Expertise and Moral/Epistemic Culpability
Alonzo Fyfe, the Atheist Ethicist, wrote an excellent article on Epistemic Negligence in Teaching Religion. I have just one quibble.
The article over-emphasizes the epistemic crimes of experts while ignoring those committed by ordinary people (i.e. parents). Fyfe points out that in some cases, non-experts do not deserve the same moral condemnation for making mistakes as experts who ought to know better. For example,
[A] mother is not to be blamed for taking thalidomide (which causes birth defects in children)… unless it is reasonable for her to believe that it is harmful. However, the doctor who prescribed it for her is under a different standard. As a physician, as somebody who has decided to accept the responsibility of informing others how to care for his or her heath, the physician has an obligation to know things which an average patient may be ignorant of.
So, some mistakes made by non-experts are excusable on grounds of ignorance. Fyfe goes on to denounce experts, such as Michael Behe, who make thoroughly inexcusable mistakes while attempting to defend religion.
However, many of the ordinary, non-expert parents who teach religion to their children are also morally culpable. In particular, parents who teach that faith is a virtue are guilty of a high epistemic crime. To deliberately choose to believe something — anything — on faith alone is to positively embrace madness. Based on faith, one can accept literally any proposition, no matter how absurd, insane, or evil it may be. You don’t need a degree in philosophy to see what a terrible idea faith is. Anyone who bothers to think about this at all should be able to figure out that faith is the first step on a road towards insanity.
And yet every day we hear people proudly and publicly proclaim their faith. This needs to fucking stop.
I think we atheists spend too much time skirmishing with the relatively sophisticated apologists for religion. Behe deserves every bit of the moral condemnation he gets from Fyfe, but at least Behe recognizes the need to justify his belief in god. The real culprits are the people who promote faith. Teaching a child that faith is virtuous cripples their mind in a way that no one incorrect belief can.
If any theists are still reading this, I have the following plea: If you teach religion to your children, make a point of explaining why the things you teach are true. Encourage them to ask questions. (If the things you believe about god aren’t completely bogus, you ought to be able to field the questions of a small child.) Teach your children to think. Don’t teach them faith.
Actually, I would argue that an individual who is surrounded by people who insist that faith is worthy of merit, where only a few scattered people condemn faith, and where they are taught to relate faith to virtue and an faithlessness with immorality, it would take a truly remarkable person not to embrace faith.
Indeed, psychologists have run tests where an individual is put in a room with others (who the subject believes to be other subjects, but who are in on the experiment), where the fake subjects are taught to pretend that an obvious falsehood is true. They pick the shorter of a set of lines and unanimously agree it is the longest.
With overwhelming, independent testimony that the shorter line is actually the longest, it is far easier for the subject to deny that he sees the three lines correctly than to question so much unanimous testimony to the contrary.
In my essay, I have not denied that teaching religous beliefs to children is a bad thing to do - that it is harmful to a child. I agree with your commandment to teach children to think and to condemn faith. I am saying that we need a much louder chorus before we can reasonably condemn non-philosophers who do not agree.
(Note: The non-philosopher will deny that teaching children faith is not teaching them how to think. Instead, they would argue that teaching children how to think is teaching them to embrace faith and to recognize that some beliefs cannot be gained through reason. Indeed, reason (like the universe) must start somewhere. The foundation for all thinking starts with premises that are self-evident. These foundational premises come from God. Without foundational premises, one cannot even START to think.)
Firstly, let me address the issue of foundational premises. What sort of foundational premises are legitimate is indeed a subtle philosophical question. However, anyone who thinks it is ok to make strong foundational assumptions on controversial issues — such as the existence and nature of god — has embraced a very radical epistemic relativism. Appealing to the necessity of foundational assumptions just turns faith into meta-faith, since this sort of relativist has no basis for claiming that any one set of foundational assumptions is objectively better than any other.
I am a scientist, and, unsurprisingly, I’m no fan of radical epistemic relativism. Of course, it is not very easy to counter the claims of epistemic relativists without some expertise on the subject. So, I suppose I am willing to forgive non-expert theists who justify faith by appealing to epistemic relativism. On the occasions in which I have discussed “faith” with Christians, a fair number of them do indeed take a relativist line.
At the same time, there are many theists who clearly are not relativists. More than a few people admit to holding their beliefs based on faith and simultaneously insist that their beliefs are true (without any relativistic qualifications on “truth”). In fact, that may be a good definition of a fundamentalist.
Pragmatically, I agree that we need a louder chorus condemning faith in the abstract before we can consider trying to pin moral condemnation on individuals who believe that faith is virtuous.
On the question, “What sort of foundational premises are legitimate,” is a question that I would answer by saying, “None of them”. In the field of epistemology, I am a coherentist, which holds that any premise can be questioned, and no premise is foundational.
Yet, it takes a lot of specialized education to even have an intelligent discussion of this issue, and most people simply are not equipped to do so. Their only option is to absorb what seems to be ‘common wisdom’. If that common wisdom is mistaken, it is as difficult to hold an average person accountable as it would be to expect them to question the advice of a doctor.
Your claim that this is radical epistemic relativism begs the question - assuming that there is nothing substantial providing an ultimate justification for these beliefs. The position of those who hold these beliefs is that they are objective facts made available to them by God, and that those who hold different beliefs are mistaken. As you say, they do not support any type of relativism at all. In fact, they despise relativism.
My point is that the whole dispute between these two positions is beyond the capacity of your average grocery store clerk, firefighter, engineer, or grade-school teacher to understand. Condemning them because they have not come to a reasoned conclusion on an issue such as this is nonsense. The only thing they have time to do is to absorb what seems to be the most widely accepted view in their society, and to make as much sense of it as they can given the limited resources at their disposal.
What we need is a culture where such people, when they collect the ‘common wisdom’, hear a chorus that condemns faith as a poor way of knowing, as having a tradition of being wrong more often than right. This means going after the leaders - condemning them and making sure that the public knows to hold them in a bad light. Then, they will absorb a new message.
When this happens, then those who do not - those who act on ‘faith’ in ways harmful to others in a culture that recognizes that a morally responsible person would shun the almost certain failure of faith - can be held morally culpable.
Suppose that proposition p is false, but subject S believes p. Let’s examine the ways in which S might have acquired this false belief.
(1) By Default: S never devoted any serious thought to p; S only believes p because most of the people in S’s community believe p.
(2) Lack of Intellectual Integrity: S investigated p, and discovered that the relevant evidence indicates that p is false; however, S wanted to believe p, and did so in spite of the evidence.
(3) Excusable Error: S conscientiously considered p; however, S came to the wrong conclusion due to excusable factors such as
a. ignorance of relevant evidence
b. insufficient time available to investigate p
Now we ask: Did S come to believe p for epistemically acceptable reasons? (Whether S is morally at fault is a distinct issue, which I’ll come to shortly.)
In case (1) the justification “I believe p because everyone else does” may be a good reason to believe p with low certainty; it is never an acceptable reason to believe p with high certainty.
In (2), S is clearly at fault epistemically.
As for (3), whether S’s error is truly excusable must be determined on a case-by-case basis. In particular, if S has only made a very brief investigation into p, S may be at fault epistemically for believing p with high certainty, even if it would be excusable for S to believe p with some lower certainty. There is a continuum between no investigation at all and a very thorough investigation.
Of course, doing more investigation to obtain better certainly is expensive in terms of time and effort. Consequentially, everyone’s belief-forming practice deviates far from the ideals which we would expect of a subject with unlimited time.
Now to the moral question. If we are faced with a choice where p is relevant, we have three basic options; we can act assuming that p is true, act assuming that p is false, or devote more time to investigating p. Ideally, we should obtain high certainty on p before acting. In real-life situations, it may be morally appropriate to act based on beliefs only held with low certainty.
Let’s address a specific moral question: is it appropriate for S to actively encourage others to believe p? My answer is that it is moral for S to promote p if S is epistemically justified in believing p with high certainty (even if p is false). However, it is immoral for S to promote p if S is epistemically at fault for believing p, or if S only believes p with low certainty. If S is uncertain about p, the correct action is to conduct further investigation before trying to influence the beliefs of other people; if S has spare time to spend promoting p, then S has time to do more than a cursory examination of p.
I contend that most of the people who actively promote religious ideas are not epistemically justified in believing these things with high certainty. Most of them have uncritically adopted prevalent religious beliefs with little or no investigation. The Behe’s of the world are at fault morally, but so are the common preachers and door-knockers who promote religion. And atheists need to engage the common ringleaders as well as the sophisticated ones.
Just to be clear: this is a retreat from my previous position that most theists are morally/epistemically at fault (I was
conflating the two issues) for their beliefs/actions.
I’m not so sure the words FAITH and BELIEF are interchangeable.
Faith simply implies loyalty to people or principles. It seems to me that might be a good thing. Belief is when you think that you know something beyond immediate experience. That seems to be a bad thing…and something most scientists seem particularly guilty of. I prefer solipsism. ;-{)
There seem to be tacit assumptions here that all religions are belief-based, that the point of all religion is belief rather than practice, that all religious sects are theistic, and that all theistic sects have a concept of a God/god that is identical to whatever your own concept is. (Doesn’t “Ineffable” imply “non-conceptual”?).
“All creatures can not express God, for they are not receptive to what God is.
The Ineffable has no name and is the negation of all names and a denial of denials.
God is nothing. No thing.
…
How should one love God? I will tell you.
Love God as God is:
Not-God
Not-Mind
Not-Person
Not-Image
More than this, love God as God is a pure, clear One, separate from all two-ness.” Meister Eckhart
Just to clarify: I’m using “belief” in an entirely non-judgemental sense. By “Alice believes p” I merely mean that Alice thinks p is true; whether Alice has good epistemic grounds for thinking so is a separate question.
I’m using the word “faith” in a way which is synonymous with “blind faith”, i.e. believing something without any justification whatsoever.
I contend that most of the people who actively promote religious ideas are not epistemically justified in believing these things with high certainty. Most of them have uncritically adopted prevalent religious beliefs with little or no investigation. The Behe’s of the world are at fault morally, but so are the common preachers and door-knockers who promote religion. And atheists need to engage the common ringleaders as well as the sophisticated ones.
I am in full agreement with this. In fact, one of the conclusions that I want to stress from my post is the need to for atheists to make more noise. The ringleaders can be engaged morally. Many of the things that they say and do are in violation of their own principles. They lie. They ‘engineer false beliefs’. Every day, they provide new examples of intellectual recklessness, moral irresonsibility, and hypocrisy.
However, for the rank and file, there is a distinction between saying that the teaching of faith is wrong - that faith ought not to be used, and that the rank and file are blameworthy for making this mistake. In the current culture, the mistake is understandable - just like, in 1776, it was understandable that Washington, Jefferson, and Madison never imagined that women should have political rights. Unlike the issue of slavery (which had reached an intermediary stage in 1776), even women did not doubt that only men should vote.
The status of the abolition of faith is like the status of women’s sufferage in 1776. In order for things to change for the better, the advocates of change must make a lot more noise. Until they do, it is at least understandable that whole segments of the population never come to question what their culture simply has a habit of not questioning.
[...] Expertise and Moral/Epistemic Culpability [...]
[...] at Winter’s Haven also agrees that faith is not a virtue. He goes after parents who encourage it: … parents who teach that faith is a virtue are [...]
You are conflating ‘faith’ in the theological sense with the “Douglas Adams Version” of “faith” as ‘unquestioning belief in the absence of evidence’. No mature Christian or Jewish theology requests unthinking unquestioning belief in God without evidence. Indeed, a great deal of Thomistic theology is the use of logic to demonstrate evidence for the existence of God.
In the realm of religion ‘faith’ has its older meaning - trust and loyalty. Sure, there is a presupposition of belief in, but it is a separate issue. Within context, it refers most specifically to the covenants between God and Man that are at the heart of Judeo-Christian religion - ‘faith’ is steadfastness to a partner. Thus, God is said (Deut. 32:4) to be ‘faithful’ toward *Man*, i.e., He will remain steadfast in his part of the covenants. This is the same meaning we use to describe a person being ‘faithful’ within marriage - the person is not violating the covenant of marriage, they are being loyal and steadfast to their partner.
I am not equivocating different meanings of “faith”; I am using the word faith strictly in the “Douglas Adams” sense.
It is very common for Christians to use the word faith in the same way that DA does. I was raised in the Episcopal (Anglican) church, and I can personally attest the word faith was frequently used to encourage belief in God, rather than loyalty to a God whose existence was presupposed. Which isn’t very surprising in light of, say, Romans 4:20, which clearly contrasts faith with unbelief: “They were broken off because of their unbelief, but you stand fast only through faith.”.
I am, however, happy to hear that you reject unquestioning belief and expect evidence. If you have evidence which demonstrates the existence of God, please share it. I admit that my own knowledge of Thomas Aquinas comes second hand from The God Delusion, wherein Dawkins argues (successfully, in my view) against Aquinas’s proofs of God’s existence.
While the error is common in what theologians call ‘the un-and nearly- churched”, i.e., people with no or poor education in theology, it is not the meaning used by, say, the Catholic Church - the classic meaning is preserved.
Also, since there are different words in Greek and Hebrew rendered as ‘fides’, etc. in Latin and, thus, as ‘faith’ in English you can end up with what appears to be disagreement in meaning [key example - Romans v. James] when one author was discussing loyalty and the other belief. Toss in that Catholicism/Orthodoxy and Hasidic/Orthodox Judaism both refer to faith as a virtue that will get you through periods of doubt, and its no wonder (think about this as akin to saying ‘OK, she’s working late; with her boss; three nights a week. Have faith in her!”)
I am a bit surprised that you would think Dawkins had refuted arguments… that you only heard from Dawkins. By those rules, I could prove the luminiferous aether! The “shorter Summa”, or the ‘condensed version’ of St. Thomas’ arguments, is over 400 pages in paperback. Thus, I think a comments entry a bit much. Maybe a piece on my own blog….
Plus we get to stroll down the lane of scientism vs. philosophy, transcendentalism vs. objectivism, etc. Lots of ink, lots of discussion.
I better start tomorrow
After reading the 3 pages in which Dawkins states and refutes Aquinas’s “Five Proofs”, I concluded that Aquinas was a very poor thinker who was not worth any more of my time — certainly not 400 pages of it. But perhaps Dawkins grossly misunderstood what Aquinas wrote; I await your clarification. (Starting a new post would be for the best; we are wandering from the specific topic of this one.)
Very well; I will work on a post and give you a heads up.
Hmm. My wife, Deeper Thought, suggested that I should just forward this link (in its raw form):
http://www.damaris.org/content/content.php?type=5&id=503