Month: October 2017

Cosmic Meaninglessness and the Theistic Gambit

This is the third in a series on David Benatar's The Human Predicament (Oxford UP, 2017). This entry covers pp. 35-45 of Chapter 3.

The good news from Chapter 2 was that there is meaning at the terrestrial level. The bad news from Chapter 3 is that there is none at the cosmic level, or from the cosmic perspective. Cosmic meaning is meaning from the perspective of the universe.  Of course, the universe does not literally have a perspective or point of view: it is not an experiencing subject. But one can usefully speak as if it did. (35)

I object, though, to Benatar's calling the cosmic view the view sub specie aeternitatis.  From the point of view of eternity, the cosmos, as unimaginably vast as it is, is not ultimate or absolute. For one thing, it is modally contingent: it exists but might not have. It is also finite in the past direction as per current cosmology.  It is certainly not eternal or necessary. Given that the cosmos is not eternal, its point of view cannot be the point of view of eternity. The cosmos is not causa sui or the ground of its own being. Its point of view is not the widest of all wide-angle points of view. From the point of view of eternity, there might not have been any cosmos, any physical universe, at all. Thus there is a wider point of view than the cosmic point of view, namely God's point of view. It alone is the view sub specie aeternitatis.   The point of view of eternity is the eternal God's point of view and he alone views things under the aspect of eternity.  

It is obvious that one can speak of God's point of view without assuming the existence of God: it is the point of view that God would have if God existed.  We can avoid all reference to God by saying that the view sub specie aeternitatis is the ultimate point of view, the view of Being or of truth. The truth is the ultimate way things are. I tap into the ultimate point of view when I think the thought: there might have been no physical universe at all. I am able to do this despite my being a measly bit of the world's fauna.

In any case, Benatar's claim is that human life has no meaning when viewed cosmically, from what he thinks is the ultimate point of view, that of the universe, but which I claim is not the ultimate point of view.

Why does human life (both at the individual and species levels) have no cosmic meaning? His main point is that we humans "have no significant impact on the broader universe." (36) He means the universe beyond the Earth. "Nothing we do on earth has any effect beyond it." (36) This is true, apart from some minor counterexamples, but trivial. Or so it seems to me. Why should the lack of causal impact of the earthlings on the wider universe argue the ultimate meaninglessness of their existence?  It strikes me as very strange to tie existential meaning to causal impact. 

Suppose earthlings were everywhere in the universe and could have an impact everywhere. That would not show that their lives have meaning. The earthlings might ask: "We are everywhere but why are we anywhere? Why do we exist?" Our lack of cosmic impact cannot show that our lives lack meaning if maximal causal impact is consistent with meaninglessness.   It is worth noting that size does not matter either. If we human animals were many times larger than we are and had the causal impact of elephants or dinosaurs, how would that augment our meaning?  Suppose I am the biggest, baddest hombre in the entire universe. Suppose I am omni-located within it, able to affect every part of it.  I could still ask: But why do I exist?  For what purpose?

Benatar points out that we won't exist for long and that this is true for the species and for individuals. (36) True, but again how is this relevant to the question of existential meaning?  Suppose humans always existed. This would not add one cubit of meaning to the meaning of the individual or the species. So the fact that we do not last long either as individuals or as a species does not argue lack of meaning. Duration matters as little as size.

One of the puzzles here is why Benatar should tie existential meaning to causal impact. But he also speaks of our lack of purpose.

The Theistic Gambit

For Benatar, "The evolution of life, including human life, is a product of blind forces and serves no apparent purpose." (36) To which a theist might respond with a Baltimore catechism type of answer, "God made us to know Him, to love Him, and to serve Him in this world, and to be happy with Him forever in the next."  Our ultimate purpose, on this scheme, is to share in the divine life and achieve final felicity. 

Benatar gives a strange argument against the coherence of the theistic scheme:

Even in the best-case scenario, it is hard to understand why God would create a being in order to prepare it for an afterlife given that no afterlife would be needed or desired if the being had not been created in the first place. [. . .] The sort of meaning that the afterlife provides cannot explain why God would have created us at all. (39)

While it is true that only beings who already exist could want or need an afterlife, it is a non sequitur to conclude that it is no explanation of why we exist in the first place to say that we exist in order to share in the divine life.  God wants to share his super-effulgent being, consciousness, and bliss and so he creates free beings with the capacity to participate in the divine life.  If that is true, then it explains why we exist in the first place.

Of course, we don't know that it is true, and we cannot prove that God exists or that we have a destiny beyond this brief animal life. But the naturalist is in the same boat: he cannot prove that God does not exist and that human life is a product of blind forces. Benatar movingly describes animal pain and the horror of nature red in tooth and claw (42-44). Considerations such as these should put paid to any pollyanish conceit that life is beautiful.  And yet they are not compelling or conclusive. While it is reasonable to be a naturalist, it is also reasonable to be a theist.  Neither side can refute the other, and one's subjective certainty counts for nothing.

One of the things I like about Benatar is that he draws the pessimistic consequences of naturalism.  Most naturalists compartmentalize: in their studies and offices they are naturalists who reject God and the soul and ultimate meaning; at home, however, with their families and bourgeois diversions they are happy and optimistic.  But given their theoretical views, what entitles them to their happiness and optimism? Nothing that I can see. They are living in a state of self-deception.

Benatar lives his atheism: he has existentially appropriated his theoretical convictions and drawn the consequences. (Not that atheism by itself entails anti-natalism.) But is it practically possible to live as an atheist?  W. L. Craig thinks not. See his The Absurdity of Life Without God. Benatar, needless to say, is not impressed by Craig's reasoning. (44).

Speaking for myself, if I KNEW that I was nothing but a complex physical system slated for anihilation in a few years, I would be sorely tempted to walk out into the deseert and blow my brains out, my devotion to my wife being the only thing holding me back.  Why hang around for sickness, old age and a death out of one's control? And it is not because my life isn't good; it is very good. I have achieved the happiness that eluded me in younger years. But if one appreciates what naturalism entails, then all the mundane goodness and middle-sized happiness in the world is ultimately meaningless.

It is my reasonable belief that I am not a mere complex physical system slated for annihilation that adds zest and ultimate purpose to my life.  I keep on because there is reason to hope, not only within this life, but beyond it as well.  

Related articles
Maverick Philosopher: Is Life a Predicament?
David Benatar, <i>The Human Predicament</i>, Chapter 2, Meaning
Maverick Philosopher: David Benatar, The Human Predicament, Introduction
The Question of the Meaning of Life: Distinctions and Assumptions (2017)

On ‘Devout’

One reads that so-and-so is a 'devout Catholic' or a 'devout Muslim.'

How would the writer know?  Devotion is an interior state inaccessible to observation from without. The practicing Catholic or observant Muslim, by contrast, can be seen to be such by others. So if what you mean to convey is that so-and-so is a practicing or observant Christian, Muslim, or Jew, then you should write that. It is obvious that the practitioner of a religion need not be particularly devout or devout at all.  And that includes priests, rabbis, and imams.

I grant that external practices are evidence of inner attitude. So, by the dictionary definition, you would not be wrong to call a regular practitioner of a religion 'devout.' But here at Maverick Philosopher our standards are a cut above those of a mere dictionary. We aim at precision in thought and speech. And sometimes we miss the mark.

So rather than bandy about, lemming-like, an oft-heard phrase, journalists should ask themselves whether the alternatives suggested above are more appropriate.

Language matters.

Speaking of dictionaries, The Dictionary Fallacy is a very good article in my biased opinion. It will cost you some effort, but a little hard work never hurt anybody.

How a Leftist Gains Perspective

Here:

Yet even as [Lisa] Bloom was still coming to terms with the [Weinsteinian] events of the past month — she attended the post-Burning Man gathering L.A. Decompression over the weekend in an attempt to gain perspective— she seemed focused on some of the smaller details of what went wrong.

Be careful not to bust your gut laughing.

Lefties are risible in both senses of the word: like all human beings, they have the ability to laugh, but unlike most human beings, they are appropriately laughed at.

Related articles
Burning Man attendee dies after rushing into festival flames

Ten Political-Economic Theses

Here are ten theses to which I subscribe in the critical way of the philosopher, not the dogmatic way of the ideologue.

1.  There is nothing wrong with money.  It is absolutely not the root of all evil.  The most we can say is that the inordinate desire for money is at the root of some evils.  I develop this theme in Radix Omnium Malorum.
 
2. There is nothing wrong with making money or having money.  There is for example nothing wrong with making a profit from buying, refurbishing, paying propery taxes on, and then selling a house.
 
3. There is nothing wrong with material (socio-economic) inequality as such.  For example, there is nothing wrong with Bill Gates' having a vastly higher net worth than your humble correspondent.  And there is nothing wrong with the latter's having a considerably higher net worth than some of his acquaintances. (When they were out pursuing wine, women, and song, he was engaging in virtuous, forward-looking activities thereby benefiting not only himself but also people who come in contact with him.)   Of course, when I say that there is nothing wrong with material inequality as such, I am assuming that the inequalities have not come about through force or fraud. 
 
4. Equality of outcome or result is not to be confused with equality of opportunity or formal equality in general, including equality under the law.  It is an egregious fallacy of liberals and leftists to infer a denial of equality of opportunity — via  'racism' or 'sexism' or whatever — from the premise that a certain group has failed to achieve equality of outcome.  There will never be equality of outcome due to the deep differences between individuals and groups.  We must do what we can to ensure equality of opportunity and then let the chips fall where they may. This is consistent with support for government-run programs to help the truly needy who are in dire straits through no fault of their own.
 
Common-core-the-peoples-cube5. We the people do not need to justify our keeping of what is ours; the State has to justify its taking.  We are citizens of a republic, not subjects of a king or dictator or of the apparatchiks who have managed to get their hands on the levers of State power.
 
6. Private property is the foundation of individual liberty.   Socialism and communism spell the death of individual liberty.  The more socialism, the less liberty.  "The bigger the government, the smaller the citizen." (D. Prager)
 
7.  The individual is the locus of value, not any collectivity, whether family, tribe, race, nation, or State.  We do not exist for the State; the State exists for us as individuals.
 
8.  Property rights, contra certain libertarians, are not absolute: there are conditions under which an 'eminent domain' State seizure (with appropriate compensation) of property can be justified.  This proposition tempers the individualism of the preceding one.
 
9.  Governments can and do imprison and murder.  No corporation does.  Liberals and leftists and 'progressives' have a naive faith in the benevolence of government, a faith that is belied by that facts of history: Communist governments in the 20th century murdered over 100 million people. (Source: Black Book of Communism.)  Libs and lefties and progs are well-advised to adopt a more balanced view, tranfering some of their skepticism about corporations — which is in part justified — to Big Government, especially the omni-intrusive and omni-competent (omni-incompetent?)sort of governments they champion.
 
10.  Our social and political troubles are rooted in our moral malaise, in particular, in inordinate and disordered  desire.  It is a pernicious illusion of the Left to suppose that our troubles have an economic origin solely and can be alleviated by socialist schemes of redistribution of wealth.

Franz Brentano on the Charge of Excessive Rigorism

On his Facebook Page, Vlastimil V. quotes Franz Brentano, approvingly, I think:

It is certain that no man can entirely avoid error. Nevertheless, avoidable or not, every erroneous judgement is a judgement that ought not to have been made, a judgement in conflict with the requirements of logic, and these cannot be modified. The rules of logic are not to be given up merely because of the weakness of our powers of reasoning. Similarly, the rules of ethics are not to be given up because of weakness of will. If a man is weak willed, ethics cannot cease to demand from him that he love what is known to be good, prefer what is known to be better, and place the highest good above all else. Even if one could show (and one cannot) that there are circumstances under which no one could remain true to the highest good, there would not be the slightest justification for setting aside the requirements of ethics. The one and only correct rule would remain evident and unalterably true: Give preference in every case to that which is better. (emphasis added)

Brentano is out to rebut the charge of excessive rigorism laid at his door step; his rebuttal, however, I find unconvincing.

Let's examine the passage sentence by sentence.

It is certain that no man can entirely avoid error. 

True! So far, so good.

Nevertheless, avoidable or not, every erroneous judgement is a judgement that ought not to have been made, a judgement in conflict with the requirements of logic, and these cannot be modified.  

Ambiguous. What is the force of the 'ought not' here? Is it agential or non-agential?  I agree with Brentano if he is speaking of non-agential oughts. Permit me to explain.

It seems to me there are states of affairs that ought to be even in situations in which there are no moral agents with power sufficient to bring them about, and states of affairs that ought not be even in situations in which there are no moral agents with power sufficient to prevent them. In other words, there are non-agential oughts. Here are some examples of non-agential ought statements, statements that express an ought to be or an ought not to be as opposed to an ought to do or an ought not to do.

There ought to be fewer diseases than there are.

There ought never to have been any natural disasters.

There ought to be morally perfect people.

There ought to be perfectly logical people.

Human life ought never to have arisen.  

One can imagine someone like David Benatar making the last claim. He would be saying that it would have been better had human life never arisen. And this despite the fact that no agent on his naturalist scheme could have prevented human life from arising. It even makes sense to say that it would have been better had nothing ever existed at all. Perhaps this view can be laid at Schopenhauer's door step: Ens et malum convertuntur. To be is bad.  Being itself is bad to the bone. Nothingness would have been preferable.

There is a sense in which I ought to be morally perfect whether or not it is in my power to become morally perfect.  And the same holds for my being logically perfect.  This  sense is axiological but not deontic. My being morally perfect is a better state of affairs than my being morally imperfect as I am. And this despite the fact that it is not in my power to perfect myself.

Similarly, the rules of ethics are not to be given up because of weakness of will. 

True, as long as the strong-willed have the ability to abide by the rules. 

If a man is weak willed, ethics cannot cease to demand from him that he love what is known to be good, prefer what is known to be better, and place the highest good above all else.

True, but see preceding comment. 

Even if one could show (and one cannot) that there are circumstances under which no one could remain true to the highest good, there would not be the slightest justification for setting aside the requirements of ethics.

Here is where I disagree.  Consider 'One ought to be morally perfect.' This sentence expresses an axiological requirement but (arguably) not a moral obligation because it is simply not in any human's power to perfect himself, nor is it in any finite person's power or any group of finite person's power to perfect him.

The bolded sentence conflicts with the principle that Ought implies Can. I cannot stand under a moral obligation to do what which I do not have the power to do. Now I do not have the power to perfect myself morally. Therefore, contra Brentano, one is justified, not in setting aside the requirements of ethics, but in so amending them that that reflect what is concretely possible for humans to achieve. 

A Use for Ageing

Can I come to see myself as others see me? One way is by ageing: I become other than myself. The old man truly bent on self-knowledge can become as objective about his younger selves as he is about his contemporaries if he so desires. But he had better have an honest journal or diary at his disposal to verify his memories. 

Memory is notoriously deceptive and forgetful.

Grace

Christian meditationIs it possible to take grace seriously these days?

Well, I just arose from a good session on the black mat.  For a few moments I touched upon interior silence and experienced its bliss. This is nothing I conjured up from my own resources. But if I say I was granted this blissful silence by someone, then I go beyond the given: I move from phenomenology to theology. No philosopher worth his salt can escape the question whether such a move is or is not an illicit slide. An experience describable as having a gift-character needn't be a gift.

Still, the experience was what it was, and could not be doubted a few moments ago, nor now in its afterglow. It is in such experiences that we find the phenomenological roots of the theology of grace which, growing from such roots, cannot be dismissed as empty speculation or projection or wish-fulfillment or anything else the naturalist may urge for its dismissal.

There cannot be a phenomenology of the Absolute but only a phenomenology of the glimpses, gleanings, vouchsafings, and intimations of the Absolute.  To put the point with full philosophical  precision: there can only be a phenomenology of the glimpses, etc. as of the Absolute. That curious phrase from the philosopher's lexicon expresses the latter's professional caution inasmuch as no experience that purports to take us beyond the sphere of immanence proves the veridicality of its intentional object.

On the other hand, the fact of the experience, its occurrence within the sphere of immanence, needs accounting.  However matters may stand with respect to the realitas objectiva of the experience, its realitas formalis needs to be explained. I would venture to say that the best explanation of the widespread occurrence of mystical experiences is that some of them are indeed veridical.

Why Do Leftists Blame the Weapon Over the Wielder?

I spoke of 

. . . the bizarre liberal displacement of responsibility for crime onto inanimate objects, guns, as if the weapon, not the wielder, is the source of the evil for which the weapon can be only the instrument.

What explains this displacement?  A reader proffers an explanation:

Maybe they displace responsibility here because, if we blame the person shooting the gun, next we have to notice just how often that person is black, and how rarely he is white.  And noticing that, for liberals, would be racist.  Nothing that makes blacks look bad, or worse than others in any way, can be noticed.  It must be a gun problem because otherwise it would be a black problem.  (Largely, on the whole — given what a small proportion of the population is black and what a huge proportion of the 'gun problem' consists of black people shooting people for no good reason.)

Right. It is politically incorrect to take note of differences between blacks and other groups when these differences show blacks to be worse in some respects than these other groups.  

On the other hand, when once in a while the person shooting the gun is a white person–and, best of all, a white person who just might conceivably be associated with conservatism or even some kind of white consciousness –liberals will find that the problem is, for once, not just a gun problem but also the problem of 'angry white men', 'racists', 'white supremacists' or even just 'white people'…  And then we learn that it's those people — those bad white people–who are responsible for this awful gun culture and gun problem.  So once again, the liberals are really engaged in race hatred and race baiting and maybe, some day, open race war.  So as with so many other things, it seems they don't really believe their own supposed principles, e.g., that the problem is guns not people shooting guns . . . .

My reader's point seems to be that leftists try  to have it both ways at once. By blaming the weapons rather than the wielders, leftists can uphold their cherished but plainly false conviction that blacks are no more criminally prone than whites: there is nothing about blacks that makes them more criminally prone; it is the availability of guns! But their real agenda as destructive leftists is to foment racial division. So when a white man goes on a rampage, then they drop the notion that the availability of guns is the problem and play the race card.

Related articles
Is Good Faith Dialogue Possible with Leftists?
Is Every Racist a White Supremacist?
Controversial author Charles Murray to speak at University of Michigan

On the Supposed Political Equivalence of the Two Tribes

As I  read Andrew Sullivan's recent tribalism essay, he is bravely attempting to maintain an equivalency thesis: roughly, the two tribes, the Left tribe and the Right tribe, are equally tribal and equally in the wrong. But in some places in his long essay he does a pretty lame job of it. Here is one:

As for indifference to reality, today’s Republicans cannot accept that human-produced carbon is destroying the planet, and today’s Democrats must believe that different outcomes for men and women in society are entirely a function of sexism. Even now, Democrats cannot say the words illegal immigrants or concede that affirmative action means discriminating against people because of their race. Republicans cannot own the fact that big tax cuts have not trickled down, or that President Bush authorized the brutal torture of prisoners, thereby unequivocally committing war crimes. Orwell again: “There is no crime, absolutely none, that cannot be condoned when ‘our’ side commits it. Even if one does not deny that the crime has happened, even if one knows that it is exactly the same crime as one has condemned in some other case … still one cannot feel that it is wrong.” That is as good a summary of tribalism as you can get, that it substitutes a feeling — a really satisfying one — for an argument.

Let's start with the first sentence. That different outcomes for men and women are entirely a function of sexism is a preposterous claim that anyone with common sense and knowledge of the world should immediately see to be false. It implies that biological differences between the sexes have no bearing whatsoever on behavioral outcomes. But there is good reason to be skeptical of the claim that human-produced carbon is destroying the planet.  

Suppose we grant that there is global warming, and suppose we grant that human activity plays a role in its etiology. There still remain questions as to the extent to which global warming is anthropogenic and what exactly the various causal factors are. The claim that human-produced carbon is destroying the planet is an extremely strong claim.  Compare that to the trivially obvious claim that there is more to the explanation of differential outcomes for the sexes than sexism.

Similarly with the other examples. One cannot, unless one is insane or else a truth-disregarding leftist ideologue, deny the distinction between legal and illegal immigration. But that Bush authorized torture presupposes that waterboarding is torture which is far from obvious and is a reasonably contested assertion. See Is Waterboarding Torture?

So while I respect Sully's attempt at being "fair and balanced," I reject his equivalency thesis. The Left is far more mindlessly and destructively tribal than the Right.  

Related articles
The Rising Danger of Left-Right Tribalism | Minding The Campus

Andrew Sullivan on Tribalism

This is a very good article. There is plenty to disagree with, but I agree entirely with this excerpt:

Or take the current promiscuous use of the term “white supremacist.” We used to know what that meant. It meant advocates and practitioners of slavery, believers in the right of white people to rule over all others, subscribers to a theory of a master race, Jim Crow supporters, George Wallace voters. But it is now routinely used on the left to mean, simply, racism in a multicultural America, in which European-Americans are a fast-evaporating ethnic majority. It’s a term that implies there is no difference in race relations between America today and America in, say, the 1830s or the 1930s. This rhetoric is not just untrue, it is dangerous. It wins no converts, and when actual white supremacists march in the streets, you have no language left to describe them as any different from, say, all Trump supporters, including the 13 percent of black men who voted for him.

Compare my Is Every Racist a White Supremacist?

Sullivan also deserves praise for pointing out the excesses of Ta-Nehisi Coates:

He remains a vital voice, but in more recent years, a somewhat different one. His mood has become much gloomier. He calls the Obama presidency a “tragedy,” and describes many Trump supporters as “not so different from those same Americans who grin back at us in lynching photos.” He’s written about how watching cops and firefighters enter the smoldering World Trade Center instantly reminded him of cops mistreating blacks: They “were not human to me.” In his latest essay in the Atlantic, analyzing why Donald Trump won the last election, he dismisses any notion that economic distress might have played a role as “empty” and ignores other factors, such as Hillary Clinton’s terrible candidacy, the populist revolt against immigration that had become a potent force across the West, and the possibility that the pace of social change might have triggered a backlash among traditionalists. No, there was one meaningful explanation only: white supremacism. And those who accept, as I do, that racism was indeed a big part of the equation but also saw other factors at work were simply luxuriating in our own white privilege because we are never under “racism’s boot.”

Jewish Humor

Here:

Rabbi Altmann and his secretary were sitting in a coffeehouse in Berlin in 1935. “Herr Altmann,” said his secretary, “I notice you’re reading Der Stürmer! I can’t understand why. A Nazi libel sheet! Are you some kind of masochist, or, God forbid, a self-hating Jew ?”

“On the contrary, Frau Epstein. When I used to read the Jewish papers, all I learned about were pogroms, riots in Palestine, and assimilation in America. But now that I read Der Stürmer, I see so much more: that the Jews control all the banks, that we dominate in the arts, and that we’re on the verge of taking over the entire world. You know – it makes me feel a whole lot better!”