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Actually, 4chan is nicer because everyone there knows they're dumb. Nobody has let these folks know yet.
I voted up this link (after it appeared on the front page) but precisely because I think it is such ridiculous hooey that it is worth commenting on. It's errors are abundant so I'll choose just one which, taken as paradigm, can be used to discover several others: The author of the article quotes Hitchens as saying (I've added emphasis ): "[C]onscience is innate," and `[e]verybody but the psychopath' has the `feeling'…
Beyond simple pub stories, moral questions about how to dispense justice in a large, diverse society and global gets really difficult, and we need a system of principles for that.
In addition, making all of the decisions for ones own life is complex, and a decent philosophy will provide a guide, principles to help you achieve goals. Most philosophies are not decent if one's goal is living a long, happy, fulfilling life, say with an excellent family and career.
For the Tl;dr ers out there, here's the short version. And no, I don't agree that the Objectivists get off so easy... The atheists claim to be able to explain ethics, but they provide no ultimate foundation for ethics. Instead they point to intuition, evolution, game theory and community standards. However they are confusing descriptive talk for normative talk. Where the atheists criticize religion, they presuppose a…
The article does not describe Objectivism, only refers the reader to look there for a rational ethics. Objectivism is not "ought to do what we want to do", that would again be ethics based on feelings, but instead of arriving at altruism as the New Atheists do, you arrived at something like hedonism. And that is the point: feelings are not a means of knowledge - everyone will arrive at something different. Feelings d…
I don't think there is much space between hedonism and devil may care rugged individualism. Unless you provide a foundation for ethics, there is no way to compare my self-interest against your self-interest on the merits.
And in particular the critique of atheists still applies to Objectivists unless Objectivists provide an ultimate foundation for ethics.
Among the countless counterexamples one could cite against any claim to an “innate conscience” is the fact that the 9/11 hijackers regarded their murderous actions not as abhorrent, but as sublime.
Poor logic here. Hitchens would claim that it was their religion that perverted their innate sense of right and wrong. To search for such a sense, I can only imagine you would need to look at very young children and even then it would be hard to discount the cultural/upbringing factor.
The claim to “innate knowledge,” like the claim to knowledge through faith, is a form of mysticism, the claim to a non-rational, non-sensory means of knowledge.
Not if its been observed enough. You don't need to be able to explain something down to the quantum mechanical level to assert it exists.
How can religious belief be wrong if the “innate consciences” of billions of people tell them that it is right?
What? Historically, most religions were spread by a small number of individuals. How is this innate? (Someone correct me if I'm wrong on the history).
If man’s ethical ideas were innate, if his biology predisposed him to irrationality, if he had no choice about whether to commit evil, then the entire field of morality—which presupposes that man does choose his actions—would not only be pointless
No one is claiming there is no choice, merely that our moral decision making procedure is imperfect and/or very flawed.
Why does an “ethical realist,” who claims to believe that ethical truths are waiting in reality to be discovered, insist that ethics must be grounded “intuitively,” via “irreducible leaps,” rather than rationally
In part, this might be because introspection is, in some ways, inherently self limiting. There is nothing logically incoherent about saying that "this is far as I can break things down."
The whole discussion of how senses are needed to even write a book is silly. You can't take someone's argument to an extreme and then point out how silly it is. The claim isn't (or shouldn't be) that "senses are useless" but that "our senses are not perfect receptors of the outside world."
Overall, the large problem is that the author is looking for a perfect answer to questions when the thought process behind it is still in its infancy.
In the wake of the religiously motivated atrocities of 9/11, Sam Harris, Daniel Dennett, Richard Dawkins, and Christopher Hitchens have penned best-selling books
This wasn't a good start; I feel it is something of an invocation of a parallel to Godwin's law.
The middle bit spends a lot of time debunking the idea of innate morals. I happen to agree there; Hitchens is, I think, wrong in some respects (I only read him once; so there is almost certainly a subtle message as well). But the conclusions drawn are rather inane and, really, fall foul of the same mistakes the writer highlights.
I skipped to the end at that point to see the conclusion was "Ayn Rand" - that's a lot of words just to get to that point...
My biggest gripe with this article is that the ‘solution’ is introduced in the second-to-last paragraph. I’m a big fan of Ayn Rand, and I think the ‘New Atheists’ probably do have a lot to learn from Objectivism, since it seems a lot more internally consistent—nevertheless, in articles like these it should occupy more than just a footnote.
The footnote was meant to recommend the reader to a source of moral guidance that is actually justified rationally and grounded in reality. (Objectivism.)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The article does not describe Objectivism, only refers the reader to look there for a rational ethics. Objectivism is not "ought to do what we want to do", that would again be ethics based on feelings, but instead of arriving at altruism as the New Atheists do, you arrived at something like hedonism. And that is the point: feelings are not a means of knowledge - everyone will arrive at something different. Feelings d…
I've read Ayn Rand's books, so I feel confident in stating with Wikipedia that for the Objectivist the moral purpose of the individual life is the pursuit of happiness or rational self-interest. I don't feel like I overstated the position. I don't think there is much space between hedonism and devil may care rugged individualism. Unless you provide a foundation for ethics, there is no way to compare my self-interest…
I won't go into detail, but basically the foundation is: humans need to respect reality, use reason, and not be dependent on others but be productive to survive. This is how we each survive, and thrive. The standard of morality is life, ones own human life. Sacrificing your values is working against your own life. According to these principles, faith, mysticism, and using force against other people are all bad for your own life.
The point of the article is that altruism asks for sacrifice. Is there a rational basis for accepting it as a moral code? It's always been founded on religion throughout history. All the New Atheists do is say instead that altruism (or utilitarianism) feels right to them. This is not reason. Why does it feel right? And what about people for whom it doesn't feel right?
I like a lot of what the four horsemen have written and said in defense of science and atheism, and how they debunk religion and some of its more monstrous ethics. But, when they try to provide a positive ethics, they only offer what feels right.
This is a strong issue for me so I will attempt to be restrained. In the wake of the religiously motivated atrocities of 9/11, Sam Harris, Daniel Dennett, Richard Dawkins, and Christopher Hitchens have penned best-selling books This wasn't a good start; I feel it is something of an invocation of a parallel to Godwin's law. The middle bit spends a lot of time debunking the idea of innate morals. I happen to agree ther…
This is a strong issue for me so I will attempt to be restrained. In the wake of the religiously motivated atrocities of 9/11, Sam Harris, Daniel Dennett, Richard Dawkins, and Christopher Hitchens have penned best-selling books This wasn't a good start; I feel it is something of an invocation of a parallel to Godwin's law. The middle bit spends a lot of time debunking the idea of innate morals. I happen to agree ther…
A person is not a conclusion. The article ends by advocating Ayn Rand's ideas and works, clearly. Whatever one's views might be of her doesn't invalidate everything that precedes.
But there were also no solutions (something the writer calls dawkins et al on a few times) to the fundamental questions - until the end when Ayn Rand is presented as the answer (and I mean her works in the possessive)