DM: Perhaps you [S&S] would like to reconsider that statement in light of the utilitarian (survival consequentialist) ethic I took the time to clarify here in response to Steve's thread. Murder violates the basic right of life within society, where society is a collection of individuals who sign in on a social contract, out of rational self-interest, to promote virtuous behavior in order to further their own survival, health, and prosperity.
SH:
i) I don’t know that S&S subscribes to utilitarianism. So I don’t know that he’s regard this as an adequate counter to his objection.
ii) Even if S&S did regard utilitarianism as valid up-to-a-point, this doesn’t mean that he’d regard secular utilitarianism as valid.
iii) Morgan offered a vicious circular argument for the value of survival. He is also attempting to graft utilitarianism onto egalitarianism, which is incoherent—as I’ve pointed out before.
For example, Patton and Churchill were far more valuable to the war effort than the average foot soldier who served under them.
England could afford to lose a lot of foot soldiers and still win the war, but if she’d lost Churchill, she’d have lost the war.
All men are not equal in their contribution to the common good. Danny is attempting to square his politically correct egalitarianism with utilitarianism, but they tug in opposing directions.
iv) Notice that, for Danny, murder is not intrinsically evil. Rather, murder is only evil as a matter of social convention.
The right to life is not intrinsic, but a right conferred by society according to the terms of the social contract.
v) In addition, how broadly is he defining the social circle? Who is a signatory to the social contract?
vi) Danny continues to evade the common conflict between individual survival and collective survival.
For some reason, Danny thinks that he can blow past these objections and leave them unanswered.
Is he hoping we’ll forget or give up?
Danny’s problem is that he doesn’t have good answers for certain objections. He’s an apostate who’s trying to rebuild his ship at see. He scurries about to cobble together an ethical system, with snips and snails and puppy dog tails from utilitarianism, egalitarianism, evolutionary ethics, and social contractualism.
DM: here answers that -- primary value is survival, and survival is furthered within society, thus we endanger our own survival by disrupting society and/or breaking the terms of our contract.
SH:
i) This is a downright Hobbesean version of social contract theory. An individual never has the right to buck the system since that would introduce a destabilizing factor, endangering the common good.
On this view, the individual is nothing. He is never entitled to challenge social injustice or a personal miscarriage of justice, for as long as the species survives, an individual or minority group can be thrown to the sharks for the common good.
He is never entitled to challenge the social contract since the social contract is the source of all entitlements.
There is, indeed, a certain inner logic to this position. It’s the logic of the totalitarian state.
Notice how Danny’s ruthless utilitarianism and Hobbesean contractualism is diametrically opposed to his doe-eyed egalitarianism.
ii) Once again, Danny ignores the frequent dilemma between self-interest and altruism.
Suppose that my selfish impulses do, indeed, endanger the general welfare. But why should I, as an atheist, commit self-immolation for the common good? Why should I care about posterity? I have no personal investment in the distant future. I won’t be around to enjoy it.
These are tensions generated by Danny’s own eclectic morality. Yet no matter how often you raise them, he chooses to brush them off and repeat himself as if there were no problems.
S&S said: “there are many cultures that never recognized the ‘right to life’ (i.e. Huns, Mongols, Aztecs, etc.). The idea of a "right to life" (i.e. human rights) is a Christian idea.”
To which Danny responded: “Um, sure...if you want to believe that...”
Want to believe what? What does Danny deny? Does he deny that the right to life is a Christian idea?
Even if he denies that, what about the first part of S&S’s statement? Does he also deny that there were pre-Christian cultures in which there was no egalitarian right to life?
Why is Danny’s version of the social contract superior to the Aztec social contract?
Once more, Danny blows past an inconvenient counterexample to his arbitrary claims.
DM: Why do I have to say that? I would say, "One used their life to make humanity worse off, while the other used their life to make humanity better off. One extolled and exemplified virtue, while the other provides a model for evil." Why does your bald assertion logically follow? I'm tired of hearing your illogical assertions.
SH: “Better” and “worse.” “Virtue.” “Evil.”
Danny has never met an ethical question he couldn’t beg.
DM: False. What you mean is "no eternal or afterlife justice". So long as people are still alive and a society exists within which justice can be rendered, your bald assertion (not an argument) is false.
SH: Really? What is the just punishment for a child rapist or a serial killer?
There are many heinous crimes committed in this life for which there is no adequate punishment here and now.
DM: So you don't believe in rendering justice or a value judgment on the basis of cause and effect? A legacy, or the effects of one's life, is not a valid criterion for evaluating said life? Why is that?
SH: Because, as S&S pointed out, if you’re an atheist, then death is the great equalizer. And the beneficiaries of your legacy will soon join you in collective oblivion.
DM: Got away with? I would say that dying in the commission of murder is hardly "getting away with it".
SH: Danny misses the point. Or maybe he appreciates the point, but dodges the point because he doesn’t have a good answer.
By committing suicide, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold suffered the very same fate as their victims. The fatalities at Columbine did not distinguish between the victim and the perpetrator.
DM: Is death not the just punishment prescribed for such crimes for adults in most states in the US?
SH: Absent heaven and hell, capital punishment is insufficient to right the scales of justice.
DM: Is their death no sufficient to prevent any such event from recurring, and thus removing the source of danger to society (the purpose of justice -- to secure law and order)?
SH: Deterrence or law and order are not the purpose of justice. The purpose of justice is retribution. That’s why it’s called retributive justice.
DM: How are the effects of their actions "undone" if they are roasting in flames forever (or even worse, chilling out in paradise as they repented right before death).
SH:
i) Heaven and hell are compensatory.
ii) Committing suicide to evade justice after committing mass murder is hardly an act of contrition.
DM: Violence against fellow humans, even those outside the society, confers no benefit to the survival of the species and the society unless they are threatened and acting in self-defense. Any commission of violence endangers the one acting with risk of reciprocity.
SH: It’s funny to see the way in which Danny lurches back and forth between his ruthless, Hobbesean-coated social Darwinism, on the one hand, and this Pollyannaish eyewash on the other hand.
If you’re smart about it, crimes pays. White-collar crime can be very lucrative, and sometimes you need to supplement white-collar crime with a dash of blue-collar crime. Throughout history, assassination has often been a very efficient method of career advancement.
Steve Hays said, "There is, indeed, a certain inner logical to this position. It’s the logic of the totalitarian state."
ReplyDeleteExactly. Danny's position was the same kind of reasoning as Rouseau's which eventually led to the tyranny of the French Revolution. "If you don't like what the majority is doing, then you will be forced to like it." It was the excuse of just about every tyrant throughout history, especially the Nazis and the communists. "It's for the good of the state," they say.
Or another way of looking at it: why is it wrong for a society of one social contract to destroy and conquer a society of another social contract? By conquering the other society, the conquerers gain land to harvest more crops and thus, survive. They could also gain slaves (like the Romans). These slaves help one society to grow and prosper (while the other suffers). It is Darwinism applied to all of life.
If atheism is true, then the logical conclusion and ultimate goal in life is to be at the top of the food chain, to engage in the survival of the fittest. It is to try to become the ultimate tyrant. It is to do as much evil as you can, as long as you can get away with it.
Steve,
BTW: I'm not a utilitarian. The logical conclusion of that is what is described above.
"Any commission of violence endangers the one acting with risk of reciprocity."
ReplyDeleteHow is Danny's beliefs about morals any different than believing in Karma? He basically has adopted an eastern moral system.