I completely understand your decision to put blogging on hold. You are right – it is amazing how it can make time disappear.

So I’ll try to be as brief as possible. (I’m responding not because I’m desperate to have the last word, but because, like you, I find these questions so profoundly interesting.)

Yes I’m aware there are counter-arguments claiming there are circumstances where an ought can be derived from an is. I remember the John Searle material but not David Alan Johnson.

From memory Searle’s argument (or one of his arguments) was about promising: I promised to do x (is), therefore I ought to do x (ought).

This for me is like an apparent exception which turns out to prove a rule. To promise is to place oneself under an obligation. So it’s a specific example of the more general: I placed myself under an obligation to do x (is), therefore I ought to do x (ought).

I cannot see how this could be described as deriving an ought from an is. If I placed myself under an obligation and the obligation still holds, then I am under an obligation. ‘I am under an obligation to do x‘ is synonymous with ‘I ought to do x‘. It’s not deriving an ought from an is, it’s restating an ought.

But there are no doubt other arguments which can’t be dealt with in this way.

If I were to respond more fully, then I would probably focus on what you say in 4. The Consequence of Nihilism.

You say: So on the one hand, we reject any imperatives that nature seems to offer, and on the other, we discount the supernatural, the existence of an omniscient, objective Source of moral standards.

But these are not the only options. To be subject to an imperative we do not have to derive that imperative from something which is not ourselves. We can and do freely choose to subject ourselves to imperatives. This is open to the believer and non-believer alike. Nihilism itself is a choice which we are free to make or reject.

The idea that nihilism is a consequence of the ‘death of God’ only makes sense in the context of theistic ethics.

For me one of the fundamental flaws in theistic ethics is the unwarranted belief that free will is something God ‘gave us’ rather than being something we just have.

Thanks again for the conversation – & the invite!

Chris
thinking makes it so

It’s been a pleasure conversing with you. You’ve given me some good food for thought that I shall continue to process. Unfortunately, I’m going to have to bow out of this dialogue for now. Life has caught up with me. My responsibilities as a husband, father, friend, missionary/teacher, seminary student, etc., currently leave no room for the time and energy that this conversation deserves. I must be utilitarian for now and focus on writing things that will get me through seminary. :)

Perhaps at some point in the future I’ll jump on your blog and throw in my two cents on your post, A Secular Imperative to Love. Feel free to continue commenting on these posts–I’m not concerned about having the last word. And if you’re ever back in Buenos Aires, let me know, and we can continue this conversation vis-a-vis over some cafe con leche or Quilmes Cristal.

Best wishes,
George

I appreciate your skills in logic (which are much more advanced than mine), but I remain unconvinced of your position on this issue. Here are four reasons why:

1. Lack of Consensus
I have a stubborn habit of treating my elders and the established authority with reverence and respect. In this situation, the “established authority” consists of men and women with PhDs and years of experience reading and writing about philosophy. However, just because well-educated people with impressive degrees think something, it doesn’t necessarily make it so. But it ought to give us pause.

From what I can tell, the first person to state that an “ought” cannot logically succeed an “is” was David Hume in his Treatise of Human Nature. According to the online Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy,

Hume famously closes the section of the Treatise that argues against moral rationalism by observing that other systems of moral philosophy, proceeding in the ordinary way of reasoning, at some point make an unremarked transition from premises linked only by “is” to propositions linked by “ought” (expressing a new relation) — a deduction that seems to Hume “altogether inconceivable”.

Observation #1: There are other systems of moral philosophy. Many men, as intelligent as, or more intelligent than Hume have apparently thought it OK to move from statement of fact to moral imperative.

The Encyclopedia continues,

Few passages in Hume’s work have generated more interpretive controversy.

Some interpreters think Hume commits himself here to a non-propositional or noncognitivist view of moral judgment — the view that moral judgments do not state facts and are not truth-evaluable…Some see the paragraph as denying ethical realism, excluding values from the domain of facts. Other interpreters — the more cognitivist ones — see the paragraph about ‘is’ and ‘ought’ as doing none of the above.

Some read it as simply providing further support for Hume’s extensive argument that moral properties are not discernible by demonstrative reason…Others interpret it as making a point about the original discovery of virtue and vice, which must involve the use of sentiment. On this view, one cannot make the initial discovery of moral properties by inference from nonmoral premises using reason alone; rather, one requires some input from sentiment. However, on this reading it is compatible with the is/ought paragraph that once a person has the moral concepts as the result of prior experience of the moral sentiments, he or she may reach moral conclusions by inference from causal, factual premises (stated in terms of ‘is’) about the effects of character traits on the sentiments of observers. They point out that Hume himself makes such inferences frequently in his writings.

Observation #2: There is even disagreement over exactly what Hume is trying to say.

Observation #3: Apparently, Hume himself would often draw “ought” conclusions from “is” statements.

An article on the is-ought problem in Wikipedia (a questionable “established authority”) states:

Many modern naturalistic philosophers see no impenetrable barrier in deriving “ought” from “is” believing an “ought” can derive from an “is” whenever we analyze goal-directed behavior, and a statement of the form “In order for A to achieve goal B, A ought to do C” exhibits no category error and may be factually verified or refuted.

And it lists two modern philosophers who claim to have debunked the is/ought “fallacy”–John Rogers Searle, DPhil, Oxford and David Alan Johnson, PhD, Princeton.

When the “established authority” is in agreement about something, it’s probably a safe bet to follow their lead (although not always). The main reason I accept germ theory is not because I have actually seen bacteria and viruses under a microscope, but rather, because every doctor and medical school professor accepts it. (I realize that this is a West-centric example, so please bear with me). Now if only half of all doctors and medical school professors believed in germ theory, then I would be in a quandary until I did some of my own research.

I don’t know what the actual percentages are, but it’s clear that there is not a consensus within the authoritative philosophical community about the validity of Hume’s proposition. There is not even widespread agreement about what Hume was trying to say.

2. The Idea of Worth/Value
In The Scientific Determination of Value I presented the instance of a gemologist evaluating a diamond as an example of deriving an “is” from an “ought”. In reading your response, I see that I failed to define what I meant by “worth”. I did not mean market value. The “worth” I was thinking of might be described as a certain combination and quantity of attributes resulting in beauty, desirability, superiority, excellence, etc. True, it is a somewhat relative quality, but it has just enough objectivity to it that when any experienced gemologist sees it, he thinks to himself, “Ahhhh. Now that is a valuable diamond,” without any reflection upon its market value. It is the quality that art-lovers enjoy in Rembrandt; music-lovers in Bach; sports-lovers in Michael Jordan; science-lovers in Einstein; etc. Does it have market value? In most cases, yes. But this type of worth also transcends mere human opinion and the law of supply and demand.

Perhaps this type of “worth” is a sort of “bridge” between “is” and “ought”. Because at the same time it is both indicative and imperative.

This diamond is intrinsically beautiful, valuable, etc. and this diamond intrinsically demands that I treat it with care, with respect.

To say, “The Mona Lisa is valuable,” is really to say two things at once:
a. The Mona Lisa is of a certain quality (e.g., beautiful, excellent, sublime, etc.).
b. The Mona Lisa ought to be esteemed (i.e., treasured, treated with respect, honored, etc.).

In this case the “ought” is not derived from the “is”. The “ought” and the “is” are one in the same.

3. Prudence
The wisdom of man’s common sense seems to have no problem jumping from an “is” to an “ought”.

A few examples:
Water is valuable because the human body needs it to survive and it is useful for various things such as cooking, generating electricity, keeping a car from overheating, etc. Therefore we ought to conserve the earth’s water supply.

Prolonged exposure to fire is dangerous, painful, and possibly deadly. Therefore you ought not sit in the campfire.

God is more valuable than anything else in existence. Therefore we ought to esteem Him more than anything else in existence.

It just seems unnecessary to add a third step in the middle of each of these equations.

4. The Consequence of Nihilism
Part of the reason I’m concerned about the alleged is/ought fallacy is out of sympathy for the unbeliever. Jews, Muslims, and Christians could easily accept Hume’s proposition, and not have to worry about creating a new moral system because they would still have God’s “arbirtrary” commandments to guide them. We also approach morality deontologically.

But from an atheistic, and especially materialistic (can you be an atheist without being a materialist?), perspective there is only being. Only “is”. And if Hume is right, then we can derive no “oughts”. So on the one hand, we reject any imperatives that nature seems to offer, and on the other, we discount the supernatural, the existence of an omniscient, objective Source of moral standards. If there is no God and Hume was right, then Nietzsche was probably right: God has died, and we have progressed to a point beyond good and evil. We are drowning in the sea of nihilism.

I know you have written about arriving at an ethic of love without the aid of God in your post, A Secular Imperative to Love. But if you accept Hume’s position, I don’t see how it’s possible without allowing for “leaps” from the indicative to the imperative. I guess I’ll just have to read it.

Thanks for making me think really hard about some important topics!

George

I will begin by addressing something you wrote in the discussion, “The Scientific Determination of Value”. You wrote:

As we struggle to preserve its meaning and coherence we rob it of its power – a power which the canny Desmond Tutu knew all about when he described his vision of a new South Africa where people will matter because they are human beings made in the image of God. Believers and non-believers alike knew what he meant. He wasn’t deducing an ought from an is, he was saying apartheid was wrong and that all believers should agree that apartheid was wrong; and as a Christian he was expressing it in Christian language. The phrase ‘made in the image of God’ comes packed with ethical content.

Believers indeed knew what he meant: apartheid is wrong and should not be practiced (an ought) exactly because all human beings are made in the image of God (an is). To assume that Rev. TuTu meant something else is unfounded conjecture. It is safer to assume that he was merely affirming what the majority of orthodox Christians and possibly even Jews and Muslims believe.

Yes, we also approach ethics deontologically. The reason we love our neighbor as ourself is because God commands us to. But it’s not an either/or situation. In fact, it’s highly probable that the reason God prohibits murder, but allows the killing and eating of animals is precisely because man is made in His image while animals are not.

Below is conclusive evidence demonstrating that the belief that the imago dei doctrine has ethical consequences is the common Christian and possibly even Jewish and Muslim position.

The Roman Catholic Position

Because man is a person, a free and intelligent being, created in the image of God, he has a dignity and a worth vastly superior to the material and animal world by which he is surrounded.

New Advent – Justice

An effective defense of justice needs to be based on the truth of mankind, created in the image of God…

New Advent.org – Instruction on Certain Aspects of “Theology of Liberation”
Note: New Advent is the online version of the Catholic Encyclopedia.

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The Eastern Orthodox Position (The primary proponents of apophatic theology)

According to the Biblical revelation, God not only created human nature but also endowed it with qualities in His image and after His likeness (cf. Gen. 1:26). It is the only ground which makes it possible to assert that human nature has an inherent dignity.

In Orthodoxy the dignity and ultimate worth of every human person are derived from the image of God… Therefore, in the Eastern Christian tradition the notion of ‘dignity’ has first of all a moral meaning.

The Russian Orthodox Church – Official Web Site of the Department for External Church Relations

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The Position of the World Council of Churches (Protestantism)

As Christians, we believe all human beings are created in the image of God and therefore have intrinsic value and dignity. Any form of stigmatization or discrimination perpetrated against human beings violates this divine image and is therefore a sin.

The World Council of Churches Website (which represents almost all Mainline Protestant churches)

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And here’s a summary of the “general Christian view” by your own BBC:

Human life possesses an intrinsic dignity and value because it is created by God in his own image…to propose euthanasia for an individual is to judge that the current life of that individual is not worthwhile. Such a judgement is incompatible with recognising the worth and dignity of the person to be killed.

BBC.co.uk – Euthanasia – General Christian View

Between Roman Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, and Mainline Protestantism, we have covered 99% of Christendom, and what could be described as normative Christian beliefs–at least on this issue. Generally, where these three traditions overlap would be the core (or kerygma) of “true” Christianity. Groups that reject these essentials (such as Unitarians, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Mormons, the Jesus Seminar, etc.) could be classified as either non-Christian, heretical, or sectarian cults. The essentials are determined primarily by Scripture, and secondarily by the Creeds and Councils.

Here’s what some Jewish and Muslim traditions think about the imago dei:

Traditional Jewish literature employs the term kvod ha-briot (the dignity of created beings), alluding to the Creator as the source of human dignity and grounding the requirement to protect human dignity in the divine origins of the human being. From its foundations, our tradition grants consummate value to the human being, as in the first chapter of the Book of Genesis: ‘Naaseh adam b’tsalmenu,’ ‘Let us make the human being in Our image’ (Gen. 1:26). For some Jewish authorities, the idea of the “divine image” implies that the human body is the corporeal representation of divinity, a view responsible for many halakhic prohibitions against mutilation or debasement of the body. Others see the soul and intellect as the presence of the Divine in the human being. All agree that both humiliation of the living and dishonoring of the dead are conceived of as direct affronts to God.

Rabbis for Human Rights–North America – Kvod Ha-Briot: Human Dignity in Jewish Sources…

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According to the Qur’an, all human beings (“children of Adam”) have been granted dignity by God: “We have dignified the children of Adam, and borne them over land and sea, and provided them with good and pure things for sustenance, and favored them far above a great part of Our creation (Qur’an 17:70).” The Prophet Muhammad is reported to have said that Adam was created in God’s image; dignity and nobility are part of each human’s birthright.

The Yale Journal for Humanities in Medicine – Spirituality, Religious Wisdom, and the Care of the Patient

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I think it’s pretty clear that Christianity and possibly two more of the world’s major religions believe that man’s dignity is derived from the fact that he is created in the image of God. And it also seems evident that most theologians make the “illogical” jump from this “is” to the “ought” of the Golden Rule.

In response to your critique of the applicability of the “incomprehensible” doctrine of the imago dei (You wrote, ” I cannot see how we can give ourselves the right to infer anything from it, let alone something as important as ethics.”), I ask you, “By what law or principal do we have the right to give ourselves the right to do anything?”

Thanks for the challenging thoughts,

George

Please forgive my tardiness in responding.

Perhaps I am wrong, and neither science nor philosophy (as you imply by saying “it’s hard to imagine what would count as ‘philosophy’ proving that all humans are equal”) can determine the ethical value of anything. But if that’s the case, then it would appear that (apart from God or some utilitarian approach) we lose any serious motivation to treat others as we would be treated.

You seem to be saying that the application of the Golden Rule is merely a matter of choice, that it is not based on any rational conclusion. That is, we choose to love others, not because they are demonstrably valuable (and therefore deserving of our love), but simply because we make an ethical commitment to obey some seemingly arbitrary moral command.

But the problem is that if I am not certain (through reason [science and philosophy] and/or revelation [the Bible, Koran, etc.]) that a mentally handicapped woman I pass on the street is as ethically valuable as me and deserves to be treated equally, I have no reason not to take advantage of her by stealing her purse (or worse). However, if I at least have some notion that we are of equal worth, I then (making an allegedly illogical leap) have some kind of reason for treating her with respect. Now whether I choose to act reasonably is still up to me to decide.

Perhaps I went in the wrong direction by proposing sociability, intelligence, and whatnot as the measurable characteristics by which science can determine human value. But what if science can prove that we have a soul–and that the souls of Blacks, Asians, Whites, etc. are all equal in substance? What if our psychology becomes so advanced that it eventually becomes indisputable that man is ontologically different than beast? And what if the most desirable gene combinations for high intelligence, sociability, self-control, capacity for feeling pain or whatever (the specific attributes aren’t that important) are found in men and women of all races?

As for a philosophical “proof” of the value and dignity of man, we listen in on this imagined, overly simplistic imitation of a Socratic dialogue:

Socrates: Young Glaucon, with how many people did you converse yesterday.
Glaucon: Well, if I calculate correctly, it must have been thirty seven.
Socrates: And with how many animals did you talk?
Glaucon: Are you jesting?
Socrates: Just shut up and answer the question! (Socrates, was having a bad day).
Glaucon: Zero.
Socrates: Quite so. And why do you think this is?
Glaucon: Obviously because animals cannot speak.

I think you can see where this conversation might lead. This is how I see philosophy (in form, not content!) attempting to arrive at a conclusion regarding man’s dignity and equality.

I agree with you that science and philosophy are currently no where near being able to “prove” the distinctive worth of man. But I maintain that there are reasonable (i.e., scientific and philosophical) ways of determining value, and therefore I stand by my optimism. We are only lacking information and more sophisticated technique. And here’s where I believe you will say, “However, value is an ‘is’, and we cannot derive an ‘ought’ from it.” This, I think, is the more important issue at hand, and deserves a new blog post. I will call it “Deriving an ‘Ought’ from an ‘Is’: A Formal Fallacy?”

See you in the new conversation thread,
George

I think I’m seeing the question whether all people are equal in terms of one or more measurable attributes as very different from questions whether all people have equal rights or are of equal worth or deserve to be treated as equals.

Yes I do see the is/ought divide as fundamental & unbridgeable. The distinction is there because as I see it the question about equality in terms of measurable attributes is on the is side, while questions about equal rights, worth & deserts are on the ought side.

This is one of the reasons I see the imago dei stepping stone as possibly unsound. In fact it could be even more fundamental than that. One of the reasons I am not a believer is the observation that religious faith can not only tempt a believer into thinking the is-ought fallacy can be breached but can also offer a guarantee of personal immunity from making that breach. (As I was writing this response I realised I had wrongly conflated the is-ought fallacy with the ‘naturalistic fallacy’. They’re related but, certainly as far as GE Moore’s original conception of the ‘naturalistic fallacy’ is concerned, they are not exactly the same. So from now on I shall call it the is-ought fallacy – ie the fallacy of deducing an ought from an is.)

I am in no way assuming all believers think the same, or the same way. But many times I have heard expressions of faith-based ethics which are of the form: God exists (or God through eg Moses or Jesus or Mohammed commanded a, b & c; or Jesus who was the son of God survived his own death by crucifixion; or …) so therefore you or I ought to do a, b & c or p, q & r.

Thinking like that is, for me, both unsound and dangerous – often dangerous precisely because it is unsound.

But I would want to distinguish that kind of thinking from what I see as very different, which is where a believer embraces a particular faith as an autonomous ethical act of commitment. Here there is no breach of the is-ought fallacy, because the believer is not saying ‘x is the case (eg God exists), therefore I ought to do y and z’, but ‘I ought to do x (eg be a Christian, or a Muslim), therefore I ought to do y and z’.

Bringing this back to the question of imago dei and equality, I see the power of the imago dei concept as coming from the ethical content packed inside it. It cannot be treated as an is-type statement of fact from which ethical oughts can be deduced. Because as a literal statement of what is the case it is barely coherent.

If all humans were literally made in imago dei then all humans would be not only equal (both in terms of one or more measurable attributes and in terms of rights, worth and deserts), they would also be identical. Not only that but they would be rival Gods alongside the one and only God who made them in his image.

So we would have to start adding all the caveats & qualifications: not an exact copy of all God’s attributes, only specific non-divine ones; not identical in every respect, only ‘key’ ones; etc. As we struggle to preserve its meaning and coherence we rob it of its power – a power which the canny Desmond Tutu knew all about when he described his vision of a

new South Africa where people will matter because they are human beings made in the image of God.

Believers and non-believers alike knew what he meant. He wasn’t deducing an ought from an is, he was saying apartheid was wrong and that all believers should agree that apartheid was wrong; and as a Christian he was expressing it in Christian language. The phrase ‘made in the image of God’ comes packed with ethical content.

The question about equal versus identical is also I think relevant to whether there are inequalities among different human groups, and if so whether they could be explained by evolution. To start with the obvious: people are not identical as individuals. Then there are some evident differences between human groups. People of (relatively recent) African origin are on average darker skinned than people of European origin. The average Swede is taller than the average Italian.

It’s possible that skin colour can be explained as an evolutionary adaptation. For example those groups of humans who ‘stayed behind’ in Africa could have developed darker skins after the last ice age as protection against the sun. Or conversely those groups in cooler climates could have developed paler skins to increase the synthesis of vitamin D. Or a combination of the two. Or something else.

It is possible that there could be evolutionary explanations of differences in average height, but I have no idea what they might be. (We’d also need to discount developmental influences like diet, water supply, medical care.)

But your examples of attributes which ‘may be used in calculating value’ (intellectual capacity, ability to exercise self-restraint, sociability, artistic creativity, emotional sensitivity) would be more problematic. With the possible exception of artistic creativity these are all attributes for which any genetic content is likely to have been selected for because of differential survival & reproductive rates of their bearers within the competitive environment of human society. It is estimated that humans were hunter-gatherers for 2 million years, with the first agriculture beginning 10,000 years ago. So for 99.5% of human existence we were hunter-gatherers, and for the last 0.5% some of us, and then more latterly most of us, were not. Most evolutionary development of differences between humans is therefore likely to have happened within a hunter-gatherer context. The significance of this is that we have little reason to think the hunter-gatherer social environment on the plains of Africa was likely to be so different from the equivalent on the steppes of central Asia as to account for any differential development of social attributes.

But it’s possible. Individual people are not identical, and therefore in that sense cannot be ‘equal’. There are also evident differences between geographically &/or culturally (& therefore sexually) separated groups of people. For example I think it’s true to say that average skin colour gets darker from the north to the south of the Indian subcontinent.

But so what? It’s possible that people of region X may score higher on a sociability index than those of region Y, but may score lower than those of region Y on an emotional sensitivity index. And it’s just possible that someone could establish that these differences can be accounted for by certain statistically valid genetic differences, where those genetic influences are switched on & off by known environmental factors (climate, diet, social, religious, political etc). The exercise would be a bit like searching for statistically valid patterns of needle distribution in a set of haystacks which farmers are busy building and then taking apart.

As I write this I find myself thinking of the much-publicised concern in the UK in recent years as to why white working-class boys are distinguishing themselves as the group with the lowest academic achievement rate compared to other groups identified by race, social class and gender.

(Just put ‘white’ ‘working’ ‘class’ ‘boys’ ‘underachievement’ into Google.) In all the column inches I haven’t seen anyone suggesting it might be worth looking for a genetic explanation.

So I do not share your optimism that science will one day develop the tools and criteria necessary to determine human ‘value’. I see an exercise like that as misguided, and I don’t think the gemmologist analogy applies. The gemmologist could measure the size and purity of a diamond and determine its current value, because the diamond market decides it. There’s nothing equivalent in the case of humans, and it would be a rare bold scientist who would even try.

Why would we think scientists would find a way to prove that all men and women of all ethnicities score equal values on scales of intellectual capacity, ability to exercise self-restraint, sociability, artistic creativity and emotional sensitivity when we know full well that people as individuals are different on all these counts? If the point is about averages across statistically valid groups, then again we know there are differences which are significant for social policy – eg in the case of white working-class boys in the UK.

The social policy assumption however is that evidence like this suggests the environment generally is ‘failing’ this group of children relative to other groups, not that there is something in their genes which determines them to fail. This assumption is effectively that this group of children has the same right to achieve as any other group. This would be a commonly held assumption, which some might express by saying they had all been made in God’s image, but not all would express in that way.

So, far from saying science and philosophy have not definitively provided a ‘firm foundation for a doctrine of human equality’, I would say that no science has established any grounds for thinking any groups of people are unequal. To take seriously the concern that ‘certain races may actually be superior to others (or that men may be superior to women)’ we need to be able to say how ‘science’ could possibly demonstrate this – given, as I’ve said, that all individuals are different and therefore systematically and multi-dimensionally ‘unequal’.

For rather different reasons it’s also hard to imagine what would count as ‘philosophy’ proving that all humans are equal, so again it is difficult to take seriously the concern that philosophy also leaves questions of human dignity & equality ‘dangerously undecided’. As it happens Kant’s categorical imperative (or as I’ve argued elsewhere) the Golden Rule both come pretty close to being philosophical principles enshrining human equality. But it is for the individual to adopt and apply those principles, just as it is for the individual to adopt a particular interpretation of Christianity including a particular implication of the concept of imago dei. (I say that for the obvious reason that there have been faith-based – including Christian – communities who have not espoused human equality.)

In this last few paragraphs I’m aware I haven’t been specific as to whether I’m referring to ‘ethical’ equality or the kind of non-ethical (I don’t mean ‘unethical’!) equality to do with measurement & scales. Where it matters – eg in the reference to the categorical imperative & the Golden Rule – I’m talking about ‘ethical’ equality. In the case of all individuals are different and therefore systematically and multi-dimensionally ‘unequal’ this is obviously ‘non-ethical’ inequality.

Which brings me back to the is-ought fallacy, and you are absolutely right that this is a big contention of mine. Whether or not the is-ought fallacy counts as a formal fallacy is an interesting question.

An example of a formal fallacy from Wikipedia (i):

If a person runs barefoot, then his feet hurt.
Socrates’ feet hurt.
Therefore, Socrates ran barefoot.

Expressing the logical shape of the first one in terms of propositional calculus we get (ii):

If p then q
q
Therefore p

We can move the statements around to get a non-fallacious argument (iii):

If a person runs barefoot, then his feet hurt.
Socrates ran barefoot.
Therefore, Socrates’ feet hurt.

Which can be similarly abstracted to (iv):

If p then q
p
Therefore q

Can we logically prove that (iii) & (iv) are valid while (i) & (ii) are invalid? Not sure we can without infinite regress, because to show an argument is logically valid we would have to use arguments of the form of (iv). Knowing that (iii) & (iv) are valid and (i) & (ii) are invalid is part of knowing what ‘if’, ‘then’ and ‘therefore’ mean. If we think (i) & (ii) are valid then we do not really understand what ‘if’, ‘then’ and ‘therefore’ mean. In (ii), ‘if p then q’, q and p may all be true, but p is not true because of the two premises. But in (iv), if ‘if p then q’ and p are both true, then q must be true.

We can now relate this to a potential is-ought argument (v):

God created you.
Therefore you should obey God.

Now although this is a different form from (i), it is still (in my view) fallacious – but for a different reason. I see it as fallacious as (vi):

If a person runs barefoot, then his feet hurt.
Therefore, Socrates’ feet hurt.

(vi) is fallacious because it is incomplete. It is missing the premise ‘Socrates ran barefoot’. We could however imagine a context where a set of people knew not only that Socrates ran barefoot, but also that this was common knowledge. In a context like that people might not question someone who said: ‘Look, if a person runs barefoot then his feet will hurt. So it’s no wonder that Socrates’ feet hurt.’

Formally the argument is missing a premise, but it is common knowledge in the context.

Similarly someone might say: ‘God created you. So you should obey God.’ This may not be questioned in a context where it was a commonly shared belief that ‘you should obey your creator’.

The complete, non-fallacious, argument is therefore:

God created you.
You should obey your creator.
Therefore you should obey God.

But this is not deducing an ought from an is. The second premise is an ought.

So it’s not so much a question of proving logically that an ought cannot be deduced from an is. It’s a question of showing that an argument of that type is incomplete (& therefore unsound & therefore fallacious) without making the implicit premise (or premises) explicit.

Your idea of an is statement of worth (or I guess equality or inequality) rather than an ought statement of worth (or equality or inequality) is a useful one.

But I think that’s exactly the distinction I started with, ie between the question whether all people are equal in terms of one or more measurable attributes (on the one hand) and questions whether all people have equal rights or are of equal worth or deserve to be treated as equals (on the other).

Surely imago dei only really makes sense on the ought side, ie where the imago dei concept comes pre-packed with ethical content? We have all been made by God in the image of God and therefore we are all under an obligation to treat each other all as equals. Surely that’s what Desmond Tutu meant – he wasn’t claiming we were all identical copies either of God or of each other.

I’m repeating myself, but I cannot see how an is statement of equality (ie not to do with rights or deserts) can possibly be true, considering we are all so different. This squares with an is (ie literal) interpretation of imago dei, which to me seems either incoherent or self-evidently false.

Thanks again!
Chris
thinking makes it so

I apologize for my delayed response! I assure you it does not mean that I’ve lost interest in this conversation. I’m still here! (Though I am leaving town in a few days and will be away from the computer until after Christmas).

You are right about the conclusion I have drawn: that philosophy and science leave the question of human dignity dangerously undecided and that the Christian teaching (especially the imago dei—which we are discussing in the other post “Human Dignity Derived from Christian Teaching”) on the matter is therefore the more truly egalitarian position.

As you have pointed out, it appears I am trying to have my cake and eat it, too. Perhaps. But I like to think of myself merely as being optimistic and, yet, realistic at the same time. I am optimistic that one day science (particularly—when looking at humans—biology and psychology) will develop the tools and criteria necessary to be able to determine value (just as a gemologist might appraise a diamond). And my expectation is that it will find that all men (and women) of all ethnicities are indeed equal (both in value and in the various factors—such as intellectual capacity, the ability to exercise self-restraint, sociability, artistic creativity, emotional sensitivity, etc.—that may be used in calculating value).

But the reality is that science and philosophy have not definitively proven this. Therefore, they seem to give us no firm foundation for a doctrine of human equality. So at this point, from a purely secular perspective, we must leave room for the possibility that certain races may actually be superior to others (or that men may be superior to women).

I agree that it would be a jump (but not necessarily a huge one) from explaining intelligence genetically to explaining levels of overall superiority along racial lines. But then, evolution has had to account for various “jumps” throughout history (most notably, the huge jump from unicellularity to multicellularity). The fact that all Homo sapiens may have originated in Africa does not mean that all must necessarily be equal today. If things such as hair type, skin color, and facial structures can change over such a relatively short period of time, why can’t other characteristics (such as intelligence, the ability to exercise self-restraint, sociability, artistic creativity, emotional sensitivity, etc.) also have evolved differently?

I certainly don’t want to reject Mr. Diamond’s contributions (especially without having read his book—which I am adding to my list). But I agree that it’s probably “not so much ’50% genes + 50% environment’ as ’100% genes + environment.’” That is, it’s not an either/or situation, but a both/and. But again, it’s not yet clear scientifically whether the genetic constitutions of African ethnic groups react the same as those of white Europeans to hard-nosed factors such as geography and climate. A million years from now, will black skinned people living in Europe and North America have white skin? If this aspect doesn’t change, what guarantee is there that the environment can switch on or off various other distinguishing genetic configurations?

Regarding the abortion example, you are certainly right in pointing out that there are plenty of people who use “non-scientific” criteria. I think the point I was trying to make is that since some respected scientists and philosophers do use measurable characteristics to determine value, they may be correct in doing so. Not that they are necessarily right because they are a majority, but since they have thought much on the topic and are professionally involved, their positions ought to be taken seriously (another ought from an is :)…) Consider this description of famed ethicist Joseph Fletcher’s position:

“Fletcher identifies personhood with a minimum degree of human consciousness and intelligence—roughly a minimum score of 20 on the Binet I.Q. scale. ‘Obviously,’ he notes, ‘a fetus cannot meet this test, no matter what its stage of growth.’…In short, the basic ethical principle for Fletcher is that ‘pregnancy when wanted is a healthy process, pregnancy when not wanted is a disease—in fact a venereal disease. The truly ethical question is not whether we can justify abortion but whether we can justify compulsory pregnancy.’”

- Evangelical Ethics, by John Jefferson Davis

Is Fletcher right? I sure hope not. But he did professionally what I attempt to do in my spare time, so I don’t think I should simply blow him off.

It seems that your main contention with my above mentioned “optimism” is the so called “is-ought” problem raised by David Hume and the related naturalistic fallacy later proposed by G. E. Moore. But from what I can tell, it seems debatable whether the problems raised by these men are indeed formal fallacies. I’m not sure it can be proven logically that an ought cannot be deduced from an is.

Either way, valuation terms, such as superiority and dignity, are not necessarily “ought” terms. They certainly have “ought” implications, but they could also be interpreted as “is” information. So perhaps I could explain “The Scientific [and I'll add 'and/or Philosophic'] Determination of Value” as the process of analyzing the data of certain “is” characteristics (such as intelligence, the ability to exercise self-restraint, sociability, artistic creativity, emotional sensitivity—for humans) to arrive at an “is” statement of worth.

Also, I find it interesting that Hume’s proposition seems to coincide with the disappearance of the last great polymaths (Liebniz, Newton, and especially Goethe). Is this when the wall between science and philosophy was raised? When science was relegated to the is and barred from participation in ethical and aesthetic speculation? This seems to be one of Allan Bloom’s big beefs in The Closing of the American Mind—that scientists today are often not trained in philosophy. They, like everyone else, specialize in a narrow field. So now, when huge advances in technology are made, few of the scientists responsible for these advances are equipped to tackle the new ethical questions that are raised.

Hmmm. I think I’m rambling now, so I’d better quit.

I do look forward to reading “A secular imperative to love” and participating in that conversation.

Thanks for your input.

Yours,

George

I agree there may be no necessary conflict between science in general and religious faith. Indeed there are definite strands in modern theology which take comfort in the counter-intuitive weirdness of today’s physics and cosmology, as it seems to leave a lot of leeway for theism. I am not convinced though that the kind of cosmological God who might have been responsible for fine-tuning the values of a handful of fundamental constants has any obvious connection to the successive and parallel concepts of the Abrahamic God whose principal relationship to human beings is ethical. If there is a ‘God of the physicists & cosmologists’ he is ethically neutral at best.

I agree also that there have been periods in history when science and religious faith were staunch allies. One is mediaeval Islam in Spain & North Africa. Perhaps even more significant was the explosion of western science from the Renaissance through to the Enlightenment and beyond. Descartes, Pascal, Kepler, Copernicus and Newton all saw themselves as researching and revealing the underlying rationality of God’s creation. For a good few hundred years it was commonly believed that science was putting God’s existence beyond doubt.

But I think it is no accident that one of the strongest science-based attacks on religious belief in recent years should have come from evolutionary biology. Before the modern evolutionary synthesis of the 1930s it was still possible to see the origin and diversity of life in terms of divine creation. But as the thinking of Julian Huxley, RA Fisher, Theodosius Dobzhansky, JBS Haldane and their colleagues and successors began to permeate biology a viable alternative to divine creation emerged and strengthened.

I think it is fair to say that the position today is something like this: although it would be misguided and indeed unscientific to claim that evolutionary theory has disproved God, the burden of proof lies on those who claim divine creation rather than the inheritance of cumulative random variation under the influence of natural selection as the more likely explanation for the diversity of life.

It is not that evolutionary theory has disproved God, but more that the two potential explanations are incompatible. For myself, opting for the God hypothesis would mean throwing out too much baby with the bathwater.

It is just possible to force the two pictures together, but the resulting marriage is not a happy one. A creator God which deliberately kicked off evolution by natural selection is a cruel and callous God which immediately disqualifies itself as a source of moral goodness.

(See Touched by an angel #2 for more on this. Yes I have read Francis Collins’s The Language of God. I don’t have it with me at the moment but I can remember being very unconvinced by his arguments.)

As far as the bounded set of Christian statements is concerned, you will notice I carefully included ‘and interpretations of statements’. I wasn’t denying there might be a minimum set of statements which all Christians would agree with. There may well be. But I doubt if that minimum set would be substantive enough to qualify as the ‘true Christian teaching’.

In regard to your suggested core beliefs, I wasn’t aware that Christianity was Trinitarian by definition – which your ‘Jesus is the second person of the Trinity’ would imply. Do Unitarians or those followers of Jesus before the First Council of Nicaea not count as Christians? The phrase ‘born of the virgin Mary’ could also be a bit doubtful, considering the view that the gospel references to Mary’s virginity could have been an attempt to link Jesus with an interpretation of a prophesy in Isaiah which is itself ambiguous as to whether literal virginity was intended in the original Hebrew. Does someone not count as a Christian who is a follower of Jesus’s teachings but who does not accept (perhaps because he or she sees as irrelevant) Jesus’s miraculous birth? Must a Christian accept the resurrection as a literal historical fact rather than as a powerful spiritual & ethical metaphor?

And even if it was the case that all Christians do accept your outline (including at least two miracles) as literal historical fact, it is surely the ethical implications which matter? Without the ethical implications it is just a story about magic. What matters is what people believe are the attributes of the God Jesus is the son of, what Jesus’s teachings were, and what they mean for people living today. That’s what I meant by the interpretations of statements.

Even if it is the case that 99% of Christians do believe in the literal truth of the statement that ‘Jesus is the second person of the Trinity, [who was] born of the virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, and buried, and the third day rose from the dead’, believing that statement is surely not enough to qualify someone as a Christian? Even if it is necessary it is not sufficient. I cannot see how the statement is enough to qualify as ‘the true Christian teaching’.

As far as the imago dei is concerned I’m afraid we’ll have to agree to disagree – profoundly and respectfully.

Because I am looking at belief from the outside your arguments seem circular to me. To say something is a mystery is another way of saying we cannot give a coherent account of it. So I cannot see how we can give ourselves the right to infer anything from it, let alone something as important as ethics.

The factual content in your paragraph about our somehow resembling God in our immaterial being would equally support the view that we have invented a God to be like us. Perhaps we can tell that dolphins do not know trigonometry. I cannot see how we could be sure that dolphins do not have their own dolphin God. As I tried to argue before with my examples of whales and slime moulds, I really cannot see what is specially unique about our own uniqueness that is convincing proof that we and only we have been made in God’s image. Yes I can understand that because of the particular features we have we may be the only organisms who would want to think we have been made in God’s image, but that is a very different matter.

I also reject as anthropocentric the notion that we have dominion over the earth and its other inhabitants. If that is an implication of being made in God’s image then that would be good enough reason in itself for rejecting the doctrine. One of the many reasons for our current ecological disaster is the pernicious idea that the world is somehow ‘ours’. Yes it is possible to give the dominion idea a positive spin as in: we have a duty to look after the world because we have dominion over it as God’s vice-regents, and up to now we have discharged that duty very badly. But that is very new thinking, and very different from the kind of exploitation and disregard Genesis 1:26 would have supported in the past. Far better surely to think that we have the duty to look after the world because we have both the power to despoil it and the ability to amend our behaviour, not because we have any rights over the poor place?

As for ‘something in our corporeal design that somehow reflects God’s beauty or symmetry’ – again this seems both circular and selective. If this is so then our entire corporeal design should reflect God’s beauty – but what of the parts that don’t? Does our decay and death reflect God’s own decay and death? Even when we are in the prime of our lives our bodies contain elements of dreadful architecture which a designer, divine or otherwise, would be ashamed of. Our backs are mostly evolved to suit walking on four legs, not two – hence the prevalence of back trouble. The internal human female anatomy is a cruel bodge – very few animals suffer in childbirth the way women do – but evolutionary explanations are straightforward and convincing.

I see no evidence for, or ethical value in, thinking we have been created by God in God’s image, and far more reason for thinking we have made God in our image (eg by extrapolating and universalising what we see as the best in ourselves at any particular time).

The idea that we can deduce an ethical imperative, an ought, from a statement about what is the case (the imago dei theory) does not, I think, circumvent the naturalistic fallacy. This is because there is an unstated ethical premise in the imago dei concept. You have defined God as an entity who deserves our devotion, respect and love.

The inference is therefore not:

1.1 All people are made in the image of God (an is); ergo

1.2 All people are worthy of devotion, respect and love (an ought); ergo

1.3 You should treat all people as equal (an ought)

The inference from 1.1 to 1.2 would be fallacious, so the whole is fallacious.

But the inference is actually more like:

2.1 All people are made in the image of God (an is) AND

2.2 God is infinitely worthy of devotion, respect and love (an ought); ergo

2.3 All people are worthy of devotion, respect and love (an ought); ergo

2.4 You should treat all people as equal (an ought)

The inference is from the combination of 2.1 and 2.2 to 2.3, so it does not contravene the naturalistic fallacy. We are not deducing an ought from an is.

What worries me about trying to base an ethical principle on descriptions of divine entities – no matter how much weight we place on the pedigree of those descriptions – is that the descriptions could be wrong or incomplete. The theological response to this problem is generally to embed indefiniteness, neverendingness, apophasis into the concept of the deity. So for example we can never know what the absolutely best thing to do is, because only God knows that, and we are only finite. We can only do our best.

But the God of the theologians is very rarely the God of ordinary mortals. Church sermons are more often about what God is like & what he wants of people, than they are confessions of the preacher’s fundamental ignorance.

Is the apophatic tradition completely wrong? If not, then if there is rationality in the idea that we cannot say what God is like, only what he is not like, what do we mean by saying we are made in the image of God?

For my money we are better off keeping the indefiniteness and neverendingness inside the ethical imperatives themselves. The idea that I have been made in God’s image is for me just a metaphor. If for example it gives me an easy answer why I should not apply the Golden Rule to a chimpanzee then I would say the metaphor is misguided.

Thanks again!

Chris
thinking makes it so