Hitchens and ethics

[Sair]

What I’d like to know is what ethical theory do the modern pop atheists espouse? I’m only a few days into this question and all I’m into so far is vagueness. I asked an atheist friend who wants to debate me (when I’m ready, I told him) and he directed me to a series of lectures on the Darwinian, biological genesis of ethics as an evolutionary response. I tried to explain to him that this was a different answer to a different question: He was answering “where did ethics come from historically” as opposed to “what is the source of ethical truth”. No dice, he didn’t understand the distinction.

Hmm…

There are some phenomenally well-reasoned posts on this thread so far, but I may have an answer slightly different from those given by the other atheists who’ve weighed in to this debate.

I think the problem of understanding the distinction between the historical origins of ethics and what you term the “source” of ethical truth is that what you appear to be asking for is a source of human ethics that exists independently of humanity and human consciousness. I - and I suspect most other atheists - don’t believe such a source exists. Thus you are seeking an answer which the very people you are asking cannot give.

If you want a short answer, I would say that the ‘source’ of human ethics, as such, was our biological propensity to live in social groups, and the need for certain shared understandings in order for said groups to function. Necessity, as they say, is the mother of invention.

 

[anEvilAtheist]

…What I’d like to know is what ethical theory do the modern pop atheists espouse? I’m only a few days into this question and all I’m into so far is vagueness. I asked an atheist friend who wants to debate me (when I’m ready, I told him) and he directed me to a series of lectures on the Darwinian, biological genesis of ethics as an evolutionary response. I tried to explain to him that this was a different answer to a different question: He was answering “where did ethics come from historically” as opposed to “what is the source of ethical truth”. No dice, he didn’t understand the distinction.

I’d like to find something like a succinct explanation of the source of ethical truth, according to someone from the Dawkins/Hitchens crowd. I’m going to be very disappointed if it’s a Darwinian explanation of the historical causes of ethics as a phenomenon. Hopefully it’s something solid enough to really dig into. Please educate me if you don’t mind. Thanks in advance.

I also find ethics very interesting, but I wouldn’t look to Hitchens for good arguments in favor of the existence of morality. I just got done watching the movie Collision, which covers the debates between him and Pastor Douglas Wilson. When asked what the basis of goodness is, Hitchens said that it was “human solidarity, the brotherhood of man,” and also talked about how we had an intuitive sense that certain things were right, while other things were wrong. Hitchens said that “We’ve never yet found a human society where murder and theft and perjury are admired.” Pastor Wilson responded by saying that that isn’t true: there are societies where it is seen as okay to murder someone based on their skin color. I also have some other problems with relying on moral intuition as a basis for morality. I won’t reiterate them here, but if you’re interested, here’s a post I did that talks a bit about it.

I actually wrote a review of the movie, and here’s the section of my review relating to Hitchen’s view of morality:

Pastor Wilson repeatedly criticizes Hitchens for critiquing Christianity by appealing to a shared moral sense without giving a firm grounding to his view of morality. While I think Pastor Wilson overreaches with some of his comments, I think his criticism is valid. Hitchens appeals to a shared moral intuition, but Pastor Wilson points out that sometimes our intuitions conflict. If we see it as good to conquer other tribes or countries, does that make it moral? Did the fact that people once thought slavery was a moral institution mean that it once was? Is there any reason to think that evolution would shape our moral sense to reflect any reality other than what would lead to the survival of our genes?

Hitchens responds by saying that humans have an innate sense of right and wrong and it seems silly to think that the Jews got all the way to Mt. Sinai thinking that murder and theft were fine until God told them otherwise. Like many atheists, Hitchens dodges the question. The issue is not how it is possible to believe in morality without God, for, as some religions demonstrate, it’s possibly to believe weird things without a good reason. The issue is whether there is a rational basis for believing that a given action is moral or immoral.

Hitchens also seems to be pretty unethical. On the one hand, he thinks faith is bad and the idea that faith is a good thing needs to be repudiated “because the most faith based people in the United States on September the 11th 2001 were undoubtedly the people who high jacked those planes.” But at the same time, he says that if he could eliminate religion, he wouldn’t do it. He says some of it is because he enjoys arguing with religious people, but he also says that “I don’t quite know why I wouldn’t do it.” Given how evil Hitchens thinks religion and faith is (based on his book and debates) this seems extremely selfish and unethical.

I think that a lot of atheist views of morality are deeply flawed. One view that intrigues me is desirism. It’s a fairly new ethical theory, but it seems to be gaining some popularity. I’m not sure it’s right, but it makes a lot of sense and I haven’t been able to find a flaw in it. If you want a good explanation of desirism, I recommend checking out this article: alonzofyfe.com/article_du.shtml. You also might want to check out that guy’s blog: atheistethicist.blogspot.com/. A couple weeks ago he wrote a few posts explaining some of the problems with evolutionary ethics. He’s also written posts on problems with other atheistic ethical theories. So it’s probably a useful site for both atheists trying to put forth a theory of morality, and theists trying to tear down common atheistic ethical theories.

 

[AntiTheist]

Given how evil Hitchens thinks religion and faith is (based on his book and debates) this seems extremely selfish and unethical.

I don’t think so. You can oppose an idea and still be in favor of people being free to believe in the idea. Hitchens obviously values truth, but he values freedom even more – including the freedom to believe false ideas.

I think that a lot of atheist views of morality are deeply flawed.

I agree, which is why I’ve already explained on this thread that “morality” simply doesn’t exist. There are only values, which dictate one’s actions and one’s judgment of actions. That’s it.

Getting rid of the idea of morality not only explains why people act the way that they do (because of their values), it obviates the need to explain what the “source” of morality is (there is no source because there is no morality).

 

[anEvilAtheist]

I don’t think so. You can oppose an idea and still be in favor of people being free to believe in the idea. Hitchens obviously values truth, but he values freedom even more – including the freedom to believe false ideas.

Yeah, I thought of that, but it didn’t seem to me like that was his reason. I went back and watched the part of the video where he says that and he uses the word “convince.” If he could convince every single person in the world that religion is false, he wouldn’t do it. He would intentionally avoid convincing at least one person. I find this hard to reconcile with some of the things he has said about faith and religion.

Hitchens also said that after he told Dawkins how he felt, “the incredulity with which he looked at me stays with me still.”

I agree, which is why I’ve already explained on this thread that “morality” simply doesn’t exist. There are only values, which dictate one’s actions and one’s judgment of actions. That’s it.

Getting rid of the idea of morality not only explains why people act the way that they do (because of their values), it obviates the need to explain what the “source” of morality is (there is no source because there is no morality).

I disagree, but I have more respect for your position than I do for people who just chose something arbitrarily like happiness, or in Hitchens’ case, “the brotherhood of man”, and say that that is what morality is grounded in. Maybe my view of morality is wrong too, but at least it seems to avoid the usual problems.

By the way, am I correct that you’re an error theorist? If so, I think you might find Stephen Finlay’s article The Error in Error Theory interesting. While I have a different view of morality than he does, he raises some interesting arguments against error theory.

 

[AntiTheist]

I disagree

And would you mind explaining your reasons for disagreement?

By the way, am I correct that you’re an error theorist?

I find labels and categories more confusing to the issue than they are clarifying of it. In short, I don’t think that moral statements have any truth value whatsoever or describe anything beyond the values of the person making the statement. I’m not entirely sure whether that makes me a moral skeptic, an error theorist, a non-cognitivist, or…whatever.

Thanks for the article, but I doubt I’ll have the free time to read it and seriously think about it, at least for another week or so.

Could you summarize what you think is the strongest argument against my position?

 

[anEvilAtheist]

And would you mind explaining your reasons for disagreement?

Sure. The main reason I disagree is that desirism seems correct. But if it were shown to be false, I find Stephen Finlay’s arguments interesting and ethical subjectivism may be a lot more reasonable than I originally thought. In the end, I don’t know for sure what the truth is, but I think many people are too hasty in jumping to the conclusion that morality does not exist.

I recognize that different people define morality in different ways, and not all definitions are compatible. But people do that same thing with God, and I don’t think that alone shows that God does not exist. While people use the term ‘morality’ in different ways, I think there are some things that most people consider part of morality. First of all, I think morality has to be based in things of real value. Of course just because something has value, doesn’t mean there is morality attached. I might value a new bike, but you can’t go immediately from that to any moral statements about me getting a new bike. When I say that it would be good if I had a new bike, I am not making a moral statement, merely saying that a new bike would fulfill my desires. I think that when people talk about morality, they do not mean individual value, but universal value. I mean something different when I say spinach is bad then I do when I say genocide is bad.

I contend, as does Alonzo Fyfe, that all value lies in the fulfilling or thwarting of desires. Our desires do not have “inherent value”, as I think such a thing doesn’t exist, but the state in which our desires are fulfilled has value to us. And all intentional actions are based on our desires. If someone rapes someone else, he did so because that was what he desired to do. If someone gives his life’s savings to charity, he did so because that is what he desired. If someone follows Catholic morality to the letter, he likely did so because he desired to go to heaven, desired to please God, and/or simply desired to do good. When someone does something, it’s because they desired to do so.

So instead of taking actions as the unit of analysis when it comes to morality, I think it makes more sense to say that someone has good desires or bad desires and then taking good actions as those that someone with good desires would do. Morality also deals with praise and condemnation. Praise is used to encourage good behavior and condemnation is used to discourage bad behavior. But unless someone is simply uninformed, you’re not going to change their behavior unless you give them additional desires, or cause them to change their old desires. So things like praise, condemnation, reward and punishment are the way that we can encourage desires that tend to fulfill other desires, and discourage desires that tend to thwart other desires. A desire that tends to fulfill a lot of desires is a good desire.

But you also have to consider that in order to say that someone ought to do something, it has to be something that can be done. So morality deals with malleable desires. If desires were perfectly malleable, then we would never have to worry about our desires being thwarted. But they’re not. I have a strong desire not to be killed. If people were all indifferent to being killed, then murder wouldn’t be such a problem. But murder thwarts quite a lot of very strong and nonmalleable desires, those of the victim and those of his family. The desire to murder tends to thwart desires, so we use tools like condemnation and punishment to make the desire less prevalent.

That’s a brief summary of my current thoughts on morality. Of course I could be wrong, and it could be that people use the world morality in such hopelessly incoherent ways that the term itself is basically meaningless. But that’s an empirical question. As long as I’m clear about what I believe, the exact definition of the word morality bears no more practical significance than the definition of the word ‘planet.’ Pluto itself didn’t change when they ruled that it was no longer a planet. Even if you wanted to call it shmorality, rather than morality, it would still be the case that we act on our desires, and tools like praise and condemnation are the means by which we can shape other people’s desires in order to lead to a greater fulfillment of everyone’s desires. But I prefer the term ‘morality,’ and I think it is accurate. If you’re interested in desirism, I recommend this article: alonzofyfe.com/article_du.shtml.

I find labels and categories more confusing to the issue than they are clarifying of it. In short, I don’t think that moral statements have any truth value whatsoever or describe anything beyond the values of the person making the statement. I’m not entirely sure whether that makes me a moral skeptic, an error theorist, a non-cognitivist, or…whatever.

Thanks for the article, but I doubt I’ll have the free time to read it and seriously think about it, at least for another week or so.

Could you summarize what you think is the strongest argument against my position?

I just did.

I currently think your position is wrong because I think there is a theory of moral realism that is correct: desirism. Finlay raises fascinating points as well, but this post is long enough already, so I’m just sticking to the theory that I endorse.

 

[AntiTheist]

Thank you for a genuinely interesting post.

I agree with you insofar as I think that people act in accordance with their desires. I would push it back a step further and say that people act in accordance with their values, and values inform desires. “Value” is simply the process of subjectively assigning importance to something, and our values come from a lot of sources – some from our rational conclusions about the world, some from the pressures of society, some from our internalization of the rules of society, some from our biological impulses (empathy, for example), and probably from other sources we don’t know yet.

So someone might value social justice; someone might value not getting murdered (I imagine that the vast majority of people value this); someone might value having sex as often as possible with as many partners as possible; someone might value finding one partner to indulge in sexual pleasure with; someone might value “settling down” and raising a family; someone might value the life of a wanderer; etc.

Our values determine our desires and our actions. They also determine how we judge other people’s actions.

For me, that’s as far as it goes. I can’t see a logical way to move from values to a statement of, “Here’s something that’s objectively good that everyone should do” or vice versa.

You yourself jump to “good desires” and “bad desires,” but you provide no criteria for these terms, except for this: “A desire that tends to fulfill a lot of desires is a good desire.”

There are two problems: 1) There’s no reason that we should necessarily do things that tend to fulfill other desires and 2) Even if there were such a reason, there’s no guarantee that something that fulfills a lot of desires will be something that we consider “good” (i.e. that will accord with our values)

I would say that your desire to perform actions that fulfill a lot of desires is a function of your values, and not the function of some universal morality that everyone should obey.

I mean something different when I say spinach is bad then I do when I say genocide is bad.

So let me just address the elephant in the room: when I say spinach is bad or that genocide is bad, I am expressing my own personal value judgments. The only difference is that a lot more people share the second value judgment with me.

 

[anEvilAtheist]

Thank you for a genuinely interesting post.

I agree with you insofar as I think that people act in accordance with their desires. I would push it back a step further and say that people act in accordance with their values, and values inform desires. “Value” is simply the process of subjectively assigning importance to something, and our values come from a lot of sources – some from our rational conclusions about the world, some from the pressures of society, some from our internalization of the rules of society, some from our biological impulses (empathy, for example), and probably from other sources we don’t know yet.

So someone might value social justice; someone might value not getting murdered (I imagine that the vast majority of people value this); someone might value having sex as often as possible with as many partners as possible; someone might value finding one partner to indulge in sexual pleasure with; someone might value “settling down” and raising a family; someone might value the life of a wanderer; etc.

Our values determine our desires and our actions. They also determine how we judge other people’s actions.

I think it’s slightly more accurate to say that we have a biological desire to have sex then to say that biology caused us to assign importance to sex. I think the reason we value something is because we want it. The BDI model of intentional action, whereby the combination of our beliefs and desires lead to intentional action, seems to have gained some level of acceptance and I don’t see any significant problems with it (though I don’t claim to have made a thorough review of the relevant literature). But in any case, I don’t think your proposal undermines desirism. I think that value and desire are so closely tied that the tools I suggested would inevitably have an effect on both.

For me, that’s as far as it goes. I can’t see a logical way to move from values to a statement of, “Here’s something that’s objectively good that everyone should do” or vice versa.

You yourself jump to “good desires” and “bad desires,” but you provide no criteria for these terms, except for this: “A desire that tends to fulfill a lot of desires is a good desire.”

Yes, I think that good desires are those that tend to fulfill other desires, while bad desires are those that tend to thwart other desires. I tried to explain why I think that, but feel free to ask me more questions. It’s not easy to explain the grounding for a moral theory in a short forum post.

There are two problems: 1) There’s no reason that we should necessarily do things that tend to fulfill other desires and 2) Even if there were such a reason, there’s no guarantee that something that fulfills a lot of desires will be something that we consider “good” (i.e. that will accord with our values)

Correct me if I’m interpreting you wrong, but you seem to think that morality must involve some sort of force that compels people to act morally irrespective of their desires. If so, you’d be in good company as that is what a lot of moral philosophers have believed. But I don’t think this is true. For example, I think many Christians, if they thought hard about it, would realize that this is not the case under Christian morality even if God does exist. People do what Christian morality says is good to avoid hell, out of love of God, or because they have a desire to do good and make the world a better place. If someone did not care about going to heaven over hell, did not care about pleasing God, and did not care about doing good, there is nothing about morality that would compel him to do good. Belief that Christian morality is true does not force you to do good unless you want to do good. But I don’t think that realizing this should cause Christians to say that morality must not exist after all. I think that when most people really think about it, they would realize that this is not a necessary component of morality after all.

Yet even if most people did see it as a necessary part of their conceptions of morality, does that mean we should say that morality does not exist? Could we instead just update our definition to reflect our new knowledge? The Greeks defined atoms as the indivisible parts of matter. We later realized that they weren’t indivisible after all. Should we have said that therefore atoms don’t exist, or should we have said that those things that we call atoms do exist, they just do not have one of the properties that we originally ascribed to them?

So let me just address the elephant in the room: when I say spinach is bad or that genocide is bad, I am expressing my own personal value judgments. The only difference is that a lot more people share the second value judgment with me.

I understand that you see morality as mere personal preference. But I think that when most people say that genocide is bad, they mean something more. I think there is some external grounding for morality as I’ve been trying to show.

By the way, I read a fun paper by Don Loeb that might be right up your ally. He takes the arguments that a lot of philosophers use to argue for moral realism and uses them to argue for gastronomic realism (the belief that there are facts of gastronomic value independent of our beliefs). One of the main things he exposes is the absurdity of saying that those who don’t believe in morality have to show that it doesn’t exist. People asserting moral realism bear the same burden of proof that people asserting the existence of God do. Also, if you like allusions to food, Loeb’s paper is peppered with them.

 

[AntiTheist]

I think it’s slightly more accurate to say that we have a biological desire to have sex then to say that biology caused us to assign importance to sex.

As you note, value and desire are so tied together that the distinction might not be so important.

Correct me if I’m interpreting you wrong, but you seem to think that morality must involve some sort of force that compels people to act morally irrespective of their desires.

Not necessarily. I think that the word “morality” – if it is to mean anything – must mean rules of behavior that you expect others to follow, rules that everyone “should” follow, rules that you believe have (as you put it) “external grounding” – i.e. that are something more than personal preferences, that are objective facts of “good behavior” that can be determined in some way.

In other words, I use the word “morality” to mean rules of behavior that can be more or less in accord with some “objective” standard of behavior that is “out there” (that has “external grounding”). It is in this sense that I say that morality does not exist.

If all you mean by “morality” are the rules of behavior that each individual follows, then you’re not really talking about morality at all, but a personal code of behavior.

The problem is that behind every “should” – behind every moral statement – there needs to be a standard. We “should” do such and such because the standard is maximization of happiness for the greatest number people. Or we “should” do such and such because the standard is the universal categorical imperative dictated by reason. Or we “should” do such and such because the standard is following desires that lead to the most number of desires fulfilled. Or we “should” do such and such because the standard is enlightened self-interest. Or we “should” do such and such because the standard is to ever increase cooperation between people.

Each of those standards would lead to different ideas of what is “moral,” and I’m saying that there are no “external grounds” for choosing one standard over another.

One might, for instance, argue that committing genocide is moral if it maximizes the happiness of the rest of the population. I think many of the Nazis might have made that argument (genocide was for the “greater good” of the country) – or if that makes you a little uneasy, we could imagine situations in which there are limited resources and/or overpopulation, where “happiness” in this case might actually mean survival. Or we could argue that genocide is always immoral because it violates our universal categorical imperative.

I could argue that giving a beggar money is moral because it will fulill his desires and fulfill my desire to feel like I’ve done something noble. Or I could argue that it’s immoral because it violates the standard that every person must work for his or her keep if he or she is healthy.

In other words, I’m claiming that there’s no reason to choose one standard of “good” behavior over another because they are each equally invented by our values/desires.

Could you explain where your standard (fulfilling the most desires) comes from and what “external grounding” it has that makes it a better standard than any of the others that we could propose?

 

[anEvilAtheist]

I wanted to give your post a little thought and then got sidetracked with other stuff. I apologize for my delayed response.

As you note, value and desire are so tied together that the distinction might not be so important.

Not necessarily. I think that the word “morality” – if it is to mean anything – must mean rules of behavior that you expect others to follow, rules that everyone “should” follow, rules that you believe have (as you put it) “external grounding” – i.e. that are something more than personal preferences, that are objective facts of “good behavior” that can be determined in some way.

In other words, I use the word “morality” to mean rules of behavior that can be more or less in accord with some “objective” standard of behavior that is “out there” (that has “external grounding”). It is in this sense that I say that morality does not exist.

I agree with you that this is what most people mean when they are talking about morality, but I think desirism satisfies this. While people define subjective and objective in different ways, I think the most meaningful distinction is between subjective morality in which it’s moral for me to kill if I like murder and objective morality in which even if I (and everyone else on earth) thought killing was moral, it would still be immoral. It’s true that if humans were instead a totally different species with different needs and desires, we would not have the same moral obligations. But I still think morality is objective in a very important and meaningful sense.

I think the most difficult part is deciphering exactly what humans mean when they use the word ‘should’. Someone might say that it’s what you ‘ought’ to do, or what you have a ‘moral obligation’ to do and then define ‘moral obligation’ as what you ‘should’ do or what you ‘ought’ to do and keep going in a circle. It’s certainly true that if you see morality as some strange concept that can’t even really be defined in relation to the real world, then of course we will never have a good reason to believe in morality. If I define a rurbypk as being just like zownjis, then we’re clearly never going to have evidence that rurbypk exists. But I think that in the way most people (including religious believers) use the term moral, they mean making the world a better place, actually doing something that objectively has positive value in the real world. This is the sense in which I believe morality exists.

If all you mean by “morality” are the rules of behavior that each individual follows, then you’re not really talking about morality at all, but a personal code of behavior.

I agree.

 

[anEvilAtheist]

The problem is that behind every “should” – behind every moral statement – there needs to be a standard. We “should” do such and such because the standard is maximization of happiness for the greatest number people. Or we “should” do such and such because the standard is the universal categorical imperative dictated by reason. Or we “should” do such and such because the standard is following desires that lead to the most number of desires fulfilled. Or we “should” do such and such because the standard is enlightened self-interest. Or we “should” do such and such because the standard is to ever increase cooperation between people.

Each of those standards would lead to different ideas of what is “moral,” and I’m saying that there are no “external grounds” for choosing one standard over another.

I think there are some grounds. An adequate moral theory should take into account everything that has moral value, and not falsely attribute value to anything else. There are a number of factors that distinguish between things we see as values and things we see as moral values. For example, I value ice cream, but that does not make ice cream itself moral (as it’s not a conscious moral agent). Also, for someone to have a moral obligation to do something, it has to be possible. If there was an asteroid that was about to hit the earth, a lot of people would value me using my mind to move it off course, but since I am not able to do this, I would not have any moral obligation. My problem with the other moral theories I’ve encountered is that they usually just pick something desirable and try to ground morality in that. But if you don’t identify everything of moral value, then you can’t even say that something is probably moral or immoral. If there’s something besides the objects of our desires that has value, let me know. But as of now, I think that desire utilitarianism takes into account everything of moral value.

One might, for instance, argue that committing genocide is moral if it maximizes the happiness of the rest of the population. I think many of the Nazis might have made that argument (genocide was for the “greater good” of the country) – or if that makes you a little uneasy, we could imagine situations in which there are limited resources and/or overpopulation, where “happiness” in this case might actually mean survival. Or we could argue that genocide is always immoral because it violates our universal categorical imperative.

And if happiness encompassed everything of value, then why would so few people be willing to have their brains hooked up to a machine for the rest of their lives in which they experienced nothing, but had a state of happiness chemically triggered. If happiness was the ultimate and only good, then we would all have a moral obligation to hook everyone up to a machine like that.

I could argue that giving a beggar money is moral because it will fulill his desires and fulfill my desire to feel like I’ve done something noble. Or I could argue that it’s immoral because it violates the standard that every person must work for his or her keep if he or she is healthy.

In other words, I’m claiming that there’s no reason to choose one standard of “good” behavior over another because they are each equally invented by our values/desires.

I wouldn’t say they’re invented by our values/desires. The concepts themselves were invented through our reasoning capacities (even if the reasoning used to support them is poor). It’s possible to reason to many arbitrary beliefs about morality, just as it is with cosmology. The cosmological theories of the ancients may have all been flawed, but that doesn’t mean there’s no truth of cosmology. Similarly, I think that it’s possible to reason to moral truths.

Could you explain where your standard (fulfilling the most desires) comes from and what “external grounding” it has that makes it a better standard than any of the others that we could propose?

The theory I support is grounded in things that have actual value, the objects of our desires. It’s not that something is moral for me because I like it and immoral for you because you don’t like it. Morality is grounded in facts about the world that are external to my personal opinions. I think it’s the best standard I’ve come across because all of the other standards seem to either arbitrarily assign value to things, or do not take into account everything that has moral value.