April 14, 2011
-
Christians try to save William Lane Craig from circularity (and FAIL)
Intro:
In my original review of the William Lane Craig vs. Sam Harris debate on the ontological foundations of moral realism, I gave my initial impressions of why Harris pulled his weight in the debate. In a later post, I elaborated in context of Christian bafflement that anyone could think Craig didn't win. There are different ways to score debates and while some people focus on technical points others focus on content and presentation. If you were convinced by Harris' positive case that good and evil necessarily relate to the well being of conscious creatures and noted that Craig has double standards when it comes to evaluating Harris' views (as Harris clearly pointed out in the debate), then how could Craig have won the debate? Clearly, it's murky because Harris didn't address every single argument that Craig launched, but neither did Craig address all of Harris' claims.
A debate is a framing war and both parties are allowed to frame debates however they want (as you can see here). Agreeing to the title of the debate, "Does good come from God?" is very open to interpretation. Craig wanted to have a very narrow technical debate on his own terms and Harris simply denied him that and leveled criticisms against the entire Christian worldview (as Harris explains). If Craig is agreeing with Harris about moral facts in application, that allows Harris (as a matter of coherency) to channel that back into a criticism of the full worldview we all know Craig defends and that the vast majority of the Christian population watching the debate believes in (at the expense of Harris' alternative). In other words an average Christian at home could easily conclude, "I'm a good person, I believe that morality is real and important and yet why am I invested in this clearly horrible religious perspective when I don't seem to need any of it to keep being a good person?" So what a lot of people wanted to call Harris' red herrings and irrelevant to the debate is really just a Craig-centric frame bias (which in a sense does score some points for Craig, since people bought it). However, if you accept Harris' frame, then everything Craig said was superfluous and hypocritical. Either way, neither side took the bait of each other's frames (though in the Q&A, Harris shows Craig's theistic views, not Craig himself, to be inherently psychopathic), and yet clearly Harris offered the most relevant snipe on the technical side of the debate (in which case Craig only has argument via excess of irrelevant technical points).
Even so, I've been covering some of the "drops" (in debate speak, where a debater doesn't address arguments), like the issues around deterministic responsibility (even though "free will" wasn't the issue of the debate either). Christians have been doing the same and so let's see what they have to say in Craig's defense.
To recap the circularity issue, I'll let a Christian, sympathetic to Craig, point it out:
If this were a boxing match, although Harris would by now be battered, bleeding and barely conscious, this observation comes like a surprising jab just when we thought the losing fighter had no energy left:
Dr Harris says that Craig has merely defined God as intrinsically good. But this is a game of definitions, which is precisely what Craig accused Harris of.
Harris is correct. The opportunity for this point arose simply because Craig did indeed say that God is by definition the greatest conceivable being and therefore he is perfectly good – and in the context of a debate about moral goodness this appears to mean morally good. As I’ve noted previously, Dr Craig can manoeuvre his way out of this objection without too much difficulty, but it certainly is a situation that needs to be manoeuvred out of.
Whew...I was afraid only fellow xangan, Fletch_F_Fletch, was going to be a Christian who agreed with me that there was an issue here. Moving on...
Notice that a Christian named, Bnonn, in a post titled, "How William Lane Craig thrashed Sam Harris like a naughty puppy," thinks he's said something:
...Craig brought in Perfect Being Theology. [...] If God is the perfect being, then it follows he is also morally perfect, and so his nature is the locus or grounds of that which is good. This accounts for moral values...
What's the definition of "perfect" and "morally perfect" again? And why should we accept those definitions in a non-circular way? This is classic theistic philosophical retreat to yet another iteration of the exact same problem.
Notice when explaining "Perfect Being Theology" on his website, Craig never gets around to telling us how we know what is greater than not.
These moral stop gap sentiments are as circular as they are typical in the "not my religion" genre of responses from Christians like Micah:
...the response I and a lot of other Christian thinkers have offer is that there is a third option: namely that something is good because God is good. God is the standard for morality to which all others measure up to. God being good and being moral is essential to His nature. What this implies is that God’s commands are not arbitrary at all, but rather expressions of His nature. What this also implies is that God does not obey moral laws, but rather He is goodness itself.
So yeah...Christians have had thousands of years to get out of Euthyphro's dilemma, and that's all they've come up with. It'll probably take them another thousand years to figure out they've just widened the dilemma to include more vacuous options.
J. W. Wartick says:
Craig notes that God is the greatest conceivable being, so to ask “Why should we think God is good?” is like asking “Why are bachelors unmarried?”
Further, he points out that Harris has yet to answer the schoolyard question, “Why?” Why, on atheism, should we think that the worst possible state of affairs is objectively bad? We might not like it, but that doesn’t ground it objectively.He closes by saying “All together now, ‘says who?’”
Ugh. Yet more lameness. Let's rewrite that for the sake of helping Christian philosophers everywhere find a greater sense of philosophical awareness that they seem to be relentlessly lacking more often than not:
[Harris] notes that [the worst possible state of affairs is bad], so to ask “Why should we think [the worst possible state of affairs is bad]?” is like asking “Why are bachelors unmarried?”
Further, he points out that [Craig] has yet to answer the schoolyard question, “Why?” Why, on [theism], should we think that the [greatest conceivable being] is objectively [good]? We might [like it], but that doesn’t ground it objectively. He closes by saying “All together now, ‘says who?’”
Did I even need to do that? Really? Apparently I did.
Marcus McElhaney, who concludes that "...divine command theory is far from rebutted," says:
Why should the reasons why God gives his commands be superior to God? He made and set up those reasons also. He is not playing by anyone else's rules. God made up the rules, the environment, and is in complete control.
McElhaney may have his own version of theology, but most of the Christians here seem to think that the Christian philosopher's god would be equal to his own nature and commands. If we "correct" for that, McElhaney isn't saying anything, and if we allow him to go off the grid, his god is just an amoral wild card who does "whatever" based on any old nature it happens to have independent of any notions of "good" or "evil." Morality would then be a relative frame of human reference that points to whatever arbitrary binds are being dropped down on us. Logically possible ontologically, but no particular reason to call anything "good" or "bad" in anything but that subjective sense Christians seem desperate to avoid.
Apparently that is the move that Dr. Glenn Peoples (the Christian I originally quoted at the beginning of this post) would like Craig to make when he says:
Now, I know what Craig’s response could be to this, and he would be right. He could abandon this talk of what moral nature God has by definition, and say that it’s just the case that God is good in a non-moral sense.
But this advice, as I've said, merely bites the bullet and admits that goodness is just as metaphysically arbitrary as an evolutionarily inherited nature. So theism gets slightly more coherent, but it loses its negation of a goodness conception that is more immediate and evident (since it's in our own heads and observable in other people's words and actions).
Peoples says:
But even speaking of non-moral goodness, it’s not a problem to say that as a matter of fact God is good (i.e. loving, just, forgiving etc).
Like we can say that humans, as a matter of fact can be good, loving, just, forgiving, etc.? Why do we need a god for that?
Peoples says:
Has Craig defined God as good as Harris alleges? No, says Craig. God is worthy of worship. God is the greatest conceivable being and he is the greatest good. Asking why God is good is like asking why all bachelors are unmarried. It’s part of the concept of being God. But this, rather than deflecting the objection, only seems to confirm its correctness. That bachelors are not married is a matter of definition, so drawing this comparison suggests that Craig is indeed saying that God is good by definition.
Burn... Good so far. Let's continue:
A far more effective comeback would be...
To "mad lib" quote Peoples from earlier in his post when speaking of Harris' necessary justifications for naturalistic moral truth: "...hopefully what he means is that he’s about to present his argument that [god is good in a non-circular way]. I was waiting with bated breath. [Peoples] proceeded:"
A far more effective comeback would be available if we maintain that God is non-morally good. For then we Craig could say “Wait, let’s be careful not to equivocate. This debate is about the basis of objective moral goodness. If we have a creator who issues commands, then there is such a basis. If God is non-morally good, then what he commands is good in the sense that it reflects God’s mercy, justice and so on. But none of this means that God is morally good at all, let alone by definition.”
Riiiiiiiight. So it's okay to be definitionally circular when it comes to "good good" but not "moral good." Whatever dude.
Outro:
I could have sworn Craig told us we weren't allowed to do any of these definitional games, yet every Christian in response is doing just that. Bring on the hairsplitting. I will eagerly catalog every bit of it. Till I get bored, at least. ;)
Ben
Comments (8)
Every theory is going to have an explanatory ultimate. It will seem like that explanatory ultimate is circular. In response to the question, "Why is X good?" you will assert that X is good in virtue of some fact Y. Y will be good just because it is. No theory escapes that problem.
@StrokeofThought - Yeah...in context that's my point. It's why it's stupid for Craig to call Harris on a "definition game" (as I pointed out in my outro above) when he's playing the same game (as Harris pointed out in the debate). Harris also makes pretty much the same point you do in the Q and A here and I'll bet it falls on a lot of deaf Christian ears without that kind of remedial awareness factor that you can't reject a worldview for the so called intellectual sins that your own worldview is guilty of. Craig can't undermine Harris' perspective if he's under the same philosophical "limitations" or assumptions when you boil away the surface rhetoric. As I point in in the second half of my previous post, "Yes, William Lane Craig is still wrong about morality," given they share the same underlying philosophical assumptions about the good to bad spectrum and given that we get that basis from human nature long before we are aware of any notion of a god's nature (or his commands derived from it), the only remaining question between them is the factual one of whether that god exists (and which commands are his, and what they mean, etc.). And if theism can't prove its case there (which of course, as Craig admitted, he wasn't even trying to do in that debate) then clearly the relative victor is Harris.
Say...did you notice we can recommend comments now on xanga? That's pretty cool.
@WAR_ON_ERROR -
Yeah . . actually I hadn't noticed that about comments until you pointed it out. Stupid as I am, that explained the comments that had been showing up in my universal inbox. Sure enough when you look more closely than I do at things it says they had been 'recommended'.
I actually talked to Craig after the debate about this issue. Well, my friend Megan did. I talked to him about something else. We asked him why the open question argument (essentially that's his argument against Harris) didn't apply to theism. Apparently he thinks there is some kind of asymmetry. This might be it: he identifies God with goodness, and since God has his nature necessarily, in every world in which God exists he grounds the good. In worlds where God doesn't exist, there is no good. ANd the question 'Why is X good?' being answered by 'Because X was commanded by God' doesn't bite the Euthyphro because Craig has gotten rid of predication. God being the good means it isn't a property he possesses; good means God, and vice versa. So I don't think the problem with Craig's case is that it's circular. It's just stipulative with no justification. He has a theory and supposedly his thoery predicts the data; the theory also just happens get rid of a feature of how language maps onto reality, and lacks any possible way of arguing for it other than presupposing its truth (which is, if listen closely, exactly what Craig does).
For Harris, the fact that there is a possible world where human well-being is not equivalent to the moral good does wipe out his theory. The asymmetry is that God is the same in every world in which he exists. But for Harris, human well-being doesn't always mean what is good, since rapists and thieves might have the happiest lives, and that shows that moral good and the maximization of human well-being are not equivalent. So while Craig's view has no supporting argument, Harris's actually does have a refutation.
@StrokeofThought -
"the theory also just happens get rid of a feature of how language maps onto reality, and lacks any possible way of arguing for it other than presupposing its truth (which is, if listen closely, exactly what Craig does)."
I think I'm with you till that part. Can you explain further?
"But for Harris, human well-being doesn't always mean what is good, since rapists and thieves might have the happiest lives, and that shows that moral good and the maximization of human well-being are not equivalent."
As others have shown, Harris doesn't say in the book that he knows this is actually possible. It appears that Harris is "guilty" because in that section he was discussing how his theory might be falsified whereas it seems Craig's "theory" is suspiciously designed to be unfalsifiable. I don't see why we can't stick any definition of good in Craig's theory. That "good" is a great making property is a value judgement the rest of existence has no reason to share. Harris might argue that the reason we consider it great making property (and the reason Craig makes any moves with his definition of Perfect Being Theology) is based on what he imagines would make his relative experience as a conscious creature the greatest (would I be more awesome as an atemporal being or as an omnitemporal being, etc.) and that in fact that frame of reference has no justification outside the context of evolved species such as ourselves. There's no reason for existence itself to parallel it.
I would add that if we have a population of rapists and thieves who actually enjoy that community lifestyle, then the definition of rape and stealing isn't actually at play since necessary parts of those definitions are that the people being raped or stolen from don't want it to happen. Which wouldn't be true. If no one is complaining, then why would it be "wrong" or why even wouldn't this be included as a divine command from Craig's necessary good god? And if there was a diverse population of "good rapists" and "good thieves" they'd be competing with others who would be out to stop them and harm them in which case again, they wouldn't occupy a moral landscape for very long unless they enjoy being killed or locked up in prison where they can't rape and steal anymore. So then they have to enjoy not getting what they want which is incoherent or have a very short lived stunted "peak" before destruction, which isn't sustainable. Basically if there wasn't anything actually "wrong" with it in terms of well-being then Craig's god would support it. Hence Harris and Craig's theories would stand and fall together yet again.
Thanks for the comments. They are helpful.
Ben
@WAR_ON_ERROR -
When I was talking with him about it, I asked why a person, who had all finite attributes but had the exact same moral character as God, wouldn't be good if God didn't exist. What is it about those other properties - such as being omniscient and omnipotent - that make God able to ground the good? What do those things have to do with being good at all?
This is where we find out that Craig's theory is merely stipulative. That person wouldn't possess the property of goodness because God is the property of goodness. Craig's theory is that God is a property. That of course is the way he doesn't possess the property: he is it.
I suppose my point about language is that it seems like we are attributing the property of goodness to God when we say God is good. I asked him why he's allowed to ignore the normal rules of predication for his view. He said that every theory is entitled to its own stipulations. Admittedly this conversation wasn't the most in depth (we caught him near the end), but I didn't get the sense that I was about to find out how his theory actually has some deus ex machina justification. The property of goodness can't exist without God because God is the property of goodness. In that way, yes, his argumentation for why goodness can't exist without God is circular.
I suppose it wouldn't be circular if he had independent justification for the premise "God grounds the good by being a property" (which he seems to admit is stipulative) and for the premise "God is the only such explanatory entity that can do so". But he doesn't. Rather he presupposes the former premise in order to argue for the latter! Hence statements like (I'm recalling vaguely), "I just can't see why, on atheism, raping would be really wrong." That he can't see why is because he thinks God is the only thing that can ground the good!
The problem with Harris's view is really just that goodness is not a natural property. His theory is that goodness is identical with the property of well-being. When we say something is 'good', what we really mean is that it's conducive to well-being. This theory is refuted if the open question argument works.
The open question argument takes any non-evaluative property N and asks if the question 'Is N good?' is a coherent question. If the question 'Is N good?' is coherent, then the property of goodness is not identical to N. Now N might in fact be good. But 'being good' does not reduce to being N. Rather, N has the extra, ascribed non-natural evaluative property of goodness. Goodness would not be a natural property.
"Is promoting human well-being good?" is an open question. It is not identical to the question "Does promoting human well-being promote human well-being?", which is not an open question. Thus, the word 'good' does not mean 'human well-being'. Even if promoting human well-being is good, the latter does not reduce to the former. In the end, to know that some thing X is good, you have to have prior ethical beliefs about what sorts of things are good. As Michael Huemer puts it:
"The problem is that in fact, moral properties are entirely unobservable. Moral value does not look like anything, sound like anything, feel (to the touch) like anything, smell like anything, or taste like anything. The only plausible way to maintain that we have direct awareness of moral facts would be to appeal to either 'ethical intuition' or a 'moral sense'." (p.85, Ethical Intuitionism)
So I don't agree with either of their positions. I think Craig is a little too used to defending his theories to take time to look for problems with them, but I think that's part of the price of being a public intellectual. The same applies to Harris. Harris, by the way, I don't think understood the topic. At one point he talks about how he doesn't think belief in god is necessary for morality, and that 'religion is not the answer'. Neither belief in God or 'religion' had anything to do with the debate. Yet that was a remark that came in his opening speech which he seemed to be implying was a central part of the discussion. I suppose it's expected from Harris, who is much more concerned with the sociological and psychological aspects of religion than with its philosophical aspects. So that's about par for the course for him.
@StrokeofThought - I definitely get the impression from listening to Craig and reading his writings that he ultimately framed the question in a very self-serving theistic way that doesn't really amount to much as far as a debate goes (especially if the question, "does god exist?" is off the table).
I don't think Harris would agree that good and evil reduces to *human* well being and flourishing, but I'm not sure what currency it could conceivably have apart from the misery or well being of conscious creatures in general, whether animal, alien, or robot. Philosophy often frames the question so that it is logically impossible to answer (and Harris points this out in his book just as you seem to have). As I've said in one of these posts here, that I see Harris' "theory" as an observation (and not an argument per se) of the human condition when people engage in moral talk. All talk of maximizing the well being of conscious creatures is circular in a sense, but in an irrelevant sense as far as argument goes. It's not trying to justify extraneous parts to the theory like the existence of a god or whatnot. The appeal of the "argument" is that our intentions, desires, and known capacities as human beings are part of the loop of the observation. The argument part for Harris is defending that the observation squares with reality and the opposing views reduce to his claims or remain unproven.
Ben
@WAR_ON_ERROR -
Harris's theory might be an 'observation', but the point that point that I and others want to make is that it is not a scientific observation. You cannot detect moral facts in a laboratory, using solely physical observations - whether you are scanning brains for their levels of happiness based on certain inputs or not. To determine that a certain physical state of affairs is either good or bad, you need to have prior justified ethical beliefs about what good and bad amount to.
I think it's important to get this aspect of ethics correct, otherwise we might misstep in trying to make progress on ethical disputes. To know that we often have conflicting ethical intuitions, and thus need to bring them to light and determine their proper importance, is the only way we'll understand why exactly ethical disputes happen and how to solve them. And to understand that, you have to understand that moral facts rely on nonnatural properties, like goodness.
@StrokeofThought - Well there aren't two kinds of observation. All observations fall into the domain of scientific inquiry in principle if not in practice since the ground floor of science is observation. Not "Observation: some exceptions apply."
I probably disagree with you about physicalism, abstract entities, and qualia and those would be debates for another day. My argument maps on those topics are not quite ready yet. Assuming (generously, of course) that I would win those arguments, Harris' "observation" of where goodness manifests in the physical world is when our desires are most fulfilled (or something along those lines). Good is that pattern even if we only understand that at some (relatively) superficial sense. Patterns can be made of matter. Then the rest of the story is Harris actually getting people to associate the word "good" with the physical relationships and mechanisms that make that possible. And that really shouldn't be the philosophical Herculean feat that it traditionally has been. It's just word use.
We could toss out "good" and "evil" as ancient superstitions and invent sterile scientific technical terms that relate to complex facts about mental states that no one would want to use and we'd still be asking ourselves why we got rid of those words. As Harris says (approximately), "If good and bad don't relate to the state of conscious creatures in the worst misery possible to the greatest heights of satisfaction, I don't know what you're talking about, and I'm pretty sure you don't know what you're talking about either."
The philosophical technicalities of those three related debates don't really halt moral progress in practice since you don't have to know if any of the pieces are magic to work with them as they present themselves in the physical domain. They may be an epistemological Trojan horse for supernatural worldviews, but they don't actually tell us in and of themselves anything specific about morality and don't help us sort between supernatural worldviews in any meaningful sense.
Ben