industry. Its consequences may not be as dramatic as some millenarians would like but, I must admit, it does seem to be real.

Of course, we still must decide what to do about it. There is an argument to be made that the best way to prepare humanity for disaster is to ensure that as many people as possible live in a wealthy, secure and technologically advanced society. Such people can afford to adapt to changing circumstances and have the ability to do so. For example, much of the Netherlands is already below the sea-level. Thanks to their wealth and technological abilities, they are able to keep the sea at bay. In contrast, a relatively small rise in sea-level would be diastrous for Bangladesh. Perhaps they too could achieve the security of the Netherlands with a bit more free trade and capitalism.

[1] Daniel Dennett. Darwin’s Dangerous Idea. Simon and Schuster Paperbacks, New York, 1995. (p. 19)

New Philosophy

When you look around Britain or America today, around the whole world, and see the man-made disasters, the reckless drivers, drugged and drunken gangs of teenage thugs, rioting sports fans, the thefts and muggings and stabbings and shootings, the bitter divorces, the cruelty to or killing of small children, the rape and murder of young women, the lying and corruption of politicians, the bullying and stupidity of bureaucrats, the economic collapses, the worthless paper currencies, the suicide bombers, the incessant wars, the government-made famines – all the horrors and misery which the news media report so relentlessly, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.  When you see all this, surely it takes no great effort of imagination to realise that what human beings urgently, desperately need is a new set of ideas about how to live, both for themselves individually and with one another in society.  In other words, they need a new philosophy….

— Nicholas Dykes, Old Nick’s Guide to Happiness, Lathé Biosas Publishing, July 2008 (excerpts online)

Do we desperately need another new set of ideas? I cannot help wondering if we would not be better off returning to an older set.

Insufficient Data

On the 31^st of May this year, George Tiller was shot dead. He was the medical director of an abortion clinic, one of only three clinics in the USA that publicised their willingness to provide so-called “late-term” abortions, and he was murdered by an anti-abortion activist.

Those who approve of abortion have hailed Dr Tiller as a martyr to their cause. Those who disapprove of abortion have been placed in the difficult position of condemning Dr Tiller’s murder while also condemning his actions. They seem to be saying something like, “Killing Dr Tiller was wrong but he deserved it.”

Dr Tiller provided late-term abortions, which means that he aborted foetuses after the 21^st week of pregnancy. The “limit of viability”, the gestational age at which an infant has at least a 50% chance of survival, is approximately 24 weeks given modern neonatal intensive care. However, such a premature baby would be very likely to develop neurological disorders. Neonatal clinicians are unlikely to provide intensive care for infants born as early as 23 weeks but would almost certainly provide such care for infants born at 26 weeks or later. Dr Tiller was well known for providing very late-term abortions: in a speech to the National Abortion Federation in 1995, Dr Tiller said, “We have some experience with late terminations: about 10,000 patients between 24 and 36 weeks and something like 800 fetal anomalies between 26 and 36 weeks in the past 5 years.” It was his willingness to perform such late abortions that made him such a target for hate, over and above other abortion providers.

Some who disapprove of abortion equate it with murder. However, this equivalence is not as obvious as they suggest. Before we can equate abortion with murder, we must show that abortion involves the killing of a person. Those that approve of abortion claim that it does not involve such a killing, instead they say that it is the prevention of the creation or development of a person, which is not the same thing at all. The difficulty comes from the impossibility of logically distinguishing between the two options.

For example, imagine that you have a female friend who is dating a man that you strongly dislike. You don’t think that this relationship is good for her, so you persuade her to dump him. If you hadn’t done that, perhaps she would have gone on to have children with that man. Your actions may have prevented the birth of a child. The morality of your meddling in your friend’s relationship is arguable itself, but I do not think any reasonable person would accuse you of murder.

Let us go further. Imagine you are a surgeon in the service of a state that enforces a programme of eugenics (such as, say, Virginia in the 1920s or Sweden in the 1930s). A woman is diagnosed as mentally deficient and brought to you for sterilisation. You perform the procedure. Most people today would have some strong qualms about the morality of enforced eugenics. However, no reasonable person would equate sterilisation with murder.

Let us go further still. How about the use of condoms? The Roman Catholic church has condemned condoms ever since their invention, which was a cause of great anguish to the Roman Catholic that invented them. However, even those who ardently oppose the use of condoms usually (although not always) stop short of calling such use murder.

Then there is emergency contraception, also known as the “morning after pill”. Emergency contraception prevents ovulation or fertilisation. Some people equate this with abortion. This is a mistake, no embryo is terminated, but clearly we are on less stable ground than we were a couple of paragraphs ago.

Beyond contraception, we reach abortion. But the continuum does not stop here. Within abortion there are many grades, as the embryo develops into a foetus, and the foetus continues to develop into a human child. Exactly how one divides up the stages of pregnancy is to some extent arbitrary. However, most people appear to distinguish between very early abortion, when the baby is still only an embryo, and very late abortion, when it is a foetus indistinguishable from a baby living outside the womb.

As we progress along the chain of causation, getting closer and closer to the point at which a human is born, fewer and fewer people are willing to countenance deliberately breaking that chain.

We can move along the chain in the other direction as well. If someone were to deliberately kill a healthy baby the day after it is born, we would not hesitate to call that murder. What if it were the day of the birth itself? What if the baby were still partially in the birth canal when it was killed? That would still clearly be murder. What if it were killed the day before it was born? Or a week before? Or a month?

I think I am safe in saying that nearly everyone draws the line somewhere in between murder after the baby has been born and the use of condoms. But in between those two extremes there is a great variation in the exact point at which different people choose to draw the line.

Nobody would call meddling in a relationship murder but many people call abortion murder. Some people think all abortion is murder, some only late-term abortion. Some think condom use is murder, some think even late-term abortion is acceptable. We have a chain of causation and different people consider it acceptable to break that chain at different points.

Personally, I am quite comfortable as far as contraception, including the morning after pill. The benefits of contraception are so great, especially when we consider the role condoms play in the prevention of disease, and the probability that we are doing harm to a potential person is so small, that it seems clear to me that contraception is a moral good.

As soon as we get as far as abortion, I begin to get uncomfortable. I think I can tolerate early abortion but not for any very good reason. I suspect it is just that an embryo does not look much like a person, so its abortion does not seem much like murder. On the other hand, late term abortion, especially when the foetus is past the limit of viability and hence indistinguishable from children in neonatal care, seems just like murder. I really can’t see a difference between very late abortion and murder.

I have no logical reason for accepting earlier abortion. The line must be drawn somewhere and I suppose it is easy, given a very young foetus’ or embryo’s dissimilarity to a person, to accept the majority opinion of the culture in which I live. But in the back of my mind is a niggling doubt, a feeling that really I know it is wrong but I don’t want to admit it.

However, I do not have a problem with abortion in some circumstances. For example, if the health of the mother is seriously at risk then I would not condemn her or her doctor for choosing to abort the foetus rather than risk her own death. Surely if the foetus has a right to life then the mother must have one also? I would praise a parent for risking their life for their child but if their death seemed almost certain, and perhaps the child seemed likely to die or suffer anyway, then I would not condemn them for saving themselves.

There is also the issue of rape. This is a more difficult case, since obviously no blame for the crime can be placed on the foetus, but again we must balance the rights of the mother with those of the child. In such an unhappy situation it would be cruel and heartless to condemn a rape victim who opted for abortion.

The health of the foetus must also be taken into account. In some cases it is discovered that the child has a serious developmental defect. Some people would claim that it is better for the child to be born, perhaps to have corrective surgery after birth, and to live the best life he can than to have no chance at all. I am not sure: I think this sort of thing is better decided upon on a case by case basis. It seems unlikely to me, given the variation possible in the severity of defect and the fact that this situation is likely to also entail some risk to the mother, that one can reasonably decide this issue in advance for all cases.

Finally, there are so-called “lifestyle” abortions. Here there is no medical reason for abortion. The mother simply does not wish to have a child. Presumably in most cases she did not intend to get pregnant in the first place. I have an awful lot of difficulty coming to terms with this. I find it very hard to distinguish between a lifestyle abortion and murder for convenience. As mentioned above, I find it easier to accept early abortions. A very young embryo is not much like a person, hence its abortion seems less like murder. But the late-term abortion of a healthy foetus that poses no unusual threat to the mother, especially an abortion so late that the child has passed the limit of viability, is for me indistinguishable from murder.

So, to return to Dr Tiller, was he a noble martyr or a mass murderer? I have read a few discussions of Dr Tiller’s career and his death. Those that supported Tiller point out that the law of Kansas, the state in which Dr Tiller lived and operated his clinic, prohibits abortion after the limit of viability unless two doctors independently certify that continuing the pregnancy would cause the mother “substantial and irreversible impairment of a major bodily function”. They therefore claim that all of Dr Tiller’s most controversial abortions, those carried out late into the second trimester of pregnancy or later, would fall under the first category described above, in which the risk to the mother justifies abortion of her child.

Those who condemned Dr Tiller claim that he performed late-term abortions when the mother was not at risk. He was accused by various “pro-Life” groups of deliberately underestimating the gestational age of foetuses in order to circumvent Kansas law. I don’t have much faith in the state but it seems odd to me that Tiller was not prosecuted for such crimes if the evidence against him really was that conclusive. The activists suggest that he was protected by a conspiracy amongst the police and government, which seems rather far-fetched.

Nevertheless, even if Dr Tiller did not break the law, he certainly performed elective abortions. An elective abortion, as opposed to a therapeutic abortion, is an abortion for any reason other than the protection of the health of the mother. It is not clear to me whether those elective abortions that Dr Tiller provided were motivated by defects in the foetuses or were simply lifestyle abortions. His own promotional material strongly suggests that he performed abortions for reasons of convenience but without knowing the case history of each of his patients we cannot be sure.

George Tiller’s murder has given me cause to think carefully about the morality of abortion. However, without further information, I am in no position to pass judgment on the doctor himself.

The Machines

Well the first War of the Machines seems to be drawing to its final inconclusive chapter – leaving, alas, everyone the poorer, many bereaved or maimed and millions dead, and only one thing triumphant: the Machines. As the servants of the Machines are becoming a privileged class, the Machines are going to be enormously more powerful. What’s their next move?

— J. R. R. Tolkien to his son Christopher, 30^th January 1945; The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien (George Allen & Unwin, 1981)

Heinlein’s Morality

As one drives through the bushveldt of East Africa it is easy to spot herds of baboons grazing on the ground. But not by looking at the ground. Instead you look up and spot the lookout, an adult male posted on a limb of a tree where he has a clear view all around him — which is why you can spot him; he has to be where he can see a leopard in time to give the alarm. On the ground a leopard can catch a baboon. . . but if a baboon is warned in time to reach the trees, he can out-climb a leopard.

The lookout is a young male assigned to that duty and there he will stay, until the bull of the herd sends up another male to relieve him.

Keep your eye on that baboon; we’ll be back to him.

….

Take any breed of animal — for example, Tyrannosaurus rex. What is the most basic thing about him? The answer is that Tyrannosaurus rex is dead, gone, extinct.

Which brings us to the second fundamental question: Will Homo sapiens stay alive? Will he survive?

We can answer part of that at once: individually H. sapiens will not survive. It is unlikely that anyone here tonight will be alive eighty years from now; it approaches mathematical certainty that we will all be dead a hundred years from now as even the youngest plebe here would be 118 years old by then – if still alive.

Some men do live that long but the percentage is so microscopic as not to matter. Recent advances in biology suggest that human life may be extended to a century and a quarter, even a century and a half — but this will create more problems than it solves. When a man reaches my age or thereabouts, the last great service he can perform is to die and get out of the way of younger people.

Very well, as individuals we all die. This brings us to the second half of the question: does Homo sapiens as a breed have to die? The answer is: no, it is not unavoidable.

We have two situations, mutually exclusive: mankind surviving, and mankind extinct. With respect to morality, the second situation is a null class. An extinct breed has no behavior, moral or otherwise.

Since survival is the sine qua non, I now define “moral behavior” as “behavior that tends toward survival.” I won’t argue with philosophers or theologians who choose to use the word “moral” to mean something else, but I do not think anyone can define “behavior that tends toward extinction” as being “moral” without stretching the word “moral” all out of shape.

We are now ready to observe the hierarchy of moral behavior from its lowest level to its highest.

The simplest form of moral behavior occurs when a man or other animal fights for his own survival. Do not belittle such behavior as being merely selfish. Of course it is selfish. . . but selfishness is the bedrock on which all moral behavior starts and it can be immoral only when it conflicts with a higher moral imperative. An animal so poor in spirit that he won’t even fight on his own behalf is already an evolutionary dead end; the best he can do for his breed is to crawl off and die, and not pass on his defective genes.

The next higher level is to work, fight, and sometimes die for your own immediate family. This is the level at which six pounds of mother cat can be so fierce that she’ll drive off a police dog. It is the level at which a father takes a moonlighting job to keep his kids in college — and the level at which a mother or father dives into a flood to save a drowning child. . . and it is still moral behavior even when it fails.

The next higher level is to work, fight, and sometimes die for a group larger than the unit family — an extended family, a herd, a tribe — and take another look at that baboon on watch; he’s at that moral level. I don’t think baboon language is complex enough to permit them to discuss such abstract notions as “morality” or “duty” or “loyalty” – but it is evident that baboons do operate morally and do exhibit the traits of duty and loyalty; we see them in action. Call it “instinct” if you like — but remember that assigning a name to a phenomenon does not explain it.

But that baboon behavior can be explained in evolutionary terms. Evolution is a process that never stops. Baboons who fail to exhibit moral behavior do not survive; they wind up as meat for leopards. Every baboon generation has to pass this examination in moral behavior; those who bilge it don’t have progeny. Perhaps the old bull of the tribe gives lessons. . . but the leopard decides who graduates — and there is no appeal from his decision. We don’t have to understand the details to observe the outcome: baboons behave morally — for baboons.

The next level in moral behavior higher than that exhibited by the baboon is that in which duty and loyalty are shown toward a group of your kind too large for an individual to know all of them. We have a name for that. It is called “patriotism.”

Behaving on a still higher moral level were the astronauts who went to the Moon, for their actions tend toward the survival of the entire race of mankind. The door they opened leads to hope that H. sapiens will survive indefinitely long, even longer than this solid planet on which we stand tonight. As a direct result of what they did, it is now possible that the human race will never die.

Many short-sighted fools think that going to the Moon was just a stunt. But the astronauts knew the meaning of what they were doing, as is shown by Neil Armstrong’s first words in stepping down onto the soil of Luna: “One small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind.”

– Robert A. Heinlein, The Pragmatics of Patriotism, a speech given to a class of graduating midshipmen at the US Naval Academy on the 5th of April 1973, this excerpt being taken from its published form in Expanded Universe (Ace Books, 1983)

Heinlein’s morality is thus based on the premise that without survival, there is no morality. If we do not exist, we cannot be moral. This seems fair enough but, of course, if we do not exist, we cannot be immoral either.

Heinlein himself says, “With respect to morality, [an extinct humanity] is a null class”. That is to say, the situation in which humanity no longer exists is neither moral nor immoral. Morality does not make any sense, it has no meaning, if there are no moral agents to make moral or immoral decisions.

However, it does not follow from this that survival is the object of morality.

Suppose you are a hunter and you have been hired by a farmer to shoot foxes on his land. The purpose of your employment is to shoot foxes. Among the many things that you require to shoot foxes is your rifle. If you do not possess a rifle, you will be unable to shoot any foxes. It does not follow from this that your purpose is the possession of a rifle. Your purpose is to shoot foxes. Possession of a rifle is merely a necessary condition for the fulfillment of your purpose.

Just because something is necessary for something else does not imply that the former is the purpose of the latter. Just because survival is necessary for morality does not imply that survival is the purpose of morality.

Heinlein’s deduction that morality is behaviour that tends towards survival is invalid. It would be like deducing that hunting is behaviour that tends towards possession of a rifle.

However, there is another argument here, which Heinlein has conflated with the first. This is the claim that moral behaviour is a product of evolution. He gives the example of moral behaviour among baboons, which he claims is the result of moral baboons being better able to evade leopards, while immoral baboons tend to be eaten before they can pass on their genetic tendency to immorality.

This is an entirely different argument. This is not an attempt to logically deduce morality from physical fact, but rather this is an explanation of the origins of morality. This is a genealogy of morality.

Let us leave aside the accuracy of this genealogy. Let us assume that Heinlein is correct and that a tendency to act morally is an inherited trait. In this case, the purpose of morality certainly is survival, at least long enough to reproduce. If morality is the result of evolutionary pressures, then it must be because morality increases the chances of reproduction.

Incidentally, note that it is not necessary for a moral individual to reproduce himself, it is only necessary that his morality increases the chances of anyone sharing his moral genes to reproduce. Altruism is perfectly consistent with this theory. Furthermore, we can apply the concept of natural selection to cultural units as well as biological units, so human morality may have as much or more to do with memetics as it does with genetics.

This may all be true, but it does not allow us to deduce a code of morality. We have not so much deduced morality as explained it. Now we know where morality comes from, we know why some animals exhibit moral behaviour, but we cannot make any normative deductions from this.

I think Heinlein was aware of this problem. In regard to the moral behaviour of baboons, he said, “Call it ‘instinct’ if you like — but remember that assigning a name to a phenomenon does not explain it.” But if we go on to describe what instinct is, how it arose and how it functions, then it might reasonably be said that we have explained it.

As self-conscious human beings, we are not ruled by instinct alone. Having explained away morality as instinctive behaviour, we are left with no particular reason to follow any particular moral code. That is not the same as being immoral, at least not intentionally, and most people continue to be governed by some form of morality, either genetic or social, but they do so with no real justification.

Lacking a firm ground for one’s moral beliefs may or may not be a bad thing. I find it somewhat unsettling but it would not surprise me to discover that it does not bother most people. Beyond the individual, the basis of one’s morality must have implications for one’s society. Again, my intuition is that a lack of firm ground has deleterious effects. However, this is really only a gut feeling, perhaps just a projection of my own unease.

At the very least, for anyone with more than a superficial interest in ethics, the inability to justify any system of ethics is somewhat unsatisfying. I think Heinlein recognised this, which is why he attempted to bolster his conception of morality by deducing it logically. Sadly, his deduction is invalid.

From Heinlein’s Starship Troopers:

Morals — all correct moral laws — derive from the instinct to survive. Moral behavior is survival behavior above the individual level.

Correct morality can only be derived from what man is — not from what do-gooders and well-meaning aunt Nellies would like him to be.

The basis of all morality is duty.

Consequences

“When you have eliminated all which is impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.” So said Sherlock Holmes. It is a fine maxim, particularly for a detective endowed with almost supernatural powers of investigation, but it does assume the validity of the method of elimination. If we employ a method which eliminates all possibilities but one, leaving us a single conclusion that is so outlandish and improbable that it beggars belief, we might question our method before we accept the conclusion.

Thus we may use the consequences of a philosophical argument as a heuristic guide to the argument’s validity. It must be emphasised that such an approach is only a guide; it is an optimisation of the algorithm we use to assess all those philosophies which we encounter. There are so many different philosophical arguments that we do not have the time, or the inclination, to carefully analyse them all. Instead, we use a simple heuristic to choose those worthy of closer investigation and discard those unlikely to be of merit.

I have not taken the time to carefully investigate the philosophy of Jim Jones, as the actions of Jones and his followers are enough to put me off. That is to say, the consequences of his philosophy are such that I can, with a reasonable degree of confidence, dismiss the philosophy itself without actually taking the time to analyse it.

This sort of quick test – a glance at the consequences in lieu of analysis of the substance – is fairly common. It is a sensible and practical way to dismiss the outlandish and thus focus on the reasonable. It is not foolproof – many things that are obvious today were once thought to be ridiculous – but it is pretty good. The outlandish may turn out to be correct but it is not unreasonable to demand more compelling evidence in favour of a very strange claim than one might demand in favour of a commonplace claim.

The success of this method as a heuristic optimisation might suggest its use elsewhere. Perhaps, if the consequences of an argument are in some sense unacceptable, we might reject that argument not because we do not have the time or inclination to investigate but rather despite our investigations. We may be unable to clearly express a logical refutation of the argument and yet nevertheless refute it on the grounds that its conclusion is absurd.

Here we are on dangerous ground. It is necessary to be very cautious when condemning a consequence as unacceptable or absurd. Unacceptable according to whom? Why? Is it as absurd as the idea of a spherical Earth seemed thirty centuries ago?

However, there is still some heuristic value in the approach, as long as we remember that it is but a guide and cannot be conclusive itself. Consider solipsism. Within its own logical framework, it is very hard to disprove solipsism. It is internally consistent and, rather trivially, accords with all experience. However, it is plainly nonsense.

Solipsism is an excellent example of a philosophical position arrived at by following a logical train of thought from plausible assumptions which is nevertheless implausible itself. When confronted by a solipsist we may be unable to logically refute his philosophy but we may still reject it.

Wikipedia puts it thus:

A subjective argument for the implausibility of solipsism is that it goes against the commonly observed tendency for sane adult humans in the western world to interpret the world as external and existing independent of themselves. This attitude, not always held by children, is listed by developmental psychologists as one of the signs of the maturing mind. The principle is deeply held, and well integrated with human languages and other thought processes. However, that humans think this way, even if they must think this way, does not prove something true.

We cannot prove it is false but it is so completely opposed to our most basic modes of thought that even if it were true we must continue as if it were not.

I feel much the same way about nihilism.

Hume is credited as the first philosopher to point out the fallacy of deriving ought from is:

In every system of morality, which I have hitherto met with, I have always remark’d, that the author proceeds for some time in the ordinary ways of reasoning, and establishes the being of a God, or makes observations concerning human affairs; when all of a sudden I am surpriz’d to find, that instead of the usual copulations of propositions, is, and is not, I meet with no proposition that is not connected with an ought, or an ought not. This change is imperceptible; but is however, of the last consequence. For as this ought, or ought not, expresses some new relation or affirmation, ’tis necessary that it shou’d be observ’d and explain’d; and at the same time that a reason should be given; for what seems altogether inconceivable, how this new relation can be a deduction from others, which are entirely different from it.

Hume was one of the first philosophers, if not the first philosopher, to develop an entirely naturalistic philosophical system. Naturalistic philosophers hold that all truths are truths of nature: that is to say, nature, the material, physical world is all that there is and thus all true statements are or can be derived from physical facts. Hume rejected the philosophies of his more religiously inclined predecessors, who dealt with metaphysics and invoked the supernatural, in favour of empiricism and naturalism.

As far as I can see, this leaves us with only three possibilities:

1. Moral propositions cannot be objectively true. At best they can only be true in some subjective, relativistic sense, which is to say that all moralities are equally true, which is the same as saying that none are true, which is to say that there is no morality. This is nihilism.
2. Hume was wrong to claim that moral propositions, those concerning ought, cannot be deduced from physical propositions, those concerning is. In fact we can use a naturalistic methodology, perhaps the scientific method, to deduce morality.
3. Hume’s naturalism is wrong. Nature is not all that there is and not all truths are natural truths. Thus ought cannot be derived from statements of physical truth but it can be derived from another truth, for all that is is not physical.

The first option I reject for the same reason that I reject solipsism. I do not do so with the same vehemence that I reject solipsism for I recognise that I am on shakier ground here. However, on balance I believe I am correct to reject any proposition that entails nihilism.

The second option is tricky. A number of people have attempted to deduce morality from physical truth but I have yet to be convinced. Of all the attempts that I have encountered, I am most impressed by that of Robert A. Heinlein. I intend to investigate Heinlein’s morality, as expressed in his speech to graduating midshipmen at the US Naval Academy, published as The Pragmatics of Patriotism, in a later article on this blog. His argument appeals to me greatly but I suspect that it is logically flawed. We shall see.

Which leaves us with the third option. I have been pondering this one for a long time and still don’t know what to say about it. The problem with refuting metaphysical naturalism is that I cannot deny the success of methodological naturalism. The former does not logically follow from the latter, no matter how much some naturalist philosophers might want it to, but unless we augment our naturalistic method with some other method then it might as well do so. If we have no means of determining the truth of a non-physical proposition then it does us little good to claim that some truths are non-physical.

So we may disagree with the naturalist’s assertion that all truths are physical but unless we propose a methodology by which non-physical truths may be discovered then our disagreement is of little consequence. Traditionally, metaphysicians have relied on logic without experimental verification. I believe the argument goes something like this:

All rational philosophies, naturalism included, rely on certain fundamental assumptions. These assumptions, which we might think of as the axioms of a logical system, are not themselves amenable to experimental verification for the obvious reason that the validity of experiment as a means of verification is itself dependant on these axioms. To attempt to prove an axiom by means of itself is trivially invalid: it is circular reasoning.

I am reminded here of the failure of logical positivism. The logical positivists hoped to do away with metaphysics (and all other branches of philosophy that they deemed unscientific) by means of their Verification Principle. This principle held that a proposition is meaningless unless it can be empirically tested; that is, unless it can be verified by experiment. Unfortunately for the hopeful positivists, the principle is, according to itself, completely meaningless: there is no empirical test that might verify such a principle. In their desire to purge philosophy of metaphysics, the positivists ended up promoting a metaphysical principle.

Thus every rational philosophy, even those philosophies that would rather limit themselves to the empirical and naturalistic world of science, must necessarily accept some set of axioms without which logic and rational enquiry are impossible. It is therefore not the case that any rational philosophical system can truthfully claim to be entirely free of metaphysics.

We may therefore argue logically from these axioms themselves, perhaps but not necessarily with the aid of experimental observation, to reach metaphysical conclusions. Such conclusions would not be amenable to experimental verification or falsification (except insofar as they depend in part, as they may, on empirical observation) but we would nevertheless be able to decide between competing metaphysical claims by the method of logical analysis.

It may be noted that physics and metaphysics, on this account, are not so opposed as positivists may assume. The theories of physics, as we have seen, depend on metaphysical axioms no less than any other rational theories. (For example, the validity of deductive inference is assumed, as well as, perhaps, inductive inference.) We may reasonably say that the natural sciences assume a minimal set of axioms and from there on proceed on the basis of empirical verification or falsification, which places them at the extreme of a spectrum whose other extreme consists of solely logical argument with no reference to empirical observation whatsoever.

The above may help to demonstrate the fallacy of deriving metaphysical naturalism from merely methodological naturalism. However, we still face the challenge of deducing metaphysical truths, especially those concerning morality, either from that minimal set of axioms necessary to the natural sciences or from a larger superset consisting of that minimal set along with other axioms that we can reasonably justify.

This is not a simple task but it strikes me as more likely to succeed than the second option given above: the derivation of morality from physical truth alone. The first step, which I shall not attempt today, is surely the enumeration of axioms from which we may later proceed.

Morals

I don’t buy this relativism idea. I think there is a morality that is in some meaningful sense objectively true. However, I do not claim to already know what the perfect morality is. This is surely comparable to the good scientist, who believes that there is an objective world to investigate but does not claim to already know everything about it. Understanding is fuelled by doubt, not certainty.

Thus I accept that other people have different systems of morality from my own and I do not a priori assume that theirs is wrong where mine is correct. I can be convinced that my morality is flawed and someone else’s is superior. I admit that it does not happen often, for I am a stubborn git, but it can happen and it has happened in the past. I do not accept that all systems of morality are equivalent. That is the same as saying that there is no morality at all, which is as witless as solipsism.

I think it is important that people, in their personal lives and in their roles as part of a larger society, remember the importance of doubt. As soon as we are absolutely certain of something, so certain that nothing could change our minds, then we might as well just give up there and then.

Arrogance

It seems very arrogant to think that today we are right but for thousands of years other people got it wrong. Our ancestors were just as clever as us. So I sometimes find the scientific worldview, with its hyper-positivism, hard to swallow. It is only a few hundred years old, after all. Surely it is the epitome of modernism’s vainglorious conceit to suggest that our worldview is correct where that of all our ancestors for millennia past was wrong. And yet, science works.

I have a similar problem with politics and the correct ordering of society. I am inclined to be conservative, at least politically, but my attempts to elucidate and defend conservatism in some comments on McCabism soon left me in a bit of a muddle.

With the above in mind, I was really looking forward to reading A Comprehensible Universe. It is a book about the origins of science and rationality, from the Ancient Greeks to today. It is about the relationship between philosophy, religion and science; the central mystery being the mathematical nature of the world. The authors are Catholic priests who work for the Vatican Observatory. They thus combine a passion and talent for science with a sensitivity to religion and non-scientific worldviews. I hoped to find something here that would help me either to clearly comprehend the flaws in the positivist attitude or to understand how we got it right after thousands of years of clever people getting it wrong.

What I actually found was a very well written book that provides a fascinating overview of the development of modern thought, from the first Ionians who sought to use reason rather than myth to understand the world, through the fusion of Hellenistic philosophy with Semitic religion in early Christianity, to the birth of the scientific method in the 16th and 17th centuries. The authors do not dismiss the efforts of past philosophers, rather they demonstrate a developmental continuum from the earliest Greek rationalists to the most recent scientists. Seen in this way, with clear explanations of each stage and discussions of the merits and defects of different philosophies, the idea that recent modes of thought might be improvements on earlier modes of thought seems obvious rather than arrogant.