5 ms·

The end of Philosophy

35 points by knieveltech 18y ago

aaronasterling 18y ago
Am I missing something or does this have nothing to do with "new atheism"? "It challenges the new atheists, who see themselves involved in a war of reason against faith and who have an unwarranted faith in the power of pure reason and in the purity of their own reasoning." It seems to me that the position of "new atheists" is that science is the only (known) universal means of answering the questions that it is capable of answering. The contents of the article (though not scientific) have been shaped by scientific insights. Doesn't it sort of back up the idea that we can do morality without god? if anything, wouldn't that give the "new" atheists some backing?
- toby 18y ago
  I was also annoyed by that -- the implication seems to be that atheists are necessarily cold, calculating and logical. I don't find that accepting the existence of emotions in decision making has any impact on my religious beliefs.
- misuba 18y ago
  Sam Harris covered this stuff in The End of Faith. It's depressing how few critics of "new atheists" have read the people they have beef with; then again, it's even more depressing how few atheists make successful communication a priority.
  - eru 18y ago
    They don't have to proselytize.
    - misuba 18y ago
      True, the income and security brought in by followers is a powerful incentive. Whereas if you communicate clearly about atheism all you get is fewer people hating you for no damn reason.
      - eru 18y ago
        I am glad that I live in a country more tolerant to atheism. Berlin has even been described as the world capital of atheism in the Economist. "[The former chancellor of Germany, Schroder,] did not add the optional phrase So wahr mir Gott helfe ('so help me God') when sworn in as chancellor for his first term in 1998." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerhard_Schr%C3%B6der http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerhard_Schr%C3%B6der)
- trominos 18y ago
  It has everything to do with "new atheism". Theists, for the most part, have their moral outlook determined by their respective religions. Which is stupid, but at least it's standardized. Many atheists believe that their morality is determined by reason. Brooks' point is that there's no such thing as morality determined purely by reason. There are necessarily some subjective premises in there. All that this observation does is counter-refute atheists' refutation of the idea that atheists can't be moral. The idea that atheists can't be moral is still stupid (IMO), but not for the reason that some atheists say.
  - aaronasterling 18y ago
    I don't think it even does that though. if the ability to absorb a system of ethics is an inherited trait, then atheists have presumably inherited the ability as well and would therefore be (from a statistical perspective) as ethical as everyone else. the basis of his claim (snyde corner of the mouth slander, really) undermines the claim itself. the whole thing cancels out rather nicely.
parenthesis 18y ago
The article talks as if the idea that moral judgements are based on feeling or perception rather than on reason is a recent one. As one (important) example, Hume explicitly advocated such a position in the 1700s. It also seems to confuse moral philosophy and moral psychology. The former can use reason and arguments to attempt to justify practical principles and actions (at least somewhat) independently of how, psychologically, human agents, in fact, make moral judgements in real-life situations. "The End of Philosophy" is a silly title because, for a start, what is discussed is only relevant to moral philosophy; and secondly, whatever firm scientific results may be produced regarding moral psychology, there are still endless issues that moral philosophers can continue to sensibly discuss, for example, the semantics of (what appear to be) deductive moral arguments.
- ionfish 18y ago
  It's like The End of History; a silly title for a silly piece of writing.
  - mechanical_fish 18y ago
    "The Singularity is an end-of-history notion. And it is showing its age, as most end-of-history notions do." -- Bruce Sterling (video link: http://fora.tv/2004/06/11/Bruce_Sterling#chapter_01 http://fora.tv/2004/06/11/Bruce_Sterling#chapter_01 )
    - davidmathers 18y ago
      When Francis Fukuyama said "the end of history" he meant that liberal democracy is the evolutionary end point of nation states. Meaning: 1. any nation state that is now a liberal democracy will remain so because there is nothing more advanced for it to evolve into 2. any nation state that is not a liberal democracy is merely not yet a liberal democracy and will eventually evolve into one The singularity is the point at which rate of technological evolution becomes so rapid that it is essentially incomprehensible. That doesn't sound like an end of history notion to me.
  - neilc 18y ago
carbon8 18y ago
"Think of what happens when you put a new food into your mouth. You don’t have to decide if it’s disgusting. You just know. You don’t have to decide if a landscape is beautiful. You just know." Speak for yourself, Brooks. Apparently he was the kind of kid who put ketchup on everything and never really grew out of it.
- deleted 18y ago
  [deleted]
javert 18y ago
I don't agree with his premise that people can't use reason to come to good moral principles, and then act on them. Figuring out morality his way--by emotion--would be abdicating your power to make positive change and leaving everything to random influences upon your life. A woman was mean to me as a kid? Well, I'll hate women. Everyone I know goes to church, and I have come to love Jesus? Well, that must be the right answer, then. That's what happens if you go by emotion.
- jacoblyles 18y ago
  On the other hand, you're an evolved being with innate biases. There are solid natural reasons that most people share similar moral intuitions (read: emotions). If these intuitions did not exist, there would be no axioms from which to deduce other moral actions. Brooks' premise is naturalistic, that man is more complex than an avatar of pure reason. I think he's right.
  - aaronasterling 18y ago
    He just messes up and shows his ignorance/stupidity when he tries to say that "man is more complex then an avatar of pure reason" implies "the processes by which man was created are more than is understandable by pure reason". believe what you want but thats a shoddy piece of reasoning.
    - astine 18y ago
      Strictly speaking, everything is more than is understandable by pure reason.
      - aaronasterling 18y ago
        "everything" might be more then is understandable by pure reason, i have to give you that.
      - koningrobot 18y ago
        How so? Isn't it just a matter of having enough "reasoning power" and information? What do "everything" and "understandable" mean in this sentence?
astine 18y ago
To paraphrase the article: Dear children, your silly worldview of objective rights and wrongs is outdated and wrong. Morality is purely subjective, a matter of taste. I provide no evidence or reasoning for my opinions but I do expect you to be challenged and wowed by their far-reaching consequences. If morality is purely subjective, then issues such as as gay marriage become purely a matter of taste. One person has taste for self-determination and thinks that gays should marry and another thinks gay sex is gross and that it should be banned. They are both right and totally justified doing whatever they feel is aesthetically pleasing (ie murder) to accomplish their ends. This is a problem to say the least. Effectively this means that there is no such thing as right and wrong and what we are left with is shallow consensus (as opposed to a reasoned consensus) at best, and application of force at worst. Slavery becomes right, because I'm a sociopath with a gun. Let's just say that I subjectively think that it is morally obligatory for people to accept an objective moral norm.
- trominos 18y ago
  > Dear children, your silly worldview of objective rights and wrongs is outdated and wrong. Morality is purely subjective, a matter of taste. I provide no evidence or reasoning for my opinions but I do expect you to be challenged and wowed by their far-reaching consequences. If you think that there is some objective morality that is inherent to the universe, the burden of proof is very much on you to show that, not on me to disprove it. (But if you need a disproof, here's as close as I can get: I am 100% certain that you cannot give a definition of "morality" that both meshes with what's expected of the term and that implies the existence of some fundamental objective framework for determining what's right and what's wrong. Just think about it for a while. Or, alternatively [and not equivalently, but evocatively]: we're all just particles. You can give any brilliant argument you like about the morality of an action, and my particles are just gonna keep on doing whatever the fuck they want.) As you discuss, lack of objective morality is horrible. It still makes me feel weird when I think about it, and I decided that "ethics" was bullshit when I was thirteen. My brain is hard-wired to believe that certain actions are "right" and certain actions are "wrong" in a sense that encompasses more than just my brain's response to those actions, so thinking about (what I see as) the truth about morality causes a dissonance between my conscious and my subconscious. In the same way, my brain believes very deeply that everything has a cause, so it believes that there's a meaningful answer to the question, "Why does the universe exist?" But that question doesn't have an answer. And objective morality doesn't exist. Sorry.
AndrewO 18y ago
I was thinking this sounded familiar and then I realized the main source, Jonathan Haidt, did a similar TEDTalk on the roots of liberal and conservative morality. I thought it was pretty interesting: http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/jonathan_haidt_on_the_moral_mind.html http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/jonathan_haidt_on_the_mor...

35 points by knieveltech 18y ago

Am I missing something or does this have nothing to do with "new atheism"? "It challenges the new atheists, who see themselves involved in a war of reason against faith and who have an unwarranted faith in the power of pure reason and in the purity of their own reasoning." It seems to me that the position of "new atheists" is that science is the only (known) universal means of answering the questions that it is capable of answering. The contents of the article (though not scientific) have been shaped by scientific insights. Doesn't it sort of back up the idea that we can do morality without god? if anything, wouldn't that give the "new" atheists some backing?

toby 18y ago
I was also annoyed by that -- the implication seems to be that atheists are necessarily cold, calculating and logical. I don't find that accepting the existence of emotions in decision making has any impact on my religious beliefs.
misuba 18y ago
Sam Harris covered this stuff in The End of Faith. It's depressing how few critics of "new atheists" have read the people they have beef with; then again, it's even more depressing how few atheists make successful communication a priority.
- eru 18y ago
  They don't have to proselytize.
  - misuba 18y ago
    True, the income and security brought in by followers is a powerful incentive. Whereas if you communicate clearly about atheism all you get is fewer people hating you for no damn reason.
    - eru 18y ago
      I am glad that I live in a country more tolerant to atheism. Berlin has even been described as the world capital of atheism in the Economist. "[The former chancellor of Germany, Schroder,] did not add the optional phrase So wahr mir Gott helfe ('so help me God') when sworn in as chancellor for his first term in 1998." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerhard_Schr%C3%B6der http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerhard_Schr%C3%B6der)
trominos 18y ago
It has everything to do with "new atheism". Theists, for the most part, have their moral outlook determined by their respective religions. Which is stupid, but at least it's standardized. Many atheists believe that their morality is determined by reason. Brooks' point is that there's no such thing as morality determined purely by reason. There are necessarily some subjective premises in there. All that this observation does is counter-refute atheists' refutation of the idea that atheists can't be moral. The idea that atheists can't be moral is still stupid (IMO), but not for the reason that some atheists say.
- aaronasterling 18y ago
  I don't think it even does that though. if the ability to absorb a system of ethics is an inherited trait, then atheists have presumably inherited the ability as well and would therefore be (from a statistical perspective) as ethical as everyone else. the basis of his claim (snyde corner of the mouth slander, really) undermines the claim itself. the whole thing cancels out rather nicely.

parenthesis 18y ago

The article talks as if the idea that moral judgements are based on feeling or perception rather than on reason is a recent one. As one (important) example, Hume explicitly advocated such a position in the 1700s. It also seems to confuse moral philosophy and moral psychology. The former can use reason and arguments to attempt to justify practical principles and actions (at least somewhat) independently of how, psychologically, human agents, in fact, make moral judgements in real-life situations. "The End of Philosophy" is a silly title because, for a start, what is discussed is only relevant to moral philosophy; and secondly, whatever firm scientific results may be produced regarding moral psychology, there are still endless issues that moral philosophers can continue to sensibly discuss, for example, the semantics of (what appear to be) deductive moral arguments.

ionfish 18y ago
It's like The End of History; a silly title for a silly piece of writing.
- mechanical_fish 18y ago
  "The Singularity is an end-of-history notion. And it is showing its age, as most end-of-history notions do." -- Bruce Sterling (video link: http://fora.tv/2004/06/11/Bruce_Sterling#chapter_01 http://fora.tv/2004/06/11/Bruce_Sterling#chapter_01 )
  - davidmathers 18y ago
    When Francis Fukuyama said "the end of history" he meant that liberal democracy is the evolutionary end point of nation states. Meaning: 1. any nation state that is now a liberal democracy will remain so because there is nothing more advanced for it to evolve into 2. any nation state that is not a liberal democracy is merely not yet a liberal democracy and will eventually evolve into one The singularity is the point at which rate of technological evolution becomes so rapid that it is essentially incomprehensible. That doesn't sound like an end of history notion to me.
- neilc 18y ago

carbon8 18y ago

"Think of what happens when you put a new food into your mouth. You don’t have to decide if it’s disgusting. You just know. You don’t have to decide if a landscape is beautiful. You just know." Speak for yourself, Brooks. Apparently he was the kind of kid who put ketchup on everything and never really grew out of it.

deleted 18y ago
[deleted]

javert 18y ago

I don't agree with his premise that people can't use reason to come to good moral principles, and then act on them. Figuring out morality his way--by emotion--would be abdicating your power to make positive change and leaving everything to random influences upon your life. A woman was mean to me as a kid? Well, I'll hate women. Everyone I know goes to church, and I have come to love Jesus? Well, that must be the right answer, then. That's what happens if you go by emotion.

jacoblyles 18y ago
On the other hand, you're an evolved being with innate biases. There are solid natural reasons that most people share similar moral intuitions (read: emotions). If these intuitions did not exist, there would be no axioms from which to deduce other moral actions. Brooks' premise is naturalistic, that man is more complex than an avatar of pure reason. I think he's right.
- aaronasterling 18y ago
  He just messes up and shows his ignorance/stupidity when he tries to say that "man is more complex then an avatar of pure reason" implies "the processes by which man was created are more than is understandable by pure reason". believe what you want but thats a shoddy piece of reasoning.
  - astine 18y ago
    Strictly speaking, everything is more than is understandable by pure reason.
    - aaronasterling 18y ago
      "everything" might be more then is understandable by pure reason, i have to give you that.
    - koningrobot 18y ago
      How so? Isn't it just a matter of having enough "reasoning power" and information? What do "everything" and "understandable" mean in this sentence?

astine 18y ago

To paraphrase the article: Dear children, your silly worldview of objective rights and wrongs is outdated and wrong. Morality is purely subjective, a matter of taste. I provide no evidence or reasoning for my opinions but I do expect you to be challenged and wowed by their far-reaching consequences. If morality is purely subjective, then issues such as as gay marriage become purely a matter of taste. One person has taste for self-determination and thinks that gays should marry and another thinks gay sex is gross and that it should be banned. They are both right and totally justified doing whatever they feel is aesthetically pleasing (ie murder) to accomplish their ends. This is a problem to say the least. Effectively this means that there is no such thing as right and wrong and what we are left with is shallow consensus (as opposed to a reasoned consensus) at best, and application of force at worst. Slavery becomes right, because I'm a sociopath with a gun. Let's just say that I subjectively think that it is morally obligatory for people to accept an objective moral norm.

trominos 18y ago
> Dear children, your silly worldview of objective rights and wrongs is outdated and wrong. Morality is purely subjective, a matter of taste. I provide no evidence or reasoning for my opinions but I do expect you to be challenged and wowed by their far-reaching consequences. If you think that there is some objective morality that is inherent to the universe, the burden of proof is very much on you to show that, not on me to disprove it. (But if you need a disproof, here's as close as I can get: I am 100% certain that you cannot give a definition of "morality" that both meshes with what's expected of the term and that implies the existence of some fundamental objective framework for determining what's right and what's wrong. Just think about it for a while. Or, alternatively [and not equivalently, but evocatively]: we're all just particles. You can give any brilliant argument you like about the morality of an action, and my particles are just gonna keep on doing whatever the fuck they want.) As you discuss, lack of objective morality is horrible. It still makes me feel weird when I think about it, and I decided that "ethics" was bullshit when I was thirteen. My brain is hard-wired to believe that certain actions are "right" and certain actions are "wrong" in a sense that encompasses more than just my brain's response to those actions, so thinking about (what I see as) the truth about morality causes a dissonance between my conscious and my subconscious. In the same way, my brain believes very deeply that everything has a cause, so it believes that there's a meaningful answer to the question, "Why does the universe exist?" But that question doesn't have an answer. And objective morality doesn't exist. Sorry.

AndrewO 18y ago

I was thinking this sounded familiar and then I realized the main source, Jonathan Haidt, did a similar TEDTalk on the roots of liberal and conservative morality. I thought it was pretty interesting: http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/jonathan_haidt_on_the_moral_mind.html http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/jonathan_haidt_on_the_mor...