Here's something I struggle with: To what extent ought we have the right to believe falsehoods? Similarly, what is the appropriate reaction when individuals believe falsehoods? What does it mean to have the right to believe?
There are many examples of what I'm thinking of. To list a few. Please let me state, these are FALSEHOODS:
Falsehood number 1: The sky is green.
Falsehood number 2: I like peanut butter.
Falsehood number 3: America is a land of equal opportunity.
Falsehood number 4: There is one god, and his name is Xenu.
There are meant as interrogative examples, each of a different type.
The first is factual incorrect, and could be true in other possible worlds.
The second is a statement of my own mind -- one i know personally and immediately, and that you know by my actions.
The third is a meme that I want to be true, but events say otherwise.
The last is a religious belief, which are often separated from empiricism altogether: To what extent do religious beliefs even have truth values?
These are things I think about all the time. If you're reading this and think it is about a discussion I had with you: it isn't.
I'm hopeful for a discussion. I'll be on and off tonight, though I am heading out for a run. If things get crazy, I'll moderate.
What does it mean to have the right to believe? Am I entitled to beliefs that are provably false? What if my actions would hurt myself? What if they would hurt others?
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Let everyone believe what they like. Only actions have consequences.
ReplyDeleteBeliefs are action guiding principles
ReplyDeleteI generally weigh things like:
ReplyDelete1. Does this belief I believe to be false bring them happiness or unhappiness?
2. Does this belief I believe to be false bring others happiness or unhappiness?
3. How certain am I that this belief is false, rather than me being the one who is wrong about it?
4. What's my likelihood of convincing them that this belief is false?
5. If I think there's a decent chance, how much will that process hurt them?
So, utilitarianism I guess?
Lots of things can influence actions. It's still the action that hurts people, though, not the belief. Just like thoughts or desires; there are no wrong desires, only wrong actions.
ReplyDeleteI hate the appeal to a right to belief. People should demand the right to know the truth, not the right to believe whatever. And to correct them infringes on their right to belief.
ReplyDeleteIt "attacks their belief" , like its a pet that they must protect from predatory Facts who wish to destroy it.
"He who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities."
ReplyDeleteTo the very greatest extent. The sky is blue. You may believe it's green. Whether your belief is scientifically true or false does not matter, as individuals may consciously or unconsciously make their own decisions. Much as I'd like to "correct" all the "wrong" people, I surely would not like it if those same folks were allowed to "correct" me. I agree the lack of critical thinking displayed by our nation generally is terrifying and dangerous, yet it is not grounds for me to interfere with a person's free will. Just lead by example, and if you are indeed right, it will shake out over time.
ReplyDeleteJust back from my run. It'll take me a few minutes to read, think, and respond. Longer, as it is time for the only broadcast TV show I actually watch.
ReplyDeleteSo, expect some thoughts from me soon.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distinction_of_blue_and_green_in_various_languages
ReplyDeleteGreen and blue are sometimes the same word, and I read something that says this seems to affect if people are able to perceive green or blue - also having specific words for colors seems to let you perceive them in general. If you look at some older poetry in some languages, people will say 'the sky is green' sometimes.
So I think it's a pretty poor choice for 'absolute true fact'.
Yes, in our language, the sky is definitely more blue than green, but this just means we've assigned certain boxes and said 'yes this is in this box'. I mean, what we generally think of as sky-color-blue tends to be more 'Azure', than 'Blue', but that's just a more specific word that not everyone uses. If you walk up to someone and be like 'the sky is Azure, not Blue', when they don't know what Azure is, they're going to look at you like you're stupid. Same with if you say 'the sky is Blue, not Green', when they aren't familiar with that concept, but they aren't foolish for believing the sky is green, that's just the box they have available to them, and what exactly is the importance of a color being blue rather than green?
To some extent this is quibbling over a minor detail, but that's kinda my point - knowing the absolute truth of something is not that easy, and one should be cautious about assuming one is more right than someone else, particularly when their beliefs/actions aren't hurting others.
As an entirely different argument: I believe looking at the world exactly as it is tends to be super hard for humans to deal with emotionally, so trying to shatter someone's illusions and wrong beliefs is not necessarily a kind or productive thing. If humans could easily deal with the straight up truth, they wouldn't need to shield themselves by clinging to beliefs.
Abram Bussiere Why does this make me think of Hume's missing shade of blue?
ReplyDeleteKyrinn S. Eis , Kevin Farnworth , Cameron Mount and anyone else of the "actions matter, not beliefs" view: Even if we grant that, and that there are other things that are causally-efficacious to action than beliefs, it looks like everyone so far agrees that beliefs are, to some extent or another, causal of action. So, even if it actions that matter and not beliefs, we still get that beliefs matter to some extent.
ReplyDeleteSo, I find the argument that beliefs don't matter because only actions due to be pretty weak -- as beliefs lead to at least some actions.
Abram Bussiere The argument from utilitarianism is an interesting ethical one. Under this view, is it better to believe a happy lie than a sad truth? Is this only true for beliefs that don't cause harm? How do you weigh harm against happiness? Are we more likely to make poor decisions we believe happy lies than sad truths and, if so, what's the right ratio?
ReplyDeleteI know, lots of questions. Sorry. Its kind of what I do when I get like this. And about half of them are leading questions.
And, are our brains are ridiculously limited, to what extent can we figure all this out?
Chad Robb Preach it! Just, do keep it civil. Its pretty easy to not -- believe me, I know -- and you've managed so far. Just a notice that, in this space, for the sake of this conversation, people have the right to believe silly things.
ReplyDeleteCameron Mount And what about beliefs that are likely to lead to harmful actions? That is, if holding a belief leads towards actions that are vile, then is the action a reprehensible one to hold?
ReplyDeleteYou even suggested we can't separate beliefs from actions, because of the sort of creature we are. As such, how is it consistent to separate the standard?
It occurs to me that talking about a specific issue in morality without first talking about what our base beliefs in morality may make things more confusing than it needs to be, thus!
ReplyDeleteGeneral Question for Everyone Involved in this Conversation: What kinda ethical/moral stance do you try to use?
Personally, I try to come at things from some kinda lazy don't-hurt-people-more-than-I-help-them Act Utilitarianism. Plus trying really hard to not allow myself to lie unless it's really important and not for my benefit - the theory being that not lying has practical benefits, and more importantly will stop me from going even against rules of society/morality I don't agree with since being honest about breaking them will get me in trouble, and thus I hopefully won't break rules just to make myself happier.
William Nichols: I weight things emotionally and probability-based, imagining different outcomes for the people involved, and make my decisions based on that, I don't have many active rules I function off of other than the 'don't lie to help yourself' one.
I weigh each case individually and see what I think is most likely to help people more than hurt them, so my answers to that sort of question depend on the situation, but I tend to be fairly skeptical of my ability to change people's minds. So mostly I don't attempt to change people's minds unless doing so seems like it won't harm their mental stability, or I really need them to change their behavior for whatever reason.
You cannot prevent a belief. Belief is a fact of private mind.
ReplyDeleteThe right to practice a religion is not the same as the right to believe. Nobody is asking for the right to think a specific god made the world or that only certain people get to go to their afterlife. Religious rights typically involve controlling non-practitioners. That's the part people fight about.
Cameron Mount An argument of radical ignorance has value. And it sidesteps the dilemma in a delightful way -- that, instead of caring about what people claim to believe, we should care about what they do. That being said, I'm really interested in a particular subset of beliefs that I'll call claimed beliefs. That is, not the unknown states of someone's mind, but the things they claim to believe. For example: I believe the sky is blue.
ReplyDeleteThat belief may or may not be one in my mind (we don't know), but it is one that I espouse. If my espoused beliefs are likely to lead to vile actions, then that's a problem. So, if I also believe that everyone who thinks the sky is green should be imprisoned and act as if it is true, that's a belief that leads to harmful actions.
And sure, its ultimately the actions. But, espoused beliefs lead not only us, but those around us, to modify our actions.
Edit: On the subject of racial beliefs: espousing racial epithets is harmful.
Abram Bussiere If we could all give summary statements on our ethical positions, life would be a lot easier. And this is at that boundary between ethics and epistemology.
ReplyDeleteTo try to answer: I think that if we have no insights into a moral space, then we should follow the rules created as those rules probably lead to a generally good outcome. As we become more familiar with the space, we ought to develop ways to actin a utilitarian fashion. Finally, there's a final stage (I think its final, anyway) of unconscious competence, where we can act morally without thought due to practice. So, its something similar to unconscious incompetence, conscious competence, and finally unconscious competence.
And as that's where I am, perhaps this gives my view on this subject -- and why I find it so hard.
Chad Robb And when those private beliefs lead to negative actions? That's the crux, I think -- beliefs cause actions.
ReplyDeleteI avoid the word belief generally as it carries the implication of belief in things unseen or unverifiable. Particularly in things supernatural or conspiratorial.
ReplyDeleteI prefer trust. I trust sources. I understand terms and processes. I agree with statements. I perceive things as such and such.
We will act in accordance with our awareness which is influenced by unconscious biases.
What is a negative action? Rewinding? Repairing? Unbreaking my heart?
ReplyDeleteChad Robb In the context of this thread at least, a negative action is one that is morally reprehensible.. If you hold that actions can have moral values, at least. Feel free to substitute that with rule violating/UT/virtue ethics of your choice.
ReplyDeleteI don't think epithets are things you espouse. That means to marry. You marry a statement or a system. Epithets are flung. Cast at. You impute them and impose them on others.
ReplyDeleteCameron Mount It is, and it is one of the least actions that can be taken from actually believing something. And if I were more precise and if my thinking were further along when I wrote the post, I might've just said espousing beliefs. So, to what extent do we have the right to espouse the beliefs described in the op?
ReplyDeleteFine, revise espouse with claim. Things that are claimed. That's really
ReplyDeletewhere my quandary is -- making claims that are false.
Chad Robb Let's not get hung up on semantics. Statements that, when made, are harmful to others. To what extent is it OK to state them? To what extent is to OK to claim to believe other falsehoods?
ReplyDeleteIt is immoral to teach the untrue knowingly. I also feel an obligation to present the truth if I suspect peoe might be receptive to it. If I am wrong I must become right.
ReplyDeleteIf they are wrong, well, all we can do is disagree and try to keep them from changing laws.
Cameron Mount ok, we're agreed there. That is, that making statements that are harm is, itself, harmful.
ReplyDeleteSo, if I claim that X, what right do I have to expect not to be told that it is silly? Or that I am wrong?
And, I realize this is a continually moving target, but that's a matter of finding what's scratching. There's a notion that it is somehow bad to call someone out for claiming silly beliefs. I've always claimed quite the opposite -- that stated beliefs must be subject to scrutiny.
So, really, as an additional revision: To what extent do we have the right to believe and espouse silly or evil things, and not expect to be called out?
Chad Robb I had a professor once define teaching a "careful lying" -- which I took to mean that not only is withholding information necessary, but, additionally, if the objective is to improve the virtue of our students, then giving them the right information at the right time to help that is virtuous, even if the information is not true.
ReplyDeleteSo, in this mode, truth is subservient to virtue in the classroom.
Anyone bold enough to say a thing ought to expect anyone in the vicinity who disagrees to say so. If I offend someone I expect them to say so. If someone is wrong I thing the moral imperative is to say so.
ReplyDeleteHowever I don't think someone being offended means I can't say a thing. Maybe I need to consider my audience and timing. Or choose my words. Or perhaps less of a jerk.
If you speak nonsense I have as much right to inform you that it is nonsense.
ReplyDeleteLying is willfully allowing the untrue to be believed. Controlling information for modesty privacy or creation of interest is not lying.
ReplyDeleteInteresting. If someone makes a religious claim, are they opening
ReplyDeletethemselves up to rebuttal?
lso, watching Mad Men. I miiiiight be back later tonight, but I will check tomorrow. Have fun!
ReplyDelete+Cameron Mount exactly. I try to accept as plausible what isn't directly harmful and argue with actions.
ReplyDeleteIn the case of your Christian friends and family, you can agree with love and forgiveness, kindness and service. You may not believe in the supernatural but you can leave such things to their exploration.
Historical truth is not important to everyone. Some people need a mythical truth.
Any claim of fact is subject to scrutiny. Nothing is too sacred to examine.
ReplyDeleteBeliefs can't be policed, because their presence, or absence can be made invisible.
ReplyDeleteRight Teo
ReplyDeleteChad Robb and Teo: If a belief has no chance of affecting actions (is that what you mean by invisible), then it fails some definitions of belief. That is, beliefs that we don't act on aren't really beliefs. They are what I'd call "paper beliefs" -- beliefs we'd claim on paper, but do not act as if are true.
ReplyDeleteTo use sky color as an example, if someone tells me the sky is orange, I'd be surprised and ask what they mean and probably look at them funny. That is, my belief in the color of the sky has direct causal link to my actions.
I'm curious to examples of beliefs that do not -- in fact, cannot -- have a link to our actions.
Someone can believe the sky is orange and behave so typically that you'd never know unless you asked them.
ReplyDeleteYour belief in the color of the sky wouldn't be what's affecting your actions. Your code of conduct is dictated by how you are taught to react to different beliefs. Those are beliefs in, and of themselves.
There'd be no reason to look at each other funny unless some other beliefs guided you to see disagreement as threatening (e.g. People who believe the sky is orange are crazy, violent, devil worshipers, etc.), or pitiable.
The reason we have to ask people what they believe is exactly due to the fact most beliefs are otherwise undetectable. They may affect actions, but since they may not be codified like religion (meaning someone who believes the sky is orange doesn't have a body of rules they have to follow that make their belief obvious like someone who believes in Mormonism).
Beliefs can be singular, or systematic (a collection of interdependent beliefs).
It sounds like you're classification is assuming that all significant beliefs are systematic. I don't know that I agree.
In each of your first three parafrphs, you indicate that it is not belief k, but belief k and p that leads to action A. That still supports that belief k is leasing to action A. That is, it raisers the likelihood of such action and so can be called causal.
ReplyDeleteWater = K, Fire = P, Steam = A
ReplyDeleteYou can have water without fire.
But you can't have steam without water, which was my point
ReplyDeleteIt seems to me that your point is that only steam is equivalent to belief. That doesn't seem accurate. Here, in this metaphor, the forces of nature would be singular beliefs, and the combinations of them would be systems of belief, and the results would simply be those beliefs in practice.
ReplyDeleteA person can believe that they should be making steam, but be confronted by an authority that says that steam is wrong. When that authority is around, they don't combine their fire, ans water, but they still have fire, and water, just like everyone else who agrees with the authority that steam is bad.
When all is clear, no authorities in sight, they put the two together, and make steam.
Whether they have a right to do that becomes a moot point. It's not practically detectable.
Whether people are capable of having water, and fire, but never considering that they might, or should make steam seems like a given, and that the reason they have them is that they value how those things make them feel, even if they never use them to produce steam.
To fall back to your example:
Why do you look at the person funny?
It's not because they said the sky was orange, and you think it's green.
It's because you believe another thing, and that other thing is that everyone should agree with you, that they sky is green, and perhaps most of all, never, ever, not in a million years orange.
That last belief is the most problematic one.
Nobody technically has any rights at all except the right to struggle to survive. All the things we think of as rights are part of the social contract. Most of us are very glad these rights exist as agreed upon, even if the edges of agreement get a little fuzzy sometimes.
ReplyDeleteAs far as beliefs go, in this country our social contract does consider the right to believe whatever we want a right. That said, our social contract also considers beliefs too far out of the mainstream as disordered and/or delusional, and sometimes responds to them with medical intervention or hospitalization depending on the belief. If god speaks to me, I am simply a christian. If tiny birds nobody else can see speak to me, I am schizophrenic.
Additionally, there is no right in any social contract that I know of that prevents the silent or verbal judgement of others. So while people may have the right to believe as they wish, they do not have the right to be free from criticism of their beliefs. Unless that criticism crosses the legal boundary of harassment, their subjective feelings of persecution are totally irrelevant to the discussion of rights.
Some social groups have more unusual tolerances for beliefs than others. Obviously, mainstream religions have their beliefs that have very little basis in scientific reality. I hang out in a crowd where people talk to and/or interact with faeries, spirits, demons, vodoo elders, pagan gods, ancestors, and things in nature like trees or the wind. Many mainstream Americans would find some of these beliefs and behaviors delusional, but within our own community they are pretty normal and we celebrate their diversity.
The problem with differing beliefs comes in when beliefs are formed about the nature of the world. These beliefs usually come from perceptions and experiences, and those are different for everyone. In this sense, the belief about OBJECTIVE REALITY is entirely different, and it makes communication very difficult. That's why some people believe that our system of law and enforcement is basically mostly just, while others believe it is unfair, racist, and corrupt. It's also the reason people from similar cultures and socioeconomic class tend to choose each other as friends and lovers: it's not because we are classist or racist per se, but that we unconsciously feel it is hard for people without the same basic beliefs about the world to understand us. There is an intrinsic communication problem that prevents us from feeling connections with those whose beliefs about the world are too different from our own. We have to consciously strive to understand if we want to connect with people with these different beliefs. Or, we can just write them off as wrong and stupid and not try. A lot of people do that.
All that said, discussing the problems of differing beliefs may not be best framed as a question of rights, but a question of effective communication. IMHO.
I definitely agree that there has yet been proof of natural rights, still, I assume that what is meant is that we should consider if beliefs, harmful, or otherwise, should be accepted no matter what, as an amendment to the social contract.
ReplyDeleteOh, and no. They should not be unconditionally accepted if they produce materially negative results. Believe that orange skyers are demons, but do not burn them, even if it says so in the books written by ancient hearers of your ancient gods.
ReplyDeleteCameron Mount Assuming that there's nothing weird like back in time causation happening: If event C is more likely to happen when event B happens, then event C can be said to be caused by event B.
ReplyDeleteThat is, probabilistic causation, or where event C is caused by both event A and event B, is a meaningful statement. There's been quite a bit of work -- one paper by me -- done on this. Mine in particular dealt with how humans deal with it -- turns out, very well. That is, it looks like we view the world as a place of probabilistic causation, rather than deterministic causation.
T to the E to the O On the contrary, my belief is there there is strong emperical evidence that the sky is not orange. As such, claiming otherwise is making a claim contrary to fact. Making such claims gets me to look at people funny. Not because they should agree with me -- but because I hold that beliefs should be justified. And statements that run contrary to fact will continue to get weird looks from me -- and, usually, an invitation to explain why they think that. There are a few great ways this could happen -- different skies, different mechanisms of the eye, or even something as plebian as sunglasses or a linguistic difference -- which would give evidence that the person is believing with emperical reasons to do so.
ReplyDeleteCinnamon Bunny Welcome to the conversation! And, yeah, the metaphysical position on if rights exist, or are merely a social construct, is one for another day. I appreciate you bringing it up, and it does frame the question in an interesting way. And for this conversation, I am more interested in this small intersection of epistemology and ethics.
ReplyDeleteT to the E to the O If I claim to believe that A, but act as if not A, then to what extent do I actually believe that A? Granted, I believe B stronger than A, and B may make me act as if A is not true. For example, I may believe that blue-sky-believers should be burned, and that no one should be burned for a belief -- in which case I have an inconsistency in my beliefs.
ReplyDeleteI'd be interested in examples where I believe A and act as if not A, have no inconsistencies, and am acting in accordance with my beliefs. Otherwise, then it is only a strange definition of "belief" in which I believe that A.
Some of the most potent beliefs aren't acted upon outwardly.
ReplyDeleteTelling a Nazi that you're not a Jew, but still believing in the god of Abraham, and saying the prayers you were taught as a child in the synagogue to calm your nerves as that guard eyeballs your papers is very much acting out your beliefs, but not in a way that it obvious to anyone, but yourself.
Please use a non-nazi example. For the sake of Godwin.
ReplyDeleteOkay, I feel like I have to qualify what I see as belief, and what is not. If you have proof that the sky is blue then you don't believe it. You know it.
ReplyDeleteIt's like if I tell you I met James Earl Jones. If you were there, there's no need to believe me, because, "Dude. I was there. See, I keep the picture of all three of us doing a manly group hug on the set of Conan in my breast pocket at all times."
If you weren't there, then whether you feel confident that I'm telling the truth, or not becomes a matter of belief.
I'm not calling anyone a Nazi, but point taken : )
ReplyDeleteIf you're Muslim, and are trying to board a plane in the USA...
ReplyDeleteI know you weren't calling anyone a Nazi. I just want to keep the conversation away from Nazis. It makes everything ... icky and sticky.
ReplyDeleteWell, Jews hiding their beliefs from people throughout history is one of the prime examples. Arguably, it's one of the reasons such a thing a Secular Judaism even became a thing.
ReplyDeleteThat can be applied to any religion that has a robust set of rules regarding appropriate dress, diet, and personal conduct though.
Judaism just seemed the most obvious.
So, then, what is the definition of knowledge? That's a whole other can of worms -- especially as common definitions (from, say, Aristotle) is something like "justified true belief". So, in the James Earl Jones case -- you have justification to believe that you met him (memory), while I have a something that I take as less likely to be true (your testimony). Either way, I have justification -- its just a matter of how much justification is necessary to call something justified.
ReplyDelete(As an aside: Gettier problems. Let's do try to avoid those as, again, not what this thread is about.)
So, a person of the Islamic faith gets on a plane. They know they need to pray 5 times a day, and the plane will be in the air for 12 hours. Do they pray during the plane trip? Here, we have differing desires -- the desire to pray, and the desire not ... to put it mildly ... to cause a stir. What to do?
That's an issue of desires and beliefs coming into conflict, sure. And while in this example case, the person may choose not to pray while on the plane, they will pray in other circumstances. That's a key difference, I think -- this is a specific time period in which the person acts as if the belief is not true, because the UT says to do so.
If you up the stakes on the other side -- say, a particular branch of Christianity that requires you to mock pilots whenever possible or else go to hell -- then someone who believes that ought to mock the pilot. The UT says to.
That is, in all these circumstances, the person seems to be weighing the good and evilness that will come on their actions and acting accordingly. We suppress internal beliefs in circumstances where they are inconvenient, sure. That we still act as if they are true in times when it is convenient to do so suggests we either give them a low degree of belief (that's right, degrees of belief!), or assign a low risk of ruin (or other outcome based things) to acting as if they are not true.
Just complicate things, the question of whether it is ethical to hold incorrect beliefs relies on the assumption that there is an objective reality. And that's a thing philosophers and physicists have been arguing about for a long time. Philosophers have yet to reach a consensus, and scientists generally operate on the principle that there is an objective reality that can be understood, but most of them also realize that their tiny lines of inquiry are like the three blind men describing an elephant: One blind man touches the trunk and says "The elephant is long and slender and flexible" and another touches the leg and says "The elephant is tall and wide and solid like a tree" and the last one touches the elephants penis and says "Why is the rain so warm and sticky?" (I'm pretty sure that's how the story goes. Totes.)*
ReplyDeleteSo assuming that there IS an objective reality (because if there isn't, then this entire conversation is pointless anyway), the best we as humans can do is feel up as much of the elephant as possible with the senses we possess. Since we already know we are all going to have different experiences of the elephant, it is ludicrous to suggest that perceiving, describing, and forming different beliefs around that experience is ethically wrong.
Now, if we assume the goal is to get as complete a picture of the elephant as possible, then we could say that it is unethical to intentionally provide information you KNOW to be false about the elephant. We could also say it is unethical to provide information that you know is unverifiable but have decided to believe for some reason. One of those blind guys could be visualizing the elephant in his mind as a pink elephant, but without a visual spectrum analyzer that outputs to a braille terminal, he can't really know with any degree of confidence what color it is. If he starts telling people it is pink, even if he has believed it for so long he is sure it is true, that's still bullshit, and I'd like to say it is ethically wrong too. But. . .
I believe a lot of things that I need to believe to get along ethically in the world that are not necessarily true. I believe that people are basically good**, even though scientific research has no consensus on that. but I simply have a preference for going through the world and expecting positive experiences. I find that expectation makes my life more pleasant and my interactions with others more friendly, compassionate, and accepting. (These are all other things I value but not the topic of this conversation.) Some people prefer to believe that people are generally stupid and shitty, because this helps them avoid constant disappointments that hurt them and allows them to focus on contingency planning for the worst. Neither approach is ethically wrong, they just focus on different aspects of what utility such belief serves.
Taking us back to the elephant: Assuming none of the blind people touching it speak elephant, one belief most of them may have to assume is "The elephant doesn't mind that we are touching it and we are not harming the elephant" OR "The elephant does not have a soul or the ability to have feelings so it does not matter if we are hurting it or not" OR "The elephant may or may not have a soul or feelings, but even if it does the elephant is still vastly inferior to human beings and our needs are more important." These seem like belief choices laden with ethical implications, but since it is literally impossible to know the truth of any of them they both remain ethically neutral. Indeed, this is an ongoing argument in the field of philosophy and the political battleground of animal rights. Research has given us some answers: For instance, we know that animals have at least an analogue to what we call feelings, that they demonstrate some understanding of language and context, that most of them have long term memories, that they can and do feel pain and develop both psychological and physiological responses to it that carry on into the future, that they can demonstrate simple decision making skills, and that some of them can delay gratification if the task is communicated in the way the animals understand. The ongoing line of inquiry seems to be "Are the animals in question human enough for us to give a shit about their rights?" which is an interesting ethical place to start because it relies on the presumption that only humans have rights in the first place. (This distance from human experience is also why most animal rights activists care more about primates and dogs and mice than they do about fruit flies and paramecium)
ReplyDeleteIn any case, then we take all that new information and incorporate it into our belief system. Sometimes this results in some strange beliefs, and cognitive dissonance. For instance, I am a meat eater, but I also believe that animals have spirits and souls and feelings and individual value that is not necessarily inferior to that of humans. In order to believe that it is okay to eat animal meat, I have also concluded that in certain circumstances it's probably just as ethical to eat human meat too. That's a pretty messed up ethical knot there, and I struggle with it. I ask myself questions like "which humans, exactly, is it okay to eat then?" and "if we say that it is only okay to eat human meat grown in a lab that has never had a consciousness, then wouldn't the same be true for animals?" and "To what extent does need factor in? I need to eat, and right now it is simply easy and accepted to eat animals. But what if I were in a situation where the only thing to eat was humans? Would my need justify eating, I dunno, maybe the ones I don't like? The ones not in "my tribe?" The ones who are detrimental to society like criminals? The ones who have just now died through no action of my own?"
I don't have answers to these questions. All I am saying is that once I have decided that animal lives and human lives have equal value these are the kinds of ethical questions my choice of belief forces me to consider IF I am an ethical person who wants my beliefs to be ethical.
And that brings me to my point: A belief in and of itself is not ethical. The pursuit and process of developing beliefs is what is ethical or unethical. I'd argue that any belief that has been carefully considered and is frequently re-examined is an ethical one. It is not necessarily a CORRECT one, and we do not necessarily have a right to insist others agree with it, but it is ethical to the extent that we have examined it.
So by my definition, it is only unexamined beliefs that are unethical, EVEN IF they turn out to be correct.
* I totally watched a video of biologists jacking off an elephant just to make sure this analogy was accurate. I did this because I couldn't remember the other part the last blind man touched. It was the ear. I remember now. Oh well. Now I know how elephants ejaculate. I'm sure that knowledge will come in handy some day.
ReplyDelete** The nature of good and whether it even exists or not is beyond the scope of this course.
William Nichols You know what else makes things icky and sticky? ELEPHANT CUM.
ReplyDeleteCinnamon Bunny That was fantastic, and had a few lols. Which this thread is in lack of.
ReplyDeleteI like this notion of process to beliefs. If there is no possible ethical process to get to a belief, is it necessarily unethical? Or, more to the point, what if I can see of no way to get to it?
Religious belief is, generally, a great example of this. Because there's no public evidence -- that is, if a catholic believes that the wine turns into the blood, there's no evidence they have that can be shared outside the faith group.
So, those beliefs -- the ones that don't have a shareable process of acquisition. Are they always immoral? Or silly?
Or, is the shareability of the process irrelevant to the process?
Not at all. Or not necessarily.
ReplyDeleteFirst, all beliefs have a shareable process of acquisition. I say to you "William, this is the blood of Christ. Let's both drink it and be united in faith with all the other people in the world that also drink it. That's totally how it works!" I have just attempted to share my belief with you. You do not have to accept it. (Alternatively, a person who can see says to the blind man: the elephant is pink!)
You may say "Uh huh. Suuuuuure it is," and take a sip of what is obviously wine and tell me I'm full of shit. In fact, many modern catholics have decided to believe that communion is a metaphor, and have abandoned the belief in actual transubstantiation while continuing to believe in the moral principles that communion reinforces and stands for in the church.
But interviews with people who believe in it often include things like the wine actually tasting different, like blood. Or feelings and visions of deep connection to others on drinking it. Subjective BUT REAL experiences. For full disclosure, despite not being a christian, I STILL have these kinds of feelings when I participate in the ritual of communion in the protestant churches where I am allowed. (Not being catholic, I am not allowed to take communion in a catholic church)
So what if you drank what you were SURE, by all objective measure, was going to be wine, but it actually tasted like blood to you and made you feel less alone somehow? What then might you believe? What if you are in a dark place and you desperately need to feel meaning, comfort, and community?
So then: Do you question this experience? Do you explore possibilities? -Maybe some deep part of your brain realized that getting those needs met was the only way you were going to survive, and it rigged your perceptions to validate the bizarre mysticism of the whole experience. Brains are really tricky that way. They manipulate our perceptions all the damn time, which is another thing that makes us bad observers of anything resembling objective reality, and why we all need to be wary of and question our subjective perceptions and experiences.
- Maybe I am playing a prank on you and have replaced the communion wine with actual blood laced with ecstasy. That would be a scientific explanation for the taste and the experience of well being and belonging.
- Maybe you got distracted and weren't paying attention and your brain filled in the memory with what you were told to expect. That is also another thing our brains do ALL THE TIME.
- Maybe you should try it a few times to see if your perceptions remain the same.
It is only after considering all of these questions that you can ethically decide whether you BELIEVE in transubstantiation or not. Whether you WANT to believe in transubstantiation. Then you must also consider all the ethical questions that that belief implies about responsibility to fellow humans, the nature of god and the infinite, the nature of good and evil, and so on.
Now, what would an unethical belief in transubstantiation look like? Maybe something like this: You are a child and have been watching your catholic parents take communion your entire life. When you are old enough, you also take communion. You are told that it is the blood and body of christ, and you simply take that at face value and assume that it is, because everybody in your community says it is true.
One day, you graduate from high school and leave your small religious community and go to college, where you meet a lot of people who challenge your beliefs. They tell you it's impossible for wine to transform into blood and there is no scientific basis to your mysticism. You stubbornly insist they are wrong, and cannot experience it because they are sinners without faith. You graduate from college and raise your children the same way.
How could that story go differently? What if you went to college and, upon encountering challenges to your belief about transubstantiation, you said "Wow, really? Other people don't believe or experience this? Why do I? What does this mean to me? Why is it important? What DO I believe about the principles of scientific inquiry and the nature of the universe?"
ReplyDeleteThere are many ways to answer those questions that still allow you to ethically believe in transubstantiation, but the point is that you have asked them and explored them. Indeed this is how religious beliefs deepen over time, and why most priests who have been through seminary are fascinating to talk to and well schooled in philosophy too. They have faith, sure, but they will also freely admit that faith is a choice they make to give meaning to existence, and that it is a choice everyone has to make on their own. (I have several friends who have been through seminary and are priests. I've had this conversation multiple times.)
Much like my need to believe that people are basically good, Christians and catholics often have a need to believe that they are not alone in the world, that life has purpose, that the universe is benevolent and cares. As for communion, they need to believe that there is something that ties them all together as a common family of humanity, and for them, that thing is the blood of Christ. Deciding to believe these things is no more or less ethical on it's face than deciding to believe in the principles of law and social convention to provide purpose, meaning, and human connection and responsibility to each other. At the end of the day all of these things are made up because we need them to create the kind of world that we want: One where things are not totally shitty and where we as individuals matter. If we as individuals do not matter, then why does it matter what we do? Whether we live or die? How we treat others?
This is the basis of ethics in the first place: finding reasons that existence, thoughts, consciousness, and behaviors matter at all.
Cinnamon Bunny So -- we need to believe the little lies -- like tooth faries and santa clause -- so we can believe the big lies -- like truth, justice, and mercy?
ReplyDeleteTangent: It is my personal belief that all religions are just complex methods of brain hacking, ways to access the incredible and frankly miraculous power of the unconscious parts of the human mind that cannot be accessed by the conscious, "rational", methods of science. The power of ritual and prayer is scientifically valid, but the abilities of the human mind are still mostly unknown. Myopic people with dissociative identity disorder (mutiple personalities) can have alters with perfect vision that cannot wear the main personality's glasses. Testable, confirmed multiple times, perfect vision. HOW? BRAIN, HOW YOU DO THE THING?
ReplyDeleteIn any case, choosing to incorporate some method of spirituality and ritual and prayer into your life is a proven and tested method for accessing the unconscious parts of your brain and using those superpowers. It's still science, more or less, but you can't just make the amazing things happen without using the tools of religion. Belief is one of those tools, so you may choose to believe something that probably isn't strictly objectively true just so you can access the things believing that unlocks in your unconscious so you can use them. Beliefs are also tools.
Beliefs as capability enhancers is interesting. It takes beliefs away from things that we want to be true, and pushes them towards things we want to be useful.
ReplyDeleteI doubt religion is the only possible way to get to these superpowers, but it may be the oldest and best used. But, that goes to a belief of mine: Science can figure shit out.
With the example of "William, this is the blood of Christ. Let's both drink it and be united in faith with all the other people in the world that also drink it. That's totally how it works!" -- you've told me the belief, but you've not given me access to the process of believing.
That is, just telling me that this thing is true and that other people believe it doesn't show me how to believe it, nor really say why I should. Belief revision by popular revision doesn't seem reasonable.
On that note: Belief revision is hard. Holding onto old beliefs is often much easier than revising beliefs. To what extent does a lack of mental energy play in maintaining beliefs that are proveably false?
Are truth, justice, and mercy lies? Is it a lie that my life has value? I prefer to believe that we have constructed a world where those things actually exist, and they exist because we invented them. We invented them with LANGUAGE. I'm not going to ramble about the sapir-whorf hypothesis, but one of the unique features of humans vs other animals is that we have the ability to construct our reality. Not just by literally making and building things, but also by extending our understanding of reality into the realm of metaphorical concepts like truth and justice and mercy, which then become a part of our shared reality AND produce physiological changes in our bodies and brains. It is the dimension of reality that can be manipulated by consciousness and language. The question of whether this dimension is entirely constructed or whether we are just tapping into another objective layer of reality is also one for ethics and philosophy. I don't have an answer. I just have a process of inquiry.
ReplyDeleteI was quoting Pratchett, and with it, was bringing a lot of thought. The notion is that mercy is a lie the same way the tooth fairie is a lie. That is, it has no objective existence, and exists only in and due to our own minds.
ReplyDeleteIn Pratchett's discworld novels, belief has power. If people believe in something strongly enough, it comes into existence.
And this is kind of what I mean -- if we believe strongly enough in the big lies, then they have power and meaning in our domains. That is: If I believe mercy is a real thing (and perhaps even a virtue), then it will affect my actions.
That's what i mean by the big lies and the little lies. The little ones aren't that important, but help us gear up our brains to believe in the big ones. The real whoppers. And it may well be a good thing for us to believe in these big lies, even if they are only true because we believe in them.
Well, if I were a priest, I could share my process of coming to believe in the truth of actual transubstantiation with you. I could walk you through answering the ethical questions the same way, or let you answer them your own way, or whatever. You could try to duplicate my process path if you wanted, but it's very rare that people take the same process path even to the same belief. One easy hack for that is to artificially induce a subjective perception of the experience I have, for instance, by substituting actual blood and lacing it with ecstasy. People tend to believe their perceptions and experiences above everything else, so if I really want to transmit a belief the most expedient way I have to trick you into experiencing it so you will believe it. This, by the way, is also why lying is so horrible and unethical: it creates false beliefs based on false premises. Almost all catholics would frown on this method of getting you to believe in transubstantiation because it is wrong.
ReplyDeleteThe point is not that there is one right process, but that you develop a process of ethical inquiry and remain open to questions and experiences.
I do not have the mental energy right now to sit down and examine every single one of my beliefs. I am positive there are thousands of unexamined beliefs in my mind rattling around that I am just not conscious of at the moment. Eventually, though, many of them will be called into question by an experience or another person or a momentary flash of insight and I will take them out and examine them in a new light. I don't think anyone lacks the mental energy or ability to do this.
Now, when you are involved in a discussion like this one, it is perfectly valid to be overwhelmed and taxed in terms of mental energy. It doesn't mean you are being unethical, it just means your mind has limitations. So maybe you need to say "I really want to talk about this, but my mind is spinning and I need time to think about what we've already discussed. Can we talk about it again later?" Then you give yourself time to examine your beliefs at your leisure. It does not all need to happen instantaneously. In fact, research has shown that it is good to take breaks and focus on other things and let your unconscious process new information before revisiting it. To sleep on it. To verbalize it but not necessarily answer it. It's certainly not unethical to take a break. Breaks are part of the process.
Right, I follow your Pratchett. What I am suggesting is that maybe these big things are not lies. Maybe they exist objectively on another layer or dimension of reality that only humans can perceive, but not perceive clearly or well. Myths about creatures like faeries and dragons exist in almost all cultures. Is it so much of a stretch to suggest that they are not lies, but ghosts of our consciousness that can barely perceive them in that other layer of reality? The similarities of both the big and little lies across cultures is fascinating. Jung calls it the collective unconscious. There are some differences, some unique manifestations and specifics, but the basics are the same everywhere in the world in every language and culture. It is not good to hurt people. Faeries are things and we know what they look like even if we have never seen one for real. There should probably be a fair way to decide a person's guilt or innocence. I know what a monster looks like, more or less. There is a right and wrong way to make an exchange of goods or services. Etc etc etc. These concepts and general principles developed in all cultures independently, even geographically isolated ones who did not communicate with the outside world for centuries.
ReplyDeleteSo not only do I choose to believe in those lies because they allow me to have a shared frame of reference with everyone else in the world and give meaning to my life, but I believe it is possible at least some of those lies, big and little, are objectively true on some layer of reality.
Also, make a note of how completely impossible it would be to even have this conversation without relying on shared metaphors like vision, thoughts as objects, time as a line, etc. Some of these embedded metaphors exist across cultures, like "light" and others are different, like time as a circle or a sort of chained loop. I am going to annoyingly document some of the embedded metaphors in the rest of my explanation. Here it is without documented embedded metaphors:
ReplyDeleteRegardless, our brains are wired for language and metaphor. For comparing things to other things. For perceiving our old experiences in new ones and drawing connections between them. We can consciously tinker with this mental schema, but the vast majority of it is being built unconsciously and we can't effect it at all without specialized tools (like religion and ritual, or maybe psychotherapy). These metaphors all reflect unconscious beliefs that we have about the nature of the world, the mind, and cognitiion itself.
And here it is with the embedded (but not poetic) metaphors painstakingly documented in parentheticals:
Regardless, our brains are wired for language and metaphor (see, I just used THE MIND IS A COMPUTER). For comparing things to other things. For perceiving our old experiences in new ones (THOUGHTS ARE CONTAINERS) and drawing connections between them (THESE CONTAINERS EXIST IN SPACE, because I can draw in a space.). We can consciously tinker with this mental schema, but the vast majority (vast: a measure of space applied to a mental concept like "majority" suggesting that NUMBER is connected to PHYSICAL SPACE) of it is being built (THOUGHTS ARE CONSTRUCTED OBJECTS) unconsciously and we can't effect it at all without specialized tools (like religion and ritual, or maybe psychotherapy). These metaphors all reflect unconscious beliefs that we have about the nature of the world, the mind, and cognitiion itself.
I apologize if I am getting way too out there. This was my field of study in college and continues to fascinate me. Just using language every day is an adventure once you start to perceive embedded metaphors. It's one of those things that once seen cannot be unseen, and significantly changes the way you have to believe about reality and society.
(And I gotta get up and run errands now, but I'll see if anything has been added later tonight)
ReplyDelete