When Ken Pulliam is attacking proponents of penal substitution, he says:
The notion that it is wrong to punish an innocent person is a basic intuition that all men possess and it seems to be present in man from infancy. I believe the notion is present in man due to the way our brains have evolved...
http://formerfundy.blogspot.com/search/label/A.%20A.%20Hodge
But when Ken Pulliam is attacking opponents of penal substitution, he says:
Concerning Achan, I think it is a case of eisegesis to say that his family somehow were complicit in his act and thus rightly deserved to die. The text says that his animals and all of his possessions were also destroyed. It seems to me that one could hold that either his sin had "contaminated" everything that belonged to him (including his wife and children) and thus had to be destroyed or one could hold that the Israelites were simply operating under a "collective culpability" mindset, which we know was prevalent in ancient times. This collective culpability mindset would also explain why the command was given to destroy all the Canaanites, why all within Sodom was destroyed, and so on.
http://christiancadre.blogspot.com/2010/08/some-clarifications-on-biblical.html#comment-3311418856305760064
Yet if our brains are hardwired to believe it's wrong to punish the innocent, then how come collective culpability was "prevalent in ancient times"?
Allow me to explain what appears on the surface to be a contradiction. Steve is right that I hold to the moral theory called "Ethical Intuitionism." This position is articulated and defended by philosophers Michael Huemer (Ethical Intuitionism) and Robert Audi The Good in the Right: A Theory of Intuition and Intrinsic Value. A form of it is also defended by Steven Pinker, formerly a Professor in the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences at MIT ("The Moral Instinct"). Basically the view says that there are a few moral intuitions or instincts with which we are born. It is my contention that one of these is that it is immoral to punish an innocent person.
ReplyDeleteI also believe as do most anthropologists that many ancient cultures (and a few today) adhere to the concept of collective culpability. In collectivist societies the group is more important than the individual, in a sense the group is seen as a corporate person. The result of this is that when one person within a defined group, such as a family, tribe, or even nation is considered to be guilty of something, the whole group of which that person is a part is guilty. This is especially true if the culprit is a leader of the societal group. Thus, for people with this mindset, the whole group is guilty and deserving of punishment.
So, there really is no contradiction because in the collectivist mindset the whole group is guilty. No innocent is being punished. For them it would be wrong if they punished another group for the crime of the first group. In other words, in the case of Achan. It would have been seen as intuitively wrong to have punished another family for what Achan did but it was not wrong to punish Achan's family because they were seen from a collectivist mindset which made all of them guilty.
Except that Pulliam appeals to the intuitive belief that it's immoral to punish the innocent to delegitimate the concept of collective guilt. If, however, ancient people didn't find collective guilt to be counterintuitive, then Pulliam can't very well appeal to that moral intuition to show that collective guilt is immoral.
ReplyDeleteAnd even assuming that some of our moral beliefs are instinctual, if you also ground that instinct in naturalistic evolutionary psychology, then that instinct lacks objective moral normativity.
Ken,
ReplyDelete1. How would you respond to Hector Avalos's "master argument" for relativism?
2. To appeal to Huemer, Audi, and Pinker gives the appearance of weight when their cases are not all consistent with each other.
3. Take Pinker and an evolutionary account about how we have the moral beliefs we do. This reduces morality to psychology--a descriptive project. At best this kind of view tells us why we have the moral beliefs we do. It does not tell us if (a) those beliefs are warranted, or (b) how the object of belief, if taken to be irreducibly normative, "fits" or came about in a naturalistic world.
Steve,
ReplyDeleteYou said that I appeal to the intuitive belief that it's immoral to punish the innocent to delegitimate the concept of collective guilt.
I don't. The collective culpability mindset is distinct from moral intuitions. It is is more of a worldview than an intuition.
I personally don't claim that moral intuitions result in an objective morality, at least not in the way you probably define objective. I believe that they are the closest we can come to objective in the sense that they are nearly universal.
Ken,
ReplyDeletepersonally don't claim that moral intuitions result in an objective morality, at least not in the way you probably define objective.
Then your appeal to Huemer and Audi was more dishonest and facile than I originally thought.
Paul,
ReplyDeleteThey are consistent as far as the big picture, they differ on the details (like some Reformed theologians I know). Audi and Huemer are philosophers and they approach the subject from that standpoint. Pinker is a psychologist and cognitive scientist, he approaches it from a different angle. He is concerned with prescription not description.
I think Hector and I differ somewhat on the issue but I would have to re-read his material on this to mark out clear distinctions in his view and mine.
Paul,
ReplyDeleteIt is not dishonest nor facile. One doesn't have to agree with someone in every area in order to share general agreement. As you know Reformed theologians differ on a lot of particulars but they share enough in common to be called Reformed. In a similar way, I share enough of both Audi's and Huemer's views to consider myself an adherent of ethical intuitionism.
Why do you find it necessary to use personal insults?
Ken,
ReplyDeleteWhat personal insults?
Anyway, they are not consistent "as far as the big picture." However, I will grant that that phrase is sufficiently vague and ambiguous as to allow a lot of weaseling. Huemer and Pinker's views aren't even in the same ballpark.
Since I am well aware of all three of the views you appeal to would you mind pointing me to a post you have written on ethical intuitionism? Would you mind telling me how your non-objectivist intuitionism is sufficiently similar to Huemer's objectivist ethical intuitionism?
Also, ethical intuitionism (are you a methodological or epistemological intuitionist, or both?), is read as being objectivist, and committed to non-natural moral properties. Indeed, Heumer's book *defines* ethical intuitionism as one species of *realism*, so I find it hard to see how you can call yourself an intuitionist and hold that ethical truths are not objective.
So, given what you've said so far, the most charitable I can be, and least "personally offensive," is to claim that if you're not being facile and deceptive, you're just ignorant of the field.
Paul,
ReplyDeleteI will have to come back to this later. Suffice it to say that the essence of ethical intuitionism as I understand it is the position that there are basic (non-inferential) moral beliefs. Whether these are objective moral facts is not an essential ingredient as EI's may differ on this. AS I said earlier in my comment to Steve, it depends a lot on how one defines "objective."
This is a complex discussion and can hardly be carried on properly in a comment box.
Ken,
ReplyDeleteNo, that is not the "essence" of ethical intuitionism, though it is an important and basic theme of evolutionary ethics, like Pinker, Midgley, Ruse's, &c. However, many metaethical versions hold to "basic, non-inferentially justified" moral beliefs. Plantinga would hold to this. Atheist and moral relist (but non-intuitionist) Shafer-Landay would hold to this, theist Mark Linville, etc. Your claim sounds more like epistemological ethical intuitionism. However, this view says that our common sense moral beliefs are *self-evident*, which, again, wouldn't fit with non-objectivism.
And, of course, no one is stopping you from defining "objective." However, this *is* a metaethical discussion, and I wonder why you'd not be using that term according to its standard use in metaethics.
Or, not. After all, "This is a complex discussion and can hardly be carried on properly in a comment box."
KEN PULLIAM SAID:
ReplyDelete“I don't. The collective culpability mindset is distinct from moral intuitions. It is is more of a worldview than an intuition.”
So you’re attributing a morally counterintuitive worldview to ancient people. But that only pushes your problem back a step.
“I personally don't claim that moral intuitions result in an objective morality, at least not in the way you probably define objective. I believe that they are the closest we can come to objective in the sense that they are nearly universal.”
So why do you try to dissuade Christians from remaining Christians? Even if you think the Christian faith is false, there is, by your own admission, no objective epistemic duty to eschew false beliefs.