I tried to put in an intro, but the gorilla got in the way. I think the following by the Philosophical Primate was worth bringing up front, instead of leaving it hidden in the comments. The link will take you to TPP’s website. Newly edited by the Philosophical Primate himself!
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Our prior discussion about the values at the heart of New Atheism has more potential than has yet been explored. New Atheists don’t just agree on a set of conclusions, but on a set of common underlying epistemological values, the norms which both motivate and structurally determine the arguments which we make in support of those conclusions. When I brought this up before, I mentioned in parentheses that I don’t think epistemological values and moral values are entirely separable. What you are talking about in this post, Eric, seems to touch on the territory where I think they intersect and overlap.
So what are those shared values? To rehash a bit: Atheists, for the most part, care a great deal about attempting to discover the truth rather than assuming that we already know it (i.e. fallibilism), and we reject anyone’s insistence that some claims can be or should be off-limits to rigorously applied critical thinking. New Atheists become atheists and argue for atheism precisely because we care about evidence and reasoning, and think that claims ought to be accepted as true only to the extent that they can be justified. But why do we prize fallibilism and genuine truth-seeking justification so highly, and reject the opposite — faith — so thoroughly?
One answer is pragmatic: These are the epistemic norms that work! That is, consistently following critical thinking, broadly scientific epistemic norms gives us the sort of reliable knowledge that we can use to accomplish our aims in the world, whatever those may be. And that’s fine, as far as it goes.
However, a deeper answer points towards core moral values, not just instrumental/pragmatic values. Ultimately, faith almost always consists in relying on or accepting some authority: the authority of a holy book; the authority of the writers of such books who claim to speak for a still higher, divine authority (evidence for which is nonexistent); or, most commonly, the authority of those who claim the right to interpret the meaning of holy books and the wills of gods (but again, offer no evidence to back that claim to authority). Rejecting faith not only manifests epistemic values that treasure authentic truth-seeking over comforting or self-serving delusions, it manifests moral values that treasure human freedom and self-determination over bowing to illegitimate authority*. New Atheists value both intellectual and practical liberty, both freedom of thought (within the rational limitations imposed by the epistemic values already discussed) and freedom of action (within the rational limitations which allow similar freedom for all). And when I say “New Atheists value” such and such, I am suggesting both that the extant New Atheists I’ve read and engaged with consistently demonstrate in word and deed that they embrace such moral values, but also that these moral values are logically connected to the epistemological values which drive the movement: A New Atheist who rejected such values (if there were such a creature) would be inconsistent in doing so.
Moreover, the pragmatic answer and the moral answer converge, at least by implication. Valuing sound epistemic norms because of their pragmatic value — because they give us reliable knowledge useful for accomplishing our ends, whatever those ends might be — directly implies that accomplishing our ends is, generally speaking**, a good thing. The disconnection of pragmatic value from any particular end also implies, albeit indirectly, a live-and-let-live attitude towards people choosing their ends. In other words, valuing epistemic norms which let us accomplish our ends (whatever those ends might be) is integrally interrelated with valuing human freedom — for if the word “freedom” has any meaning at all, surely that meaning includes determining and pursuing one’s own ends.
So if you want to understand what moral values underlie New Atheism, I think you need look no further than John Stuart Mill’s On Liberty. (Which, coincidentally, was published in 1859, the same year as another book of some considerable importance to New Atheist thought…)
That said, I can see how Mill’s very individualistic liberal political philosophy might not be thought to respond to the exact concerns you raised in your prior post, which are all tied up with communal identity and activity. However, there is nothing in even the most individualistic liberalism which in any way undermines the value of communities and communal identities; it only demands that participation in such communities must always be wholly voluntary for all involved. Genuinely voluntary participation in religious communities and identities — without state coercion or societal pressure, without special privileges or protections — is exactly what New Atheists are fighting for.
I think that last point deserves a little elaboration: For membership in any community or collective identity to be genuinely and wholly voluntary, no community or shared identity — nor the set of beliefs which define such communities, nor the institutions formed by the like-minded — can occupy a place of special privilege or power which is in any way separate from or beyond the individual freedom to associate (or not) accorded to its members. Everyone must be absolutely free to enter or leave any such association at will and without penalty, period, no exceptions. Guaranteeing such genuinely voluntary participation in turn requires that the beliefs and commitments underlying any and every such community must be freely adopted or rejected by potential community members, which requires a society wherein there is absolute freedom of thought and discussion, where no ideas or beliefs receive any special protection or privileged status that places them beyond question or criticism. Without genuine freedom of thought and discussion, a privileged set of ideas or institution based on those ideas (such as religions walled off from public criticism) have an intellectually coercive power over citizens — an undeserved presumption of legitimacy, even truth — which undermines the very possibility of fully voluntary embrace OR rejection of it. In other words, the fight New Atheists are already fighting springs from the same set of interrelated epistemic and moral values that I’ve been discussing here.
All of this leads me to think that the persistent and insistent claims that “something is missing” from the New Atheist world view is true: What’s missing is the siren call of easy assent to illegitimate authority — the human instinct to blend in and concede our autonomy to parent-mimicking authorities who, unlike actual (good) parents, do not have our genuine best interests at heart. What’s missing are some of the worse aspects of our human nature, not the better ones. Humanity is well and truly better off being rid of what is “missing” from the New Atheist value system, and I have yet to see any argument or evidence that the genuinely worthwhile aspects of community and collective identity are in any way excluded or undermined by atheist values. Instead, serious commitment to human intellectual and practical freedom offers us the means to strip away the coercive and exclusive*** components that make community and collective identity such a mixed blessing.
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* What constitutes legitimate authority? I think the most basic answer — the conception of legitimate authority settled on by everyone who thinks seriously about it, and the one that appears to have risen to the top on the tide of history — is some form of democratic authority. Authority is legitimated by the consent of those governed by the authority, and authority in the absence of consent is illegitimate by its very nature. Genuine consent, of course, cannot be produced by force or deception — and faith is the ultimate form of deception, since the deceived are persuaded to actively deceive themselves for the most part. (Although it should be noted that religious authorities engage in lots and lots of plain old deception, as well as encouraging their adherents in self-deception; you don’t think those statues *really* weep by themselves, do you?) Therefore, the authority of religion is always and forever illegitimate authority. It is no coincidence that religious traditions which place the least emphasis on faith — Buddhism, Unitarian Universalism and other broadly ecumenical traditions — are also the least authoritarian, and vice versa. It is also worth nothing that this discussion of illegitimate authority is reinforced by the discussion of the coercive nature of privileged positions later in my argument.
** The “generally speaking” caveat is not trivial: Individually, we each consider accomplishing our own ends to be good, but the actual ends any given person is attempting to accomplish may or not be good in some universalizable moral sense.
*** By “exclusive components,” I refer to all the potential for communities and communal identities to manifest ugly in-group/out-group, us/them dynamics that undermine basic respect for the rights and basic worth of those outside the group — the foundation of genocides, religious wars, and simple bigotry. How does attention to human freedom strip out the exclusive elements of community identity? Valuing freedom means recognizing all other humans as beings with the right to think for themselves, to decide what they think is worthwhile and to pursue what is worthwhile with the greatest freedom consistent with a similar freedom for all. Such a live-and-let live, individualistic morality undermines bigotry in all its forms, whereas most authoritarian value systems actively encourage bigotry and intolerance of difference.
Thanks for posting this; some interesting thoughts.
“The persistent and insistent claims that “something is missing” from the New Atheist world view is true; what is missing is the siren call of easy assent to illegitimate authority — the human instinct to blend in and concede our autonomy to parent-mimicking authorities who, unlike actual (good) parents, do not have our genuine best interests at heart.”
Good observation. I’ve been studying Isaiah Berlin’s Two Concepts of Liberty, in which he distinguishes between negative (opportunities available to us) and positive (the conquering of irrational urges) liberty:
http://jmaggio.typepad.com/no_call_me_jay/files/two_concepts_of_liberty.pdf
While being a little, er, woolly in places, I think he makes some excellent observations on the fine line we tread between valid restrictions of our positive liberty (seat belts, speed limits etc) and abuses of it. The idea that an authority knows best *what we want, and should want* is the seed of much totalitarianism. Its misuse ends up coercing folk to be ‘free’, paradoxically. Of course, I think he was concerned with communism and Nazism, but this abuse of liberty is precisely what the Churches engage in, in spades, imo.
“Rejecting faith not only manifests epistemic values that treasure authentic truth-seeking over comforting or self-serving delusions, it manifests moral values that treasure human freedom and self-determination over bowing to illegitimate authority*”
This is the consequence of the ‘copernican revolution’ of loss of faith.
Belief is not the premise from which critical and moral thinking individuals construct their arguments. Rather, belief gets in the way of evidence and justifications for beliefs. That is why atheism leads to consciousness raising. Authority-based beliefs crumble away to dust, leaving a chasm underneath from which a new evidence-based epistemology needs to be constructed.
In the modern world, there is no longer such a vast chasm but a softer landing onto the ground of scientific knowledge or naturalism. That is why loss of faith or religious belief no longer creates such a crisis, because the compartmentalised mind of the believer already participates within our scientific age.
New Atheists are like the lawyers of the scientific age, putting religion and irrationality on trial and having to make religion and woo explain itself using evidence for its justifications. New Atheists value evidence, and evidence forms the basis for our arguments and world-view.
Religion counter-argues, where are your morals? But it is not our morals that are on trial here, rather it is the claim that somehow religious morals have a special status or justification, an authority from which moral arguments are made. Where is the evidence? There is none. And religious morality crumbles into dust, leaving a kind of humanism or social-contract convention instead.
By putting religion and irrationality on trial, we’re sweeping away both irrationality and irrational immorality, for an evidence-based–and therefore rational epistemological enterprise, otherwise known as science or naturalism.
By ridding the world of irrational immorality, we’ve already taken a step toward a better society. Such a new society may not even need or require a theory of ethics, relying only on individual human judgement, and a kind of minimal social contract of rational laws which protect the rights of everyone. Such rational laws (or natural laws) must be constitutional and must not contradict laws that come after, made by lawmakers. Courts are the places for examining the evidence and coming to rational and moral conclusions.
However, there may still be a possibility of a theory of ethics, and since we value evidence-based arguments, we at least have an opportunity to examine what that evidence, if any, exists. This would give an evidence-based justification for human rights or constitutional laws, rather than only a pragmatic and therefore fragile acceptance of human rights.
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TPP hints at this, but I think it important to emphasize that the methods used to acquire knowledge are open to and freely shared with anyone and everyone.
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An interesting article, especially suggesting that New Atheists might share common moral values.
Without wanting to derail the thread, might I suggest that the common values might arise from a common temperament? I’m not keen on categorizing human beings, but one of the pragmatic categorizations (e.g. the Keirsey Temperament Sorter) divides people into Stabilisers (aka Guardians), Improvisers (aka Artisans), Catalysts (aka Idealists) and Theorists (aka Rationals).
Now while innate temperament is modified by life experience, Stabilizers trust authority and want to belong, Improvisers seek out adventure and show a constant hunger for pleasure and stimulation. Improvisers are fun loving, optimistic, and focused on the here and now. Catalysts are spiritual, loving and kindhearted. Theorists trust logic, yearn for achievement, seek knowledge, prize technology, and dream of understanding how the world works.
Theorists, who sound to me to value what many New Atheists do, make up only 5% to 10% of the population (developed world I think).
Stabilizers and Catalysts seem like the people with temperaments who would value religious belief. That’s around 60% of the population.
That only leave the Improvisers (30%ish) who are not much bothered by things outside the immediate.
Now if New Atheists are Theorist by temperament that means that the other 90% of the population don’t share the same values *and are not going to be persuaded by them*.
The somewhat alarming conclusion is that New Atheists cannot change other peoples temperaments nor their moral values.
The *best* that New Atheists can do is hack out their own niche.
I hope I haven’t depressed you, but as an Atheist and a Theorist I am ‘pragmatic, skeptical, self-contained, and focused on problem-solving and systems analysis’. I value truth, even if it is not what I want to hear…
Excellent reading, thank you both! (EM and TPP)
I hope you don’t mind, but I’ve linked and quoted this post here:
http://forums.next-gen.biz/viewtopic.php?p=1154852#1154852
in a thread about Islam.
A very fine post, TPP.
@DiscoveredJoys
I’m not in any position to criticise or support the “pragmatic categorizations” you talk about, but I feel it would be unwise to think that everybody or anybody fits neatly into any of the categories you mention. Are there no catalytic theorisers for example? Also, I doubt that your estimates of population proportions in any group would be uniform across even the developed world. Judging by what I read people in the US are more religious (i.e. there are more religious people in the US) than here in Oz or in many European countries. That manifests in less profession of religious belief in the public sphere, especially in government (that’s not to say that there is none). That also manifests in much greater acceptance of evolution (for example) in other countries (supposedly 70% of Italians accept it). Maybe you’d be more comfortable over here (or in Italy, Denmark, Sweden, etc), but you’d have to learn the language.
Maybe it means that the revolution, when it comes, will kick off in the US, or maybe the US will eventually be won over to the Gnu/New Atheist agenda by constant pressure from outside. Whatever, we need clear thinking articulate people to keep the argument alive, we can’t afford to be silent.
To the beach, my friends, once more to the beach! Bring your towel and cozzies Eric, and leave that snow plough at home. (It’s a mere 27 C now).
I wholeheartedly agree about categorizations – although the Keirsey Temperament Sorter and the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator subdivide the 4 main types into 16 sub types. There are *many* other methods around, especially if you include ‘personality types’ not just temperament types. Hans Eysenck has 3 main types, there are 6 Buddhist Personality Types (normally treated as 5 types) and so on.
Scientific justifications are thin on the ground – in ancient times there were the 4 ‘humors’, more recent hypotheses include variable size brain structures, or four main neurotransmitter/hormone systems (my favourite, google Dr Helen Fisher).
Despite the *justified* philosophical and scientific doubts, there does seem to be something pragmatic in the idea of temperament types. They are used in industry. Anecdote time: I went on a course built to ‘educate’ senior computer people about how best to interact with senior operational managers. We all did the Myers-Briggs test and almost all of us turned out to be classified as intuitive thinkers – much more interested in facts and data and being correct than any other concern (sound like anyone you know?). This is exactly the wrong mindset to bring to a debate with a manager driven by team cohesion and achieving goals. Snippet of conversation:
Line Manager “Your computers went down when we had the most customer sales to deal with!”
Computer Manager “But the computers provided the 99.9% service over the month you agreed!”
The Line Manager forms the opinion that the Computer Manager chooses to deliberately mis-understand the importance of the failure in business terms. The Computer Manager hears some whiny manager banging on about alleged problems with a system that is working within design tolerance.
Now transpose that conversation:
Believer “I know that I am saved by the glory of God the Almighty and his son Jesus Christ!”
Atheist “But there is no evidence that god exists!”
That’s what I was driving at – if those differences of belief and opinion are driven by temperament, by fundamental individual values, the debate is never going to be solved. People are talking past each other.
It’s gneiss to think that we are part of a movement, and it might even be true, because we do seem to have some momentum. Most of us do seem to share liberal values, as evidenced by the common concern over the predominance of white spokesmen for the cause.
I find the Philosophical Primate persuasive if not entirely convincing, but that’s par for the course with pragmatism. If we do make a point of our values we may lose the Objectivists and some libertarians, but it shouldn’t matter, since they’re only out for themselves.
It would be nice if we had more positive labels. “Atheist” is fine, but “anti-sexist” and “anti-racist” deserve something better (and “humanist” is speciesist). So what’s “Gnu”?
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