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On Natural Desire (primarily to Salanor)

On Natural Desire (primarily to Salanor)

Postby Kolbitar » January 14th, 2008, 1:52 pm

Dear Salanor,

I’d like to begin our discussion about the difference between our conceptions of “natural desire” by delving a bit deeper into a nominal point of agreement we share. Earlier you agreed with me that morality is objective if objective means “publicly apprehend-able”. A tree, for example, is objective because it is an object we can all perceive. On the other hand, the perception itself is subjective, for we each have our own separate experience of the tree. It’s true that I can talk to you about my perception, and in that way it can become an object “publicly apprehend-able”; in this sense we may say it has “second hand objectivity” -- but the perception itself is subjective. Now, when I speak of objective morality I understand it also to be absolute, absolute in two senses – first, in it’s universality, that is, in it’s general principles it is descriptive of everyone regardless of individual differences; second, it is binding on everyone, it is a rational imperative. In contrast, it’s fairly evident to me that your conception of objective morality at best is really only a “second hand objective morality”, which is to say no better than a purely subjective morality. Why?

In your view (I’ll sincerely try to do it justice – tell me if and where I don’t) laws are codified from a certain moral consciousness which permeates a particular age; a majority of people – or a sufficient number of influential leaders – share an outlook on what should and shouldn’t be implemented by law and impose that outlook upon society through governmental means. Whatever type of government exists, and whatever it chooses to do, well, that’s just how it is – it is, I can describe its existence, character and maybe even its origin (like we can discuss the existence, character and origin of Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings), therefore, according to you, it has objectivity.

However, when we say “objective morality”, don’t we mean to say (like we don’t mean to say the Lord of the Rings is objective history) that we can do more than describe the morality of a given culture (including our own); don’t we mean to say that we can judge it by an unchanging standard – an absolute morality? And in saying that we can judge it by an unchanging standard, an absolute morality, don’t we also imply that this absolute morality is one to which each individual “ought” to conform? Now, your entire method -- and not just yours but Dawkins’, Hawkings’, Russell’s, and all such dogmatic natural scientists’; your entire method is that which merely describes – it’s the descriptive method. So, even if we can come to a general understanding about what type of ends at which a given government and morality should aim if it wants the best for the most amount of people, we still cannot say that everyone therefore “ought” to agree with us. We can say “if we want this end, then we can implement these means”; but, if all objective knowledge consists in merely describing reality, then we cannot prescribe what someone else “ought” to do – we cannot speak for someone else. If you cannot speak for someone else then, though you can say, for instance, that killing Jews for no other reason than they are Jewish is wrong for you, still, you must (logically) add that it is not wrong for other people to murder Jews. In my eyes such naturalist logic is repulsive and sub-human; fortunately it’s also a contradiction and there’s a way out, which I will discuss later on (and which entails, as you can guess, unfortunate implications for your naturalistic “natural desire”).

So, summing up the first part of my response: It is my observation that atheists, among others, use the descriptive method as their sole instrument for attaining objective knowledge – thus they neglect an entire dimension of human experience, relegating it to mere subjective preference; this, salanor, is the source of our difference. With this difference in mind, let us now go on to discuss why your view is, fortunately (or is it not unfortunate to be unable to speak for someone and say they should not murder children?), rationally impossible.

--- --- --- ---

All valid thought assumes the self-evident principle of non-contradiction. This principle governs reality, thus it is the first principle of the descriptive method. It is this principle, for instance, that makes it possible for a math teacher to correct a student. Interestingly, there is no democratic principle involved when it comes to the fact that two apples added to two apples gives you four apples, so that even if all humanity gets the problem wrong, you can objectively state that they are, in fact, wrong. Indeed, I can state – I can speak for someone -- that the person who says two apples plus one apple equals four apples is absolutely and objectively wrong: objectively because he is not correctly apprehending reality; absolutely because, due to it’s self-evident nature, no thinking substance can see it otherwise – it’s a mistake, rather, in judgment. Fascinating!

Now, we left off part one with a dilemma that needs to be resolved in the same manner that the descriptive method solves it’s dilemmas: we must be able objectively and absolutely to affirm that all human beings ought to act, or at least ought not to act, in certain ways in certain circumstances. In other words, the prescriptive method needs to be combined with the descriptive method in order to say that we ought to do such and such. However, as we intimated before, you cannot derive an “ought” by describing what is – with one exception. That exception can only be (as one may gather from my opening paragraph) an appeal to a first principle, which is self-evident (as it was with our appeal to the principle of non-contradiction of the descriptive method) – which, because of our inability to think otherwise, we are forced universally and objectively to affirm. And that first principle? Well, before I touch on the answer I want to preface my remarks with comments you’ve made to me in the past; these comments, I believe, will serve to highlight the lopsided nature of your approach.

In an earlier discussion I asked “why does the creature seek new patterns, why ‘does it extrapolate purposes and supposes other purposes’, why does it ‘construct meaning, derive purpose and ascribe value’, why does it ‘constantly re-evaluating’ things; when I asked these things you responded, in purely truncated materialistic terms, “Because, if it does, its genes will last longer”; that’s the extent of your method, which is purely descriptive. But notice what you’ve done here; notice the angle you pretend to be able to take: you assume you can step outside of your own subjectivity and answer either as if you are completely oblivious to the fact that you have inside knowledge, or as if you are completely oblivious to the fact that inside knowledge IS relevant, unavoidable, and inseparable from the question (logically speaking it’s relevant, unavoidable, and inseparable from the question; but one cannot “logically” compel an illiterate man who insists that The Faerie Queen is nothing but black ink on the paper in front of him that it’s anything other than that – will this be an accurate analogy?).


There is one thing, and only one, in the whole universe which we know more about than we could learn from external observation. That one thing is Man. We do not merely observe men, we are men. In this case we have, so to speak, inside information; we are in the know… Notice the following point. Anyone studying man from the outside as we study electricity or cabbages, not knowing our language and consequently not able to get any inside knowledge from us, but merely observing what we did, would never get the slightest evidence [of a self-evident principle]… [H]is observations would only show what we did [not what we ought to do]. –Lewis

Indeed, as David Chalmers noted, “To truly bridge the gap between the physical nature of brain physiology and the mental essence of consciousness, we have to satisfy two different conceptual demands.” For some reason, salanor, you only endeavor to satisfy one conceptual demand; the other, which involves morality, you are at the very least content to subordinate. But you are wrong. To speak from inside conscious experience and say I seek new patterns, purpose, meaning, bla, bla, bla, and etc., “so that my genes will last longer” as if that’s an end in itself is obviously absolute nonsense. Why do I care if my genes last longer? It is true that human nature has a desire to procreate, and thus to pass along genes, but that is not an end in itself – there is only one end in itself, which encompasses why I should care about passing along genes, and that is happiness.

Listen to Aristotle:

Now we call that which is in itself worthy of pursuit more final than that which is worthy of pursuit for the sake of something else, and that which is never desirable for the sake of something else more final than the things that are desirable both in themselves and for the sake of that other thing, and therefore we call final without qualification that which is always desirable in itself and never for the sake of something else.
Now such a thing happiness, above all else, is held to be; for this we choose always for itself and never for the sake of something else, but honour, pleasure, reason, and every virtue we choose indeed for themselves (for if nothing resulted from them we should still choose each of them), but we choose them also for the sake of happiness, judging that by means of them we shall be happy. Happiness, on the other hand, no one chooses for the sake of these, nor, in general, for anything other than itself.


Mortimer Adler puts it succinctly:

[A]ny other good (wealth, health, freedom, knowledge) we can always say that we desire it for the sake of something else… But it is impossible to complete the sentence beginning with the words ‘We want to be happy or want happiness because…’

Happiness, Adler notes, is defined as "that state of human well-being which leaves nothing more to be desired".

Happiness, then, serves as our first principle; it is a “non-reductive primitive”, it is to our inside conscious existence what the “non-reductive primitives”, space and time, are to the external, physical world: in short, it serves as our most general and fundamental context for discussing “natural desire”.

To be continued...
The man who lives in contact with what he believes to be a living Church is a man always expecting to meet Plato and Shakespeare tomorrow at breakfast. He is always expecting to see some truth that he has never seen before. --Chesterton

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Postby salanor » January 17th, 2008, 1:41 am

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Postby Kolbitar » January 24th, 2008, 12:15 am

Hi Salanor. I'd like to make a number of observations.

First, I don't see how your new "take" differs from the one I constructed my argument against. With due respect, I believe your method is to pretend that somehow you can escape the "inside of knowledge" in order to describe the outside, it is to fix blinders precisely where you're able to exclude the point from which you actually do start. I would much rather let actual experience dictate my understanding than be led by a-priori assumptions which are not self-evident, thus are purely dogmatic.

The difference between a dream and reality is that reality includes the dream; similarly, the difference between your starting point and mine is that mine includes yours. If a doctor were to open up a patients brain while he was still conscious and pinpoint all the physical processes which attend the patients conscious experience of, let's say, the posters on the office wall, what the doctor would dictate as his description would be "irreducibly different" from the language the patient would use to describe his experience. You could never add up descriptions to produce the actual experience. A color blind doctor could never experience red by observing the outer processes of a patient experiencing red "from the inside" -- your dogmatic assumption is that you can; it does not take into account "irreducibly different" perspectives, which have distinct "conceptual demands".

Second, my mathematical illustration was relevant in so far as it illustrated the principle of non-contradiction, which, itself, was introduced to show that we can speak for each other in certain instances -- we have insight. All normal minds see that a thing which is cannot be and not be at the same time in the same way. Whatever you take reality to be, I can speak for you, from the inside, and say you are wrong if you affirm that it exists and does not exist at the same time in the same way. I can speak for you, and you for me. Your skeptical attempts to confuse the issue notwithstanding, "oughts" must be premised in an equally self-evident principle in order to be able to universally and categorically speak for someone else concerning morality. Failing this, you must logically admit that the worst of crimes, though you may feel they are wrong, are not wrong for others to commit.

Third (this is almost an aside but I'll number it with the main points), I don't have enough context to understand your beef with Dinesh D'Souza. I would gladly defend him, but your argument against what he said as it somehow relates to our discussion is just too anecdotal for me.

Fourth, your arguments against "higher morality" can be just as effective against themselves.

You say, "One way of resolving the mess is to suggest a "higher" morality to which your model must be subservient, on fear of all sorts of trouble, such as eternal damnation... such a proposal is just a trick to make my system dominate. Its easier for me if it does." But it could equally be that your naturalistic proposal is just a trick to make your system dominate -- because you do have a moral system, by default, whether you admit it or not.

You also say, "I can also appeal to natural systems to try to make them dominate your moral model. If I say that homosexuality is "unnatural", this is a converse variation on the "higher authority" idea in that it makes my model subservient to some more fundamental principles derived from nature." Yea, and you can just as well say, like you are saying, "my model (that there is no absolute moral model) is the most fundamental principle derived from nature - no less a "converse variation on the "higher authority" idea" -- which "makes other models subservient" to whatever I want the model to be. I’d also add that, in essence, your model is the model that might makes right -- directly opposed to the principle of freedom that all men are equal.

Fifth, whatever else the Christian view that "all have sinned" because we are fallen creatures may mean to you, it gives us, in general, a frame of reference for recognizing historical accounts with the conviction about human nature that "power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely." This leads to a very healthy perspective on government, on the rule of law, democracy and the balance of power.

Sixth (the heart of the issue), you "explain" nothing of "the origin of... higher purpose... in terms of evolution." You might as well say you can explain the origin of my knowledge of the tree I perceive in terms of evolution! In other words, if someone says, “look at that tree out in the field,” do you say, “you see that tree because, thanks to evolution, you’re genetically predisposed to see that tree,” and presume that you’ve explained away the existence of the tree in front of you, like you mean to imply you’ve explained away the existence of absolute morality? No, therefore it is much more accurate to say, “Our animal faculties have evolved in order for us now to be able to perceive the existence of trees and other objects. Likewise, given the facts which we know from the inside, it is only truly accurate to say about morality, “Our animal faculties have evolved in order for us to be able to perceive the existence of a self-evident principle driving and guiding our very existence (a principle which incidentally explains why genes continue on).”

Finally, whatever layers to morality you might find exist, and somehow find beauty in, if it all boils down to being entirely impotent when it comes to begetting a position that says, for instance, it is categorically wrong to torture children for one’s own sick pleasure, then I pray God save us from ever adopting such a “conviction” on a grand scale. With this in mind I would put your words to me conversely: “you might express your dissatisfaction that the origin of [such] higher purpose” can only exist if a human being reflects worth from the eternal love of God; that the first principle of morality -- as you’ve no doubt intuited -- only makes sense if it’s grounded in such; but perhaps you can see why many of us side with trusting God at all costs (sometimes ridiculous ones), amidst all our clouded and sometimes conflicting concepts of him, against all forms of moral “impotency”.

I’d like to close with one last point. Everyone who’s made advances in the way of inner exploration (the way of the “inside of knowledge”) has found that the “carnal man,” the selfish “desires of the flesh,” war against the spiritual man, and that the spiritual man is latent until we fight. There are strong motives, which guard against making the shift in perspectives of which I speak – the motive game works both ways. The atheist philosopher Sartre recalls the childhood experience of God-as-conscience when he did something he knew was wrong yet wanted to do; he felt he was in the presence of a being who disapproved, and he chased away that disapproval by repeating “God damn it” over and over till it vanished, till he was “free” from it. Likewise, but with the opposite outcome, Augustine, in his Confessions, recalls a moment of crisis when he was faced with the shame of not choosing to convert; something in him wanted to convert, but something else wanted to remain enslaved to lust and other lower passions. He recounts, very vividly, pulling out his hair, banging his head against the wall, and rocking back and forth while this battle raged within him. Finally, he gave himself over to God, let God work within him, and became a holy man freed from bondage.

Sartre went one way, Augustine went the other; but the difference is not merely a difference of degree; there’s a quote from Mill, which I think aptly phrases the contrast between them, and with which I’ll leave off; Mill writes (with a few liberties of my own), “the fool…(is) of a different opinion… because (he) only know(s) (his) own side of the question. The other party to the comparison knows both sides.”

Sincerely,

Jesse
The man who lives in contact with what he believes to be a living Church is a man always expecting to meet Plato and Shakespeare tomorrow at breakfast. He is always expecting to see some truth that he has never seen before. --Chesterton

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Postby Robert » January 24th, 2008, 12:00 pm

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Postby salanor » January 29th, 2008, 12:08 pm

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Postby Robert » January 29th, 2008, 9:19 pm

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Postby salanor » January 29th, 2008, 11:00 pm

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Postby Kolbitar » January 30th, 2008, 4:17 am

The man who lives in contact with what he believes to be a living Church is a man always expecting to meet Plato and Shakespeare tomorrow at breakfast. He is always expecting to see some truth that he has never seen before. --Chesterton

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Postby Kolbitar » January 31st, 2008, 12:17 am

::I introduce D'Souza to try to place you. Those like D'Souza who want to rely on some “universal principle” to substantiate his beliefs are looking, like you, for something “beyond” the apparent. But your intentions, whether you know it or not, are, like D'Souza , political. If you can find morality somewhere independent of your or my perceptions, then you have something to parade around as irrefutable, as pre-existent and as superior to my morality. This is the beginning of totalitarianism. “I have a better understanding of that universal morality, I know it to be such and such, your beliefs don’t match, therefore you are wrong, therefore I am at liberty to suppress your views.”

First, I’ve challenged you at least three times with the logical fruits of a view, your view, which CANNOT “find morality somewhere independent of your or my perceptions”:

“If you cannot speak for someone else then, though you can say, for instance, that killing Jews for no other reason than they are Jewish is wrong for you, still, you must (logically) add that it is not wrong for other people to murder Jews. In my eyes such naturalist logic is repulsive and sub-human…”

“Your skeptical attempts to confuse the issue notwithstanding, "oughts" must be premised in an equally self-evident principle in order to be able to universally and categorically speak for someone else concerning morality. Failing this, you must logically admit that the worst of crimes, though you may feel they are wrong, are not wrong for others to commit.”

And

“…if it all boils down to being entirely impotent when it comes to begetting a position that says, for instance, it is categorically wrong to torture children for one’s own sick pleasure, then I pray God save us from ever adopting such a “conviction” on a grand scale.”

I don’t recall one response from you. Why? Because you cannot respond. Indeed, you’re in fact perplexed at my “desire to ‘universally and categorically speak for someone else concerning morality’”, and chalk it up as somehow akin to a “Mathematicians to pursue ‘pure Maths’”. Yet I’m the one laying the basis for “totalitarianism”!? Quite the opposite. The basis of totalitarianism is a concession to might makes right, itself predicated on the first principle that there is no objective, universal morality binding upon us all by which we can determine it wrong. That’s elementary stuff!

Second, a denial that my morality is moral is a claim that your morality is superior to my own (or do you not think that what you claim leads to totalitarianism is wrong?). By your own admission, therefore, you must be just as “political” as, so you claim, D’Souza and me.

You are consistent about one thing, you always want to have and eat your cake at the same time :-)

::Yes, theoretically, it may be. But prove that it is. If my aim is political – that is, I wish to dominate you – why then would I bother affirming that your views are as legitimate as mine because we are on the same leaf of the evolutionary tree? If morality is a matter of negotiation, then it is the product of a constant struggle between us – always in flux and always affirming the right of participants to their views. If morality is not a matter of negotiation, then whoever gets to the holy grail first is the winner and no-one except the person holding the cup can have any “insight”.

Are you serious? According to you I want to dominate you. Yet you affirm that my view – that I want to dominate you – is just as legitimate as yours? If it’s just as legitimate as yours, then it makes no difference if yours is eradicated! Don’t you see how absurd and dangerous that is? And if morality is a matter of “negotiation”, how does that help the matter? Why should I negotiate with someone if I have power? It’s only if I don’t that I want to negotiate, and when I finally do… It’s so completely obvious that morality, in its general outline, must be objective, must be a matter for reason to engage. And once reason is engaged, then the dimmer parts of our moral knowledge – the tenets of morality that are less clear and less destructive of others liberties – are seen to be individual, not political.

::You missed the point. Naturalistic models can be used is a similar way to “higher authority” models if they exclude the competition of ideas in morality. In other words, if I say that I can get a moral principle from nature and this must be applied to all, regardless of negotiation, then I am no better than the “God said I had to do it” crowd.


I don’t think I missed it – it’s glaringly obvious to me that a “Naturalistic model” which includes “the competition of ideas in morality” includes, if it really is inclusive, “higher authority models”, which you want to exclude, thus conveniently use as a disguise for the actions your selfish genes wish to engage, for the morality YOU want to see dominate, for the negotiation which is no negotiation!


::It is precisely because evolution proves that all men are equal, because they are “just” vehicles for the same selfish gene, that we can then see that all human moral principles are a construct of complex interactions – ideas in competition, with some dominating at some times and others at another time. The moment we give a “higher” or "external” credence to one set of ideas, we have made humans into robots, programmed to respond to, but not create, morality.


Another bit that sounds so grand on the surface, but, I’m afraid, has no substance to it. All you’re saying is there is no end or goal for human action, so that all is fair game. Nazis wanted to exterminate Jews, that was just a “dominate idea in competition,” it can be judged by no higher standard. Hey, don’t criticize your neighborly child molester, he’s expressing his minority idea, creating his morality, which should be negotiated with you, you mindless robot.

Hmm, doesn’t sound so grand now…

::Oh please. Only a “tidy” framework can help us with history? Apart from the fact that such a framework can be constructed completely without Christianity’s help, it is not useful in practise. Looking back on past events is difficult enough. We cannot “see” into the hearts and minds of those who are dead and therefore have thin ground for judging their motives. At best, we compose a sense of moral “spirit” based on artefacts of the time.

I was responding to YOUR idea about seeing into the hearts of people by reading the logic of their professed creeds; that your logic, applied thusly, “The Christian view that "all have sinned" populates my world with "sinners" seeking ill for me”; that your logic was falsely applied, for the Christian view that all have sinned is clearly a matter empirically verifiable, and only by really believing it will you, and society, come to a healthy view that man should not be given too much power – that no man should.


::I doubt I have seen a more confused version of evolution. “Higher purpose” is a construct. It helps the gene “vehicle” to justify its actions. The idea of the tree is likewise a construct, albeit one premised in brute experience. The genetic predisposition is to declare that some things are “intentional agents” and to layer this to a level of abstraction that we have beliefs about beliefs – that is, to operate at a highly abstracted level without effort. In this way, a tree can genuinely be a “symbol of nature’s indomitable spirit” or any such thing. And all sorts of abstractions can be shown to be irrefutable.

If what I detect in your words is true, then you have another enormous problem with your view. You seem to be implying that “the idea of the tree” is the object of our knowledge, and not the tree itself. You seem to be saying the our mind produces the idea of the tree, and that we are aware not of the tree, but the idea of the tree. Are you saying this?

EDIT:

::“Higher purpose” is a construct. It helps the gene “vehicle” to justify its actions.

What needs to justify its actions? In light of what?

Jesse
The man who lives in contact with what he believes to be a living Church is a man always expecting to meet Plato and Shakespeare tomorrow at breakfast. He is always expecting to see some truth that he has never seen before. --Chesterton

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Postby salanor » February 5th, 2008, 11:22 pm

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Postby Kolbitar » February 7th, 2008, 2:31 am

Salanor, I'm outta here for Lent... be back soon enough...

Till then, let us remember:

There are more things in heaven and earth,
Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.


Take care,

Jesse
The man who lives in contact with what he believes to be a living Church is a man always expecting to meet Plato and Shakespeare tomorrow at breakfast. He is always expecting to see some truth that he has never seen before. --Chesterton

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