If God is Dead, Everything is Permitted . . .
It seems that I’m constantly getting into arguments–arguments that don’t even interest me that much–about whether moral behavior is even possible if people don’t believe in God, or Aristotelian natural ends, or natural rights, or whatever. It’s boring because, well, it’s just plain as an Amish girl that you don’t need to believe in anything special to do the right thing. Nevertheless, I often hear arguments that go something like this:
“If people don’t believe in God, then we won’t be afraid to do terrible things, and won’t have any motivation to do good things, and then there’ll just be CHAOS, which would be horrifying.”
To which I usually sit with a stunned and expectant look on my face. Because the next step seems perfectly obvious to me. If chaos is so terrible, isn’t that reason enough for people to, you know, avoid it. No one much wants to step over corpses on the way to Starbucks, or hose the blood off the sidewalks each morning. We’ll all be much better off if we constrain ourselves in certain ways, and if we exert a little extra effort in certain cases.
So isn’t this all we need to believe: that being good is a net winner over baby-raping anarchy? God, natural rights, or whatever, don’t seem to get you anything extra. The horribleness of immorality does a pretty good job of making morality look pretty good without any special help. So why all the insistence on overdetermination? Insurance?
July 29th, 2004 03:56
Wait — Will is this an argument?
Anyway — so, what do you make of Quentin Smith’s statement which I appended to your “More Mansfieldiana” argument. (Also: be advised, Mansfield and other Eastern Straussians are on record as being explicit denigrators of natural rights. [cf. Pangle/Jaffa discourse which I also mailed to you]. And, just to be sure, you ought not confuse natural right with natural rights. Two very different things. Easterners such as Mansfield, Pangle, Bloom etc., as far as I can tell, think there is natural _right_, or at least think the “search” or whatever is possible, blah, blah, blah).
Sorry for not making sustained arguments in your “comments” section. “Comments” is really, after all, a format suited for making short, diverting, and hortatory statements and barbs intended as ideologically dislocative. I think most people would agree.
P.s. Think we can be good without God? Not sure you’re right. While you’re reading Twilight of the Idols, have a stop at the section where Nietzsche beats the shit out of poor little frilly George “oh, we can be good and aw-shucks nice without Christianity” Eliot.
July 29th, 2004 04:12
Here, I thought you’d find this amusing:
Belief in hell boosts economic growth, Fed says
Updated: 4:34 p.m. ET July 27, 2004
WASHINGTON - Economists searching for reasons why some nations are richer than others have found that those with a wide belief in hell are less corrupt and more prosperous, according to a report by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.
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Researchers at the regional Federal Reserve bank acknowledged the importance of productivity and investment in the economic process but looked at some recent unconventional efforts to explain differences in national prosperity.
The St Louis Fed drew on work by outside economists who studied 35 countries, including the United States, European nations, Japan, India and Turkey and found that religion shed some useful light.
“In countries where where large percentages of the population believe in hell, there seems to be less corruption and a higher standard of living,” the St. Louis Fed said in its July quarterly review.
For instance, 71 percent of the U.S. population believe in hell and the country boasts the world’s highest per capita income, according to the 2003 United Nations Human Development Report and 1990-1993 World Values Survey.
Ireland, not far behind the United States in terms of income, likewise has a healthy fear of a nether world with 53 percent of the population acknowledging hell’s existence.
Fire and brimstone
“I’m not surprised,” said the Rev. Eileen Lindner, deputy general secretary of the U.S. National Council of Churches, when told of the results.
“The expectation that there is a cultural belief in hell or perpetual and eternal punishment for wrongdoing will act as a disincentive to wrongdoing,” she said.
The St Louis Fed’s researchers took a two-step approach to linking religion and the economy.
“A belief in hell tends to mean less corruption and less corruption tends to mean a higher per capita income,” they wrote. It correlated the belief in hell findings of the World Value Series with a measure of corruption produced by Transparency International.
It then looked at the relationship between corruption and per capita gross domestic product and found “a strong tendency for countries with relatively low levels of corruption to have relatively high levels of per capita GDP.”
“Combining these two stories … suggests that, all else being equal, the more religious a country, the less corruption it will have and the higher its per capita income will be.”
The researchers also noted the long tradition among classical economists to equate a society’s honesty, and the strength of the rule of law, with economic vitality.
“Adam Smith wrote that one of religion’s most important contributions to the economic development process is its value as a moral enforcement mechanism,” they said.
Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan offered a contemporary echo of this view, arguing in a speech earlier this year that modern business still relies on the word of those with whom it deals as he slammed the recent run of corporate governance scandals in the United States for eroding that trust.
None of which cut any ice with nonbelievers.
Ellen Johnson, president of American Atheists Inc., called the study the latest gimmick from the religious establishment to drum up government support.
“Religious people cannot rely on their theology to promote what they do so they turn to other things,” she said.
“I cannot imagine what the belief in mythological beings or things that don’t exist can do for business. What about the pornographic industry? That is probably very good for growth.”
The St Louis Fed’s essay “Fear of Hell Might Fire Up The Economy” can be found here.
Copyright 2004 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of Reuters content is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters.
July 29th, 2004 09:40
I am a bad, bad, bad person for being so thoroughly amused by the phrase “baby-raping anarchy.”
I can’t get the smirk off my face.
July 29th, 2004 10:22
I think it would be more accurate to drop the term “natural right” and instead speak of “natural rights” or “natural law.” (As Randy Barnett suggests)
Our political order is founded on certain natural rights, not on Natural Law ethics, certainly not on a Thomistic understanding of nature.
As Jefferson put it:
“But our rulers can have authority over such natural rights only as we have submitted to them. The rights of conscience we never submitted, we could not submit. We are answerable for them to our God. The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbour to say there are twenty gods, or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.”
Thus if you violate the natural law without injuring others, it’s your business, not the governments.
July 29th, 2004 10:22
Socrates: What then do we say about holiness, Euthyphro? Surely that it is loved by all the gods, by your account?
Euthypro: Yes.
Socrates: Is it loved because it is holy, or is there some other reason?
Euthypro: There is no other reason.
Socrates: It is loved then because it is holy, but it is not holy because it is loved?
Euthypro: So it seems.
Socrates: And because the gods love it, it becomes loved by the gods and god-beloved?
Euthypro: Of course.
Socrates: What is loved by the gods is not, then, identical to what is holy, Euthyphro; nor does holy mean god-beloved, as you maintain; these are distinct things.
Good enough for me. All this modern philosophy is way too complicated.
July 29th, 2004 11:08
Not to change the subject, but where did you find that terrifying picture of the godhead with demon eyes?
July 29th, 2004 11:27
That terrifying Godhead is a Monty Python illustration, isn’t it?
July 29th, 2004 11:31
The more interesting question might be what things cause a society to become degenerate? Clearly in history certain societies have become corrupt to the point of causing themselves serious harm, and I think in most cases we would find high levels of theism in those societies.
I think maybe instead of a belief in a certain god or hell or whatever, the important thing is a general civic spirit combined with the following of certain rules like the 10 Commandments. As far as churches and religious leaders serve to inculcate that spirit in the people, then they do help the society in general to be more prosperous.
July 29th, 2004 11:43
Religious determinism is the oldest and best tool for stemming that chaos. You answer your own question, Will. People rationalize that it’s better to behave certain ways. So they get together and say “let’s follow X rules and call ourselves Xians.” Satisfies needs for order, community, social identification, etc. The creative inventors throw in a little supernatural power and firey consequences and they’ve got supplicants for eons.
July 29th, 2004 13:00
I should’ve asked this in the original Mansfieldania post’s comment section, but since Rob has kindly brought Straussianism back to the discussion and pointed out that there are Eastern (Mansfield) and Western (Jaffa) variants…I’m wondering: Do the East Coast Straussians and the West Coast Straussians ever have gang wars? Sure, they debate which is the true intellectual heir of Leo Strauss (much like the Randians), but do they ever take it to the streets? Do they have gang signs and initiation rituals?
July 29th, 2004 13:24
Maybe Will, just maybe, there are a shitload of people who really like playing make believe anyway. So sad…have a look,
http://www.muchosucko.com/video-fanimecon.html
July 29th, 2004 14:27
My own opinion is that when people say ‘But if people stop believing in God they will go off and rape babies!’ what they actually mean is ‘If I didn’t believe in God I would go off and rape babies, because I think about it all the time.’
The classic example is Dostoyevsky, who apparently raised the question in those terms: ie if there is no God what is to stop me raping a six year old girl? To which there are two answers: first, because let’s face it, it wouldn’t be that much fun and
second: because if you do a policeman will come and find you and beat you to death.
We don’t need Hell: we have prisons, and that’s as close as anyone should want to come.
Finally, I feel i should quote John Waters, who pointed out that much as he tried to understand all sexual perversions, paedophilia was always the one he couldn’t get. Since everyone knows (he pointed out) that the best bit about sex is having the cigarette afterwards, how could you enjoy it afterwards watching a six year old cough and splutter their way through their first Lucky Strike?
You see, we don’t need God. Simple logic suffices.
July 29th, 2004 16:45
The realization that having a god doesn’t actually add any purpose or transcendent moral system was actually a big part of what led me to become an atheist (I am ashamed to admit - since it is irrelevant to the question of whether god belief is true). Hell is all well and good, but it’s just prison writ large. The moral edicts of a god are just as emotive (in the sense that they do not refer to moral “facts”) as those of a human.
July 29th, 2004 21:32
The whole point of positing a monotheistic god in the first place is the universality of that god’s edicts. They are axiomatic and so you end the chain of questioning.
July 30th, 2004 16:14
“To which I usually sit with a stunned and expectant look on my face. Because the next step seems perfectly obvious to me. If chaos is so terrible, isn’t that reason enough for people to, you know, avoid it. No one much wants to step over corpses on the way to Starbucks, or hose the blood off the sidewalks each morning. We’ll all be much better off if we constrain ourselves in certain ways, and if we exert a little extra effort in certain cases.
So isn’t this all we need to believe: that being good is a net winner over baby-raping anarchy?”
No. In the absence of objective morality virtue produces public goods while vice produces private goods.
“God, natural rights, or whatever, don’t seem to get you anything extra. The horribleness of immorality does a pretty good job of making morality look pretty good without any special help. So why all the insistence on overdetermination? Insurance? ”
Under objective morality virtue produces private goods for the individual while vice results in a net loss of private goods.
This is not an argument for objective morality, it just explains why your expectations are unfounded.
July 30th, 2004 16:58
(From STALIN’S LAST CRIME: The Plot Against The Jewish Doctors 1948-1953 by Jonathan Brent and Vladimir P. Naumov)
Stalin is Godot, absent from an empty landscape. We wait, we guess, we attribute motives, but in the end he will not reveal himself, and there is no direct way toward understanding him as a “person.”
When asked whether Stalin ever appeared in his dreams, Molotov answered, “Sometimes. In extraordinary situations…In a destroyed city…I can’t find a way out and I meet him. In a word, very strange, confusing dreams.”
It is in a destroyed city of man from which no one can find an exit that Stalin appears.
July 30th, 2004 17:00
“…well, it’s just plain as an Amish girl that you don’t need to believe in anything special to do the right thing.”
Without reference to “anything special”, what’s the right thing to do?
July 30th, 2004 17:28
That which is good, and not evil.
July 30th, 2004 17:33
And what’s that? Good and evil sound special.
July 30th, 2004 18:05
You think so? I think they sound pretty normal. There’s a lot of good and evil on an average Friday.
July 30th, 2004 18:13
How do you tell what’s good and what’s evil?
July 30th, 2004 18:28
How do you tell a pretty girl from an ugly girl?
July 30th, 2004 20:56
That terrifying Godhead is a Monty Python illustration, isn’t it?
Beats me, all of M.P. I know is the John Cleese silly walk and “Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition.” I would have guessed album art. Can we get a ruling on this?
July 30th, 2004 22:04
Isn’t it from The Holy Grail? (If I could find my copy of the script I might be able to say for sure.)
July 31st, 2004 00:08
The Falling of The Heavens
A few months ago, in an article opposing gay marriage, Cal Thomas made the following observation:
Let’s put it this way. If you tell me you do not believe in God and then say to me that I should brake for animals, or pay women equally, or help th…
July 31st, 2004 12:25
Whether or not the individual will have to “step over corpses on the way to Starbucks” has next to nothing to do with whether that individual behaves well or not. Good behavior by an individual won’t make the general chaos you deplore significantly less likely and bad behahavior won’t make it significantly more likely.
So the desire to avoid that consequence is obviously not sufficient incentive behave well.
July 31st, 2004 13:24
Ruling: It is indeed from the Holy Grail.
July 31st, 2004 17:06
J Kennedy,
I’ll agree with your latest post, but then how do we add a greater incentive? If people stop beliving the story you can’t just order them change their minds.
I would argue that there is in fact something in human nature that causes most people to care about the common good. If it were otherwise I don’t think civilization would be possible at all. Even people who give up Christianity tend to either go to some flaky new age stuff or else they are like Will and come up to some other solution. The minority are called sociopaths or narcissists and become lawyers or middle managers. They are commonly hated and reviled, but their evil is controlled to a degree by the majority. In other words, I think it is human nature that makes people care. In their desire to rationalize they may create god, but god is secondary.
August 1st, 2004 11:25
“If people stop beliving the story you can’t just order them change their minds.
I would argue that there is in fact something in human nature that causes most people to care about the common good.”
My point was that the common good won’t do as a standard, but if you’re on the right track at all then perhaps it was premature to dismiss natural rights as a story.
August 3rd, 2004 17:42
Why? People don’t need to believe in fairy tales in order to explain their natural predilictiosn to care about the common good. It’s just a natural instict that most of us have, and some of us don’t.
August 3rd, 2004 18:04
Why? People don’t need to believe in fairy tales in order to explain their natural predilictiosn to care about the common good. It’s just a natural instict that most of us have, and some of us don’t.
August 4th, 2004 00:08
You suffer a certain failure of imagination. There are some among us who would be more than happy to step over corpses every day, provided the dead were from the right tribe, or religious group, or social class.
The current lack of bodies on your DC sidewalk is not to be taken for granted, nor is it to be attributed to the innate self-correcting properties of the human conscience.
Would that it were the case.
August 4th, 2004 07:15
…and I should add- the lack of corpses isn’t attributable to theism, either. I’m not out to make that case.
August 4th, 2004 10:58
“The minority are called sociopaths or narcissists and become lawyers or middle managers. They are commonly hated and reviled, but their evil is controlled to a degree by the majority.”
Evil is controlled by the majority? Very dubious assertion, that. Ask a slave if evil is controlled by the majority, and he’ll agree, it is controlled, but not in his favor.
It’s true, as Micha says, the current lack of bodies on your DC sidewalk is not to be taken for granted.
August 9th, 2004 14:13
Good and evil are not finally self-evident.
Some kind of a ‘leap of faith’ is made in defining them at all…
“Reason’s last step is the recognition that there are an infinite number of things which are beyond it.” (Pascal)
August 9th, 2004 15:15
Try this:
http://www.firstthings.com/ftissues/ft9802/pannenberg.html