Darwinism, education, materialism's fatal flaw

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I have a brother-in-law who worked for us (my wife, his sister) for 5 years. We provided him a nice place to work, a good product, he came and went pretty much as he pleased, and was payed well. I finally had to fire him (I probably should have done it much earlier, like his first week), and he proceeded to go to work for a local competitor of ours with the specific intent of taking accounts away from our company. Now the dilemma comes up; we are having Christmas dinner with his family. If Darwinian, naturalistic logic is taken to it's ultimate conclusion, there is nothing wrong with what my brother-in-law did to us. I should accept it as his interpretation of reality

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There is no time for a long discussion on the nature of morality here, but let me say that you are dead wrong. "Darwinian naturalistic logic" doesn't say that there is nothing wrong in what your brother-in-law did. Indeed to the extent that Darwinism addresses morality (not a great amount - look up "naturalistic fallacy") it would suggest that he was wrong.

I think we need to be more clear about it.1) Humans are a social species. We have evolved capabilities that help us get along and work together. We have also evolved abilities that let us detect when others are taking advantage and not putting in their fair share of the effort in cooperative ventures - and motivates us to take sanctions against such individuals. This is the fundamental basis of our mnoral instincts. (Work in the area of mathematics known as "Game Theory" is relevant here - the so-called "Prisoner's Dilemma" being a well-known example).2) On top of that, because of our intelligence and ability to learn we have developed all sorts of additional rules - some necessary to the working of society and some not. The common rules are generally the necessary ones - for instance all societies have rules restricting the killing of other members of that society even though the exact rules. have varied.Applying the evolutionary ideas contained under 1) to your brother-in-law, the description you gave runs foul of two points. Firstly he should do his fair share - that's why we have the instincts to detect and punish "cheaters". Secondly he should consider his sister's interests above those of strangers ("kin selection" - since his sister shares half his genes, it is an evolutionary advantage to assist his sister over strangers who will have fewer genes in common).And that's it until the New Year.

You have to remember we are not talking strictly about moral values (a vexed philosophical question with no entirely satisfactory answer).
But on the other hand it is not purely relative either. The points I have raised could only go against an extreme form of absolutism which takes no account of circumstances. But it clearly is not the case that a society that encouraged its members to kill each other without restriction would work at all.In your first scenario you are dealing with capitalistic rather than naturalistic logic. You do need to recognise that our society and economics are not what is usually thought of as natural. A Marxist would be equally committed to naturalism yet have very different ideas on what would be right.
Even from the perspective of capitalism you need to understand the effects of what you are doing within the company. The "my way or the highway" approach works only so long as the pool of replacement workers is sufficient to allow replacement of those who leave, and while it is difficult for workers to find an alternative job. And you may find that loyal staff work better and are more prepared to give beyond the requirements of their duties.
So your "naturalistic logic" is in fact a capitalisitc response to a particular economic situation.And I'm not sure that Mother Theresa *was* better than Bill Gates. I can't say that I've heard that Bill Gates denied anyone painkillers because the suffering was "good" for them.As for your second scenario unless you are happy to be in that 25%, for your parents to be in that 25% and for anyone and everyone you care for to be in the 25% who are killed you've got no business telling anyone else that their loved ones should die for your benefit. Cooperation requires mutual agreement and if you are only happy with the terms so long as you are not hurt then you've got no grounds to expect anyone else to feel any different.

I went to this post because it supposedly contains your argument that there is a fatal flaw in naturalism.

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So then you agree, that if naturalism is true, then there is no ultimate truth. Truth is an evolving landscape just as morality is, subject to revision. You may now see where I have been heading all along. If truth is a shifting landscape and there are no ultimate truths, you cannot make the statement "Naturalism is true." This would be stating an ultimate truth that doesn't exist. You can't state that "The cause and effect relationships of the physical world is all we can study and have knowledge of," because once again you would be stating an ultimate truth which according to naturalism cannot exist.

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THis is badly confused.Firstly it mixes up ontology and epistemology. The existence of "ultimate truths" falls under ontology and naturalism does not deny the existence of such truths.We may well observe that we cannot get to "ultimate truths" with any certainty - but that is an epistemological issue - and it is a conclusion that does not depend on the assumption of naturalism. So you can't call that a "fatal flaw of naturalism". If anything it is a fatal flaw in belief systems which DO make the claim to know ultimate truths - since there is no way to show that such a claim is valid.From this it follows that although we can never say that "naturalism has been proven to be true" it is simply because there are so many untestable supernatural claims out there that we can never eliminate them with any certainty. But we can say that "naturalism is true" in the sense that we provisionally accept it as an accurate depiction of our universe.So you have not demonstrated any "fatal flaw" in naturalism. What you describe as a "fatal flaw" is no more than an honest assessment of our epistemological limits.

No, naturalism in no way debases epistemology.Naturalism doesn't create problems for epistemology (in fact it rules out any potential problem that requires supernatural intervention - such as Descartes "deceiving demon").Thesitic claims about truth have one central problem - how do you know THEM to be true ? If you can't adequately answer that your supposed advantage in epistemology vanishes like the illusion it really is.As for yor comment on "ultimate truths" I have already shown it to be irrelevant. Naturalism does not deny the existence of "Ultimate truths" - indeed it represents a position on one "Ultimate truth" in itself.This message has been edited by PaulK, 01-01-2005 17:07 AM

Firstly let me correct you. I have NOT asserted that morality has no basis other than what is agreed to be "reasonable".And secondly your argument reduces to the assertion that naturalism claims that reason is no more than opinion, which is also false. Such a claim has no basis in fact. Your attack fails on this point alone.And yet again you ignore a point. You may ASSUME that reason and logic work because God created everything to work that way but that does not make it true. It's just an assumption. If you allow that then you have to allow me to make the weaker assumption that reason and logic work. But if you allow that your argument collapses. So why is your assumption any better that it should be allowed and a weaker assumption forbidden ?

Well you ask how your "summary" differs from what I said and my answer is that it differs quite radically. I have quite explicitly stated that many moral rues have firm practical foundations and taken no stand on the existence of moral values as such other than to point out that the question is one that has yet to be satisfactorily answered. Your "summary" denies the first and takes a stand on the second.As for reason the fact that the scientific method works shows that epistemology is not purely subjective either. But there is nothing in naturalism to say that the scientific method could not work.Moroever I have alread poointed to deductive logic and inductive reasoning as examples of valid reasoning that are not pure opinion. Indeed there is no way that pure deductive logic could fail - analytic truths are necessarily true.Your example does not deal with the issues I raised. And it has a fundamental flaw in that the drug only changes perceptions. It could be easily shown that it is perception that has changed by using pure or nearly pure spectral sources (such as sodium light).SO reasonign can be shown to be more than pure opinion. On the other hand all you offer is an assumption. Yet for some reason you seem to think that it offers something of value. But it offers nothing to epistemology beyond the bare assumption that reason DOES work - all the rest is unnecessary baggage.By the way naturalistic philosophy does not have to - or even try to - derive the effectiveness of reason from basic axioms. We can start with it as a necessary assumption on pure pragmatic grounds and come to our own conclusions on how it should be the case. The naturalistic version is superior on this ground - and on the fact that it is not forced to beg the question of how reasoning beings came to exist as the theistic version you put forward must.

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It only took me one try to find this guy:

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Unfortunately it doesn't advocate treating mental illness with drugs and nothing else: What scares me is that you would suggest that a source which clearly advocates using a combination of drugs and psychotherapy "really" advocates using drugs alone.This message has been edited by PaulK, 01-04-2005 10:10 AM

Firstly let me point out out that my position has not been accurately represented.In my immediately preceding post I wrote:"Indeed to the extent that Darwinism addresses morality (not a great amount - look up "naturalistic fallacy") it would suggest that he was wrong."I will also point out that there has been no support for the absurd assertion that naturalism denies the existence of "ultimate truths". So far as I can see the only basis for this ontological claim is the epistemological problem in actually finding "ultimate truths" - a problem that exists independantly of the truth of naturalism. THus it is false to call either problem a problem of naturalism - and if it is "fatal" (although this too has not been decided) we are all in the same boat. Attempting to avoid the problem by making assumptions is not valid - and even if it were it would not be valid to arbitrarily privilege a particular assumption. Yet this is the only "escape" that has been offered. And this "escape" is touted as a "success".The "red hummer" argument has been soundly refuted.The new argument "if naturalism is true why aren't we all identical" is also downright odd - if naturalism is true then surely humans should be more like other lifeforms rather than manufactured items - thus naturalism leads us to expect that humans SHOULD vary and if they did not in many important aspect we would want to know why. Moreover the absence of variation would represent an extreme problem for the idea that human intelligence evolved since variation is a necessary preconditions for evolution. We could also raise the point of environmental influences and learned behaviour. So there are good reasons for rejecting the idea based on naturalistic thinking yet no reason has been offered for why it should be an expected consequence of naturalism in the first place.In summary no valid argument has been presented that there is a "fatal flaw" in naturalism.

I'm afraid you are wrong. Having a convenient assumption does not represent a genuine epistemological advantage. The whole poitn of epistemology is to get as solid a grounding for claims of knowledge as we can manage and assumptions are a long way from a solid basis for anything.As to the idea that mankind is ultimately doomed if naturalism there is a speculative article in a newspaper today (Daily Telegraph) that raises the possibility of moving to another universe. It isn't something we can be sure about yet, but it has a basis in current scientific theory. Even if unpleasant implications had any bearing on the truth of a philosophy (which they don't) this particular implication does not inevitably follow from naturalism.And really "Ultimate moral guidelines" have little to say about the question of human population. Moral guidelines can only deal with our responses to the issue - they cannot change the very real issue that the carrying capacity of this planet is finite.Good luck digging up evidence that Jesus was resurrected. Unless it is a Great Debate I'll probably post my idea of what actually happened, which is consistent with the evidence as I know it.

Here's why I say that we cannot do better than start with the pragmatic assumption that human reason or better a minimal subset is (adequately) reliable. My argument does not assume that naturalism is true - thus if successful - my argument establishes that the alleged "fatal flaw" is a general epistemological problem - not something unique to naturalismIt has been suggested that if we make an assumption or set of assumptions that entails the conclusion that human reason is reliable then that is better than my suggestion that we shoudd start with th pragmatic assumption that our thinkign is (adequately) reliable. But there is one serious problem in such a view. If in showing the assumptions to be likely true or the entailment to hold we employ any form of human reasoning then we are implicitly assuming that these forms of reasoning are valid. Yet to do so is simply going back to the pragmatic assumption that we are supposedly replacing. And if we assume the validity of any human reasoning at all then - by definition - it must include at least the minimal subset I spoke of earlier. Yet it is not possible to show that the entailment holds without, at a minimum, assuming deductive logic. Worse, deductive logic is not adequate to show that the assumptions are likely true. Deductive logic has the major limitation that it can only draw out what is implicit in the premises. Actual justification of the premises must go beyond deductive logic.Thus it is inescapable that some form of human reasoning must be pregmatically assumed to be valid. Any attempt to evade that inevitably relies on making the very assumption that it is intended to avoid.[added in edit]
Or to summarise:You can't find a smaller subset than the minimal subset (all you can show is that a subset thought to be minimal is not).You can't conclude that human reason is reliable without employing some form of human reasoning. Which implicitly assumes that that form of human reasoning is reliable.Therefore we are stuck with assuming that a minimal subset of human reasoning is reliable because there is no alternative. The only question is how far we can pare down that subset.This message has been edited by PaulK, 01-06-2005 02:59 AM

I'm afraid that you are still confusing epistemology with ontology.
Ontology is about the way things are. Epistemology is about how we know things. Your reading of John 1:1-5 is therefore an ontological claim. But epistemology must come before ontology because we need epistemology to evaluate ontological claims.Likewise epistemology must come before any evaluation of worldviews to determine which is the more reasonable. So although we certainly can discuss which worldview is the more reasonable it cannot escape the basic argument I laid out.

I am afraid that you still don't understand the actual problem. NEITHER of the starting points you suggest are valid starting points for epistemology - which means that neither is significantly better than the other. And to the best of my knowledge nobody uses "The reasoning creature one day began to reason and found that his reason was reasonable." as a starting point for epistemology at all - which makes it something of a strawman.I've already offered a starting point for epistemology and offered an argument as to why it is the only possible starting point. If you want to offer an alternative then you do need to address that argument with the purpose of epistemology in mind.Unfortunately instead of actually dealing with that issue you are confusing premises with conclusions, ontology with epistemology and equating convenience with evidence. That does not make for sound reasoning or a valid epistemology.

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...once man reasons his way to the ontological reality "Ultimate reason exists, and I am made in it's image", then from that point we are relieved of the burden of making the assumption "reason is reasonable" as the first premise to epistemology

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I'm afriad that is wrong. Having reached that conclusion we could build furhter upon it but we cannot forget how we got to it. It is built on a foundation and we cannot throw that out or pretend it does not exist. Not least because the reliability of that conclusion depends on the reliability of the methods used to reach it. So even if you could reach that conclusion with a high degree of certainty (which would be an amazing philosophical breakthrough) you still would have to keep the old foundations of epistemology.

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You mentioned earlier a possibility of man travelling to another universe someday. Now it is thought, as I understand it in my limited way, that there are dormant dimensions in our universe. And let us say that in this universe we are traversing to that some of these dormant dimensions are active. Now we find that our assumption "reason is reasonable" doesn't hold up any longer
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Well, no we don't. There's no reason to suppose that a 4th spatial dimension would have that effect at all (not that we would be likely to survive long enough to find out). Mathematics handles 4 - and more - dimensions as well as it handles 3.

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The ontological reality "Ultimate reason" if true here, would be true there, and if we had been busy reasoning our way towards it we would find ourselves better "equipped" in that new universe.

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And this is even worse. If the "reason is reasonable" - to use your wording - is wrong then this is even more wrong, since it makes a stronger claim about the reliability of reason - and therefore unreliability naturally hurts it more.I THINK what you meant to say is that your preferred axiom implies a greater probability that our reasoning would work in a universe with 4 spatial dimensions. But I don't accept that that is true in the case of more formal forms of reasoning (and you have given no reason to think that it is). Naturally our informal reasoning (intuition) is less likely to be reliable (being adapted to our universe) but I am all but certain that that is in fact true (indeed we know that our intuitive ideas often do not apply to situations radically different from those we encounter - Special Relativity for instance is quite against our normal ideas).

Well for a start it's all very well to say

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Ultimate Reason reveals to us that "we are made in the image of Ultimate Reason"

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But how can we be sure that it is true ? And unless we can be at least as certain of it as we are of "man's reason can be trusted" we would be very foolish to replace the latter with the former, since we would be making our epistemology less reliable.As for your ideas about morality I can't emphasise enough tha tnaturalism says very little about morality and it certainly does not dictate utilitarianism as you would have it.

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A prominent biologist who has been working on, and seems to be close to finding, a cure for cancer jumps in front of a speeding truck to save the life of a small boy who is the son of a common laborer. The biologist is killed. Naturalistic philosophy would seem to say "what a waste. We could be delayed years now in finding the cure for cancer." Christian philosophy implies this man is a hero and should be honored. "There is no greater love than laying down one's life for another

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Well it is far from clear that Christianity WOULD say that the biologist made the right decision - unless it also dictates that the suffering and deaths of the many cancer victims is of no consequence.
On the other hand from an evolutionary perspective we certainly can't be sure that our instincts would place an intellectual idea of what might happen ahead of the immediate emotional responses.

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what is the basis for a volunteer army or militia under a naturalistic philosophy

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At this point I must repeat that there IS no entirely satisfactory basis for morality.And I must certainly ask why Christianity shoudl be seen as automatically supporting the formation of any sort of military force - certainly there are arguments within Christianity. So far as I can see the problem is greater within Christianity since I can't see a naturalistic objection to forming a volunteer army.Likewise your population argument is also unlikely to actually play out in reality. I don't think that many Christians will line up to be killed if it were to become necessary (and I do not expect that it will). Indeed if Christians were really concerned about it they should be dedicating themselve to celibacy as St. Paul suggested or even going to the extreme advocated by Origen. Yet in fact we see none of this and the largest Christian grouping (representing roughly half of all Christians) is actively against contraception.