More on natural law

As I have mentioned before, natural law is one strategy for those who do not want to descend into relativism or be stuck with authoritative appeals as the basis for ethics. It is a way to get reason into the process of ethics, which many of us think is a good thing. Recall that a natural law appeal believes that moral norms can be discovered by an examination of nature and that these norms are detectable by human reason. As we will see later in the semester, natural law is woven into the fabric of American political theory. The claim that "all men are created equal" is essentially underpinned by natural law.

 But natural law does not always assure a satisfying outcome. The argument about homosexuality is one area where many see the appeal to natural law as the basis for longstanding prejudice against a portion of humanity. And if you don't like that example, we can talk about how many of the arguments in support of slavery were in fact based in natural law.

Still, I think we have reason to prefer natural arguments to those based on Divine Command Theory. The person who is opposed to homosexuality because of a couple of verses in the Bible cannot be talked away from this position by reason since there is no reason at the back of his/her position. But at least the person who holds a version of natural law theory needs to defend his/her argument by reason and so must respond to reasoned objections using rational evidence and justification. So all things being equal, I would argue we have a reason to prefer natural law theory to divine command theory as the basis for ethics. These are not the only ethical choices. One can reject ethics in relativism or skepticism or hold a non-natural law form of objectivism (Kant/Mill)or a non-religious form of natural law theory (Aristotle). But for the religious person, it does boil down to a choice of natural law theory or divine command theory

On Weakness of Will

One thing that the discussion of incontinence (which I will heretofore refer to as weakness of the will, or simply WOW) is to emphasize once again the important role of reason in medieval Christian thought as opposed to early Christian thought.

Recall that all cases of weakness of will (WOW) are alike in that our reasoning is overcome by passion. What was perhaps not stressed enough by me in class was the degree to which when we talk about incontinent acts today, we generally do not describe them as involving the loss of reason. The person who eats the chocolate cake she knows she should not eat would probably not describe herself as rationally deficient but as having no will power. But it is clear Aquinas agrees with Aristotle as seeing the problem as a defect of reason: the rational element (consisting of a universal premise "Fattening foods should not be eaten") is unable to be put into effect because it is overwhelmed by pleasure. All of those in levels 2-5 of the Inferno--lust, gluttony, greed, and anger--share the trait of knowing that what they are doing is wrong but of having this knowledge overcome by passion. Again, this is what defines weakness of will.

One of the more interesting examples of weakness of will put forth by someone in class involved the claim about someone who knew he shouldn't break into a house but did so anyway. Now this is certainly not a classic case of WOW. These usually involve the appetites of food, drink and sex. But if someone engaged in theft but thought it was wrong, they would still be considered an incontinent person, and distinguished from the person who engaged in theft without any sense that it was wrong. Interestingly, this example parallels a famous incident of Augustine in the Confessions, the story where he talked about a theft of some pears. He says he did not want to steal the pears, had no desire for the pears, did not even like pears, indeed, he and his friends threw the pears away. He questions himself why, if he believed all of these things, he stole the pears anyway.

Augustine's answer involves at least the fact that he was overcome by a desire for a lesser good, in this case, the desire to be one of the guys (friendship), and that his love of his friends over rode his love of God. The idea goes back to Socrates in that we are always aiming at some good; no one does anything thinking it is bad. The difference is that the incontinent person realizes that he/she is choosing the lesser good over the greater good while the evil person simply does not perceive the lesser good as lesser but believes it is the greater. So the same act can qualify as incontinence or vice depending upon the motivation of the agent.

Beatrice the Sociopath

I want to touch on the moral status of Beatrice in part because I brought it up in one class and not the other and want to make sure everyone has a chance to be exposed to it and in part because it illustrates a central issue in reading Dante: that the moral scheme he uses, as much as it can be broadly classified as Christian, is not one that we necessarily recognize or that sits well with our modern sensibilities.

The problems starts with the claim attributed to Beatrice in Canto II as to why she is not afraid to enter into Hell, and she replies that "your misery, cannot touch me here."  The basic idea seems to be that she is not affected by the suffering she sees in hell. The inability to feel empathy for the suffering of others is part of the definition of a sociopath. By contrast, in Canto IV, Dante believes that Virgil is afraid but it turns out he is simply feeling compassion for the suffering. Since it is clear that Dante sees Beatrice as morally superior to Virgil (Virgil is in Hell, Beatrice in Heaven), he would seem to be implying that not to feel compassion for suffering is a superior state to be in.

As I argued in class, the rationale for this judgment is that Beatrice understands God's justice, and that once one recognizes that God's decisions are just, one no longer feels compassion. The idea behind the pictures of suffering animals that the SPCA uses to get you to call in and donate is that those animals are not responsible for their suffering, and that they in no way deserve this treatment. But in the case of those in hell, the idea is that once on understands God's justice one no longer feels compassion. Virgil's sense of compassion would then illustrate an incomplete understanding.

This connects to theme we will talk about in great detail, the notion that all of those in hell have "lost the good of the intellect." The notion that sin is an intellectual failing is not one that gets much  of a hearing today but it was the dominant view in ancient Greek thought (well, to the extent that the culture understood an interpreted the concept of sin, which was in a very different way than Christianity). But this notion was at the heart of St. Thomas Aquinas' view of morality--a figure who had a great deal of influence on Dante's worldview. Indeed, the moral philosophy of Aquinas underpins Dante's worldview.,

A dilemma for compatibilism

The discussion in class, as well as the papers, revealed that most of the people in class are compatibilists, believing that reason and religion can coexist in a peaceful and productive way, with the majority of folks declaring themselves as NOMA type compatibilists, with religion focused on the role of values and reason/science focused on the role of facts. One problem with this type of compatibilism is that it does not seem to allow for any criticism from a rational perspective of religious moral views. But then how do you criticize the suicide bomber? Or the San Bernadino terrorists? If you want to say that there exists some rational criterion they failed to meet in their actions, then you are no longer giving sole domain over values to religion but are saying that religion must be checked and guided by reason.

This might seem to make the position of religion within the bounds of reason attractive. But before you accept this view, you should realize the extent to which this position weakens the status of religion. If any moral claim needs to be checked and verified by rationality, one might well ask what the force of any religious command is, since it would seem always to require verification by reason. Why not just use reason as your standard for morality to begin with?

This leads to a dilemma for the compatibilist. A dilemma has a very specific meaning in an argumentative situation. It involves a situation where one is presented with two logically exhaustive alternative, each of which has unacceptable consequences. A mastery of dilemmas--how to create and how to respond--is necessary to learn the art of argument. So here is the dilemma for the compatabilist.

Either reason and religion have separate realms or religion must be carried out only within the bounds of reason
If reason and religion have separate realms, then there seems no way to criticize the suicide bomber, since the realm of values on this interpretation is given over to religion
If religion must be carried out only within the bounds of reason, then it seems religion is redundant and unnceccesary, since what me must ultimately appeal to is reason
So either we cannot criticize terrorism or religion is redundant

Here is the logical form:
Either A or B
If A then C
If B then D
Either C or D

ANy thought?

Reason vs. Faith

The first paper asks you to explain and defend your own stance on the relation between reason and faith. Several people wrote in asking me for more information on exactly what I mean by reason. This is good question. Actually, I spend a lot of time last semester explaining these terms, so that is unsurprising the question was not asked by anyone who was in my previous class.  But for everyone else I want to say that we will be discussing these terms a good deal before we get started.

One example that I think nicely illustrates this distinction that I was going to cover in class but did not get around to was the case of Kim Davis, the clerk of the Kentucky court who refused to issue marriage licenses for gay couples, even though she had been ordered by the state to do so. We can understand something of the distinction between reason and faith by comparing her rationale for refusing to issue marriage licenses with what the Supreme Court did in requiring her to issue a marriage license.

The Supreme Court issued a 70 page decision that offered extensive argument for why the U.S. Constitution requires that states recognize the weddings of same sex couples. They used logical argument form and presented evidence for their claims and defended these claims against objections. By contrast, Kim Davis invoked passages of the Bible that condemned homosexuality and used that as her rationale.

Now, in one sense, they both had reasons. But I want to distinguish reason with a small r from reason with a capital R. Kim Davis had reasons in the sense that, unless we are insane, we all have reasons for what we do.  I had an aunt who was a compulsive hand washer, and when you asked her why she was doing it, she had no answer. But most of us are not like this. We can provide a reason for why we are doing something. And in this sense, Kim Davis had reasons. Her reason was her faith.
But this sort of rationale is DIFFERENT IN KIND from using logic, providing evidence, and feeling compelled to reply to criticisms. I am not arguing that one is superior to the other. I am simply claiming that they are opposed ways of approaching an issue