"[Rodney] Stark, [author of The Victory of Reason: How Christianity Led to Freedom, Capitalism, and Western Success,] a professor of social sciences at Baylor University, is
absolutely correct in his rare identification that a commitment to
reason was the fundamental cause of the spectacular progress achieved in
the West and nowhere else. But he is profoundly mistaken in ascribing
the basis of that commitment to Christianity." The Objective Standard
Ayn Rand, when asked by Playboy Magazine, "Has no religion, in your estimation, ever offered anything of constructive value to human life?", answered
"Qua religion, no -- in the sense of blind belief, belief
unsupported by, or contrary to, the facts of reality and the conclusions
of reason. Faith, as such, is extremely detrimental to human life: it
is the negation of reason."
In ascribing the victory of reason to that which is inimical to reason is ludicrous. Even Thomas Aquinas, the most rational of Christian theologians, was led to some irrational conclusions as a result of his faith.
Some heroic thinkers have tried to reconcile them. "[John] Locke emphasizes the
reasonableness of faith to such an extent that a religious doctrine’s
irrationality—conflict with itself or with known facts—is a sign that
it is unsound." Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
This alone would seem to indicate that reason wins out where faith is irrational; and where faith is rational, it must be reason, not faith, even when it involves matters traditionally ascribed to religion.
"Knowledge then seems to me to be nothing but the perception of the connexion and agreement, or disagreement and repugnancy of any of our Ideas. In this alone it consists. [Essay IV i 2] " http://www.philosophypages.com/locke/g04…
For some philosophers, "idea" is that which is in the mind as a condition of sensation, or "the given". "Given, The: Whatever is immediately present to the mind before it has been elaborated by inference, interpretation or construction." http://www.ditext.com/runes/g.html
In other words, for those philosophers, if you sense that your hand is touching something, there is the "idea" that something exists which your hand is touching. But whether or not you call that an "idea", I know of no philosopher who doesn't also call it "the given".
Locke meant more than this. Locke meant by "perception" something that is defined in the mind beyond the mere point of the given; it had to be elaborated by inference, interpretation or construction, (induction; deduction; conceptualization).
This is easy to acknowledge when you read his words again: perception is the connection and agreement, or disagreement and repugnancy of any of our Ideas. The mind's acknowledgment of "the given" will neither agree nor disagree with either previous nor future events of what is "given" to us to perceive. But a perception is the acknowledgment of the given; acknowledgment requires a correspondence between "ideas"; ideas must be that which is "elaborated by inference, interpretation or construction", because without those, ideas would remain only as perceptions about which we know nothing except that they exist.
Ayn Rand, a Lockean herself, put it this way: "A “perception” is a group of sensations automatically retained and integrated by the brain of a living organism, which gives it the ability to be aware, not of single stimuli [the given], but of entities, of things....A percept is a group of sensations automatically retained and integrated by the brain of a living organism. It is in the form of percepts that man grasps the evidence of his senses and apprehends reality. When we speak of “direct perception” or “direct awareness,” we mean the perceptual level. Percepts, not sensations, are the given, the self-evident. The knowledge of sensations as components of percepts is not direct, it is acquired by man much later: it is a scientific, conceptual discovery." http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/percep…
Locke, therefore, meant that perceptions were separate from sensations, and as far as "knowledge" of them was concerned, we have that only when we perceive that one idea is connected to another, at which time we also see that it either agrees or disagrees with the others. If it disagrees, it or one or more of the others is "repugnant", or contrary.
Perception is not the simple acknowledgment that we have had a sensation of "the given". An infant is "given" many things at birth, and his mind is in terrible turmoil attempting to determine the nature of his new world. He must determine that "mother is good"; "food is good"; "dirty diapers are bad", etc. But even then, until he gains a language by which to identify these things, they are still nothing more than "the given". He doesn't have the conception of a dirty diaper; he only knows that something happened to him and he doesn't feel good after that, and until he is taken care of.
So for Locke, "perception" is acknowledgment--of one idea or concept either agreeing with or disagreeing with other ideas, whether conceptual or not. An infant without a language can still determine that one thing is contrary to another (such as his mother makes him happy, then she makes him sad or angry, and he must eventually learn how one person can do both.)
So the key to "perception" in the language of Locke is to understand that it means the acknowledgment of at least a pair of "ideas" which will be either in agreement with each other, or "repugnant" to each other.
It is only from the perception of like/unlike ideas that we can come to have "knowledge", because what is not "knowledge" is literally "unacknowledged" and must be greater than "the given".
The first time the word "objective" was apparently used was "1610s, originally in the philosophical sense of 'considered in relation to its object'".
Objective moral truths are in relation to the object, rather than subjective in relation to pragmatic or other types of ends.
The object which such objective truths are in relation to is the standard that makes morality necessary: the life of Man both as species and as individual. This is set according to what Aristotle called "Man qua Man", or to put it another way, what is it about man that makes morals necessary?
It cannot be simply the preservation of the species--Hitler was doing that by preserving what he believed were Aryans. What Aristotle, Aquinas, Wm. of Occam, Averroes, and other rational thinkers could not conceive of didn't become a concrete idea until Jefferson and others like Madison and Patrick Henry and Thomas Paine read the works of Locke and Rousseau.
Locke, along with Rousseau, described a civilization in which government is "by the consent of the governed." This led to the American realization that there was such a thing as "individual sovereignty." This was logical, since to give consent to a government to do for you what is best not to do vigilante style, and what is best for "the general welfare", and what leaves you the most time on your hands for such things as living---to give consent you must first have that which you are giving away.
"Locke's theory of natural rights was, indeed, the theory of natural rights to which the Declaration would refer..."Individual sovereignty was not a peculiar conceit of Thomas Jefferson: It was the common assumption of the day..." http://www.friesian.com/ellis.htm
It is individual sovereignty, until the 18th century only a vague idea in the minds of freethinkers and libertarians, that is the source of the need for moral standards. "Objective truths" are those that correspond to man's nature as the rational animal: he must be given the freedom to utilize that rationality as nature has given it to him.
But more than that, it is that each man must be protected from force and coercion that would prevent him from utilizing that gift of individual sovereignty that nature gave him.
It has been asked often why man considers himself, over other animals, to be "the rational" animal, when he often doesn't act rational, and even commits acts of irrationality.
What we do with our intelligence is not the question. The answer is: Brutes abstract not. (Locke)
Because they cannot abstract, at least with any degree of mnemonics, the naturalist Loren Eiseley said that animals live in an "eternal present" from which they can never escape.
Ayn Rand described it as "range-of-the-moment consciousness", which explains the lack of mnemonic cognition. They can't teach their young what they've learned in a manner which gives the young something to build on. Whatever they learn, it stops rights there, even it is passed on to the entire tribe, like those macaques who learned to wash their food. This action was caught on camera by scientists who had been studying these particular groups of monkees and had never seen them do it until one accidentally dropped his food in the water-------and liked the result. So he continued to do it, and the other monkees mimmicked him and discovered they liked it too.
But that didn't lead to an abstraction. Nothing more was learned than that washing food tasted good. Perhaps in an act of evolution, only the monkees who wash their food will survive someday during a storm of biological pestilence upon their food. But it wasn't because they learned to make anti-biotics.
Man can learn to understand that because he washed his hands and his food, he prevented himself and others from getting sick. That knowledge was an abstraction, and it can be taught to others.
THAT is what makes man intelligent. That he foolishly or criminally uses his intelligence is a different question.
What is "self-interest well understood," the virtue Alexis de Tocqueville found that Americans claimed for themselves?
Tocqueville said, in "Democracy in America", that Americans had mastered the concept of “self interest well understood.” His definition was that we understood that we had to give up a small portion of our personal sovereignty to others in order to get a large portion of what we want. We understood, he said, that we had to think of everybody once in a while instead of just ourselves and when we did that, we would get MOST of what we wanted.
Giving up a small portion of our self-interest is the concept that John Locke, Hobbes, Rousseau and others called "common sovereignty." In the American Constitution, the American ideal was of "individual sovereignty", which the Colonialists abstracted from "common" sovereignty; it was translated back into "common sovereignty" with the phrase "general Welfare," and by the democratic republican form of government.
Individual sovereignty was radically defined by the limitations upon the powers of government concerning the powers of the States, and especially of "the People," which was not a collectivised "people," but another abstraction made of individuals.
"Individual sovereignty was not a peculiar conceit of Thomas Jefferson: It was the common assumption of the day..." Kelley L. Ross, Ph.D. in a review When all of the possible behaviors and acts of men are added up, the "powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, [and which] are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people," give considerable sovereignty to the individual person. http://freeassemblage.blogspot.com/2008/10/free-assemblage-of-metaphysical.html
Tocqueville qualified his endorsement of "self-interest well understood", however, when he makes it clear that he did not understand this "common assumption of the day", saying the pursuit of self-interest for its own sake is simply the best means available to our leaders and educators of encouraging social associations; that it only works when supported by free political institutions, and that it may do little to underpin the virtues of courage and the and what may be characterized as the habitualization of altruistic behavior.
While his conclusions are correct, his premises as stated above didn't get him there. Individualism practiced for its own sake is not for the purpose of discouraging social associations by those who practice it; it is for purpose of encouraging only those one wishes to engage in without lending support to those one opposes. That is the right of someone who owns his own sovereignty, as we all do. To practice it for any other purpose is the practical description of "soft altruism," whereby we go along with things we do not politically approve of because it is easier than fighting it.
Choosing not to fight those cases of "soft altruism" which are most evil and that carry the biggest consequences, allow our educators--*90% left-liberal in public institutions)--and our leaders--(Democrats in the electorate outnumber Republicans 4 to 1)--to encourage and to legislate more and larger shares of collectivist policies and public practices.
"Appeasement is not consideration for the feelings of others, it is consideration for and compliance with the unjust, irrational and evil feelings of others", and "is an attempt to apologize for his intellectual concerns and to escape from the loneliness of a thinker by professing that his thinking is dedicated to some social-altruistic goal." Ayn Rand
If Tocqueville never used the word altruistic, his supporters do. "Tocqueville’s defenders of self-interest argue from its strength, and rather than urge people to deplore and transcend an inclination so powerful, they defend its legitimacy. They hope to turn self-interest against itself by maintaining that one’s own interest is, as a rule, best secured in pursuing a general good. Well understood, self-interest even requires a certain degree of sacrifice." "What Tocqueville Would Say Today"; Harvey C. Mansfield and Delba Winthrop; Hoover Digest
Perhaps Tocqueville was working from the thoughts of Edmund Burke, who wrote in 1790 in "Reflections on the Revolution in France", about "An enlightened self-interest, which, when well understood, they tell us, will identify with an interest more enlarged and publick."
What Obama is unwilling to tell the American public is that his teacher did not take his toys and redistribute them to the other children. The American Founding Fathers wrote in the Constitution about providing for the "common defense" and promoting the "general Welfare." But in no way were they asking us to infer, in order to "promote the general Welfare," (which is politically not the same as "the common good",) that we had to accept the teacher taking our toys if we had too many, in order to prevent us from practicing individualism for its own sake.
Just because some men don't believe in practicing individualism for its own sake, does not mean the they can take it, then break it like loaves and fishes to be shared with others who do not believe it should be practiced by those from whom they took it.
The Free Assemblage of Metaphysical Naturalists is the SM of The Free Assemblage of Metaphysical Naturalists LLC. The Academy of Metaphysical Naturalism TM, The Academy of Metaphysical Naturalism Blogger TM, and Academy of Metaphysical Naturalism Blogger Extra TM are the educational arms of the LLC and are:
The political accommodation of majority opinion is called democracy. The Constitution was established as a federal democratic republic form of government. This is fundamentally different from a democracy: it is removed from the tyranny of populist majority votes that cause injustices, incurred when a simple majority of votes determine the welfare and status of the losing side.
Federal means "A union of states under a central government distinct from the individual governments of the separate states;" [the antonym is "nationalism," where the government is centralized]
Democratic means "Characterized by the principle of political or social equality for all;" [but it cannot mean creating economic equalization, because those from whom capital is taken to be given to others in an attempt to balance the economics scales will be politically violated; those who recieve the alms will learn it can be expected to continue]
Republic means "A state or nation in which the supreme power rests in all the citizens entitled to vote but is exercised by representatives elected, directly or indirectly, by them and who are responsible to them." [definitions found at http://bensguide.gpo.gov/9-12/glossary.html#Republic]
What that definition of republic leaves out is that democraticrepublicanism counters the tyranny found in "democracy by simple majority." Democracy that is direct, that is not filtered through the elected representatives of republicanism, would quickly become a totalitarianism by populism; in other words, which ever side, right or wrong, moral or immoral, had the most votes would determine the course of law. We would become a nation of despots.
This direct democracy is derived from the Greek "popular government" existing in the middle of the 5th-4th century BC, notably Athens. "In this form, there were no defined human rights or legal restraints upon the actions of assembly, making it the first instance of 'illiberal democracy.' An illiberal democracy is a governing system in which although fairly free elections take place, citizens are cut off from real power due to the lack of civil liberties." Wikipediahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy
"Civil liberties" is a misnomer, when "unlaienable liberties" is the literal description. The phrase "civil liberties" as used in the United States has always had the hollow ring for me of describing something other than "human rights." The rest of the world does not use "civil rights." The United Nations adopted the "Universal Declaration of Human Rights," in 1948. http://www.un.org/Overview/rights.html "Human Rights Watch" is the name of an organization dedicated to "defending human rights nationwide." http://www.hrw.org/ "European Convention on Human Rights (4 Nov 1950) and all Protocols" is obviously older than the American concept of "civil rights," as instituted in the attempts to gain for black Americans the unalienable and equal liberties not denied to white Americans.
Of course, the American phrase "civil liberties" absolutely means the same thing as "human rights," but I say it is a misnomer because it deflects the idea that all "human" rights are "individual" rights as determined by "individual sovereignty."
This concept of individual sovereignty is very often challeged by those who don't understand that it is derived from the Enlightenment idea of "common sovereignty."
Barack Obama is taking America down a path modeled by Jimmy Carter, and threatens to be as bad a president as his trailblazer. A unlikely guide unwittingly will help make the case.
On November 3, 1976, the day after Jimmy Carter's election, the New York Times ran a profile explaining his remarkable political victory -- how a one-term governor from Georgia, with no significant record, began planning his presidential campaign in the second year of his one-and-only four-year term, and then went on to secure the nomination from more experienced rivals and defeat a sitting president:
"He believed passionately that if he could talk to enough voters about a "Government as good as the American people," he could win. . . "Words, skillfully used, could play dual roles for him. Liberals came to conceive of him as one of their own. Conservatives responded to him sympathetically as well. Blacks in Harlem voiced their support. Whites in Mississippi got behind him. . . . [T]he theme was always visible: a government as good as the people. It was voiced a hundred different ways, but the impact on his listeners was constant. Americans, he said, were entitled to decent, compassionate, honest, competent government because Americans are decent, compassionate, honest and competent."
In other words: Jimmy Carter won by constantly telling Americans that he was the one they were waiting for.
Carter was certified as the One in the closing benediction at the 1976 Democratic convention, given by no less a figure than the father of Martin Luther King, Jr. Televised on all three networks (the entire visual media at the time), the benediction heralded Jimmy Carter as someone sent to redeem the country: "Surely the Lord sent Jimmy Carter to come on out and bring America back where she belongs."
Thirty-two years later, no one associates Jimmy Carter with Roosevelt or Kennedy, or with "governing." Few people believe the Lord sent him, or that he brought America back where she belonged.
What were we thinking when we elected him? The answer is: some of the same things we are thinking now."
In Talking Philosophy - The Philosophers' Magazine Blog, (posted yesterday, October 21st, by Jeff Mason,) the question is asked about why humans search for the answer to immortality. Mason goes through the various civilization's searches, from the Egyptians to the Greeks to Christians.
But when all is said and done, he answers very little about the spiritual connection men have inside them to what is commonly called our souls. The soul is called into question and denied by scientific naturalists. It does not sound as if Mason fits that bill.
But his final answer is this: "The question of the existence or non-existence of an immortal soul is a practical metaphysical question. We cannot know the answer, but we have to take a stand. How we answer it says something about our ultimate values, our conception of the good life for human beings, the art of living well and the meaning of death."
Where Mason is wrong is that it becomes a metaphysical question only after the epistemological questions have been answered. For the majority of people this is done informally, as they question what and why the soul might be, and how and why it might be transcendental, surviving past physical death, or how it might have been "implanted" at the moment of conception.
People who go through the crisis of questioning their faith in God and the afterlife do have a serious metaphysical problem to contend with. But the problem will not be solved by answering a question of metaphysics. Metaphysics is the answer; the questions and the validations come from epistemology. Theology is epistemology applied to the spiritual side of metaphysics. Theology is supposed to answer those questions and lay a groundwork of metaphysics for the faithful and the believers.
Epistemology is the road traveled by Pilgrim in his "Progress"; metaphysics is the destination at which he arrived. Mason gets a "D" for his answer.
Naturalism in ethics requires the non-initiation of force in order to make individual sovereignty work, and individual sovereignty is the natural state of every distinct human. It is what he/she would have if he/she existed as the only human on the face of the earth.
In order to "secure the Blessing of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity," the American Founders relied on the concept of common sovereignty. " Popular [or common] sovereignty is the notion that no law or rule is legitimate unless it rests directly or indirectly on the consent of the individuals concerned. [John] Locke in his...'Second Treatise of Government,' published 1690, claimed as Hobbes before him, that the social contract was permanent and irrevocable, but the legislative was only empowered to legislate for the public good."
The public good was described in the Constitution as the "general Welfare." But in "securing the Blessings of Liberty upon ourselves and our Posterity," we are forced to recognize that "ourselves" are selves which belong toindividuals.
There is no general, public self except as defined as being those democratic decisions of the people and/or their representatives when such decisions do not violate the individual sovereignty left to each individual after he/she has given up a tiny portion of it to the "popular" sovereignty, from which it must be derived. MORE
CFI Input Helps Craft Legislation
Protecting Scientific Integrity
H.R. 5687, Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA) Amendments of 2008 was passed by both Houses of Congress.http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c101:H.R.5687.ENR Center for Inquiry staff plus a volunteer helped both to craft the language of the bill and shape its substance.
What does that mean to us and what are FACA Amendments? The bill increases the transparency and accountability of Federal advisory committees. It is intended to counter the tendency of the present administration to put on advisory committees—especially on scientific and health-related topics—people who are politically connected rather than qualified by expertise. CFI staff made recommendations to ensure that advisory committee members are impartial and have no material or political interest in the topics on which they are giving expert opinion.
Ideas and language in the FACA Amendments were supplied by Ronald Lindsay, CFI’s chief executive officer; Derek Araujo, executive director, CFI New York City; and Daniel Horowitz, lawyer and CFI volunteer. They jointly authored a CFI position paper titled, “Protecting Scientific Integrity: An Update and Additional Legislative Proposals,” published on CFI’s Web site in October 2007. Lindsay, Araujo, and Horowitz provided language in the sections on political affiliation, committee membership, and establishment of advisory committees. In the conflict of interest section, the bill’s language differs, but the meaning is the same. In addition, each of CFI’s recommendations was adopted in some form.
Note:I will be the featured speaker at the CFI meeting, October 16, 2008, in Portage, Michigan. The topic is "Atheism as a 'Religion' Protected by Courts According to the Establishment Clause" CEC
