:-)
i'll try. and btw, i'm still figuring *this* out, too . . . i expect justin has worked this out more fully than i have, and maybe luke, too, except i expect to disagree more with luke.
the short answer will be that i'm a pragmatist. that will probably require some qualification, but for the moment it's as good a label as any.
>
> At 02:11 PM 5/31/2005, Jeffrey Fisher wrote:
> >On 5/31/05, Jim Devine <jdevine03 at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > JF writes:>the problem with theists is that they can't see that their
> > > idea of god actually undermines ethics<
> > >
> > > in 25 words or less, could you explain how the idea of god undermines
> > ethics?
> > > JD
> >
> >i didn't say the "the" idea of god undermines ethics, only that
> >"their" idea of god undermines ethics.
>
> i know this is what the sentence Jim quoted says, but the more interesting
> claim was what you said prior to that:
>
> >god is not a matter of ethics, either, and the problem with theists is
> >that they can't see that their idea of god actually undermines ethics in
> >much the same way that it undermines science. for all kant's myriad
> >problems, i think he hit this one on the head.
>
> so, was the first part of the sentence was a mistake. you do think that god
> is about ethics?
god, in my view, is not about ethics, even though many (perhaps most) people don't think you can have ethics without god. i will explain what i think that means in a moment. we have two important definitional issues, here (namely "god" and "ethics"), but (1) please note that i have restricted myself to theistic conceptions of god, above; there's a reason for that; and (2) let's talk for a moment about ethics like we know what it is/means and see what happens.
god only has to undermine ethics if you think god makes the ethical ethical via divine command theory, or through enforcement. so kant's point is that to be ethical, strictly (philosophically?) speaking is to follow the rules out of respect for the rules (ie, one is ethical because one *ought* to be ethical), NOT for self-interested reasons. if you think of god as the Big Dad in teh sky who sends everyone to their rooms for eternity or gives them an eternally bottomless bowl of ice cream depending on how they've behaved while He's away at work, then that idea undermines ethics as kant understands it because one is good to get the ice cream and/or to avoid being sent to one's room -- not because one values ethical behavior as such.
now, one can ask many questions, here, but let's take two. (1) how does one know what is ethical? why, through a priori reasoning, of course. and (2) is god ethical? well, ethics doesn't apply to god because god never has a will at odds with what is right (like humans do), so god always does what is right and requires no rules.
i can go on about kant's ethics, but i'm sure i don't need to. i think the point really is this (and here i am setting aside kant's purist deontological approach, but trying to hang onto the gist of this argument): if we think that to be ethical has something to do with mitigating our self-interest (not that it's reducible to mitigating self-interest, which may be a way of putting kant's understanding), then to act simply out of hope for reward or fear of punishment is simply to follow orders without regard to the ethics of the orders -- nuremberg, anyone? but if we need to figure out the ethics of the order itself, then it may be that what we *ought* to do could conflict with the order. then we're stucck, right? well, that depends on whether we've painted ourselves into that corner or not.
so this leads us to the question of how we know what's ethical if god doesn't tell us. what's perhaps (!!) most important about kant's approach is that it's a religious approach to ethics which dispenses with divine command theories of ethics. that is, kant thinks there's a god; he thinks god is ethical; but he thinks we have to be ethical in a rational way: independently of simply following god's orders.
so kant has to answer that question. and the answer of course is that we use reason to figure it out. but if we're not simply appealing to divine commands or to reward/punishment, how does god figure into our determination of what is/n't ethical?
He [sic] doesn't. if god figures into ethics in terms of divine commands and reward/punishment (not the same thing, but i think they go hand in hand. i'm winging this, right now, so open to correction), and those modes actually undermine what we want to think of as ethical behavior, then the only way god (so conceived -- that is, theistically conceived) can figure into ethics will undermine our very understanding of what it means to be ethical.
that's very compressed, and i'm afraid i may have conflated a few things, but hopefully it gets us started.
>
> >there is more than one way of coming at this, but the main one is: a
> >religion wherein you have to behave a certain way out of fear of hell
> >or hope of heaven actually undermines any notion that you do what is
> >right because it is the right thing to do, rather than for a reward or
> >to avoid punishment.* this is pretty much straight kant, except that i
> >would say you don't have to buy into the whole kantian deontological
> >ethics in order to accept and make use of this argument.
>
> so, when we act certain ways out of fear of punishment and the desire for
> reward, this can't be ethical or, rather, it undermines ethics.
yes. see above.
>
>
> >*in arguments, theists also like to allude to MLK to the effect that
> >character (= ethics) is what you do when no one's watching, but in
> >fact, for such people, god is *always* watching, and so there is no
> >opportunity to demonstrate character (i.e., to be ethical). i have
> >encountered this kind of argument in class more than once.
>
> and you reject this, too, because it undermines ethics?
for theists, yes, because it's still the Big Dad in the Sky (BDS) theory of god as ethical rulemaker and rule-enforcer. if my understanding of ethics above is reasonable, then this view of god doesn't work.
>
> Mead and Freud and Piaget and Kohlberg (who followed Kant) all developed
> secularized versions of this: We internalize society. Society is always
> watching. WE internatlize because of myriad small exchanges in which we are
> rewarded or punished, or observe those we love and care about rewarded and
> punished, for moral behavior or moral norms.
>
> "good girl, give daddy a hug." "bad boy, go to your room"
>
> The fundamental message is: you are welcomed into the fold and even get
> extra 'hugs' and warm fuzzies because you act according to the prevailing
> moral norms, or you are banished to your room -- removed from society.
>
> So, we come to act according to the moral codes of our society, families,
> communities, reference groups, profession, etc. because society is inside
> us (which is what we end up worshiping with the cult of individualism, we
> just mistake society for what we believe is our "private" unique self.
>
> So, these approaches to explaining the psychology of moral consciousness
> are, likewise, undermining ethics?
of course we do all these things. but recognizing that prevent us from reflecting on what it means to be ethical? does it? on the contrary, it acknowledges that we are constantly refining what it means to be ethical.
theists, on the other hand, think they don't really have anything more to learn about ethics, because god already laid it all out in the bible. louis dupre always used to talk about contemporary ethics as "bicycle repair". i think he meant several things by this, but one of them was that unreflective divine command theists have reduced being ethical to figuring out how to apply the "rules" in (or "lessons of") the bible to everyday ethical situations. it's like trying to figure out which biblical wrench works on the bike spokes you've got in front of you. it's perpetually trying to put round pegs in square holes.
so, i would say that the approaches you are talking about recognize that the shapes of the pegs and the holes change. that doesn't undermine ethics. it IS ethics.
a quick note on socialization of ethics and the social processes of enforcement: i think it's critical to recognize that these processes are different from the BDS theory in at least one crucial way: in the latter, you are supposed to listen to the sitter and believe that the sitter is right without any direct orders from daddy, except maybe a note that you suspect the sitter might have forged to keep you in line. indeed, you are supposed to disregard anything rational or anything you might seem to learn through experience if it conflicts with those orders, which never change, regardless of anything. (hello, pascal's wager) but we have to acknowledge that reward and punishment in the case of BDS is not about inculcation or instruction: at the end of the day, when daddy comes home, you are either right or wrong, and you are rewarded or punished accordingly . . . and eternally. i think that difference matters a lot.
how's that?
now, come kick my butt. :)
j
-- Among medieval and modern philosophers, anxious to establish the religious significance of God, an unfortunate habit has prevailed of paying to Him metaphysical compliments.
- Alfred North Whitehead