Meaning and morality

I'm going to repost some comments I left on James Anderson's post "Can Life Have Meaning Without God?"

• steve hays
  July 17, 2013 at 7:44 PM
  
  Another example of atheist concurrence is the antinatalist philosophy of secularists like Schopenhauer and Benatar. Human existence is a misfortune. We'd be better off not existing in the first place. That coincides with George Steiner's definition of absolute tragedy.

• steve hays
  July 23, 2013 at 4:58 AM
  
  Curt Day
  

• "My main point is rather than asserting that they, as atheists, can find no meaning..."

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  That was an argument, not an assertion.
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• "...which is potentially contentious..."

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  Curt's own statements are contentious. So he's disqualified himself. 
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• "...and will probably be answered with the claim that the meaning we found is arbitrarily based..."

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  Claims aren't the same as arguments.
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• ..."why not confess our failures and inconsistencies first?"

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  Why don't you lead by example? No one is stopping you. Volunteer your failures and inconsistencies first. We're waiting.

• steve hays
  July 23, 2013 at 5:11 AM
  
  zilch
  

• "James and Johnnie- I hope you don't mind if I butt in here. James: you will have noticed that Dawkins, Provine, and Rosenberg did not say that humans have no meaning or purpose: only that the Universe has no meaning or purpose."

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  Which corresponds to Dr. Anderson's distinction between objective meaning, or lack thereof (i.e. "the universe has no meaning or purpose"), and subjective meaning (i.e. the imaginary meaning which some atheists continue to contrive, despite the admitted absence of objective meaning). Pay attention to the argument.

• steve hays
  July 24, 2013 at 10:11 AM
  
  Once again, zilch, you're not paying attention. This isn't just a Christian characterization. Remember that Dr. Anderson began by quoting secular philosophers. And that was just a sample. Many atheist philosophers agree with him that in a godless universe, human life has no objective value. And that's not merely their opinion. They argue for that conclusion, showing how it derives from atheism.

• steve hays
  July 23, 2013 at 11:28 AM
  
  zilch is oblivious to fundamental problems besetting evolutionary ethics. At most, evolutionary ethics could only be descriptive, not prescriptive. If you try to derive moral norms from evolutionary ethics, you run afoul of the naturalistic fallacy and other suchlike:
  http://www.iep.utm.edu/evol-eth/#SH1c
  
  
• http://www.iep.utm.edu/evol-eth/#SH1d
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  But the problem is even worse, for as Sharon Street argues (in "A Darwinian Dilemma for Realist Theories of Value"), naturalistic evolution positively undermines moral realism:
  
  
• http://bioethics.as.nyu.edu/docs/IO/1177/DarwinianDilemma.pdf

http://www.kcl.ac.uk/ip/davidpapineau/Staff/Papineau/CourseMats7-8/street.pdf

• steve hays
  July 24, 2013 at 10:04 AM
  
  You're interjecting belated qualifications you didn't include in your initial responses, then backdating your qualifications as if that's what you said all along. Sorry, but you don't get retroactive credit for what you failed to say at the time. 
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  Deriving ethics from culture is circular. To begin with, different cultures have different social mores. In addition, we don't simply judge ethics by culture: we judge culture by ethics. Unless you're a cultural relativist. Are you? 
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  Why should we feed the poor? Why should we be nicer than capitalist robber barons? You're assuming what you need to prove. 
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• "…if we were not animals who must eat to live?"

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  And predators kill other animals to survive and flourish. Sometimes members of their own species. Take the natural tendency we observe in the animal kingdom to kill stepchildren (e.g. lions killing cubs of rival lions). So that's an evolutionary argument for murder. 
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  You're also committing the naturalistic fallacy. Thanks for proving my point.

• steve hays
  July 23, 2013 at 4:16 AM
  
  Author: Jon in Oxford
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• "First, why are we adopting the objective/subjective distinction? Especially where objective simply means "outside" and subjective means 'interior.'"

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  Seems to me that distinction is roughly analogous to true and false or fictitious. 
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• "And, for those atheists who live meaningful lives, nothing about their understanding of the world seems like it could provide the symbolic or semiotic resources to create meaningfulness. But what could exactly?"

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  Well, for one thing, if atheism is false, then it presents a false understanding of man's role in the universe. Of course, Dr. Anderson's argument is more radical. Even if (ex hypothesi) atheism is true, it would negate the significance of our lives–and there are notable atheists who agree. So true or false, atheism is in a bind. 
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• "This is where your analysis seems most ludicrous. What exactly about the Christian view (as you articulated it) could provide the resources either?"

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  Well, if the Christian view presents a true narrative of man's place in the universe, then surely that's a more promising way to ground human significance. 
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• "You claim that '[meaning] can only come from a transcendent personal Creator who made you, and the universe around you, for the most spectacular end: his eternal glory and the eternal joy of his people.' Why? I don't doubt that this is the TRUTH of the universe. By why is it the only way people's lives can have meaning?"

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  Jon's position is decidedly odd. On the one hand he denies that a true narrative grounds human significance, while–on the other hand–he affairs that a false or fictitious narrative can ground human significance.
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• "But they still do not necessarily argue that other faiths or ways of living are necessarily deficient in meaning."

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  They are deficient in meaning insofar as they are deficient in truth.
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• "I would claim instead that 'meaning' as it is most commonly used is the word we give our participation in life-narratives laid out by our Traditions (in the technical, MacIntyrean sense). These Traditions lay out an end-goal, dictate the virtues that will be inculcated of us on our quest for that goal, and enable the process of education and character-building that ensues in the following lifetime. Along the way, we find ourselves to also be characters in others' narratives, and we play those parts accordingly. Our Traditions give us examples of the good life (eudaimonia) and provide us with a logic and hermeneutic to make sense of the world on our quest. For most of human history, this is how people made sense of their lives, and they did so more or less without Sartrian hand-wringing about the meaning of their lives." 

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  Yes, traditions can assign a role to members of society. For instance, Aztec religion can dictate that it's the solemn duty of war captives to be sacrificial victims to appease the Aztec pantheon. In these same vein, suicide cults like the Order of the Solar Temple or urological cults like Raëlism can assign a role to members based on their cultic narratives. If, however, the narratives are fictitious or false, then the end-goals and attendant virtues are baseless. 
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  In addition, if–as atheists typically insist–humans pass into oblivion when they die, then how does playing their little part as fleeting characters in the evolutionary drama secure the ultimate significance of their lives? The play remains the same, but the players are expendable. 
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• "Again, in what sense does the Christian experience a meaningfulness to his life that is different from the meaningfulness a sincere Muslim might feel?"

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  If the Christian narrative is true whereas the Islamic narrative is largely false, then that's a differential factor.
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• "Why is it or does it have to be the case that meaning must be the special province of the Christian God, whether directly or as a grace to as-yet-benighted unbelievers?"

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  Because truth and meaning are interrelated ("meaning" in the sense of human significance).
  
  
• steve hays
  July 23, 2013 at 4:52 AM
  
  Author: Jon in Oxford
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• "Put another way, I don't see any way of holding that atheists (presuming you mean by this 'people who do not believe in God or gods' and not 'post-Darwinian anti-theistic Western rationalists') cannot in principle have meaningful lives consistent with their beliefs without perverting the common usage of 'meaning' (and the one you articulate)."

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  Because, as secular philosophers like Michael Ruse point out, if naturalistic evolution is true, then natural selection has brainwashed and/or hoodwinked humans into believing that our lives–and especially the lives of our kin-group–are worthwhile. But once we realize that mindless process has programmed us to project this sense of value onto an indifferent universe, we realize that we've been hoaxed. Now, we may continue to feel the same way, just as certain phobias (e.g. acrophobia) may be irrepressible, but we realize that our feelings are misguided and groundless. For Toto has pulled back the curtain to reveal the flimflam man twirling the dials.

• steve hays
  July 23, 2013 at 5:49 AM
  
  Norm 
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• "The purpose provided by this god is to be a sycophant to an idea. And to do it because god says so…value is simply declared by him arbitrarily."

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  That's just an ignorant caricature of the Christian position. What Christian philosophers and theologians has Norm bothered to read? Or is he merely regurgitating the hortatory rhetoric of Christopher Hitchens?
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  Norm's statement reduces theistic duties to a crude version divine command theory. He overlooks the natural law tradition, where duties are grounded in how God designed us. Likewise, he overlooks the exemplarist tradition, where human virtues instance God's archetypal virtues. In neither case would value be arbitrary.
  
  

• "To praise him forever and ever and ever because he apparently wants to be thanked for being what he is innately. He's created his own cheering section."

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  We should praise what is praiseworthy. Value what is good because it is good. If God is supremely good, then that's why we should praise him.
  
  

• "If other people choose to be lazy, that doesn't bother me. If still others choose to be evil, my fellow social animals and I; who want to live in cooperative and flourishing societies, can fight them."

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  Norm makes the illogical mistake, which many unbelievers make, of acting as if disproving the Christian value-system ipso facto proves a secular value-system. But that's invalid. 
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  Honest atheists admit that atheism is nihilistic. That being so, where do some zealous nihilists get their sense of mission? Why make opposing Christianity your cause in life if your own position is nihilistic? They are dutiful foot-soldiers for an outlook that negates normative duties. Go figure.