Intro:

In the debate with William Lane Craig on the ontology of moral realism, Sam Harris seemed to ignore the issue of free will and how that relates to coherent concepts of moral responsibility.  He even seemed to go as far as to say that Craig misquoted him in his book, "The Moral Landscape: How Science Can Determine Human Values."  I've listened to Harris' book as an audiobook on my ipod and Harris does indeed cover the topic.  I couldn't pick out from memory a misquote, though Harris seemed to say that Craig was quoting Harris quote others or maybe he wasn't saying that about these quotes on this topic...  Not really sure what's going on there.  Perhaps it was a debate tactic to not have to deal with the subject and move on to what he wanted to emphasis or perhaps he mashed Craig's derived argument with those quotes in a defensive brain fart kind of way.  Not sure.  

I thought I'd take a moment to address the issue directly.

1: First off, it doesn't matter if determinism negates moral responsibility.  One has to actually address the arguments for and against determinism that Harris presents in his book or else in any event theistic or not, certain conceptions of moral responsibility are negated.  Plenty of popular theistic worldviews are deterministic anyway and pretty much the same concepts have to be worked out to attempt to absolve the morally perfect god from the responsibility of everything that transpires if he is the ultimate cause of everything.  (Naturally, I think even if successful, it still fails:  see argument map on "The Logical Problem of Evil.")

2: Secondly Craig, with his framing, attempted to blow off the responsibilities of his entire worldview.  He wanted to frame things so narrowly as to not have to deal with the existence of the Christian god or the problem of evil, or any of the practical epistemic problems that stick us in the same boat in any event when it comes to trying to figure out what moral facts are actually facts.  A difficult-to-process-abstraction in terms of "well being" (as Harris conceives of it @ 11:55) is just as difficult to deal with as a god's invisible nature with divine mandates recorded under layers of "cultural context" which even theologians of all stripes struggle to pin down.  If Craig is allowed to disown this wing of the debate, then why can't Harris disown the free will issue as I've argued above and just point to his book (as Craig specifically did with Paul Copan's apologetics for evil, which liberal Christian scholar, Thom Stark, takes quite to task)?

3A: Third, there are two things about moral responsibility that matter and one that does not.  There is the type of responsibility that is merely a matter of cause.  And in a brute sense we say that a tidal wave is "responsible" for killing lots of Japanese people (incidentally, see Craig's, um, "interesting" take on it in terms of his worldview).  But that's not a moral claim right?  But it does matter, since sometimes evil comes from moral agents who couldn't have done otherwise at the time.  We still need to describe accurately the picture of how things go down and often mere cause is a necessary piece of any moral picture at some level to some degree no matter what you think philosophically. 

3B: The second element of moral responsibility is the ability to be literally "response" + "able" in the future.  We can't go reason with that water that made up the tidal wave and tell it why it shouldn't kill Japanese people in the future.  But, no matter which conception of moral philosophy is true, everyone knows we can in fact do this with human moral agents (through reason/praise/shame/etc.).  It may be in fact the case that in hindsight, in that first sense, that person could not have even hoped to do otherwise.  Their activities were predetermined by physics to play out just as they did.  But that doesn't stop physics from striking again and allowing for a mental conversion of persuasion any more than it stops us from reprogramming computers (or from computers installing software on each other).  Hindsight can merely be a hypothetical framework that is productive and healthy for understanding future scenarios that may play out similarly.  And it simply doesn't matter if the past can never have been otherwise. 

Before I get into the final aspect (the imaginary one), it is important to note that even if we know for a fact that determinism is true, that doesn't mean we know what the response to moral persuasion will be for any given moral agent.  As biological computers, we simply aren't capable of judging each other to that precise degree.  We may guess at levels of particular stubbornness or credulity, but we never really know for sure.  That doesn't make it magic and unpredictable in principle (like some sort of libertarian free will tourettes), but it does make us ignorant and the objection to determinism meaningless, practically speaking.

3C: The third element is that element of entitlement.  People often feel overly morally entitled to be able to always reign down judgment on others even if that person couldn't have known any better or couldn't have done otherwise.  We don't like it as victims when it seems like the criminal has some kind of metaphysical excuse.  It seems undermining if determinism blocks some of our judgie-ness, but upon careful consideration, it isn't taking away anything that we actually need (see 3A and 3B).  The past doesn't change for anyone or any philosophy.  The obligation to be consistent as determinists just prevents us from being sloppy with our moral claims and relinquish what was never within our control to begin with. 

Outro:

Overall, I think Harris made some pretty good debate/presentation choices and that the misunderstandings, misapprehensions, and accusations of having not established his case are the fault of the listeners.  I will continue to show this as I review more reactions to the debate.  Harris was sensitive to the idea (@9:42) that many people would be particularly let down if he blew the debate with Craig, and I have to say, imo, Harris did great.

Ben

Atheist/historian Richard Carrier recently debated Christian apologist/librarian J. P. Holding on the "Textual Reliability of the New Testament" or more specifically, "Do we have what they had?" Tidbits are trickling through the internet, so I'll give my preliminary sentiments based on where I happen to be coming from.

There are so many debates nested around NT studies between educated believers and skeptics that no matter how dedicated you are, you simply can't dive into every single one of them in depth (and apparently this doesn't change even when you are a professional, and if you listen to others, it seems infinitely worse).  It seems I tend to be aware of many of them and at least have some idea of how the positions are argued, but the well justified clinching details that may sell one case over another are often beyond reach for practicality sake (especially if I identify upfront the end result of any given debate as having either little impact or relevance overall in any event, such as with the documentary hypothesis). 

Even having reviewed the entire dialog between skeptics and Christians over the arguments made by Robert Price in "The Empty Tomb: Jesus Beyond the Grave" (including Price's response to those critics), it didn't really go that far.  Either there just isn't very far to go, no one happens to know how to make those cases in depth, or for whatever reason the sensibilities of either party just never takes us there (or some combination).  I've read a few of Bart Ehrman's books on the topic and even those didn't seem to have a lot going for them in this regard.  I'm hopeful that Carrier has pushed that envelope as far as it can go based on the available evidence since he seemed eager to have this kind of debate.  And at least Holding seems aware enough of skeptic arguments and what actual trained historians have said on the Christian side of things to perhaps shed that kind of light the other direction.  Maybe we'll walk away with a clearer view overall.   

So...I'm just asking for more depth and intellectual honesty from both sides.  I want to see people cite the actual sources, articulate their specific claims without relying on innuendo and worldview prejudice, and be reasonable with the relative weaknesses of their cases.  It's also nice to know (here and here) that perhaps the conversation moved up out of nonsensical defensive rhetoric land and into "explaining what the deal is" land thanks to those healthy social pressures of in person debate which tend to summon their better foot forward rather than the empathy-deficient internet banter does (though some exceptions do apply).  Perhaps folks on both sides can learn to take it down a notch thanks to this event.

Intro:

This is part of my review series on the skeptical anthology, "The Empty Tomb: Jesus Beyond the Grave" (ET).  Basically I've lifted this little bit from my material on chapter 4 of that book, which is the essay, "Apocryphal Apparitions: 1 Corinthians 15:3-11 as a Post-Pauline Interpolation" written by Robert Price (which can actually be found many places online). 

The reason I'm bumping this up is because J. P. Holding and Richard Carrier recently debated in person on the related topic of the textual reliability of the New Testament and I hope to build on what's gone before between skeptics and Christians.

Chris Price from Christian CADRE, J. P. Holding from Tektonics (in an essay that was online, but is now in the book, "Trusting the New Testament"), Steve Hays from Triablogue (in the ebook, "This Joyful Eastertide"), Stephen Davis (which is in a philosophy paper you'd have to pay for), and Norman Geisler are addressing Price's arguments.  I've tried to play all their points against each other to see what the arguments amount to from an outsider perspective.

Chris Price says:

However, Holding says:

Robert Price had quoted William O. Walker Jr. to explain himself (page 71):

...the surviving text of the Pauline letters is the text promoted by the historical winners in the theological and ecclesiastical struggles of the second and third centuries….In short, it appears likely that the emerging Catholic leadership in the churches ‘standardized’ the text of the Pauline corpus in the light of ‘orthodox’ views and practices, suppressing and even destroying all deviant texts and manuscripts.  Thus it is that we have no manuscripts dating from earlier than the third century; thus it is that all of the extant manuscripts are remarkably similar in most of their significant features; and thus it is that the manuscript evidence can tell us nothing about the state of the Pauline literature prior to the third century.

Although Hays complains:

I imagine someone like Hays would be disgruntled if we entertain both options since at this point the evidence would be compatible with either, right? Do we have to be dogmatic either way? 

Holding seems to think we do:

I don't see anyone claiming that there MUST have been interpolations. The skeptical case (as far as I can piece it together from Price, Bart Ehrman, and Carrier) seems to be: 

1.  We know such things did happen later (when it is easy to prove with manuscript evidence). 

2.  Inference to naturalism implying more modest starting conditions to any given religious movement. 

3.  Obvious political and/or religious motives given the ubiquity of such human politics. 

4.  Opportunity and our ignorance one way or the other in key early stages. 

5.  How much is on the line to believe otherwise (a worldview is making a pitch to the rest of the world). 

So, it is reasonable to assume that there *probably* were (as in at least more likely than not) and that there's no compelling reason to suppose we can rest assured there weren't.  This argument has the most force given 2 combined with 5 and it only has meaning when Christians in a positive sense wish to assert their arbitrary confidence that their religion *didn't* get tweaked in important ways when no one was looking. 

So apart from a much larger worldview and personal context, the skeptical argument doesn't seem to have much compelling force on the spot.  If this were just some random academic question between two professors of historical magic in a world filled with legitimate magical claims and we wanted to happen to know about particular instances in history where particular individuals inflated their cases, there really wouldn't be a lot to work with.  We'd just shrug our shoulders and walk away it seems. 

Holding calls Walker's line of reasoning a "fallacy of association" (as in, just because kid x hangs out with pot heads doesn't necessarily mean he smokes pot, too) as though certainties are being presented.  It is logically possible that there were no interpolations (just like it is possible you hang out with potheads and don't join in) and I don't think Price, Walker, Carrier, or Ehrman would disagree with that (though your mom probably won't buy the "fallacy of association" defense).  Why does Holding feel the need to overstate the claim?  Is it because there's no defense against these mundane uncertainties?  

Davis says that Robert Price wants to make up for the lack of manuscript evidence:

Indeed, he would no longer have to argue, along with William G. Walker, that powerful and sinister forces in the Great Church around the year 300 made sure to suppress earlier texts of 1 Corinthians that did not include 15:3-11.

Robert Price, in response to Davis, says:

Hays seems to have his doubts:

Geisler has his doubts, too, and calls it implausible speculation:

...[Price's] argument from the adage that “history is written by the winners” (71) is implausible and contrary to fact. For this is not always true. Indeed, on the accepted dates of 1 Corinthians (A.D. 55-56) by even most critical scholars, Christianity was not a political winner. In fact, it was not a winner until centuries later.

Um...I think by "political winner" Price is talking about Christian sect on Christian sect action...not Christian sect on Pagan action.

Holding asserts:

And Hays complains:

At the very least, an elementary distinction needs to be drawn between the active destruction of extant writings and the failure to preserve them.

As though Carrier were psychic, in a footnote, in another chapter of ET (that book both Hays and Holding are responding to), Carrier partially agrees with Holding and makes that necessary "elementary distinction:"

Hays admits he has no imagination:

Cf. James Robinson, “Jesus from Easter to Valentinus (or to the Apostles’ Creed),” Journal of Biblical Literature 101 (1982): pp. 5-37.

So unfortunately this "dialog" ends with a whole bunch of back and forth assertions and an even bigger reading list as though between 7 or so authors commenting we couldn't do better than that?  *sigh*

Outro:

I've been working on my review of The Empty Tomb off and on since 2007ish and have always been disappointed with the lack of detailed argument from either side.  Getting intimate and non-defensive interaction that clarifies the state of the evidence would be nice.  Let's hope we get somewhere with more info on the Carrier vs. Holding debate.

Ben

Colbert volunteered Fallon's money to a charity without asking and so Colbert said he'd sing the infamously bad "Friday" song if Fallon would come up with the money anyway.  And so, he did: 

Lots of things to be mad about today.  How about that government shutdown!?! 

The Daily Beast recounts:

Republicans, however, aren't willing to let the president paint himself as the only adult in Washington, [...]"Adults take seriously the crushing burden of debt Washington is leaving for our kids and grandkids," says [...]a senior aide to Speaker John Boehner. "That's why Republicans are fighting for meaningful spending cuts that will [...] produce a better environment for job creation in America."

Too bad: "produce a better environment for job creation" = "make it easy for rich people to keep screwing everyone over." That's very "adult" and certainly leaves the rich kids with a bright future to look forward to. Think of the rich children!

Therefore, "down with the rich man!"?  Or perhaps there's a conception of society out there that both promotes the free market and protects people from the excesses of greed?  No wai...  Where's that conversation?

Here are some excerpts from a book I'm reading:

More often, though, finding the right balance between our competing values is difficult.[...]

Unfortunately, too often in our national debates we don’t even get to the point where we weigh these difficult choices. Instead, we either exaggerate the degree to which policies we don’t like impinge on our most sacred values, or play dumb when our own preferred policies conflict with important countervailing values. Conservatives, for instance, tend to bristle when it comes to government interference in the marketplace or their right to bear arms. Yet many of these same conservatives show little to no concern when it comes to government wiretapping without a warrant or government attempts to control people’s sexual practices. Conversely, it’s easy to get most liberals riled up about government encroachments on freedom of the press or a woman’s reproductive freedoms. But if you have a conversation with these same liberals about the potential costs of regulation to a small-business owner, you will often draw a blank stare.

[...]Union representatives can’t afford not to understand the competitive pressures their employers may be under.

Who wrote that?  You can have a cookie if you guess correctly.  Here's a hint: It's not a Republican.

Theodore Beale (Vox Day) deals with the problem of evil by proposing a lesser god most Christians wouldn't accept.  The only reason he seems to believe in theism at all is because he believes evil is so darn real (the exact opposite reaction many atheists have, see my extensive argument map on "The Logical Problem of Evil"). William Lane Craig, as I recall in the debate with Sam Harris, made the "evil therefore God" argument as well (in addition to falling victim to the same definitional circularity issue that Beale does which I noted that Harris successfully used against Craig ftw). 

I only had Beale's pre-debate comments before, but now he's posted his reaction to the debate:

No, we cannot simply accept that "moral" can reasonably be considered "well-being" because it is not true to say that which is "of, pertaining to, or concerned with the principles or rules of right conduct or the distinction between right and wrong" is more than remotely synonymous with "that which fosters well-being in one or more human beings." One might as reasonably substitute "wealth" or "physical attractiveness" for "well-being".

Of course, Harris already addressed this point in the debate itself when discussing how we can be wrong about the facts of well being and noting that it is possible to not know what we are missing when it comes to deeper virtues.  So if you arbitrarily substitute in "wealth" or "physical attractiveness" you have not actually provided a "just as good" account of the human condition on its own terms. 

On any other day of the week (when not trying to desperately seize morality for only their worldview) Christians will make haste to deride the superficial life of the heathen based on trite interests like looks and money (the exact things Beale uses as "alternatives") and brag about the unending blessings of the deeper Christian virtues that unrepentant sinners would agree with them about if only they would have faith and be obedient to their god's commands.  But they can't have it both ways.  We live in the same universe with the same facts of basic psychology as the same species.  Faith and gods are not required to understand the human condition when all you need is experience with those virtues on their own terms.  Some unseen divine nature has nothing necessarily to do with it and this is a millions times more easy to verify than anything important about Craig's or Beale's differing conceptions of gods.

So is Vox Day just that shallow in a morally Dunning-Kruger effect kind of way or is he being a defensive hypocrite who conveniently refuses to devote his whole brain to the conversation about morality at the same time when his views are threatened?  Either way is pretty pathetic. 

Ben

So I did a google reader search on Sam Harris and William Lane Craig and I thought I'd run through some of the reactions (find all my coverage with my Harris vs. Craig tag).

Before the debate, Theodore Beale (Vox Day) had this to say:

It should be interesting to see if Craig elects to make his own positive arguments and challenge Harris to refute them or if he takes a cue from TIA and shreds the arguments that Harris puts forth.

Not withstanding that Beale agrees with the new atheists on the argument from evil and simply proposes a less awesome, not that moral god to fix the problem...  Whatever dude.

Wintery Knight Blog decides to play up the "I don't like Yahweh" angle to the extreme and ignore the arbitrariness of defining "good" as Yahweh's nature with his summary here.  Good job.

An atheist, "Reasonably Aaron," says:

The problem is [Harris] was all over the place in terms of answering Craig's objections and never refuted Craig's knock-down argument that he presented in the 1st reply.

Which "knock down argument" was that again?  Um...no, Harris just pretty much ignored Craig's irrelevant points and had the debate he wanted to have.  That's not being all over the place. Aaron then proceeds to make basically the same point that Harris did which is that Craig is secretly using the same basis to bridge the value/fact divide. 

Uncommon Descent tries to unconvincingly squeeze the debate into their categories and says:

How can one scientifically examine if an intelligent agent exists or is causative, if one a priori excludes intelligent agents from possible causes?

What did that have to do with their debate again?  When did Harris exclude the possibility of intelligent causes?  Where did all these thoughts come from?!?!  Who knows...

So, good job everyone!  Keep up the lame work.  This really inspires my confidence in humanity.

Ben

See here for audio.  Here for video.

Sam Harris ignored much of William Lane Craig's chop shop syllogistic framing and simply presented a positive case for naturalistic moral realism based on the well being of conscious creatures and then attacked in broad strokes the inherent double standards and irrelevancy of Craig's Biblical Christian theistic ontological "sound" "basis" of morality.  I thought this was reasonably justified as Harris is talking to a room full of Christians.  At no point did I feel that Harris defaulted to his talking points at the expense of addressing some meaningful point as I've seen him do in the past (which I was cynically expecting). 

The one point that basically landed the debate in Harris' favor despite not intimately following Craig down his prescribed ultra narrow path for the debate was this:  Harris pointed out (@ :09 seconds) that arbitrarily defining God's nature as good is just as much a "definitional game" as Craig's most relevant objection (@ :59 seconds) to Harris' case in his opening.  That's pretty much all that needs to be said.  Craig in turn reasserted that "no" by definition God is the most worthy of worthiness.  My only real complaint about Harris is that he didn't follow up and slam Craig on this in his closing statement and point out that just appealing to how awesomely awesome we've defined the Christian god is simply no different than hypothetically defining Harris' "worst misery for everyone" concept and accepting that connection between facts and values as unavoidably representative of the human condition.  That would have knocked it out of the park and stuck Craig in the exact same boat.

Craig is of course set at the proverbial Spinal Tap "11" on morality like if natural morality isn't the most objectively objective objective moral objectivity that's objective beyond objective....he's getting his Nazi on and rapin those babies.  Craig seemed incredibly shaken in his first rebuttal to Harris as though at some level he was connecting with where Harris was coming from, but still forced to prescribe all of his superfolous Christian ideology on top of what was already a reasonably complete picture.  What a dirty job.  To have to be an evil apologist and justify the god of the Bible, and to have to undercut what you've already admitted is common ground observational good that obviously appeals to all people beyond the confines of Christian theology that is such a ridiculous task to justify.  I wouldn't want to be Craig.  I hope he can live with himself.

Ben

---

By some fluke of the time-space continuum, you wake up one morning to discover that you live culturally next door in the same country with an equally proportionate amount of ancient Aztecs who offer human sacrifices to their gods on a regular basis.  After a period of time of learning the language, you have a conversation over the fence with some of their most outspoken representatives and they tell you that it is perfectly okay for human sacrifice to be legal because you don't personally have to kill any humans yourself.  They are pro-choice.  You, as a conservative minded person, evaluate your options.  You can:

A:  Passively support legislation to make pro-life laws banning human sacrifice, waging a decades long legal war with Aztec representatives in various courts and Congress.

B:  Start a war based on your irreconcilable differences with your evil neighbors.  

If you chose A, I'd be surprised.  People are being murdered and you resolve to vote perhaps once a year about it.  If you remember to send in your voter registration that year, of course.  

If you chose B, you are on the same moral page with the killers of abortion doctors, given that you think the unborn are equally human as anyone being sacrificed by your next door Aztec neighbors.  

You are also on the same page with most of the Liberals in this country I would think, who would probably be right there with you starting that war because they have basically the same values you do in reference to the institutionalized murder of innocent humans.

By not starting this war over the abortion debate, by implication, it appears that you do not value the unborn as much as you think you do.  (BTW, please do not start a war over the abortion debate.)  You just value them a little bit more than Liberals. 

Discuss.

[Note:  I was going to post pictures of aborted fetuses for comparison, but it turns out those pictures are a lot more gruesome than that one.]

Outro:

Moral disagreements do not have to be the intellectual equivalent of a game of turbo tops if we are willing to systematically evaluate why we value what we value.  We can be wrong or ignorant about the facts and wrong on our own terms by making use of logical fallacies to justify our claims, etc.  My hypothesis is that when most humans take correcting for all of that seriously there will be a lot more convergence than not.  Most people don't do that.  They accept their first impression of things and it's all superficial attack and defend from there with little to no possibility of self-correction.  Even if they do have some change of heart, or several, there's still nothing really rigorous about it, and it is more psychological accident than intentional method. 

Of course there are also the problems of resolving differences between liberal pacifists who presumably wouldn't choose option B in any event.  Additionally, what happens when our country fights an unjust war overseas?  This particular thought experiment is just directed at conservatives even if we can think of ways to make it more messy.

I have plans to build an argument map attempting to reconcile some of the differing answers that prominent atheists have given to the abortion question.  It will at the very least show which particular issues need to be resolved between them on the secular side of things and which disagreements are illusionary.

Ben

I'm somewhat curious as to Pinker's account of the motivation behind human sacrifice to the gods, but it is plausible and we'll move on.

Spoiler alert:  Despite the pretenses of disagreement the only difference between Harris and Pinker's position is a semantic one over what we mean by science (which Pinker discusses at the end of his talk).

Pinker claims that science can't discover that we should be consistent with our values and hold our own suffering and well being in principle as of the same value as the suffering and well being of others (including cats).  Yet Pinker clearly believes that we should and that this is a better moral conviction.  Pinker wants to split the realms of scientific discovery and reason as though Harris wasn't already putting reason in the pot of a general scientific frame of mind.  But why is it a "reason" if it does not appeal to some fact of the world?  Why should I be consistent with my values if that doesn't relate to the actual consequences of my own mental states?

What if we evaluate the factual claim about two different people.  One lives a life of double standards and the other universal reciprocity.  On their own terms of seeking choice mental states which is clearly what each is attempting to do, who is making out better?  And yet we all know that reciprocity tends to bring in the better dividends.  That's a fact of the world that science can discover (or even overturn) that is just as on par with the first half of Pinker's talk that goes through example after example where science clarified some factual dispute that fixed our moral picture.  It can't even be a meaningful "a-scientific reason" unless that is so. 

There are many different ways to play out the criminal justice system.  What if we are missing out on some benefit by only relying on the most minimal of deterrence?  What if some manner of vindictive eye for an eye punishment actually stands to make the world a better place?  Either Pinker is going to appeal to some discoverable fact about the world of the well-being of conscious creatures or he is stuck with making some uninteresting and unmotivating appeal to nonsense.  There's no other option.  And that's exactly what Pinker unwittingly appeals to!  He speaks of there being good reason to calibrate the criminal justice system so as to make sure it is not incentivizing the worst possible scenarios where a shop-lifter is compelled to murder in order to ensure the lesser probability of getting caught and supremely punished.  Hence, we tone down the punishments so that only lesser crimes are committed by the most common and trivial criminal motivations. 

But what is defining the worst possible scenarios?  Well clearly having living shop keepers with access to all the choice mental states that implies (or not having to recover from a gun shot wound) is already exactly what Harris' theory predicts Pinker will have to refer to to make a convincing moral argument.  We can say that "science" discovered it, but only in the basic sense that we observed it and thought about it.  That's just part of the overall scientific method or mindset Harris is referring to even if a particular question doesn't necessarily need to be taken to the super-evaluated lab coat level.

Pinker admits by the end of his talk that he is merely making a semantic distinction that Harris doesn't make.  Science means "knowledge," right?  So no, all those domains of knowledge are not "honorary" science.  They are real science if they represent actual knowledge that represents a testable and possibly defeasible conclusion.  Hence, there's no disagreement of substance between Harris and Pinker, just a preference of terms to congeal with unhealthy pop-cultural notions of where science begins and ends.  At least, that's a great deal more self awareness than the others on the panel had.

Outro:

Bravo to Pinker for not totally stifling the conversation.  We don't have to heap him on the pile of why philosophers suck at making important issues accessible for progressive public consumption.

Ben