An interesting debate. And it continues on Prosblogion.
Update: Now that I’ve listened to the whole thing, I have to say Craig is in over his head and Kagan makes minced meat of him. I wish they had been more evenly matched.
Update II: Here’s an interesting article by Wes Morriston (who linked to it in the Prosblogion comments) rebutting Craig: God and the ontological foundations of morality. And then there are the Stanford entries on moral arguments for the existence of god, moral realism, and moral naturalism.
Apparently God is as bad at grounding morality as Science.
— Wes
Nice, Wes. I haven’t had a chance to look at the video yet, but the blog itself is really good.
Really digging this website. The “God, Math & the Multiverse” lecture at the site is a lot of fun:
http://www.veritas.org/Media.aspx#!/v/1003
Thanks for sharing!
cool, will check that out
Here is (in my opinion) the most interesting part of the debate. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-9R35v0jDI4
Kelly puts it beautifully and Craig simply can’t keep up.
Yep, Craig is simply out of his league unfortunately. Now that I’ve listened to the whole thing, I wish they had been more evenly matched.
I think Kant’s point from “Religion Within The Limits of Reason Alone” applies to both sides of this Science-Religion debate:
“man … stands in need neither of the idea of another Being over him, for him to apprehend [rule-making and rule-following], nor of an incentive other than [rule-making and rule-following] itself … At least it is man’s own fault if he is subject to such a need.”
Is anyone familiar with the debate between Dennett and Platninga? It’s recorded in “Science and Religion: Are They Compatible?” I have to write about it. I don’t know Plantinga, but I have this feeling that like Kragan and Craig it may not be a fair philosophical fight, with the Naturalists trying to slant things with an easy target. (Sorry Plantinga if I’m wrong).
Not that I’m for theism either. It never ceases to astound me the feeble understanding in American philosophy of Kant’s demonstration of transcendental dialectics, i.e., that this whole debate is, though perhaps edifying in the Hegelian/developmental sense, not strictly or ultimately resolvable. I mean, seriously, seriously not resolvable if anyone has genuinely grasped Kant’s critical insight on the issue. Thus, the whole debate is friggin’ annoying … like watching two 5-year-olds (‘religion’ and ‘science’ in general, not referring to any of the particular debaters) and waiting for them to grow the f* up.
Here’s the Dennett v. Plantinga book:
http://www.oup.com/us/catalog/general/subject/Philosophy/Science/?view=usa&ci=9780199738427
Best,
Tom
Tom: “It never ceases to astound me the feeble understanding in American philosophy of Kant’s demonstration of transcendental dialectics, i.e., that this whole debate is, though perhaps edifying in the Hegelian/developmental sense, not strictly or ultimately resolvable. I mean, seriously, seriously not resolvable if anyone has genuinely grasped Kant’s critical insight on the issue.”
Well, Tom, you clearly have definite opinions on this issue.
Three things:
1) Is it possible that some philosophers (Plantinga, Dennett) do understand Kant but simply disagree with his conclusion? And isn’t arguing the two sides of this issue what philosophers are supposed to do?
2) And if it’s really true that “it’s seriously, seriously not resolvable if anyone has grasped Kant’s critical insight” then doesn’t this type of thinking stop further inquiry? Wouldn’t that be a bad thing when the stakes are so high?
3) Clearly, you feel Kant’s critical insight is irrefutable. Would it be possible for you to briefly outline his argument?
1. Possible but I’d need to see precisely where they’ve seriously engaged with Kant’s argument on transcendental dialectics and the nature of reason to go beyond what is empirically given.
2. No it definitely does not stop further inquiry. That’s also a result of Kant’s discovery of transcendental dialectic: questions like ‘is there a power behind the empirical universe as a whole?’ will constantly raise inquiry precisely because reason can ask but not give a final answer to them.
3. I’m definitely not referring to the whole of Kant’s philosophy, but specifically the problem of transcendental dialectics, e.g., that fact that there can be no empirical resolution between the thesis that (a) there is a divine intelligence behind the universe and the conflicting thesis that (b) there is no divine intelligence behind the universe.
1b. I believe Dennett generally explains belief in God on some sort of psychological ground, e.g., fear of death, etc. A typical scientific atheist argument. However, this type of ‘explanation’ does not really engage with Kant’s argument about the nature of reason itself. That is, it does not engage with Kant’s philosophical — rather than merely psychological — reasoning as to why metaphysical speculation arises.
I’ve got to say I’m a bit disappointed by both of them. Craig is not as skilled a debater as Kagan, but I think Kagan made no more persuasive a case than did Craig.
For example, Kagan defines objectivity by community agreement. Unfortunately, Craig violates a corollary to Godwin’s Law to make an otherwise valid point: defining objectivity by community agreement is problematic.
Further, when Craig points out that humans are only different from animals by virtue of a more complicated nervous system, Kagan has no meaningful response to offer. He just throws his hands up, and says, “Well, we do calculus and poetry and fall in love! If you can’t see how that’s a meaningful distinction between us and animals, then I can’t help you!”
But it’s far from clear that love is restricted to homo sapiens, based on myriad animal studies. And many “lower” animals are capable of a fairly high-level abstract reasoning: just Google “animal cognition.”
Further, if it’s our abstract ability to reason and reflect that can devise an “objective” grounds for morality, then one would expect our collective morality to have improved in lock-step with our ability to perform higher reasoning. But I don’t think recent history has borne that out at all. Put another way, it’s far from clear to me that those social advances we have made as a society came via logic or science or other manifestations of higher critical reasoning; they came through emotional appeals.
None of this is to advocate for Craig, but just to say that I found both of them a bit sloppy with their arguments, though Kagan is a more skilled rhetorician.
Morality, I think by necessity, needs to be defined as the evaluation of personal acts. These evaluations, if they are to be completed within our own lifetime, must be made by information available to use within our lifetime.
Any information which is not available within our lifetime is not available to be used in the evaluation of the morality of a personal act, if this evaluation is to be completed within our lifetime.
Restated, Moral Judgements (by mortals) can only exist, if the information to evaluate personal acts exists within our lifetime.
Claims that suggest that this information does not exist, and/or Claims that this information is not accessible before we die, negate the hope that this evaluation of personal acts by mortals can occur.
Additionally, even claims of future value, including eternal value, can only be used to judge the morality of an act to the degree that the future value can be identified within our lifetimes, and the cause of that value be directly linked to those personal acts that enable that value.
Value which can not be seen, can not be identified. Value which can not be identified by mortals, can not undergo causal construction. Value which can not be casually connected to personal acts which enable this value, can not be used in any argument to support the future value of present-day personal acts.
To allow unseen value to justify acts is to open up an argument that would justify anything of lesser cost than the claim being made of the unseen value.
Personal actions which can only be justified upon the assertion of extremely large claims of unseen value, should be viewed as actions which can not be justified by the information that is available at the time a mortal is to make an evaluation of the morality of the action.
As such, I might agree that there are a great deal of actions which if taken only upon the presumption of this unseen value, would not be justified upon the absence of this same presumption.
For me, I think the question then becomes, what justifies the acceptance of the presumption of unseen value? I would expect only that value which can be seen in our lifetime could justify such a presumption. Additionally, I would like to suggest that this temporal value, must be weighed against the risk of accepting this presumption of unseen value.
I understand that the negation of this presumption of unseen eternal value, may negate one’s justification for those very acts that may be the very causes of this eternal value. However, to allow presumptions of unlimited unseen value to enter into any discussion of morality is to negate the very act of evaluation, for how is one to compare the seeable with the unseeable?
Turning the problem around, the negation of the presumption of observable, temporary and immediate value, negates temporal morality.
How is a Judge, in a land, to Judge the people if not on temporal facts? If not on temporal acts? If not on temporal effects? If not on temporal causes? And if not on temporal links between these facts, acts, causes and effects?
No principle of morality is less contested than that of needlessly killing of another. But, even this uncontested principle of morality has no weight against the presumption of unlimited eternal value when this unseen value is predicated on the killing of another.
A temporal crime, without any temporal benefit to anyone, quickly becomes justified by the unseen, as soon as the presumption is added to the equation.
Extended, when two people are heir to the same estate, an inheritance of a vast, eternal and unseen bottomless chest of eternal happiness, accept the presumption their inheritance is predicated on the death of the other, there are no lengths that can not be employed by either of these two persons in the quest to obtain the unseen.
Acts which would horrify the temporal person, are quickly justified by those persuaded by the unseen.
And, it doesn’t stop at two people, but extends to any group whose eternal state of pain and pleasure is predicated on the death of another. And, any hope of temporal morality quickly fades to the extent that the presumption of the unseen prevails.
It is not the exclusion of the presumption of the eternal unseen, that negates a trillion years of temporal morality, but the introduction of this very presumption of eternal unseen value that would negate any hope of temporal morality over the next trillion years.
-p_a
@ Prior_Analytics:
“Morality” you “think by necessity, needs to be defined …”
Yes, since you are a rule-maker.
“… as the evaluation of personal acts. These evaluations, if they are to be completed within our own lifetime, must be made by information available to use within our lifetime.”
But if there is an imperative to reason [to define rules of thought and practice], and it transcends our lifetimes — because it is an atemporal principal that will appear to anyone who begins to reason freely — then why shouldn’t the requirement of such evaluations necessarily appear to finite beings as an infinite, incompleteable task?
-tom
Eternal cosmic significance? Heck, I’d settle for a star on the Hollywood walk of fame or, more realistically, third place in a mediocrity contest.
Hi Tom,
I’m willing to entertain the thought that the ‘imperative to reason’ extends beyond my lifetime. What I find hard to justify is the inclusion of any acts into this task that I’m not able to directly correlate to the expected effects of these acts.
I’m also willing to include into any calculation of morality anything that adds observable information to the evaluation, be that information be derived from the last 7 billion years, or reasonably predictable from the next 1 trillion years.
Where I’d like to suggest that the line be drawn is at the Unseen. And, the Unseeable. And, certainly the unseeable beyond the last 10 billion years, and the unseeable beyond the next 1 trillion years.
That one’s actions may be justified in the next generation, or only after 1000 years of enlightenment, I’m ok with. That one needs an eternity of endless and immeasurable bliss to justify an otherwise unjustifiable act, I have concerns with.
-p_a
The ontological argument is what’s nihilistic.
And by that I mean that if you can reason a priori to God, you can reason to anything, and as a result, you’ll end up reasoning to nothing at all.
So is this nothing that you’ve determined bad as a matter of your opinion? Is it psychologically bad? In contrast to psychological feelings I would say there is a positive philosophical significance to the concept of not-being.
For example, the discovery of formal logic and mathematics suggest sciences without material content (i.e., empty of reference, non-being), and these indispensable to the material sciences, the conditions of possibility for the latter. This being the case it is ‘natural’ for reason to speculate transcendentally, even if it can come up with ‘nothing’ content-wise beyond the empirical. So you may pine against the ‘nihilism’ of speculation about God, but Kant is right that the combination of the infinite applicability of logic and the finitude of human life ensure such speculative thinking remains reasonable from a genuinely human standpoint.
I would question whether mathematic’s is entirely formalistic. And if it is, it seems a good example of getting semantics from syntax, e.g. string theoristis that make progress simply by doing deeper math.
I was unaware that anyone who believes the ontological argument would refer to it as simply “speculation.”
You also seem to be putting forth a combination of both logic and empirical reasoning, a priori and a posteriori thinking. That seems far different from the unilateral approach of religous “speculation” which appears to be either compeltely formalistic (empty) or completely faith based, i.e. willing to embrace anything despite a lack of evidence or a possesion of contrary evidence (vs. science, which blends formal reasoning (math) with natural reasoning (experiments, experience, intuition).
These things, if they are what you mean, I would agree with you on.
Kagan: Are you vegetarian?
Craig: I’m a level seven vegan. I don’t eat anything that casts a shadow.
Hi Wes,
I didn’t listen to the debate, but I did read your attached article rebutting Craig.
I’m having some trouble following your arguments in your rebuttal.
You seem to believe objective morality exists, and that it’s possible in a godless universe, but I’m not understanding your repeated use of the word “goodness,” as in, that “goodness” can be “present” in a godless universe.
You also use words like “love” and “justice” a lot, that these values can objectively be known in a godless universe.
The feelings associated with these words may exist in a godless universe, but I’m not following how it would be the case that whatever definitions assigned to these words would in any way be objective, nor objectively moral. It seems the most these abstractions could ever attain would be relative among individuals given whatever pertains to their subjective ends.
One important word I think was missing from your rebuttal was “life.” You named a few of God’s attributes, but didn’t name this one. You may know that the Bible speaks of the way of life and the way of death quite often. Even of the commands is repeatedly said “Do this that you may have life.” “The day you eat of it [the forbidden tree] you will surely die.”
My perception of what’s related in the Bible and what I see in the world, is that the moral problem with mankind is a seething hatred of life, and thus, a seething hatred of God and obeying his “arbitrary” commandments. Preferring rather to be wise in the their own eyes and dream up justifications for why the way of death is moral. (i.e. “They’re not really humans because xyz, therefore, it’s not really murder/genocide/infanticide”; “If 2 people of the same sex want to pretend to be married, that’s all that matters, because love is nice and that’s what marriage is all about…love and feel-goods.”; “If it doesn’t harm anyone else, who cares what he/she does, it’s their business, and we should embrace their choice to self-destruct…in the name of freedom” )
Morality is arbitrary if it’s aim is not life, creation, and preserving human dignity. And why the hell should anyone have those aims if there is no God, who is the only meaningful reason for why there was life and creation and humans in the first place?
To me it is evident from from the moral values among the vast majority of the atheist and faithless community, that there is no reason.
Can people that don’t believe there is a God be moral? I’ll believe it when they are pro-life, pro-creation, and pro-human dignity. Til then, their morality isn’t objectively “floating out there”, it’s in their stomach. And their stomach tells them that the way of death is “goodness,” and they do their darndest to rationalize that way as “moral” and “good”. That’s my observation. Hence the trouble I’m having with your choice of words in your rebuttal, since they’re pretty meaningless words in a meaningless world.
Not my article.
Oh, oops. My oversight, apologies.
Nevertheless, I’d be interested to hear your thoughts on his rebuttal, particularly in regards to the argument I made about what I perceive to be his meaningless use of good-sounding words (e.g. “goodness”; “justice” “love”), which I perceived the author of the rebuttal assumes that the meanings to these words are universally and objectively defined. Which they are not.
I understand Craig uses these words as well, but it’s a lot easier to assign a definition to these words when Craig uses them, as they can be viewed within his entire Christian moral framework, as opposed to the author of the article using them, and who the hell knows what he means by these words. I mean, justice can mean something very different to gangs and the mafia and people of various ideologies. So, anyway, I would be interested in your (or anyone else’s) thoughts on that. Since, from my perspective, his rebuttal isn’t much of a rebuttal given he doesn’t define his terms.
Lack of religion does not indicate a lack in morals. It simply means that one chooses to entrust themselves with the responsibility of their existence rather than a system of beliefs or some imaginary divinity.
The thing about religion is that death doesn’t actually mean that you cease to live; It means you move on to another world. This way of thinking is problematic, because it causes people to look away from life toward something to come afterwards.