Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Rob van Senten on June 8, 2011 at 6:27am

I don't feel obliged to honor the wishes of others that I am affiliated with under the banner of "atheism". I have my own ideas and my own opinions and frankly I could care less about people that want me to be quiet for "the greater good". 

 

I'm sick and tired of people complaining about those "nasty and mean" atheists that dare to speak out and offer an opinion that conflicts with the opinions of others. It's about time that we (as people, not just "us" atheists) speak up for what we stand for as individuals. 

 

Heartless atheists? How about I call everybody that wants the "nasty and mean" atheists to be quiet a bunch of cowardly appeasers from the school of Neville Chamberlain? Do these people honestly think that I will give up my right of free speech and my individuality for the sake of not scaring people away from atheism? Should we lie and hide who we are? I don't think so.

 

I'd rather be honest and hated then loved and a liar.

Permalink Reply by Jedi Wanderer on June 8, 2011 at 9:46am

What a false dichotomy! No, Marc, this is not the Jublinsky paradox, this is the same philosophical discussion that has been held for eons - are we to be guided by our reason or by our passions? And like I said, it is a false dichotomy. They are merely two sides to the same coin. We are motivated fundamentally by our passions, and we use our reason to find the best, most efficient ways of getting what it is we want. It is a simple matter of prioritizing our values. Do we utterly lament that we may make the occasional lie to save someone's feelings? Or that we might kill in self-defense? Or that we don't buy the expensive birthday present for our child so that we may pay the rent? It is not that we are cold or heartless when we make these often hard decisions, it is rather just the opposite - it is BECAUSE we care so much about ourselves and those close to us, and even people we have never met, that we make the tough choices according to what will actually protect our deepest interests. If you have reasoned that it would be better to let the Giant Panda die off so that we may save many more species from extinction, it is not because you hate the Giant Panda, but because you love life in a more general way that you are willing to make hard sacrifices to protect more, to save more, to do more good, to do what is the greater good.

 

You can tell anyone who doubts it that it is because we care more and feel more deeply about life that we are atheists. Atheists are just generally better at understanding what truly should be valued, like truth, and reason, and the value of life, and this is the reason why we have become atheists in the first place. We don't let false sentimentality get in the way of the things we really should value, like this life, and actual things in existence. We use reason because we understand that faith is, by its false nature, inimicable to the things we value. It is precisely because we are lovers of life that we turn to reason, and anyone who thinks otherwise hasn't learned the first thing necessary for achieving any sort of actual values.

Permalink Reply by Jedi Wanderer on June 8, 2011 at 11:39am

Thanks John! :-D

Permalink Reply by Ruth Anthony-Gardner on June 9, 2011 at 12:13pm

Ditto!

Permalink Reply by Jedi Wanderer on June 9, 2011 at 12:55pm

Thanks Ruth! :-D

Permalink Reply by John Jubinsky on June 8, 2011 at 9:57am

Hi Mark:

 

Firstly, realize that it was you who suggested that my remarks should be in another thread and this was then underlined by Dr. Meaden. I simply had no problem with it. The posts exist to support this.

 

I don't think that what I stated above suggests that anybody's free speech should be stiffled. It simply presents a reasonable argument for Secular Humanism. I am entitled to free speech also and I exercised it. Does anyone think mine should be stiffled?

 

What I have to say to hard core heartless Atheists is, very respectfully, I believe the most emotionally mature thing we can do is agree to disagree.

Permalink Reply by Rob van Senten on June 8, 2011 at 10:04am

John, 

 

Can you perhaps explain what you mean by "heartless" or "hardcore heartless" atheists? Perhaps you can provide an example of it so as that I can better understand your opinion on this matter. Maybe you and I hold a different meaning to the word heartless.

Permalink Reply by Jedi Wanderer on June 8, 2011 at 12:16pm

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say (not to put words in JJ's mouth) that where this line of thinking usually goes is that atheists who are pure egoists have an immoral set of beliefs. I agree. Being an egoist (like the Ayn Rand Objectivists) entails having a very limited (by definition) group to whom one feels any responsibilities for. It means being responsible only to the self, period, the end. I, and many others, find this to be morally reprehensible because it means that another person only has value as a means to the ends of the individual in question. It erases all sense of nobility or love of one's fellow man and replaces these with a narcissistic love of the self. In this philosophy, morality is just personal power to do what one pleases, without any call for these desires to be reflected against another. This transforms value into love of power, especially over others, and love of another is itself only love of the power one has over another to "keep getting what one wants".

 

What I argue is that the only alternative to egoism is not altruism, as is so commonly thought. I think this is a seriously false dichotomy as well. It is not just "love of the self" vs "love of others", rather, there is a vast middle ground that goes completely unobserved by most people. I call this realm "organicism". What this means is just what John D was referring to above when he said "All I can tell is that my compassion expands in spheres of influence. Those who influence me, and who I have influence upon, become stronger in my sphere of compassion." This is the essence of organicism. It means we love ourselves AND (some but not all) others. We love some others, not because of what they can do for us, but because we see them as extensions of ourselves. We may even love complete strangers in this way, though obviously this "organismic love" as I call it is far stronger for one's in-group, i.e. one's family members, fellow soldiers in battle, friends and those with whom one shares values, etc. This means two things. Firstly, it means we don't have to give a damn about the common good, as you say Rob, because that would require caring about everything and everyone virtually equally, and this is altruism and it is an impossible ideal. We don't even need to be humanists, if by humanism you mean caring about all of humanity. But secondly, it does mean that, if you can see the broad picture, and you are powerful enough to care and to want to take responsibility for the good of the greater organism to which you see yourself belonging, we can care about what happens to generally good people, here and there, now and later, through the connections we have by our shared values (those of us who share them). It means we can distinguish between those we care about and those we do not. We can include or exclude people according to how we see our organismic connections. I just remembered, Rob, that you are one of the few people here who have actually read my paper on Thumos. You may recall some of what I mention here from that paper, I dunno. I will actually want to write another paper regarding this vast middle ground between pure egoism and pure altruism, neither of which are realistic philosophies. We all do actually act, with the exception of children and sociopaths, with organismic love rather than with simply altruistic or narcissistic love. So that is my whole point anyway - if we can see that we really do care about others as if they were just another part of some greater whole to which we also belong, then we have the justification we need to explain why we do actually want to sacrifice ourselves for our children or the people we care about, why we do want to take social responsibilities and responsibilities for people all over the world, people whom we have never even met or will meet, or even for animals (read: animal rights), etc. If JJ means that there are atheists who not only think but actually act on the premise that they really are the only people that matter, and who truly do not care about the general welfare of living beings, then these are people who I would say do not truly understand their own motivations and their own deepest values, or else there is some undeveloped part of them which prevents them from being fully human.

Permalink Reply by Rob van Senten on June 8, 2011 at 4:28pm

atheists who are pure egoists have an immoral set of beliefs. I agree. Being an egoist (like the Ayn Rand Objectivists) entails having a very limited (by definition) group to whom one feels any responsibilities for. It means being responsible only to the self, period, the end. 

 

I'm not that immoral I hope, although I do see myself as a inherently selfish being because of our nature as self-duplicating DNA machines. When you know that the most horrible things imaginable can be done by otherwise decent, good human beings I truly believe that our morality is but a thin layer of veneer on top of our egoistic animal nature.

 

This is not to say that we are powerless over our selfish side or that this thin layer of morality is somehow not important, quite to the contrary I would think. 

 

pure egoism and pure altruism, neither of which are realistic philosophies

 

They're not, they're absolutist mind farts with serious practical limitations and either one will cause as much suffering as the other if we'd live our life by them. I don't remember you using those words in your paper but I think we're pretty much on the same page there. 

 

people <..> who truly do not care about the general welfare of living beings, then these are people who I would say do not truly understand their own motivations and their own deepest values, or else there is some undeveloped part of them which prevents them from being fully 

 

I do believe that these people are missing out on what it's like to be human, I'm not a psychiatrist but wouldn't people like that be considered sociopaths?

 

Most people that I know of are not cold, uncaring and heartless even though they appear that way. Especially through a filter such as non verbal text based discussions.

Permalink Reply by Jedi Wanderer on June 8, 2011 at 6:57pm

Yeah we do pretty much have agreement here Rob. I think what this means is that you are, like every other person in command of their human faculties, neither an egoist nor an altruist in their "pure" (and virtually impossible) senses, but an organicist. I don't know how much of this was in my paper, but I do remember that I said a bit about how we see others as extensions of ourselves and this is how we love in the complete sense of the word.

There is a difference between where value is experienced and to whom it is extended to include. Of course we all experience value within the self, but this is not selfishness in the moral sense. If you feel only responsible for your own well-being, and only care about others to the extent of how it affects you personally, then this is selfish, narcissistic egoism. I am sure you are not like this at all. We may seek to be self-replicators and such, but obviously we do not seek this literally - unless we actually clone ourselves (and even then!), what we really seek to replicate is the information which leads to us, and not even all that information, be it genetic or cultural, but only those pieces of information which we actually value, while we wish to remove those other pieces which we see dislike. So when we set about self-replicating, we can do this every day of our lives, by standing up for our values in others and seeing those values flourish.

Yes I would say that probably only sociopaths (I am not sure about any other classes of people, be they mentally incapable in some other sense, or children, or what have you) are pure egoists in the sense that they truly only care about themselves and nobody else. It is possible, but not desirable, to be a pure egoist, on this understanding. I don't think one can actually be a pure altruist, that would mean thinking about everybody exactly equally, regardless of whether it was your own child or a stranger, for example.

You make one really good point that I've not really thought deeply enough about before when you say that "When you know that the most horrible things imaginable can be done by otherwise decent, good human beings I truly believe that our morality is but a thin layer of veneer on top of our egoistic animal nature." So much of who we are is dependent upon circumstances. A person who might have grown up to become a successful and wealthy philanthropist in one time and place might grow up to be a homicidal maniac in another (think the Nazis). Does this indicate, as you point out, that morality may not go very deep into our natures? I don't know, but I am inclined to disagree. I would probably say that it rather points out that we have a huge tendency to overinflate our value, to make our lives seem way "better" than they actually are. In truth we are little more than viruses (with no free will I might point out), simply acting out the instructions given to us by the information we come to be in possession of. This means both that our capabilities for "evil" (I prefer atrocious acts), as well as our capabilities for acting nobly, mean much less than we tend to think. In the purest objective sense, they mean truly nothing at all. So I would question what it means to be a "good" person (does it mean just to have the potential for good, or actually having to realize that potential?), but I would also question what you mean by our morality being a "thin veneer". Sure, a Nazi could have been an outstanding human being all things aside, but was it some small minor thing to be caught up in a society-wide madness, or does such a profound experience have a profound effect? There were some famous experiments done (Stanley Milgrom I believe) where subjects would inflict pain on others just because they were told to do so, or so they thought anyway. This showed that we humans are too quick to abdicate personal responsibility. Surely this is a huge failing, and does make one question whether we really are good or whether we just think ourselves so. But there might just as easily be experiments which could show that, given orders to do so, we might act in the most courageous and admirable ways possible. In any case, this is a good topic for conversation, and I'd be interested to hear more about what you mean by this statement.

Permalink Reply by Rob van Senten on June 9, 2011 at 5:07am

Does this indicate, as you point out, that morality may not go very deep into our natures? I don't know, but I am inclined to disagree. <..> I would probably say that it rather points out that we have a huge tendency to overinflate our value

 

We lose perspective of our part in the complicated workings of human society which can cause us to act selfish and harm others without even caring about those inflicted. This follows directly from our inherent selfish nature, from our biology.

 

However, human society is hugely complex and we simply cannot live in peace without curbing those drives to such a degree that we do not harm others in the pursuit of our selfish desires, while the rest of society does the same (social contract).

 

I know of some experiments that were performed where people were being told to inflict pain upon others by a person in a lab coat. More often then not people felt no longer responsible for their own actions and completely bypassed their sense of morality. Truly a terrible consequence of our tendency for obedience to authority.*

 

If our sense of morality is so easily bypassed, it seems logical to assume that it is only a thin layer of civility. In our nature, our biological programming we are selfish bastards that care only about those things that are important to the self. 

 

* Yes, we are talking about the same research paper... Kind of funny.

 Stanley Milgram (1974). Obedience to Authority: An Experimental View

Permalink Reply by Rob van Senten on June 9, 2011 at 11:45am

Both compassion and submission to authority are mechanisms on how our ethics work. 

 

When we forget or deny our responsibilities to ourselves and others because of submission of authority I do believe that we risk to lose a bit of our humanity. 

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