Discussion: Mere Christianity

[rusmeister]

[WolfVanZandt]

Aye, but that disregards two things:

1) Lewis didn't seem to think that animals could make conscious decisions like that, but Man can.

2) Bonding withing the group would broaden the dimensionality of the biological imperative. Animals have certainly been known to risk their own individual lives to help other related individuals.

If the biological imperative includes conscious decision making and bonding, it could certainly explain risking self to help others.

[JSD]

[JSD]

[WolfVanZandt]

My point is not that morality is due to biological imperative; but that Lewis' argument is weakened because morality could conceivably due to biological imperative. It's a plausible counterexample.

Now, as to all those questions....

:)

Dimnsionality is the structural factors in a measure. In the case of or universe, it's time and space (and possibly, according to quantuum and string theory, several others). In the case of heat (calorie), the dimensions are mass and temperature. In the case of personality, it depends on which model you're using - the Jungean model uses Introversion/Extroversion, Sensing/Intuiting, Thinking/Feeling, Judging/Perceiving.

If you perceive yourself as an isolated individual, then morality based on biological imperative would place self before others every time. The more you relate to others - the more you perceive others as part of self, the more likely a morality based on biological imperative would include the well-being of others, even to the point that other's well-being is more important than the well-being of self.

Of course animals are autonomic - we're also autnomic (we have an autonomic nervous system). Birds, at most, have intelligence comparable to a three year old human child. Children tend to have more engrained behaviors than human adults. It's not too surprising to find more autonomic behaviors in birds than humans. You find fewer autonomic behaviors in canids than you do birds. You do find autonomic behaviors in humans.

Of course you can ask animals. You just have to use the correct language. Animals don't use verbal language but they do share one language with us, empathy. Although, compared to most humans, animals are empathic geniuses, humans have enough empathy to communicate with animals.......if we care to.

A telling question is this.....if animals seem to make conscious decisions and there is no reason to assume that they don't, does it make any sense at all to assume that they don't? Yet that is what humanity has done for most of recorded history and that is certainly what Lewis has done. He outright said (in THe Problem of Pain) that there's no reason to assume that animals don't make conscious decisions and then he proceeds to do so for the rest of the book. We have never had any reason to assume that animals do not think, do not feel, do not make conscious decisions, do not have a sense of self, etc., etc. - but we have consistetly made that assumption - even in the face of ethnopsychology (comparative psychology) which has pretty much concluded that the only real differences between animal thought and human thought are words and thumbs.

[nomad]

[JSD]

Wolf Wrote:

“My point is not that morality is due to biological imperative; but that Lewis' argument is weakened because morality could conceivably due to biological imperative. It's a plausible counterexample.

…

If you perceive yourself as an isolated individual, then morality based on biological imperative would place self before others every time. The more you relate to others - the more you perceive others as part of self, the more likely a morality based on biological imperative would include the well-being of others, even to the point that other's well-being is more important than the well-being of self.”


Hi –

Been thinking about what you say – from where does it come? Interesting? Where can I find some more information? Especially web based summaries !!

All the same, you say that your viewpoint, weakens Lewis’ argument.

Event though I don't understand it, I know this much: It doesn’t weaken Lewis' point in the least ... for these reasons …

You say the biological imperative argument, whatever it is, is both conceivable and plausible. (Whether a thing is conceivable or whether it is plausible are different, of course) but apart from that you have a problem I am keen for you to remedy so I can see where you are headed.

Just citing or asserting an alternative theory does not weaken an argument. As Lewis knew, all corrections of errors in argument are corrections of fact relied upon, or the way in which the prepositions leading to the conclusion are arranged. (See generally: Why I am not a Pacifist – Lewis says there a great deal more than the words, and shows a profound understanding of reason – he could use it so well!)

As it is, Lewis’ argument makes perfect sense. You can weaken it by showing where his facts are wrong, or by pointing out where his "showing" is wrong. You cannot weaken it by suggesting that some completely different idea is a plausible explanation for the moral law.

Plausible assertions do not weaken formulated arguments.

I am to say with you, Lewis’ argument for a moral law outside of ourselves is not strong, because some other assertion is plausible? No – nonsense ! (As Lewis was said to shout at people).

It is also plausible (to some people) that martians give us the moral law, but that does not weaken Lewis’ argument either.

To counter him at all, you must say his facts are wrong, or you must say that his argument does not flow, premise to premise, as it were, to lead to the conclusion. Since many of the facts are gained from looking within, you may simply say you see something else when you look in, but most people find as Lewis’ did – a third thing judging choices.

The moral law has a real origin; that is, there is a true way that it came into existence, if indeed it is a law at all. It can’t have a merely biological foundation and a created foundation – it has to be one or the other.

In my view, Lewis is right. And because my mind tells me it is right, I preserve it, argue it, share it, and accept it.

There is one way in which both options can be true. I do not doubt that in social situations, where I am brought into moral company, my own morality increases. In this sense, there is a kind of morality that arises out of living. But morality is not under discussion, the presence of a moral law that does not change is under discussion. But how do you get from that truth to propsitions about what ought to be?

If your theory is telling me that feelings between the group, which are facts, lead to statements of moral imperatives, then such a theory is in trouble with Hume, for, as he showed, you cannot reason from a set of facts, such as the feelings in the group, to an imperative; that is, a way that things ought to be.

And Lewis would add in …” exactly.” Lewis most probably takes his sentence in MC, chapter one, from Hume.

“But feeling a desire to help is quite different from feeling that you ought to help whether you want to or not. “ In short, Lewis knows that is and ought are different. The question is how to get to ought. You ought not kill? You ought not over-eat? You ought not be a coward? How did we arrive at those kind of rules? How biologically. Lewis’ point is that you don’t arrive at them, they are outside, but present, and universal – see the appendix of the Abolition.

But the biological imperative viewpoint says exactly the opposite -- the rules are man made whether they arise from social bonding, empathy, love, or what have you, they are made not given as a result of the way men and women live together. As Lewis might have pointed out – what then distinguishes the rules from some remote South Sea Island from Nazi rules? Both came from tight knit groups of people.

In essence, your viewpoint is buddhist? Are you buddhist? Buddhist's have a highly developed and humane ethical system announced and developed out of a people, but without any sense of the supernatural. It is an entirely human creation (which is not to say it is not the right way) but it too might be rightly said to have come from biology.

John

John

[Kolbitar]

Hi John.

I strongly agree with most of what you say, but I have to take issue with the following:

::Now, Lewis knew patristics and he knew philosophy. He knew you could not conclude God. He knew that a concluded God, one rationally arrived it, is an idol, and anathema to Christian understanding.

This is simply not true. Christianity, especially in the Catholic tradition, has a rich history of philosophical proofs for God's existence. Lewis himself popularized the argument from reason. Catholicism has always recognized the distinction between reason and revelation; faith deals with matters of revelation: the Trinity, the Incarnation, the Virgin Birth, etc. These can be rationally defended, but not rationally derived. The existence of pure being, on the other hand, can be concluded from the application of reason to the data of the senses.

Jesse

[WolfVanZandt]

JSD, I just don't know where to start, but the simplest one is.....no, I'm not Buddhist.

The argument is an argument. Arguments do not have to come from authoritaive souces and are, in fact, stronger if they do not. Authoritative sources are a point where arguments can be atacked. Why, for instance, should I agree with Hume?

Still, Lewis' argument is not purely deductive. If it were and if his premises could be shown to be true, then his argument would be unassailable. If his conclusion was the only one available, and his argument sound, then his argument would be very strong indeed. But if his conclusion is noyt the only plausable one, then his argument would be weaker because his theory is only one of the possible ones to explain morality. The existence of my argument, unless it can be shown to be invalid, most certainly does weaken Lewis'.

But although I constructed my counteragument myself, it's not terribly original. It's been a long time since I studied moral philosophy, so I'll have to find other instances of morality by biological imperative.

In the meantime, feelings have no place in my theory. The question is whether two humans are isolated biological entties, in which case, the biological imperative of one would not include the other's well-being. The weaker the boundaries are between the two, the more survival of one depends on that of the other and the more survival of the other would vie survival of self in importance. If I am me alone, then only my survial is important. If you are part of me, then my survival is more important thn yours, but yours is still important.If we are art of each other, then both our survival are equally important. If I am part of you, then it is more important that you survive.

[WolfVanZandt]

BTW, I just did a search on "morality "biological imperative" and came up with 1270 hits. Most of them seemed to approach morality as the result of a biological imperative.

And again (fer cryin' out loud) I do not agree that morality is based on a biological imperative. I'm simply showing that there is a plausible counterargument to Lewis'. Or more accurately, I believe that a biological imperative is in place but I agree with Lewis that God put it there and it isn't the whole cause of morality.

Buddhist! (snork)

[BenjaminScrubb]

JSD, I have enjoyed your use of logic--your clarity and communication are appreciated. I would like to hear about Lewis' explanation about how God cannot be "concluded." Are you saying that God cannot be proven with logic and reason? I do agree that God cannot be proven (and that He would not allow Himself to be proven) because that would remove the necessity of faith. However, I do believe Lewis employs logic and reason very powerfully in his discussion and apologetics to explain belief in God.

Specifically, I believe that the whole discussion of the Moral Law is to create the question: What is the source of the Moral Law? Or rather, Who is the source of the moral law? I think that Lewis would answer these questions by pointing to God.



I love this whole thread, it has inspired me to consider all of these concepts anew.

[JSD]

Hi Jesse –

Great points …

Christianity, especially in the Catholic tradition, has a rich history of philosophical proofs for God's existence.

Agreed, along with the philosophers, theologians have sought to prove God rationally. By rationally, I mean within the confines of logic.

One is the argument for ethics, which Lewis used …. Humans are aware of actions as being right and wrong, obligatory and forbidden. Such awareness carries with it the thought that they are bound to do some things and bound to avoid doing others. Moral qualities have a force of “ought” and a force of must.

Another is the ontological argument credited to Anselm. Lewis knew it. It is back in vogue. I won’t even attempt it. Suffice to say, it can be credibly attacked. (One of my points is that all human argument can be credibly attacked. Ideas, and by that I mean conclusions from argument, can hang around for 100s of years, but the history of philosophy, if it shows anything, is that nothing in the world of proofs is untouchable.

Lewis himself popularized the argument from reason.

I am not familiar with this. Lewis was fond of finding those things which could not have occurred in a world that was merely natural. He nearly always relied upon ordinary experience as fact.

I thought he popularized the argument by desire.

1. He had deep yearnings that began in childhood abd he probed the meaning of the desire he felt into adulthood.

2. He asserted that the sudden appearance of desire cannot be from this world because the very experience of it points you to something outside of nature. (In strict reason, this does not have to follow, and is easily attacked.)

3. Then Lewis says that the fact that he has such a desire is proof that there is a way to feed it, just as hunger proves the existence of food. Why, in a sense, be given a huge desire that has no fulfillment on earth. It must be from outside.

Now … I am glad this on the table. It is classic Lewis, part logic, but part myth. That is how he was. He could and did provide the strict logic from time to time, but he also would not leave it at that – he would end with mythical assertions, and appeal to that unique form of truth telling, which is no longer rational, but mythical. It was a great love of his. I just re-read Phaedo (Plato) and it is no wonder Lewis loved him – he does the same thing. Begins in strict logic, and ends in the mythical, the highest form of truth telling.

Catholicism has always recognized the distinction between reason and revelation; faith deals with matters of revelation.

I agree – faith is revealed. No one can say that Jesus is the Christ without the spirit. It follows and makes utter sense: Who would believe that a man who walked and breathed and lived in the world was God, unless it were revealed to him? To me this is bedrock.

The Trinity, the Incarnation, the Virgin Birth, etc. These can be rationally defended, but not rationally derived.

I fully agree, but as I said, a rational defence is always open to attack and can never be a final word. This is very hard for people to accept. Lewis agreed when he said – “proof rests on the unprovable.” The final proof of anything in logic must, in the end, just be seen to be true. That goes for a defence as well as a proof.


The existence of pure being, on the other hand, can be concluded from the application of reason to the data of the senses.

Yes, I don’t doubt it. Pure being is also, for many, a philosophical certainty.

[JSD]

Are you saying that God cannot be proven with logic and reason?

Yes. This is also responsive to Jesse, and I save this point for here.

The arguments that prove God never really prove God but rather prove that there is more to life than nature. There is a something, more like a mind than anything else we know, said Lewis in MC.

The recent developments in argument by design are powerfull, now that we know more about nature.

But they do not prove the personal God of the Hebrews, the one who thinks, feels, acts, pursues humans, is angered, and loves. This God, the God I know and love, cannot be proven.

Say I prove to you that there is a God. Can I prove he loves me? Can I prove it if he gets me fired on Monday for spending too much time the Wardrobe? What if he wipes me out tomorrow? What if he had given me cancer when I was 10. What if he causes me to suffer. How does pain prove love? It can't. It can only be asserted or revealed.

Your reason for believing that is as good as any I have seen.

[JSD]

Specifically, I believe that the whole discussion of the Moral Law is to create the question: What is the source of the Moral Law? Or rather, Who is the source of the moral law? I think that Lewis would answer these questions by pointing to God.



A B S O L U T E L Y !!!

[Kolbitar]

Hey John.

::Another is the ontological argument credited to Anselm. Lewis knew it. It is back in vogue. I won’t even attempt it.

The ontological argument; I'm no fan of it myself, it grants an idealist assumption.

There's also St. Thomas' five ways.

::Suffice to say, it can be credibly attacked. (One of my points is that all human argument can be credibly attacked. Ideas, and by that I mean conclusions from argument, can hang around for 100s of years, but the history of philosophy, if it shows anything, is that nothing in the world of proofs is untouchable.

A friend of mine who posts here once in a while (Doc) introduced me to Mortimer Adler a few years back. He runs in the line of Aquinas and Aristotle, and is a very clear thinker. He brought to my attention the distinguishing feature between Realism and all other forms of philosophy, which is the function of ideas. Modern philosophy, largely taking the lead of Locke, simply failed to answer the question of epistemology in the only way which preserves the objectivity of knowledge: by saying that ideas are that by which we are aware of objects. Instead, if you'll note, they all profess that ideas are that of which we're aware--not by which. The difference could not be any more consequential. For instance, I’m constantly told that the traditional arguments for God’s existence don’t hold water, yet every single attempt reverts back to a philosophy, which, indeed, refutes God’s existence, but does so only by refuting the existence of everything! The arguer is rarely even aware of this, then when I point out the logic I'm dismissed as a "philosopher!" In fact, everyone is a philosopher, even if simply by default.

::::Lewis himself popularized the argument from reason.

::I am not familiar with this. Lewis was fond of finding those things which could not have occurred in a world that was merely natural. He nearly always relied upon ordinary experience as fact.

Well, I have in mind the argument he employed in Miracles.

::I thought he popularized the argument by desire.

He did that too.

::1. He had deep yearnings that began in childhood abd he probed the meaning of the desire he felt into adulthood.
2. He asserted that the sudden appearance of desire cannot be from this world because the very experience of it points you to something outside of nature. (In strict reason, this does not have to follow, and is easily attacked.)

Actually I find his argument from desire the most powerful. I’m not clear what you mean by easily attacked using strict reason. Could you explain?



::::The Trinity, the Incarnation, the Virgin Birth, etc. These can be rationally defended, but not rationally derived.

::I fully agree, but as I said, a rational defence is always open to attack and can never be a final word. This is very hard for people to accept. Lewis agreed when he said – “proof rests on the unprovable.” The final proof of anything in logic must, in the end, just be seen to be true. That goes for a defence as well as a proof.

By unprovable here he meant, and I assume you do as well, self evident. You can show the absurdity of denying self evident propositions, but you cannot prove them because any proof proceeds from them. There are very few self evident facts, but there are conclusions of reason that we can accept as beyond a reasonable doubt.

::::The existence of pure being, on the other hand, can be concluded from the application of reason to the data of the senses.

::Yes, I don’t doubt it. Pure being is also, for many, a philosophical certainty.

I’m not quite clear here. In another post you respond that God cannot be a rational conclusion. But that’s precisely what God is: pure being. This certainly does not tell us anything else about God--like His personal and loving nature—but it does give us a meeting point with purely natural philosophers (who deny revelation) and deists (if desists can actually be distinguished from natural philosophers(?)).

Thanks,

Jesse