The Humanist Small Group held its third meeting this afternoon at Andala Coffee House in Central Square, Cambridge. There were seven of us, and in addition to conversation, we enjoyed hot drinks and Middle Eastern food.
The main topic of conversation was how to develop direction and values in the absence of a holy book that gives us all the answers. I think we all agreed that we rejected the notion associated with some interpretations of multiculturalism that holds that all points of view are equal, and that religion is an equally valid interpretation of the world as science and should be above criticism.
I think we also all agreed that our approach should be evidenced-based. But then two points were made that show the limits of an evidenced-based approach.
1. Contemporary social science tries to emulate the physical sciences, but by their nature, social science studies contain many more confounding variables, and their conclusions are much less reliable than in the physical sciences.
2. Certain fundamentals cannot be proved, but must be assumed. For instance, policies that maximize health, wealth, or happiness are probably better than those that do the opposite, but that’s ultimately a matter of feelings. Some people might hold the view that dissatisfaction is a spur to achievement. Once we understand what we fundamentally value (for instance, to be happy) we can then use an evidence-based approach to try to bring this about (e.g. maximize happiness in society).
We had some general agreement on this abstract level, but a considerable divergence of viewpoints once we got into the nitty gritty. The discussion touched on John Rawls, Ayn Rand, Kant, and Epicurus, the latter of whom turns out to have been the opposite of the hedonist image associated with the word Epicurean.
I think we mostly agreed that there are aspects of humanism buried within religion, such as the Golden Rule, and that sensible ideas that originate in religion could be carried over to secular values, while the elements that cannot be justified rationally should be discarded.
We got into a discussion about whether people should feel they have a duty to others or whether it all comes down to self-interest, enlightened or otherwise. Deontelogical ethics came up.
We also talked a bit about education, the sexual preferences of Ancient Athenians, neuroscience, whether god figures originate in parental attachments.
The above was my neutral writeup. Now some opinion.
I’d never heard the word “deontological” before, but now that I see what that means, I would put myself in the opposite camp of consequentialism, which as I interpret it puts more value on results than intentions. I don’t see how you can determine whether a rule is good or bad until you accumulate evidence of its consequences.
I’m further of the opinion, based on my experience with computer programming and artificial intelligence, that its impossible to come up with a closed set of rules that always results in the right outcomes. There may always be new cases the rules cannot accomodate.
I do however agree in the need for rules, recognizing that they may be broken in exceptional cases. Without rules, there is a tendency toward short-term self-interest that falls short of enlightened self-interest.
Comment by Rick Heller — March 29, 2008 @ 9:48 pm
Rick,
Consequentialism is not about consequences as opposed to intention. A consequentialist doesn’t ask “What were the consequences – that’s what makes it right or wrong?” so much as “What are the likely consequences of these alternatives – I’d better do X.”
So it’s not about considering moral that which has good consequences, it’s about considering the consequences when making a moral decision. In this way you can see that it does not result in weird proclamations, such as that a badly motivated person can be moral. A badly motivated action might turn out for the best by chance, but that wouldn’t have made the decision moral if the actor thought, for example, that the consequences would benefit himself at the great expense of others.
On a more general point, both deontology and consequentialism have a kind of mutual paradoxical relationship. The problem with deontology is just that it seems to make little sense to describe an action or event as “good in itself” such that no recourse to further consequences need be made. Normally when someone asks “Why did you do that?” the very first thing you do is start to list probable consequences. But on the other hand, this consequentialist approach is regressive, always looking beyond an immediate event and raising the question of where we stop. “I climbed the ladder to get up the tree.” “Why?” “Because a girl was stuck up there.” “So?” “So I was going to rescue her.” “Why?” “Because otherwise she might have died in the storm.” “So?” “Well that would have prevented her having future experiences, or contributing to society…” which is of course all about the future consequences, but at what point has the consequentialist “justified” his action?
Comment by Bob Churchill — March 30, 2008 @ 6:36 am
[...] Rick Heller has chronicled the last two meetings, the latter of which was this Saturday. As you can see, virtue ethics came up at a few points. As it did earlier this month when I stopped by the University of Chicago and sat in on a seminar by Deirdre McCloskey on virtue ethics, Christianity and capitalism. (Guess there’s more than one way to do it.) [...]
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