Fine Tuning Ethical Intuitionism

There are different varieties of Ethical (or Moral or Evolutionary) Intuitionism. Some are subject to more criticism than others. I am in the process of fine tuning my particular view of Ethical Intuitionism. I found a recent article by Jeff McMahan to be quite helpful ("Moral Intuition," in The Blackwell Guide to Ethical Theory, ed. Hugh LaFollette [2000],  92-110).

1. What is a moral intuition?

According to McMahan:

[It] is a spontaneous moral judgment, often concerning a particular act or agent, though an intuition may also have as its object a type of act or, less frequently, a more general moral rule or principle. In saying a moral intuition is a spontaneous judgment, I mean that it is not the result of conscious inferential reasoning. In the first instance at least, the allegiance the intuition commands is not based on an awareness of its relations to one's other beliefs. If one considers the act of torturing the cat, one judges immediately that, in the circumstances, this would be wrong. One does not need to consult one's other beliefs in order to arrive at this judgment. This kind of spontaneity, I should stress, is entirely compatible with the possibility that a fair amount of cognitive processing may be occuring beneath the surface of consciousness (pp. 93-94).

2. There is not a special organ or faculty that perceives moral facts.

Although some have held that ethical intuitions are the deliverances of a special organ or faculty of moral perception, typically understood as something like an inner eye that provides occult access to a noumenal realm of objective values (p. 94), I reject this notion. I don't believe that there is something like a sixth sense that is able to perceive moral facts.

3. Intuitions are not infallible.

4. Intuitions are biologically based.

But numerous considerations--such as the diversity of moral intuitions, the fact that people do often doubt and even repudiate certain of their intuitions, and the evident origin of some intutitions in social prejudice or self-interest--make it untenable to suppose that intuitions are direct and infallible perceptions of morality (pp. 94-95).

5. Intuitions may differ among people.

One piece of evidence for this is the surprising uniformity of our intuitions about particular cases. We have been impressed for so long by the claims of anthropologists, English professors, undergraduates, and others about the diversity of moral opinion that we are inclined to overlook how much agreement there actually is. Interestingly, what one finds is that moral disagreements tend to widen and intensify the more we abstract from particular cases and focus instead on matters of principle or theory. When the partisans of different schools of moral thought turn their attention to particular cases, there is far more intuitive agreement that their higher-level disputes would lead one to suspect (pp. 106-07).

There are several explanations for this. One is that our moral intuitions undoubtedly stem from numerous diverse sources: while some derive from biologically programmed dispositions that are largely uniform across the species, others are the products of cultural determinants, economic or social conditions, vagaries of individual character and circumstance, and so on. Given the heterogeneity of these sources, it is hardly surprising that there are conflicts (p. 109).

"Morals Without God?" by Frans de Waal

There was an interesting article in the NY Times yesterday  (10/17/10) by Frans de Waal, the renowned primatologist, entitled: "Morals Without God." Regular readers of my blog know that I hold to a form of Ethical Intuitionism or better yet, Evolutionary Intuitionism (see the book of the same title by Brian Zamulinski).

While I certainly have not worked out all of the details of the theory to my own satisfaction, I feel that there is a strong scientific basis for this idea of moral instincts. In the NY Times article by de Wall, he states:

Charles Darwin was interested in how morality fits the human-animal continuum, proposing in “The Descent of Man”: “Any animal whatever, endowed with well-marked social instincts … would inevitably acquire a moral sense or conscience, as soon as its intellectual powers had become as well developed … as in man.” ...

Fortunately, there has been a resurgence of the Darwinian view that morality grew out of the social instincts. Psychologists stress the intuitive way we arrive at moral judgments while activating emotional brain areas, and economists and anthropologists have shown humanity to be far more cooperative, altruistic, and fair than predicted by self-interest models. Similarly, the latest experiments in primatology reveal that our close relatives will do each other favors even if there’s nothing in it for themselves.

Such findings have implications for human morality. According to most philosophers, we reason ourselves towards a moral position. Even if we do not invoke God, it is still a top-down process of us formulating the principles and then imposing those on human conduct. But would it be realistic to ask people to be considerate of others if we had not already a natural inclination to be so? Would it make sense to appeal to fairness and justice in the absence of powerful reactions to their absence? Imagine the cognitive burden if every decision we took needed to be vetted against handed-down principles. Instead, I am a firm believer in the Humean position that reason is the slave of the passions. We started out with moral sentiments and intuitions, which is also where we find the greatest continuity with other primates. Rather than having developed morality from scratch, we received a huge helping hand from our background as social animals [emphasis mine].

At the same time, however, I am reluctant to call a chimpanzee a “moral being.” This is because sentiments do not suffice. We strive for a logically coherent system, and have debates about how the death penalty fits arguments for the sanctity of life, or whether an unchosen sexual orientation can be wrong. These debates are uniquely human. We have no evidence that other animals judge the appropriateness of actions that do not affect themselves. The great pioneer of morality research, the Finn Edward Westermarck, explained what makes the moral emotions special: “Moral emotions are disconnected from one’s immediate situation: they deal with good and bad at a more abstract, disinterested level.” This is what sets human morality apart: a move towards universal standards combined with an elaborate system of justification, monitoring and punishment [emphasis mine].

See the video below for de Waal's contention that there is a biological basis for the 'golden rule.'

Consensus Statement on The Science of Morality

It seems to me that points #2 and #3 are in harmony with the theory of Ethical Intuitionism which I have defended.

CONSENSUS STATEMENT

A statement of consensus reached among participants at

the Edge The New Science of Morality Conference

Washington, CT, June 20-22, 2010

1) Morality is a natural phenomenon and a cultural phenomenon

Like language, sexuality, or music, morality emerges from the interaction of multiple psychological building blocks within each person, and from the interactions of many people within a society. These building blocks are the products of evolution, with natural selection playing a critical role. They are assembled into coherent moralities as individuals mature within a cultural context. The scientific study of morality therefore requires the combined efforts of the natural sciences, the social sciences, and the humanities.

2) Many of the psychological building blocks of morality are innate

The word "innate," as we use it in the context of moral cognition, does not mean immutable, operational at birth, or visible in every known culture. It means "organized in advance of experience," although experience can revise that organization to produce variation within and across cultures.

Many of the building blocks of morality can be found, in some form, in other primates, including sympathy, friendship, hierarchical relationships, and coalition-building. Many of the building blocks of morality are visible in all human culture, including sympathy, friendship, reciprocity, and the ability to represent others' beliefs and intentions.

Some of the building blocks of morality become operational quite early in childhood, such as the capacity to respond with empathy to human suffering, to act altruistically, and to punish those who harm others.

3) Moral judgments are often made intuitively, with little deliberation or conscious weighing of evidence and alternatives

Like judgments about the grammaticality of sentences, moral judgments are often experienced as occurring rapidly, effortlessly, and automatically. They occur even when a person cannot articulate reasons for them.

4) Conscious moral reasoning plays multiple roles in our moral lives

People often apply moral principles and engage in moral reasoning. For example, people use reasoning to detect moral inconsistencies in others and in themselves, or when moral intuitions conflict, or are absent. Moral reasoning often serves an argumentative function; it is often a preparation for social interaction and persuasion, rather than an open-minded search for the truth. In line with its persuasive function, moral reasoning can have important causal effects interpersonally. Reasons and arguments can establish new principles (e.g., racial equality, animal rights) and produce moral change in a society.

5) Moral judgments and values are often at odds with actual behavior

People often fail to live up to their consciously-endorsed values. One of the many reasons for the disconnect is that moral action often depends on self-control, which is a fluctuating and limited resource. Doing what is morally right, especially when contrary to selfish desires, often depends on an effortful inner struggle with an uncertain outcome.

6) Many areas of the brain are recruited for moral cognition, yet there is no "moral center" in the brain

Moral judgments depend on the operation of multiple neural systems that are distinct but that interact with one another, sometimes in a competitive fashion. Many of these systems play comparable roles in non-moral contexts. For example, there are systems that support the implementation of cognitive control, the representation of mental states, and the affective representation of value in both moral and non-moral contexts.

7) Morality varies across individuals and cultures

People within each culture vary in their moral judgments and behaviors. Some of this variation is due to heritable differences in temperament (for example, agreeableness or conscientiousness) or in morally-relevant capacities (such as one’s ability to take the perspective of others). Some of this difference is due to variations in childhood experiences; some is due to the roles and contexts influencing a person at the moment of judgment or action.

Morality varies across cultures in many ways, including the overall moral domain (what kinds of things get regulated), as well as specific moral norms, practices, values, and institutions. Moral virtues and values are strongly influenced by local and historical circumstances, such as the nature of economic activity, form of government, frequency of warfare, and strength of institutions for dispute resolution.

8) Moral systems support human flourishing, to varying degrees

The emergence of morality allowed much larger groups of people to live together and reap the benefits of trust, trade, shared security, long term planning, and a variety of other non-zero-sum interactions. Some moral systems do this better than others, and therefore it is possible to make some comparative judgments.

The existence of moral diversity as an empirical fact does not support an "anything-goes" version of moral relativism in which all moral systems must be judged to be equally good. We note, however, that moral evaluations across cultures must be made cautiously because there are multiple justifiable visions of flourishing and wellbeing, even within Western societies. Furthermore, because of the power of moral intuitions to influence reasoning, social scientists studying morality are at risk of being biased by their own culturally shaped values and desires.

Signed by:

Roy Baumeister, Florida State University
Paul Bloom, Yale University
Joshua Greene, Harvard University
Jonathan Haidt, University of Virginia
Sam Harris, Project Reason
Joshua Knobe, Yale University
David Pizarro, Cornell University

Why Hume's Guillotine Fails with regard to Ethical Intuitionism

Some theists have argued that Hume's Guillotine effectively eliminates the possiblity of there being  moral facts given a naturalistic world-view. What is Hume's Guillotine?

Hume's Guillotine, also known as the "is-ought problem" or Hume's law is a criticism of writings by ethicists who make normative claims (about what ought to be) based on positive premises (about what is). The problem was articulated by David Hume in his most important philosophical work, A Treatise of Human Nature (Book III, §I).

Hume argued that one cannot make a normative claim based on facts about the world, implying that normative claims cannot be the conclusions of reason.

The term "Hume's Guillotine" is meant to describe the severance of "is" statements from "ought" statements, which similarly, and colourfully, illustrates the resulting removal of the head from many ethical arguments.

One may consider the following moral argument as an example of an is-ought problem:

1.Sam is stealing money from work.
2.Losing money by theft causes harm to Sam's employers.
3.(One ought to not cause harm to his employers.)
4.Therefore, Sam ought to stop stealing money from work.

Premises 1 and 2 are "is" statements, describing facts of what is happening. Premise 3 and Conclusion 4 are "ought" statements, that describes how things should be happening. But what is the source of this knowledge? This argument appears to be valid if the premises are true, but unless we can logically support Premise 3, it is not sound. What can possibly give us rational knowledge that things ought to be different than the way things are? (Philosophy-Index)

Why doesn't Hume's Guillotine effectively decapitate ethical intuitionism? Simply because ethical intuitionism holds that there are certain moral facts that are self-evident, and are not based on inference or conscious reasoning.  One definition of Ethical Intuitionism is a view in moral epistemology according to which some moral truths can be known without inference ("Ethical Intuitionism").  Hume is arguing that one cannot move from a descriptive fact (how something is) to a prescriptive fact (how something ought to be) by means of inference or deduction. However, that is not what ethical intuitionists do. Listen to Brian Zamulinski:

Inference is an intellectual movement from proposition to proposition. Apprehension is the acquisition of a belief in response to a state of affairs. Our ability to apprehend states of affairs is not fundamentally an ability to make inferences, no matter what sorts of inferences. It is an ability to see that such and such is the case. With evolutionary intuitionism, we intuitively apprehend the fact, say, that torture is wrong. We do not infer the belief that torture is wrong from other propositions. Since inference is not involved, the impossibility of inferring an "ought" from an "is" is not relevant. The is/ought gap is of no significance whatsoever for evolutionary intuitionism (Evolutionary Intuitionism: A Theory of the Origin and Nature of Moral Facts [2007], p. 112).

The Illusion of an Objective Moral Standard

Professor Matt McCormick has a very interesting post on his website entitled, "The Illusion of Moral Guidance from God."

He writes:

When we consider only our own cases and our own experience, it is easy to make serious errors in our reasoning that we wouldn’t if we approached the question from a more objective, empirical, and scientific perspective. I take a large dose of vitamin C when I feel a cold coming on, the cold seems to be abated, so I conclude that megadoses of vitamin C prevent colds. The anecdotal evidence and reasoning isn’t born out by the facts, however. Large doses of vitamin C have not been found in large scale, double-blind, control group clinical trials.

Something similar is going on when the Christian who is contemplating some serious moral question, studies his Bible, listens intently to his preacher, prays, and feels that he has received moral guidance from God. Some peculiarities of the human psyche are contributing to a powerful illusion that then feeds into the widespread view that it’s not possible to be moral without God, or that God provides the pious with moral guidance.

So, do people really get divine (and therefore objective) guidance regarding moral issues from the Bible? Many Christians will claim that one can only know what is moral and immoral if one has an objective standard such as the Bible to go by.

What are the problems with this view?

1. People have a tendency to attribute their own moral view to God.

McCormick cites a study entitled: "Believers' estimates of God's beliefs are more egocentric than estimates of other people's beliefs," Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, U.S.A., [2009 Dec 22] 106(51):21533-8.

People often reason egocentrically about others' beliefs, using their own beliefs as an inductive guide. Correlational, experimental, and neuroimaging evidence suggests that people may be even more egocentric when reasoning about a religious agent's beliefs (e.g., God). In both nationally representative and more local samples, people's own beliefs on important social and ethical issues were consistently correlated more strongly with estimates of God's beliefs than with estimates of other people's beliefs (Studies 1-4). Manipulating people's beliefs similarly influenced estimates of God's beliefs but did not as consistently influence estimates of other people's beliefs (Studies 5 and 6). A final neuroimaging study demonstrated a clear convergence in neural activity when reasoning about one's own beliefs and God's beliefs, but clear divergences when reasoning about another person's beliefs (Study 7). In particular, reasoning about God's beliefs activated areas associated with self-referential thinking more so than did reasoning about another person's beliefs. Believers commonly use inferences about God's beliefs as a moral compass, but that compass appears especially dependent on one's own existing beliefs.

2. When moral views change, people will say that the new view has been God's view all along.

For example, it is obvious that man's views on the morality of slavery has changed. Virtually all men today would say that it is wrong. 300 years ago, that was not the case and some of the most vocal defenders of slavery were Christians who maintained that their beliefs were based on the Word of God.

McCormick writes:

And the studies also show that when our moral views drift, as they inevitably do, we tend to ignore or not notice the shift in our views, and we cover it up by thinking that God’s view was the same all along. People can and do justify anything they like with any text they like. And when the text is as convoluted, diverse, ambiguous, metaphorical, and large as the Bible, the opportunites are endless.

. . . Putting God into the process adds a level of false certainty, and ignores its fluid, constructive nature. . . It would be insane to think that the moral principles that served a nomadic band of Iron Age peasants will serve us equally well . . . .

3. People can find moral justification for many different and even contradictory actions from the Bible.

The persistent myth that the Bible is the inerrant, consistent word of God excacerbates this cluster of mistakes. The text is a hopeless mashup of contradictions that have been documented over and over again. Then if we were to carefully record what the fundamentalist Christian avows as God’s moral judgment on one day, and then compare that to what he insists is God’s perfect moral judgment about the same topic a year or 5 years later, the further inconsistencies of this faulty textual exegetical process would be even more apparent. Going to God and the Bible for moral guidance the way many people do it piles contradictions, fallacies, and mistakes on top of fleeting and rationalized errors. And yet the Christian insists through this convoluted mish mash that God is the only true source of morality. This mistake is thinking of the moral query as a matter of just checking the divine rule book as if there are discrete, unambiguous, and consistent answers there, and then refusing to acknowledge that the process that produced the answer was highly subjective, variable, and contingent.

4. Once an action is thought to be sanctioned or prohibited by God, then that allows God's people to enforce it ruthlessly.

And what’s even more dangerous is the tendency to attribute these shifting moral decisions to an almighty, supernatural being who will enforce them, whatever they happen to be that day, with eternal damnation.

This ruthless enforcement of "God's law" has been seen countless times through history, for example, Calvin's burning of Servetus at the stake for blasphemy, the Reformer's killing of Anabaptists for heresy, the killing of witches in Salem, MA, the persecution and killing of homosexuals, and so on. When one thinks he is enforcing a divine command, no amount of violence is too great.

How does "ethical intuitionism" fit into this? I think that people have a few basic moral instincts with which they are born. These intuitions came as a result of evolution. Individual survival has always been the strongest instinct. This instinct also extended to protecting one's family and then ultimately one's tribe. While a person would not kill one of his own family or his own tribe except under the most extreme circumstance, he would kill or rob people from another tribe without feeling bad. People from other tribes were seen to be inferior or even sub-human. In order to prevent anyone from feeling guilty about actions that ran counter to his instincts, tribal leaders began to ascribe certain moral commands as coming from a higher authority, such as their tribal god. It is God who had ordered them to do things which their instincts rejected. As man evolved, he has realized that really all humans are part of the same tribe and thus all should be treated equally. There are still vestiges of the old beliefs present in less morally developed persons as evidenced by racism, etc. An even later development has been the realization that we humans share a commonality with the animals and therefore the animals should not be treated inhumanely.

As man's moral sensibilities have evolved, some have continued to maintain that these moral notions must come from God and must be founded on an objective standard. Thus, they have convinced themselves that the Bible supports whatever the current moral ideas are. In reality, as McCormick's article shows, man's moral senses change and evolve but man prefers not to acknowledge that they are evolving and thus attempts to anchor them to an "objective" standard.

A Defense of Ethical Intuitionism--Part Five

This is the fifth in a series on Ethical Intuitionism (part one, part two, part three, and part four). In my view, moral intuitions are like axioms in mathematics. They are "givens," self-evident facts that serve as a starting point from which other statements are logically derived. One has to start somewhere. One must have certain assumptions that are deemed to be right morally before one can build a superstructure of moral theory. These "starting points," or "axioms," or "intuitions," are apparently something that we born with. We don't have to be taught them, we don't have to defend them, they are universally recognized as true or right. What does this particular theory of morals have to do with my de-conversion from evangelical Christianity? See this post for the answer.

In the last post on this topic, I mentioned the work of anthropologists Richard Shweder and Alan Fiske who surveyed people across the globe and came up with a set of moral intuitions that virtually all peoples agreed on. University of Virginia psychologist Jonathan Haidt grouped these intuitions into five categories:

1.Care for others, protecting them from harm. (He also referred to this dimension as Harm.)

2.Fairness, Justice, treating others equally.

3.Loyalty to your group, family, nation. (He also referred to this dimension as Ingroup.)

4.Respect for tradition and legitimate authority. (He also referred to this dimension as Authority.)

5.Purity, avoiding disgusting things, foods, actions.

He evaluated people's responses to the following hypotheticals:

Stick a pin into your palm.
Stick a pin into the palm of a child you don’t know. (Harm.)

Accept a wide-screen TV from a friend who received it at no charge because of a computer error.
Accept a wide-screen TV from a friend who received it from a thief who had stolen it from a wealthy family. (Fairness.)

Say something bad about your nation (which you don’t believe) on a talk-radio show in your nation.
Say something bad about your nation (which you don’t believe) on a talk-radio show in a foreign nation. (Community.)

Slap a friend in the face, with his permission, as part of a comedy skit.
Slap your minister in the face, with his permission, as part of a comedy skit. (Authority.)

Attend a performance-art piece in which the actors act like idiots for 30 minutes, including flubbing simple problems and falling down on stage.
Attend a performance-art piece in which the actors act like animals for 30 minutes, including crawling around naked and urinating on stage. (Purity.)

In each pair, the second action feels far more repugnant. Most of the moral illusions we have visited come from an unwarranted intrusion of one of the moral spheres into our judgments. A violation of community led people to frown on using an old flag to clean a bathroom. Violations of purity repelled the people who judged the morality of consensual incest and prevented the moral vegetarians and nonsmokers from tolerating the slightest trace of a vile contaminant. At the other end of the scale, displays of extreme purity lead people to venerate religious leaders who dress in white and affect an aura of chastity and asceticism (Pinker, "The Moral Instinct").

According to Pinker, these intuitions are a result of evolutionary development. He writes:

The five spheres are good candidates for a periodic table of the moral sense not only because they are ubiquitous but also because they appear to have deep evolutionary roots. The impulse to avoid harm. . . can also be found in rhesus monkeys, who go hungry rather than pull a chain that delivers food to them and a shock to another monkey. Respect for authority is clearly related to the pecking orders of dominance and appeasement that are widespread in the animal kingdom. The purity-defilement contrast taps the emotion of disgust that is triggered by potential disease vectors like bodily effluvia, decaying flesh and unconventional forms of meat, and by risky sexual practices like incest.

The other two moralized spheres match up with the classic examples of how altruism can evolve that were worked out by sociobiologists in the 1960s and 1970s and made famous by Richard Dawkins in his book “The Selfish Gene.” Fairness is very close to what scientists call reciprocal altruism, where a willingness to be nice to others can evolve as long as the favor helps the recipient more than it costs the giver and the recipient returns the favor when fortunes reverse. The analysis makes it sound as if reciprocal altruism comes out of a robotlike calculation, but in fact Robert Trivers, the biologist who devised the theory, argued that it is implemented in the brain as a suite of moral emotions. Sympathy prompts a person to offer the first favor, particularly to someone in need for whom it would go the furthest. Anger protects a person against cheaters who accept a favor without reciprocating, by impelling him to punish the ingrate or sever the relationship. Gratitude impels a beneficiary to reward those who helped him in the past. Guilt prompts a cheater in danger of being found out to repair the relationship by redressing the misdeed and advertising that he will behave better in the future (consistent with Mencken’s definition of conscience as “the inner voice which warns us that someone might be looking”). Many experiments on who helps whom, who likes whom, who punishes whom and who feels guilty about what have confirmed these predictions.

Community, the very different emotion that prompts people to share and sacrifice without an expectation of payback, may be rooted in nepotistic altruism, the empathy and solidarity we feel toward our relatives (and which evolved because any gene that pushed an organism to aid a relative would have helped copies of itself sitting inside that relative). In humans, of course, communal feelings can be lavished on nonrelatives as well. Sometimes it pays people (in an evolutionary sense) to love their companions because their interests are yoked, like spouses with common children, in-laws with common relatives, friends with common tastes or allies with common enemies. And sometimes it doesn’t pay them at all, but their kinship-detectors have been tricked into treating their groupmates as if they were relatives by tactics like kinship metaphors (blood brothers, fraternities, the fatherland), origin myths, communal meals and other bonding rituals.

While these five moral intuitions seem to be a result of evolution, how they are applied practically depends on the sociology of the group. Pinker explains:

All this brings us to a theory of how the moral sense can be universal and variable at the same time. The five moral spheres are universal, a legacy of evolution. But how they are ranked in importance, and which is brought in to moralize which area of social life — sex, government, commerce, religion, diet and so on — depends on the culture. Many of the flabbergasting practices in faraway places become more intelligible when you recognize that the same moralizing impulse that Western elites channel toward violations of harm and fairness (our moral obsessions) is channeled elsewhere to violations in the other spheres. Think of the Japanese fear of nonconformity (community), the holy ablutions and dietary restrictions of Hindus and Orthodox Jews (purity), the outrage at insulting the Prophet among Muslims (authority). In the West, we believe that in business and government, fairness should trump community and try to root out nepotism and cronyism. In other parts of the world this is incomprehensible — what heartless creep would favor a perfect stranger over his own brother?

The ranking and placement of moral spheres also divides the cultures of liberals and conservatives in the United States. Many bones of contention, like homosexuality, atheism and one-parent families from the right, or racial imbalances, sweatshops and executive pay from the left, reflect different weightings of the spheres. In a large Web survey, Haidt found that liberals put a lopsided moral weight on harm and fairness while playing down group loyalty, authority and purity. Conservatives instead place a moderately high weight on all five. It’s not surprising that each side thinks it is driven by lofty ethical values and that the other side is base and unprincipled.

Reassigning an activity to a different sphere, or taking it out of the moral spheres altogether, isn’t easy. People think that a behavior belongs in its sphere as a matter of sacred necessity and that the very act of questioning an assignment is a moral outrage. The psychologist Philip Tetlock has shown that the mentality of taboo — a conviction that some thoughts are sinful to think — is not just a superstition of Polynesians but a mind-set that can easily be triggered in college-educated Americans. Just ask them to think about applying the sphere of reciprocity to relationships customarily governed by community or authority. When Tetlock asked subjects for their opinions on whether adoption agencies should place children with the couples willing to pay the most, whether people should have the right to sell their organs and whether they should be able to buy their way out of jury duty, the subjects not only disagreed but felt personally insulted and were outraged that anyone would raise the question.

This series to be continued.

A Defense of Ethical Intuitionism--Part Four

This is the fourth in a series on Ethical Intuitionism (part one, part two, and part three). In my view, moral intuitions are like axioms in mathematics. They are "givens," self-evident facts that serve as a starting point from which other statements are logically derived. One has to start somewhere. One must have certain assumptions that are deemed to be right morally before one can build a superstructure of moral theory. These "starting points," or "axioms," or "intuitions," are apparently something that we born with. We don't have to be taught them, we don't have to defend them, they are universally recognized as true or right. What does this particular theory of morals have to do with my de-conversion from evangelical Christianity? See this post for the answer.

While Christians would argue that these moral intuitions were implanted by God, I think that there is growing evidence that they are a result of evolution. Steven Pinker, Professor of Psychology at Harvard University and formerly a Professor in the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences at MIT, argues for this in a New York Times article entitled, "The Moral Instinct" (Jan. 13, 2008).

1. We are born with a "moral grammar."

Pinker refers to Noam Chomsky, professor emeritus of linguistics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who argues that:

we are born with a “universal grammar” that forces us to analyze speech in terms of its grammatical structure, with no conscious awareness of the rules in play. By analogy, we are born with a universal moral grammar that forces us to analyze human action in terms of its moral structure, with just as little awareness.

2. This "moral grammar" is present in young children.

Research shows that these instincts are present in very young children (see the work of Paul Bloomof The Infant Cognition Center at Yale University). According to Pinker:

The stirrings of morality emerge early in childhood. Toddlers spontaneously offer toys and help to others and try to comfort people they see in distress. And according to the psychologists Elliot Turiel and Judith Smetana, preschoolers have an inkling of the difference between societal conventions and moral principles. Four-year-olds say that it is not O.K. to wear pajamas to school (a convention) and also not O.K. to hit a little girl for no reason (a moral principle). But when asked whether these actions would be O.K. if the teacher allowed them, most of the children said that wearing pajamas would now be fine but that hitting a little girl would still not be.

3. There is a neurological basis for this "moral grammar."

The instinctive knowledge of basic right and wrong seems to be a result of how a normal human brain functions. Pinker writes:

Though no one has identified genes for morality, there is circumstantial evidence they exist. The character traits called “conscientiousness” and “agreeableness” are far more correlated in identical twins separated at birth (who share their genes but not their environment) than in adoptive siblings raised together (who share their environment but not their genes). People given diagnoses of “antisocial personality disorder” or “psychopathy” show signs of morality blindness from the time they are children. They bully younger children, torture animals, habitually lie and seem incapable of empathy or remorse, often despite normal family backgrounds. Some of these children grow up into the monsters who bilk elderly people out of their savings, rape a succession of women or shoot convenience-store clerks lying on the floor during a robbery.

Though psychopathy probably comes from a genetic predisposition, a milder version can be caused by damage to frontal regions of the brain. The neuroscientists Hanna and Antonio Damasio and their colleagues found that some children who sustain severe injuries to their frontal lobes can grow up into callous and irresponsible adults, despite normal intelligence. They lie, steal, ignore punishment, endanger their own children and can’t think through even the simplest moral dilemmas, like what two people should do if they disagreed on which TV channel to watch or whether a man ought to steal a drug to save his dying wife. The moral sense, then, may be rooted in the design of the normal human brain.

4. Anthropologists have found common moral instincts in virtually all people.

When anthropologists like Richard Shweder and Alan Fiske survey moral concerns across the globe, they find that a few themes keep popping up from amid the diversity. People everywhere, at least in some circumstances and with certain other folks in mind, think it’s bad to harm others and good to help them. They have a sense of fairness: that one should reciprocate favors, reward benefactors and punish cheaters. They value loyalty to a group, sharing and solidarity among its members and conformity to its norms. They believe that it is right to defer to legitimate authorities and to respect people with high status. And they exalt purity, cleanliness and sanctity while loathing defilement, contamination and carnality.

In the next post in this series, I will examine these common moral instincts of mankind more thoroughly.

A Defense of Ethical Intuitionism--Part Three

This is the third in a series on Ethical Intuitionism (part one and part two). In my view, moral intuitions are like axioms in mathematics. They are "givens," self-evident facts that serve as a starting point from which other statements are logically derived. One has to start somewhere. One must have certain assumptions that are deemed to be right morally before one can build a superstructure of moral theory. These "starting points," or "axioms," or "intuitions," are apparently something that we born with. We don't have to be taught them, we don't have to defend them, they are universally recognized as true or right. Where do these "intuitions" come from? That is a hard question. Christians would say they come from God. He implanted them in us when he created us in his image.  Others would argue that these intuitions have become part of our brains through evolution. In that sense, they are something like instincts.

I came across a very interesting article in the New York Times "The Moral Instinct" (Jan. 13, 2008), by Steven Pinker , a Professor of Psychology at Harvard University and formerly a Professor in the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences at MIT.

Pinker discusses research which seems to show that our moral instincts or intuitions are a result of evolution. He writes:

Today, a new field is using illusions to unmask a sixth sense, the moral sense. Moral intuitions are being drawn out of people in the lab, on Web sites and in brain scanners, and are being explained with tools from game theory, neuroscience and evolutionary biology.

. . . The human moral sense turns out to be an organ of considerable complexity, with quirks that reflect its evolutionary history and its neurobiological foundations.

1. Moral intuitions are different than moral opinions.

The starting point for appreciating that there is a distinctive part of our psychology for morality is seeing how moral judgments differ from other kinds of opinions we have on how people ought to behave. Moralization is a psychological state that can be turned on and off like a switch, and when it is on, a distinctive mind-set commandeers our thinking. This is the mind-set that makes us deem actions immoral (“killing is wrong”), rather than merely disagreeable (“I hate brussels sprouts”), unfashionable (“bell-bottoms are out”) or imprudent (“don’t scratch mosquito bites”).

2. Moral intuitions are felt to be universally true.

The first hallmark of moralization is that the rules it invokes are felt to be universal. Prohibitions of rape and murder, for example, are felt not to be matters of local custom but to be universally and objectively warranted. One can easily say, “I don’t like brussels sprouts, but I don’t care if you eat them,” but no one would say, “I don’t like killing, but I don’t care if you murder someone.”

3. Violations of moral intuitions are felt to be worthy of punishment.

The other hallmark is that people feel that those who commit immoral acts deserve to be punished. Not only is it allowable to inflict pain on a person who has broken a moral rule; it is wrong not to, to “let them get away with it.” People are thus untroubled in inviting divine retribution or the power of the state to harm other people they deem immoral. Bertrand Russell wrote, “The infliction of cruelty with a good conscience is a delight to moralists — that is why they invented hell.”

4. Moral intuitions sometimes cannot be explained rationally.

Pinker cites an example from psychologist Jonathan Haidt:

Julie is traveling in France on summer vacation from college with her brother Mark. One night they decide that it would be interesting and fun if they tried making love. Julie was already taking birth-control pills, but Mark uses a condom, too, just to be safe. They both enjoy the sex but decide not to do it again. They keep the night as a special secret, which makes them feel closer to each other. What do you think about that — was it O.K. for them to make love?

Most people will have a moral intuition that a brother and sister engaging in sex is wrong. But why?

In the case of Julie and Mark, people raise the possibility of children with birth defects, but they are reminded that the couple were diligent about contraception. They suggest that the siblings will be emotionally hurt, but the story makes it clear that they weren’t. They submit that the act would offend the community, but then recall that it was kept a secret. Eventually many people admit, “I don’t know, I can’t explain it, I just know it’s wrong.”

5. Apparently our brain has evolved to find certain behaviors instinctively wrong.

The idea that the moral sense is an innate part of human nature is not far-fetched. A list of human universals collected by the anthropologist Donald E. Brown includes many moral concepts and emotions, including a distinction between right and wrong; empathy; fairness; admiration of generosity; rights and obligations; proscription of murder, rape and other forms of violence; redress of wrongs; sanctions for wrongs against the community; shame; and taboos. . . . The moral sense, then, may be rooted in the design of the normal human brain.

It could be that because incestuous relationships produce genetically inferior children, and are therefore counter-productive to human evolution, our brains have evolved to find that behavior instinctively wrong. Other moral instincts would also be derived from whether the actions under consideration were productive or counter-productive to human evolution.

We will examine this issue further in a future post.

A Defense of Ethical Intuitionism--Part Two

In part one of a defense of Ethical Intuitionism, I discussed what an intuition is, what some examples of intuitionism are, and whether intuitions are just derived from antecedent moral beliefs. I gave two ethical questions from Michael Huemer's book, Ethical Intuitionism:

Example 1: A doctor in a hospital has five patients who need organ transplants; otherwise, they will die. They all need different organs. He also has one healthy patient, in for a routine checkup, who happens to be compatible with the five. Should the doctor kill the healthy patient and distribute his organs to the other five?

Example 2: A runaway trolley is heading for a fork in the track. If it takes the left fork, it will collide with and kill five people; if it takes the right fork, it will collide with and kill one person. None of the people can be moved out of the way in time. There is a switch that determines which fork the trolley takes. It is presently set to send the trolley to the left. You can flip the switch, sending the trolley to the right instead. Should you flip the switch (p. 103)?

I think most people would instinctively answer "no" to the first question and "yes" to the second. Why is that, since answering "yes" to both questions would end up saving five lives while sacrificing one? Moral philosophers who hold a utilitarian approach to ethics would be inclined to answer "yes" to question 1 even though they admit it seems counter-intuitive. It could be that in the case of question 2, it is inevitable that someone(s) is going to die and that it is better for one to die than five is intuitive. Things might change if the five people on the other track are all adults and the one on the other track is a child. It might also change if one knew the one person and loved that person but the five on the other track were strangers. However, I think in that case a person's instinct is to save his loved one. Many factors could come into play but the point is that whatever decision that is made is made in an instant and is not based on moral reflection. As Huemer says: The point is that no moral theory held prior to considering cases such as those above is likely to afford us an explanation for why the sacrifice should be found unacceptable in example 1 but acceptable in example 2 (p. 103).

1. Are some moral intuitions stronger than others?

Yes, for example, let's change the scenario in example two. On one side of the track is five people and on the other side is no one. Should you flip the switch? I think 100% of people would say "yes." Why? Because to save human life is instinctive. As Huemer writes:

Not all intuitions are equal--some are more credible than others. As the above remarks suggest, one reason for this is that some intuitions are simply stronger, or more clearly seem true, than others. Another reason is that some intuitions are more widely shared than others; other things being equal, an intuition that many disagree with is more likely to be an error than is an intuition that nearly everyone shares. Another reason is that some intuitions have simpler contents than others, and are therefore less prone to error. And there are various reasons why some kinds of intuitions may be more open to bias than others. These facts point to the conclusion that intuitions should not be embraced uncritically, and that conflicting intuitions should be weighed against each other taking into account our best judgments as to their relative levels of reliability (p. 104).

2. Are moral intuitions objective?

It depends on how one defines "objective." If one defines it as, having reality independent of the mind, then, I don't think anything can be known to be truly objective. Since each individual is a subject, and must subjectively experience the physical world, and since the only way we as subjects comprehend anything we experience in the world is via our minds, then how can any knowledge be other than subjective?

However, by sharing their comparable experiences intersubjectively, individuals may gain an increasingly accurate understanding of the world. In this way, many different subjective experiences can come together to form intersubjective ones that are less likely to be prone to individual bias or gaps in knowledge ("Intersubjective verifiability", Wikipedia). Intersubjectivity is a term used in philosophy, psychology and sociology to describe a condition somewhere between subjectivity and objectivity, one in which a phenomenon is personally experienced (subjectively) but by more than one subject ("Intersubjectivity," Wikipedia). If virtually everyone agrees in their interpretation of an experience, then there is a high probability that the meaning given to the phenomenon is "objective." That is why, for example, several eyewitnesses who all agree are considered more reliable than one eyewitness. However, the "objectivity " suggested would still be theoretical, since no one can "get outside" of their own mind.

Thus, if virtually everyone agrees that it is wrong to do a particular thing, one can consider it to be virtually an objective moral fact that it is wrong to do the particular thing. Therefore, in that sense of "objective," one can consider moral intuitions to be "objective."

In the next post on this series I will discuss misunderstandings of ethical intuitionism.

Update on the President of Liberty Baptist Seminary's Case

Last month I reported on the strange case of Ergun Caner, the President of Liberty Baptist Seminary (founded by the late Jerry Falwell) in Lynchburg, Virginia. He was being investigated by the Board of the Seminary for making false statements about his background. It seems that after 9/11, he became a popular speaker on the Bible conference circuit claiming to have been a Muslim until his late teenage years and having trained as a Islamic Jihadist in Europe where he lived. It turns out that his Muslim father and Christian mother divorced when he was 4 years old and she moved him and his brother with her to the USA. He was definitely "stretching the truth," apparently to make his "testimony" more interesting and to sell books and get speaking engagements. Several people on the internet began researching his story and found the falsehoods. It turns out he has also lied about having debated certain Muslim scholars.

Well, on Friday the 25th, the Seminary board announced their findings:

After a thorough and exhaustive review of Dr. Ergun Caner’s public statements, a committee consisting of four members of Liberty University’s Board of Trustees has concluded that Dr. Caner has made factual statements that are self-contradictory.

However, the committee found no evidence to suggest that Dr. Caner was not a Muslim who converted to Christianity as a teenager, but, instead, found discrepancies related to matters such as dates, names and places of residence.

Dr. Caner has cooperated with the board committee and has apologized for the discrepancies and misstatements that led to this review.

Dr. Caner’s current contractual term as Dean of Liberty Baptist Theological Seminary expires on June, 30, 2010.

Dr. Caner will no longer serve as Dean of Liberty Baptist Theological Seminary.

The university has offered, and Dr. Caner has accepted, an employment contract for the 2010-2011 academic year. Dr. Caner will remain on the faculty of Liberty Baptist Theological Seminary as a professor. ("LU won’t renew Caner’s contract as dean of seminary").

Here is the report done by the local TV station in Lynchburg:



Longtime critic of Caner, James White, himself a Christian apologist, was not satisfied with the statement issued by Liberty University. On his blog on Friday, he wrote this response:

1) When was the issue ever whether Caner had been a Muslim? How many times does this canard have to be put down?

2) Factual statements that are self-contradictory. Is that the same as a "lie"? If I said to my kids (when they were young), "Did you lie to me?" and they responded, "No, we gave factual statements that are self-contradictory," would that save them from discipline? It seems the folks at SBC Today think so, since they say Caner has now been exonerated.

Seriously, I can't make that kind of thing up. In other breaking news, Nixon was not a crook, and "is" actually has 48 meanings, just as Bill Clinton said.

3) "Discrepancies about dates, names and places of residence" is the PC way of saying, "Ergun Caner lied to everyone and their second cousin about being a jihadi from Turkey, and we all bought it, hook, line, and sinker, until...THOSE people pointed out the obvious."

4) If Dr. Caner has cooperated, then I call upon the Board of Liberty University to release the entirety of its findings, not a short statement, including providing answers to the questions I sent to them in my open letter of May, 2010.

5) Dr. Caner has apologized for exactly what? For lying about his past, making up an entire persona that catapulted him to national prominence and gave him the position he enjoys, claiming to have done debates in at least eleven countries and 35 states against Muslim clerics and others? Is that what he apologized for? These questions must be answered, and Liberty cannot afford to be silent.

6) All Liberty teaching contracts end on June 30th. This is merely a non-renewal of the contract, replacing it with a lesser contract to teach. But to teach what? Apologetics? Upon what basis? Will he honestly tell his students that he has lied about his experiential expertise in that field for nearly a decade? Or is Liberty hoping their students do not surf the net very often?

Aside from the "we really have no touch with reality" responses of Ergun Caner's supporters, we are still left with a non-statement here. I have said for months: Liberty must answer the real questions, the questions about integrity (not just Caner's, but now, their own) openly, fully, and honestly. A seven sentence statement is not enough. Answers must be given. Honesty and Christian integrity demands it, and the ministry of the gospel to Muslims demands it as well.

It is interesting to see how church and school officials will often "spin" the facts in order to minimize the PR damage to their institution. I can understand this with regard to secular organizations but how can a Christian insitution which claims to be concerned about the truth justify not being completly open and honest? We saw the same thing with the rape case in the NH church and frankly these two examples are merely the tip of the iceberg. If you care to see more of this kind of cover-up, go to Jeri Massi's blog or Christa Brown's website.

A Defense of Ethical Intuitionism--Part One

I have identified myself as holding to the moral theory known as "Ethical Intuitionism." Michael Huemer, in his book Ethical Intuitionism, recognizes three components to this theory:

(i) there are objective moral truths; (ii) we know some of these truths through a kind of immediate, intellectual awareness, or “intuition”; and (iii) our knowledge of moral truths gives us reasons for action independent of our desires.

I have explained in a prior post how that my belief in ethical intuitionism relates to my de-conversion. Essentially, I see the God of the Bible violating a number of ethical principles. If the Bible is accurate in its reports, then the God of the Bible is an unethical being. He is not holy and righteous and he is not worthy of worship. I actually don't think such a God really exists. I think he is the invention of the imagination of ancient peoples. However, if one wants to retain evangelical Christianity, one has to explain how the actions of the God reported in the Bible are ethical inspite of our intuitions to the contrary.

1. What is an intuition?

Huemer writes:

Reasoning sometimes changes how things seem to us. But there is also a way things seem to us prior to reasoning; otherwise, reasoning could not get started. The way things seem prior to reasoning we may call an 'initial appearance'. An initial, intellectual appearance is an 'intuition'. . . . An ethical intuition is an intuition whose content is an evaluative proposition (p. 101).

2. What are some examples of ethical intuitions?

[1] Enjoyment is better than suffering.

[2] If A is better than B and B is better than C, then A is better than C.

[3] It is unjust to punish a person for a crime he did not commit.

[4] Courage, benevolence, and honesty are virtues.

[5] If a person has a right to do something, then no person has a right to forcibly prevent him from doing that thing (p. 102).

Huemer explains:

Prior to entertaining arguments for or against them, each of these propositions seems true. In each case, the appearance is intellectual; you do not perceive that these things are the case with your eyes, ears, etc. And they are evaluative. So the relevant mental states are ethical intuitions (p. 102).

3. What are examples of ethical claims that are not intuitive?

[1] The United States should not have gone to war in Iraq in 2003.

[2] We should privatize Social Security.

[3] Abortion is wrong (p. 102).

Huemer states: Though these propositions seem true to some, the relevant appearances do not count as 'intuitions' because they depend on other beliefs (p. 102).

4. Aren't ethical intuitions just dervied from our antecedent moral beliefs?

A more sophisticated worry is that what we think of as intuitions may be products of antecedently existing beliefs, perhaps via subconscious inferences. Perhaps 'Enjoyment is better than suffering' only seems true to me because I already believe it, or believe things from which it follows (p. 103).

Huemer gives two reasons for rejecting the idea that ethical intuitions are based on antecedent moral beliefs:

First, the view that intuitions are or are caused by beliefs fails to explain the origin of our moral beliefs. Undoubtedly some moral beliefs are accounted for by inference from other moral beliefs. But since no moral belief can be derived from wholly non-moral premises [Hume's Guillotine], we must start with some moral beliefs that are not inferred from any other beliefs. Where do these starting moral beliefs come from? Do we just adopt them entirely arbitrarily? No; this is not the phenomenology of moral belief. We adopt fundamental moral beliefs because they seem right to us; we don't select them randomly.

Second, moral intuitions are not in general caused by antecedent moral beliefs, since moral intuitions often either conflict with our antecedently held moral theories, or are simply unexplained by them. Here are two famous hypothetical examples from the ethics literature:

Example 1: A doctor in a hospital has five patients who need organ transplants; otherwise, they will die. They all need different organs. He also has one healthy patient, in for a routine checkup, who happens to be compatible with the five. Should the doctor kill the healthy patient and distribute his organs to the other five?

Example 2: A runaway trolley is heading for a fork in the track. If it takes the left fork, it will collide with and kill five people; if it takes the right fork, it will collide with and kill one person. None of the people can be moved out of the way in time. There is a switch that determines which fork the trolley takes. It is presently set to send the trolley to the left. You can flip the switch, sending the trolley to the right instead. Should you flip the switch (p. 103)?

What does your intuition tell you is the correct action in each case? Remember that your intuition is your initial "gut reaction" before reflection. Does your view of what is the correct action change upon further reflection?

We will examine this in more detail in a future post.

Ethical Intuitionism--The Intuition that it is Wrong to Kill

In the comments section of several posts I have identified myself as holding to a form of "ethical intuitionism." Michael Huemer, in his book, Ethical Intuitionism sees three points in the theory:

(i) there are objective moral truths; (ii) we know some of these truths through a kind of immediate, intellectual awareness, or “intuition”; and (iii) our knowledge of moral truths gives us reasons for action independent of our desires.

I don't intend to defend the theory in this post in terms of analytical arguments but rather to illustrate the truth of the theory from the practical cases of soldiers who have difficulty killing.

S.L.A. Marshall (1900 – 1977) was a chief U.S. Army combat historian during World War II and the Korean War. He wrote:

It is, therefore, reasonable to believe that the average and healthy individual--the man who can endure the mental and physical stresses of combat--still has such an inner and usually unrealized resistance to killing a fellow man that he will not of his own volition take life if it is possible to turn away from the responsibility. Though it is improbable that he may ever analyze his own feelings so searchingly as to know what is stopping his own hand, his hand is nonetheless stopped At the vital point, he becomes a conscientious objector, unknowing (Men Against Fire: The Problem of Battle Command, 1947, p. 79).

Contrary to depictions in most movies many soldiers have difficulty actually killing another human being and when they do kill a person, they often feel guilty. I think this illustrates the truth of ethical intuitionism. Even though one may be able to defend rationally that the killing was justified, one may still feel intuitively that it was wrong.

I think that most men will not kill (apart from the instinct of self-defense) unless they feel that a higher authority has authorized it, whether that authority be their country or their god. They need something to justify in their minds going against what their intuition tells them. Men are especially haunted by killing innocents or non-combatants.

The following documentary is powerful. I highly suggest you take the 25 minutes to watch it. I personally have several family members who have been in Iraq and Afghanistan and who are suffering some of the pain that is discussed in this film.

By the way, I am not interested in discussing the politics of the war. There are other forums for that. I am interested in the moral aspects and how individual soldiers deal with violating their intuition that its wrong to kill another human being.

The film is entitled: Soldiers of Conscience and I am posting only part one as it is the part that is most relevant to my discussion of "ethical intuitionism."

Are the Killing of Innocents in the OT just a concern for Moderns?

Recently, I did a 12 part series on the Canaanite genocides. Evangelicals have tried every way imaginable to attempt to defend the wholesale slaughter of nations including women, children, and even babies.  One of the arguments presented was that this is only a concern to we modern Westerners. It may seem to violate our moral sensibilities but our sense of morality is adapted to our culture and would not apply to ancient peoples. In an article entitled, After Inerrancy: Evangelicals and the Bible in a Postmodern Age, Part 2 by Kenton Sparks, mention is made of Gregory of Nyssa (335-395 CE ) and his discussion of the execution of the firstborn children in Egypt by Yahweh. The church Father wrote:

The Egyptian [Pharaoh] is unjust, and instead of him, his punishment falls upon his newborn child, who on account of his infant age is unable to discern what is good and what is not good … If such a one now pays the penalty of his father’s evil, where is justice? Where is piety? Where is holiness? Where is Ezekiel, who cries … “The son should not suffer for the sin of the father?” How can history so contradict reason?

Sparks adds:

Gregory concluded that, ethically speaking, the Passover story simply could not pass as literal history … it was an allegory about sin, that directed us to quickly destroy evil before it grew too troublesome for us. Now my point is not whether Gregory handled the difficulty as we would, for it seems very doubtful to me, and perhaps to most of my readers, that the author of Exodus intended an allegory. But Gregory’s method aside, his 4th century comment shows that the ethical problems in Scripture are not the result of modern imagination run amok.

Sparks, Professor of Biblical Studies at Eastern University and author of God's Word in Human Words: An Evangelical Appropriation of Critical Biblical Scholarship, sees the problems facing the evangelical view of the Bible. He writes:

The factual contradictions within Scripture or between Scripture and extrabiblical sources cited in my previous blog are not, in my view, the most serious difficulties that Christians face in the Bible. More troublesome are those cases where a biblical text espouses ethical values that not only contradict other biblical texts but strike us as down-right sinister or evil. Consider this example:

The fact is that there are contradictory moral codes in the Bible. Thus, those who argue that the Bible presents the only "objective" standard for morality need to specify which one of these codes they believe is the true one. Is it the one presented in the slaughter of the Egyptian firstborn and the Canaanite and Amalekite genocides or is it the one presented by Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount?

The Good Book--The Objective Moral Code for Humanity

Here is a song for all those who think that the Bible presents us with the only true objective moral code.






Tim Minchin (1975--) is an Australian comedian, actor, musician, and skeptic. He is best known for his musical comedy. He went to the Christ Church Grammar School in Perth, Australia.

HT: Ex-Christian.net

Evangelicals Attempt to Defend Slavery in 18th and 19th Century America--Part Four

Two of the original faculty members of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, founded in 1859 in Greenville, SC (now located in Louisville, KY), were John Albert Broadus (1827–1895) on the left  and James Petigru Boyce (1827–1888) on the right. Broadus was an outstanding preacher (Spurgeon called him "the greatest living preacher") and NT scholar. His Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew and his textbook for homiletics, On the Preparation and Delivery of Sermons are both still widely used in evangelical colleges and seminaries. Boyce was a Systematic Theologian and he served as the first President of Southern Seminary. He had studied under Charles Hodge at Princeton and was a strong proponent of Calvinism. Boyce is probably best remembered today for his textbook, Abstract of Systematic Theology, published one year before he died and encapsulating a lifetime of theological studies. (It is available online here). Studies on the lives of both men have recently been published:  James Petigru Boyce: A Southern Baptist Statesman  (2009) by Tom Nettles and John A. Broadus: A Living Legacy  (2008) ed. David Dockery. They are still very highly thought of in conservative Southern Baptist circles.

As Southern men with means, they both owned slaves. Boyce called himself ultra pro-slavery, whereas Broadus seemed to be more of a reluctant slaveholder. Broadus was, in this respect, much like that great Southern General Robert E. Lee, who though he had slaves longed for the day when he did not (Bound to Be Friends: Slavery and Friendship in the Lives and Thoughts of James P. Boyce and John A. Broadus). While loyal to the South and ultimately supportive of the War, they did not favor secession. However, once the South seceeded, they both actively supported the Confederate  troops as chaplains.

Boyce thought slavery was being removed by God as a punishment on America for neglecting the slaves marital and religious rights. He said that God had allowed slavery as long as he did in America to show us how great we might have been had we treated the slaves properly.  He wrote to his brother-in-law, H.A. Tupper:

I believe I see in all this the end of slavery. I believe we are cutting its throat, curtailing its domain. And I have been, and am, an ultra pro-slavery man. Yet I bow to what God will do. I feel that our sins as to this institution have cursed us, - that the Negroes have not been cared for in their marital and religious relations as they should be; and I fear God is going to sweep it away, after having left it thus long to show us how great we might be, were we to act as we ought in this matter. (John A. Broadus, “Memoirs of James Pettigru Boyce,” in Selected Works of John A. Broadus [2001] 4:185).

Broadus, as already mentioned, was a reluctant slaveholder, and not eager to defend the practice; nevertheless, as was customary in his day, he felt the negro race to be a "lower grade of humanity." He stated:

We must not forget that the Negroes differ widely among themselves, having come from different races in Africa, and having had very different relations to the white people while held in slavery, many of them are greatly superior to others in character, but the great mass of them belong to a very low grade of humanity. We have to deal with them as best we can, while a large number of other white people stand off at a distance and scold us. Not a few of our fellow-citizens at the north feel and act very nobly about the matter; but the number is sadly great who do nothing and seem to care nothing but to find fault (Quoted from: “A Sermon on Lynch, Law, and Raping: Preached by Rev. E.K. Love, D.D. at 1st African Baptist Church, Savannah, Ga., of which he is pastor, November 5th, 1893.” [Augusta: Georgia Baptist Print, 1894], 11).

So, here again,we find Evangelical Christians defending slavery, even as it was practiced in the antebellum South. Granted, they would like to have eliminated some of the abuses, and Broadus especially felt that it was wrong to prohibit slaves to marry and to attend religious services; but the fact still remains that they did not see anything unbiblical about the essence of slavery. These men believed the Bible was the Word of God and on that basis they defended the practice of slavery.

Evangelicals Attempt to Defend Slavery in 18th and 19th Century America--Part Three

This is part three in a series on attempts by Evangelical Christians in the 18thand 19th centuries to defend the practice of slavery in the United States. In the first post, I showed that the evangelist who led the Great Awakening in the American colonies, George Whitefield, was a slaveholder and a biblical defender of its practice. In the second post, I showed that Charles Hodge, the great theologian of Old Princeton, also believed slavery, as practiced in his lifetime, was biblical. Today, I turn to one of the great Baptist leaders of the 19th century, Richard Furman.

In 1822, Richard Furman (1755-1825), Pastor of the First Baptist Church of Charleston, South Carolina, and the President of the State Baptist Convention of South Carolina, wrote a letter to the governor of South Carolina, The Honorable John L. Wilson. Furman entitled the letter, "EXPOSITION of The Views of the Baptists, RELATIVE TO THE COLOURED POPULATION In the United States IN A COMMUNICATION To the Governor of South-Carolina Charleston, 24th December, 1822." Furman was, arguably, the preeminent Baptist leader of his time. He was the president of the first Baptist convention in America, the Trienniel Convention (from which both the Northern Baptist Convention, today known as the American Baptist Convention, and the Southern Baptist Convention originated). Furman University in Greenville, SC was named after him.

His letter to the governor begins:

His Excellency Gov. JOHN L. WILSON,

. . . because certain writers on politics, morals and religion, and some of them highly respectable, have advanced positions, and inculcated sentiments, very unfriendly to the principle and practice of holding slaves; and by some these sentiments have been advanced among us, tending in their nature, directly to disturb the domestic peace of the State, to produce insubordination and rebellion among the slaves, and to infringe the rights of our citizens; and indirectly, to deprive the slaves of religious privileges, by awakening in the minds of their masters a fear, that acquaintance with the Scriptures, and the enjoyment of these privileges would naturally produce the aforementioned effects; because the sentiments in opposition to the holding of slaves have been attributed, by their advocates, to the Holy Scriptures, and to the genius of Christianity. These sentiments, the Convention, on whose behalf I address your Excellency, cannot think just, or well-founded: for the right of holding slaves is clearly established by the Holy Scriptures, both by precept and example (emphasis added). In the Old Testament, the Israelites were directed to purchase their bond-men and bond-maids of the Heathen nations; except they were of the Canaanites, for these were to be destroyed. And it is declared, that the persons purchased were to be their "bond-men forever;" and an "inheritance for them and their children." They were not to go out free in the year of jubilee, as the Hebrews, who had been purchased, were: the line being clearly drawn between them.*[See Leviticus XXV. 44, 45, 46] In example, they are presented to our view as existing in the families of the Hebrews as servants, or slaves, born in the house, or bought with money: so that the children born of slaves are here considered slaves as well as their parents. And to this well known state of things, as to its reason and order, as well as to special privileges, St. Paul appears to refer, when he says, "But I was free born."

Furman summarizes the NT's teaching regarding slaves:

The masters are not required to emancipate their slaves; but to give them the things that are just and equal, forbearing threatening; and to remember, they also have a master in Heaven. The "servants under the yoke" (bond-servants or slaves) mentioned by Paul to Timothy, as having "believing masters," are not authorized by him to demand of them emancipation, or to employ violent means to obtain it; but are directed to "account their masters worthy of all honour," and "not to despise them, because they were brethren" in religion; "but the rather to do them service, because they were faithful and beloved partakers of the Christian benefit." Similar directions are given by him in other places, and by other Apostles. And it gives great weight to the argument, that in this place, Paul follows his directions concerning servants with a charge to Timothy, as an Evangelist, to teach and exhort men to observe this doctrine.

Had the holding of slaves been a moral evil, it cannot be supposed, that the inspired Apostles, who feared not the faces of men, and were ready to lay down their lives in the cause of their God, would have tolerated it, for a moment, in the Christian Church. If they had done so on a principle of accommodation, in cases where the masters remained heathen, to avoid offences and civil commotion; yet, surely, where both master and servant were Christian, as in the case before us, they would have enforced the law of Christ, and required, that the master should liberate his slave in the first instance. But, instead of this, they let the relationship remain untouched, as being lawful and right, and insist on the relative duties.

Furman then argues that the African slaves had voluntarily consented to being slaves:

In proving this subject justifiable by Scriptural authority, its morality is also proved; for the Divine Law never sanctions immoral actions. . . . by which it will appear, that the Africans brought to America were, slaves, by their own consent (empahsis added), before they came from their own country, or fell into the hands of white men. Their law of nations, or general usage, having, by common consent the force of law, justified them, while carrying on their petty wars, in killing their prisoners or reducing them to slavery; consequently, in selling them, and these ends they appear to have proposed to themselves; the nation, therefore, or individual, which was overcome, reduced to slavery, and sold would have done the same by the enemy, had victory declared on their, or his side. Consequently, the man made slave in this manner, might be said to be made so by his own consent, and by the indulgence of barbarous principles.

Furman next argues that the slaves in America are better off than they were in Africa:

. . .when they have come into the hands of humane masters here, has been greatly bettered by the change; if it is, ordinarily, really better, as many assert, than that of thousands of the poorer classes in countries reputed civilized and free; and, if, in addition to all other considerations, the translation from their native country to this has been the means of their mental and religious improvement, and so of obtaining salvation, as many of themselves have joyfully and thankfully confessed--then may the just and humane master, who rules his slaves and provides for them, according to Christian principles, rest satisfied, that he is not, in holding them, chargeable with moral evil, nor with acting, in this respect, contrary to the genius of Christianity.

Society, and the slaves themselves, are better off under the current arrangement, according to Furman:

It is, therefore, firmly believed, that general emancipation to the Negroes in this country, would not, in present circumstances, be for their own happiness, as a body; while it would be extremely injurious to the community at large in various ways: And, if so, then it is not required even by benevolence.

Furman says there might come a day when the African slaves can be granted their freedom:

Should, however, a time arrive, when the Africans in our country might be found qualified to enjoy freedom; and, when they might obtain it in a manner consistent with the interest and peace of the community at large, the Convention would be happy in seeing them free: And so they would, in seeing the state of the poor, the ignorant and the oppressed of every description, and of every country meliorated; so that the reputed free might be free indeed, and happy. But there seems to be just reason to conclude that a considerable part of the human race, whether they bear openly the character of slaves or are reputed freemen, will continue in such circumstances, with mere shades of variation, while the world continues.

Furman summarizes his conclusions for the governor:

. . .the following conclusions:--That the holding of slaves is justifiable by the doctrine and example contained in Holy writ; and is; therefore consistent with Christian uprightness, both in sentiment and conduct. That all things considered, the Citizens of America have in general obtained the African slaves, which they possess, on principles, which can be justified; though much cruelty has indeed been exercised towards them by many, who have been concerned in the slave-trade, and by others who have held them here, as slaves in their service; for which the authors of this cruelty are accountable. That slavery, when tempered with humanity and justice, is a state of tolerable happiness; equal, if not superior, to that which many poor enjoy in countries reputed free. That a master has a scriptural right to govern his slaves so as to keep it in subjection; to demand and receive from them a reasonable service; and to correct them for the neglect of duty, for their vices and transgressions; but that to impose on them unreasonable, rigorous services, or to inflict on them cruel punishment, he has neither a scriptural nor a moral right. At the same time it must be remembered, that, while he is receiving from them their uniform and best services, he is required by the Divine Law, to afford them protection, and such necessaries and conveniencies of life as are proper to their condition as servants; so far as he is enabled by their services to afford them these comforts, on just and rational principles. That it is the positive duty of servants to reverence their master, to be obedient, industrious, faithful to him, and careful of his interests; and without being so, they can neither be the faithful servants of God, nor be held as regular members of the Christian Church. That as claims to freedom as a right, when that right is forfeited, or has been lost, in such a manner as has been represented, would be unjust; and as all attempts to obtain it by violence and fraud would be wicked; so all representations made to them by others, on such censurable principles, or in a manner tending to make them discontented; and finally, to produce such unhappy effects and consequences, as been before noticed, cannot be friendly to them (as they certainly are not to the community at large,) nor consistent with righteousness: Nor can the conduct be justified, however in some it may be palliated by pleading benevolence in intention, as the motive. That masters having the disposal of the persons, time and labour of their servants, and being the heads of families, are bound, on principles of moral and religious duty, to give these servants religious instruction; or at least, to afford them opportunities, under proper regulations to obtain it:

Sir, your very obedient and humble servant,
RICHARD FURMAN.
President of the Baptist State Convention.

So, it is indisputable that Evangelical Christian leaders, leaders who were highly educated in the Scriptures and highly respected in the country, defended the justice and morality of antebellum Slavery in the United States. They did so on the basis of the teaching of "God's Holy Word." This same Word that we are told today by Christian apologists provides the only "objective morality."

President of Liberty Baptist Seminary (founded by Jerry Falwell) Under Investigation

Ergun Caner is President of the Liberty Baptist Theological Seminary in Lynchburg, Virginia. It is part of Liberty University, the fundamentalist school founded by the late Jerry Falwell.

On May 5th, the Seminary announced on its website that Liberty University Provost Dr. Ron Godwin is forming a committee to investigate a series of accusations against Ergun Caner, president of Liberty Baptist Theological Seminary. The Evangelical magazine, Christianity Today,  has run a couple of articles on the situation (see here and here).

In an article published May 17th, the local Lynchburg newspaper, The News and Advance, stated:

When Liberty University begins the investigation it announced last week into the background of Ergun Caner, president of its seminary, the panel doing the work could explore several questions.

Where did Caner grow up — in Ohio or in Turkey?

When did he come to the United States — as a teenager as he has said, or at age 4 as his parents’ divorce documents indicate?

Did Caner have a nominal Muslim upbringing, or was he raised in Islamic jihad, “trained to do that which was done on 11 September” as he told an audience in Jacksonville, Fla., in November 2001?

Did he formally debate scholars of other faiths, including Islam, as his online biography once claimed?

Is Caner’s middle name Mehmet, as it’s shown on the cover of books he’s written — or is it Michael, as it’s listed on the concealed-weapons permit he got last year in Lynchburg?

It appears that shortly after 9/11, Caner decided to embellish his Muslim background. The News and Advance article continues:

Ergun Caner gave vivid accounts of his Muslim upbringing to church audiences in Florida and Texas shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

“I was raised as a Sunni Muslim” in Europe, Caner said at First Baptist Church in Jacksonville, Fla., according to a recording of his talk there on Nov. 20, 2001.

“I was the son of the muezzin, the one who does the call to prayer at the top of the minaret,” Caner said, describing himself as being similar to a “preacher’s kid.”

“May I submit to you, until I was 15 years old I was in the Islamic youth jihad. And so until I came to America; until I found Jesus Christ as Lord, I was trained to do that which was done on 11 September. As were thousands of youth,” Caner said on the recording.

That same month, at Prestonwood Baptist Church in Plano, Texas, Caner gave this description of his Islamic background:

“And coming to America I had lived under the misconception that you hated me, as a Muslim,” Caner said in remarks that were rebroadcast by Focus on the Family in April.

“That really affected a lot of what I did in my younger years,” Caner told the Texas audience.

“I’m not really proud of the fact that I am part of, was part of, Islamic Jihad. I’m not proud of the fact that it actually was my people who were involved in what took place, the horror,” he said, referring to the Sept. 11 attacks.

The committee's report is due on June 30th. It will be interesting to see the results. I hope, for his own sake, that Caner doesn't take the line that Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal recently took when he was caught lying about serving in Vietnam. Blumenthal said he "misspoke." As Sen. John Cornyn of  Texas said, Blumenthal made matters even worse by downplaying his lies as a "mistake":  "The only worse thing, I think, is then coming on and saying, 'Oh, I misspoke,' after you've been caught red-handed," Cornyn said on NBC's "Meet the Press." "It's as if he shot himself in one foot, then reloaded and shot himself in the other."

Just as Blumenthal knew whether or not he served in Vietnam, that is not the kind of thing you would make a mistake about, Caner knows whether or not he was reared as a Muslim in Europe.