Comments on The Faith Heuristic: The Umbrella Fallacy

1. I've already said that atheists would take this...

2010-02-27T22:14:18.987-05:00

1. I've already said that atheists would take this as question-begging. Obviously it turns on the epistemic status of arguments for moral realism versus arguments for the existence of God. I've been clear on this point.

2. We're talking about the prima facie level of justification here. I am making modest claims. (A) most atheists think Christians are irrational, and (B) most atheists think that atheists are rational, even in their moral beliefs. Do you really think I'm going out on a limb in either of those?

3. You do not understand group selection. The rationality of genocide is not based on large genetic differences between groups. Leafcutter ants are the most cooperative species on the planet. They are the king of eusocial species. But they are also extremely warlike. That's just how group selection works. Reproductive success is about relative rank, not absolutes. If there are only a 100 people in the world and you (costlessly) killed 50 of them, then your reproductive success just doubled.

3b. I dealt with this above:
3. Even if arguments for moral realism succeed, our moral intuitions are based on evolution (if atheism is true), not interaction with this moral realm. Thus unless atheists can make the additional step in showing that evolution produces beliefs which are aimed at this moral realm, our concrete moral intuitions are still irrational. Call it the atheist's gap problem.

4. I've read a lot about moral realism, but there are more arguments for it than you can shake a stick at (atheistic arguments for moral realism are like interpretations of Kant. Once one is defeated two more spring up, like the Hydra's heads). If you want to defend Mackie's argument then please lay out the basics of the argument and I will respond.

1. Which atheists? Be specific please, at least w...

2010-02-27T21:18:41.450-05:00

1. Which atheists? Be specific please, at least with examples. Otherwise you're begging the question against strawmen.

2. I dispute your empirical claim that atheists don't hold their claims to scrutiny, either on an absolute or relative basis. This is your claim that they are relatively non-analytic as compared to Christians, so you bear the burden of evidence to affirm it. Beyond that, however, the question to ask isn't whether most atheists or most Christians (or most theists for that matter) have sufficiently justified their belief, but rather, what, given the best thinking we can put forward, is in fact the correct view to hold.

3. I dispute your empirical claim about what morality evolution implies. First off, ethnic variation among homo sapiens is small, and generally all homo sapiens can reproduce with all other homo sapiens, so I dispute that genocide enhances ethnic fitness. Second, evolution is about natural selection, that is, fitness to the natural environment. I see no evidence that any ethnic group is on net more fit to the natural environment than any other.

Beyond that, let's not talk about what you suppose Railton says, let's talk about what he actually says. Here's the paper: http://fas-philosophy.rutgers.edu/chang/Papers/Railton-MoralRealism.pdf

Also, evolution isn't the only way to justify moral realism. Again, the Kantian structure I mentioned earlier claims to derive in a precise fashion morality from a priori logical principles that would have to apply to all rational actors.

4. I'm not a firm moral realist by the way, just reasonably well read on the topic. For a good overview of why you can be a non-realist without devolving to nothingness, se J.L. Mackie's classic Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong http://www.amazon.com/Ethics-Inventing-J-L-Mackie/dp/0140135588

5. Just as a note, I tend to push for specific examples and texts as a means of making sure we're not talking past each other. "Many atheists," "many theists," "philosophers generally," and similar phrases aren't really meaningful, and so I will try as much as possible to keep things in terms of specific arguments by specific people that can be evaluated on merits.

5b. I also realize I'm citing a very large amount of text here. As I've said before, I try to engage the best arguments for a view that I can find, this means alot of reading. I don't think it's the sole purview of philosophers though, so feel free to cite any sources you'd like, regardless of provenance (to a reasonable degree).

Hiya Peter! 1. Not prima facie. I think most peop...

2010-02-27T20:23:41.774-05:00

Hiya Peter!

1. Not prima facie. I think most people are prima facie justified in most of their beliefs. I do not think rationality is the privileged domain of philosophers and scientists. But once you get past the prima facie level and start delving deeply, I think atheists are persuaded by weak and strained arguments for moral realism. By contrast, arguments for the existence of God are strong. Yes, this is question-begging, but if true, it is a good example of the umbrella fallacy: atheists accept weak arguments for moral realism while rejecting strong arguments for God.

2. Now we are back to the prima facie level. As I said above, I think atheists are prima facie justified in their moral beliefs, and Christians are prima facie justified in their faith. But atheists commit the umbrella fallacy. They hold their moral beliefs without evidence while claiming that Christians are irrational for their faith.

3. Unless Railton argues that it is moral to (1) commit acts of genocide against ethnic groups, and (2) become a rider on the rest of society, he has not successfully harmonized moral realism with evolution. Because both of those acts (inter-group and intra-group exploitation) are rational self-interested acts that maximize reproductive fitness. I suspect that Railton only harmonizes his moral realism with the sunny side of evolution. And if so, that is once again an example of the umbrella fallacy. Christians have to grapple with the problem of evil, so atheists need to grapple with the dark side of evolution.

Hi, in response (in order) 1. I didn't say all at...

2010-02-27T12:51:30.108-05:00

Hi, in response (in order)

1. I didn't say all atheists find moral realism persuasive, I was just pointing out that it isn't prima facie correct to say that atheism implies moral non-realism, as there's been alot of scholarship in favour of non-deistic moral realism.

2. Very few people are well informed about the best possible arguments for and against the beliefs they hold. That has no bearing on the quality of the arguments or their correctness. We should engage the best arguments we can, regardless of whether most people have ever heard of them.

2b. I didn't deem anyone's religious faith or atheism to be rational or irrational. It is quite possible to separate correctness from rationality. I.e., I could feel someone's beliefs about economic policy are correct (wanting to retain free markets), but for the wrong reason (due to them being the tradition in the US).

3. The Railton paper I cited does exactly this. Take a look if you can find a copy (I admit it's obscure and somewhat hard to get a hold of. I read it during a seminar on moral realism last year). Kant makes a different case (he wrote pre-Darwin), which tries to show morality as existing a priori for all beings who can exercise reason.

4. There are an infinite (or near infinite) number of possible statements. You can't ask people to justify the statements they don't make. Beyond that, the point there was to show that you can make moral statements that are epistemically sound. To have them be a complete description of the question at hand requires alot more than one epistemically sound statement though.

5. I don't know who you're talking about, but I've found that in my experience among professional philosophers, quite a bit of rigour is demanded from atheists as well as theists. For specific reference, I studied at McGill University, with my primary advisor being Prof. Andrew Reisner, with a focus on modern analytic ethics. So take that environment for what you will.

Hi Peter, 1. I always find it ironic that atheist...

2010-02-27T11:30:06.573-05:00

Hi Peter,

1. I always find it ironic that atheists find arguments for moral realism persuave but not arguments for the existence of God. I would consider that an example of the umbrella fallacy, but it is question-begging against the relative strength of the arguments, so let's table this.

2. Very few atheists know anything about arguments for moral realism. Yet the vast majority of Christians are deemed irrational in their faith, but the vast majority of atheists are deemed rational in the moral beleifs. Again, the umbrella fallacy strikes. Why does the average Christian have to be philosophically sophisticated but not the average atheist?

3. Even if arguments for moral realism succeed, our moral intuitions are based on evolution (if atheism is true), not interaction with this moral realm. Thus unless atheists can make the additional step in showing that evolution produces beliefs which are aimed at this moral realm, our concrete moral intuitions are still irrational. Call it the atheist's gap problem.

4. You could make other epistemically sound quasi-moral realist argument such as "killing people in other groups maximizes your genetic fitness." Why do atheists make some epistemically sound statements about morality but not others?

In short, I find that even atheist scholars who have thought deeply about morality to have incoherent or weak beliefs about morality. Yet they demand much more rigor from Christians.

A couple of points: 1. It is possible to be both ...

2010-02-27T09:18:06.608-05:00

A couple of points:

1. It is possible to be both an atheist and a moral realist, while not being clearly irrational. A couple of good examples:

Railton, Peter. 1986, "Moral Realism," The Philosophical Review, Vol. 95, No. 2, pp. 163-207.

Kant, Immanuel. Groundwork on the Metaphysics of Morals 1785. See any of a gazillion translations, or preferably just read someone's synopsis, as Kant is famously a dense writer.

So it's not obviously wrong to hold both the position that the epistemic status of religion and dieties is different from that of morality.

2. If you don't want to be tied to moral realism, you can still make quasi-moral statements that have about the same effect on a kid, but are epistemically sound. For example: Murder causes consequences such as incredible grief and devastation of family members, imprisonment, huge amounts of fear in the community, massive mental trauma, etc. These are observable statements of fact about the world, but they do have a very moral quality to them. So I think your statement of implied beliefs can be undermined by that angle.

Hi Paul, I'm enjoying the discussion on your blog...

2010-02-26T15:50:13.801-05:00

Hi Paul,

I'm enjoying the discussion on your blog. As to the debates, let me know which ones you want to start with.

Here is a default format:

1. Justin opens his case
2. Paul's rebuttal
3. Justin closes

4. Paul opens his case
5. Justin's rebuttal
6. Paul closes

If you prefer a different format, let me know.

Hi Justin, I responded to this in the comments t...

2010-02-26T12:56:17.361-05:00

Hi Justin,

I responded to this in the comments to my own post, but I just thought I'd drop you a note to say that I'll happily take you up on any number of your "debate me" topics -- though right now #s 5 and 7 seem most tempting, just because fairly easy and straightforward. Though I'm also tempted by #4 and #8...