Polemics

Mark D. Linville: does Darwinian evolution make morality rational?

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Have you ever heard an atheist tell you that naturalistic evolution is an answer to the moral argument? I have. And I found a good reply to this challenge in the book “Contending With Christianity’s Critics“. The chapter that responds to the challenge is authored by Dr. Mark D. Linville. It is only 13 pages long. I have a link to the PDF at the bottom of this post.

First, a bit about the author:

Blog: The Tavern at the End of the World
Current positions:

  • PhD Research Fellow
  • Tutoring Fellow in Philosophy

Education:

  • PhD in Philosophy with a minor in South Asian Studies and a specialization in Philosophy of Religion, University of Wisconsin-Madison
  • MA in Philosophy, University of Wisconsin-Madison
  • MA in Philosophy of Religion, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School
  • MA in Theology, Cincinnati Christian Seminary
  • BA in Biblical Studies, Florida Christian College

Here is his thesis of the essay:

Darwin’s account of the origins of human morality is at once elegant, ingenious, and, I shall argue, woefully inadequate. In particular, that account, on its standard interpretation, does not explain morality, but, rather, explains it away . We learn from Darwin not how there could be objective moral facts, but how we could have come to believe—perhaps erroneously—that there are.

Further, the naturalist, who does not believe that there is such a personal being as God, is in principle committed to Darwinism, including a Darwinian account of the basic contours of human moral psychology. I’ll use the term evolutionary naturalism to refer to this combination of naturalism and Darwinism. And so the naturalist is saddled with a view that explains morality away. Whatever reason we have for believing in moral facts is also a reason for thinking naturalism is false. I conclude the essay with a brief account of a theistic conception of morality, and argue that the theist is in a better position to affirm the objectivity of morality.

And here’s a sample to get your attention:

But even if we are assured that a “normal” person will be prompted by the social instincts and that those instincts are typically flanked and reinforced by a set of moral emotions, we still do not have a truly normative account of moral obligation. There is nothing in Darwin’s own account to indicate that the ensuing sense of guilt—a guilty feeling—is indicative of actual moral guilt resulting from the violation of an objective moral law. The revenge taken by one’s own conscience amounts to a sort of second-order propensity to feel a certain way given one’s past relation to conflicting first-order propensities (e.g., the father’s impulse to save his child versus his impulse to save himself). Unless we import normative considerations from some other source, it seems that, whether it is a first or second-order inclination,one’s being prompted by it is more readily understood as a descriptive feature of one’s own psychology than material for a normative assessment of one’s behavior or character. And, assuming that there is anything to this observation, an ascent into even higher levels of propensities (“I feel guilty for not having felt guilty for not being remorseful over not obeying my social instincts…”) introduces nothing of normative import. Suppose you encounter a man who neither feels the pull of social, paternal or familial instincts nor is in the least bit concerned over his apparent lack of conscience. What, from a strictly Darwinian perspective, can one say to him that is of any serious moral import? “You are not moved to action by the impulses that move most of us.” Right. So?

The problem afflicts contemporary construals of an evolutionary account of human morality. Consider Michael Shermer’s explanation for the evolution of a moral sense—the “science of good and evil.” He explains,

By a moral sense, I mean a moral feeling or emotion generated by actions. For example, positive emotions such as righteousness and pride are experienced as the psychological feeling of doing “good.” These moral emotions likely evolved out of behaviors that were reinforced as being good either for the individual or for the group.2

Shermer goes on to compare such moral emotions to other emotions and sensations that are universally experienced, such as hunger and the sexual urge. He then addresses the question of moral motivation.

In this evolutionary theory of morality, asking “Why should we be moral?” is like asking “Why should we be hungry?” or “Why should we be horny?” For that matter, we could ask, “Why should we be jealous?” or “Why should we fall in love?” The answer is that it is as much a part of human nature to be moral as it is to be hungry, horny, jealous, and in love.3

Thus, according to Shermer, given an evolutionary account, such a question is simply a non-starter. Moral motivation is a given as it is wired in as one of our basic drives. Of course, one might point out that Shermer’s “moral emotions” often do need encouragement in a way that, say, “horniness,” does not. More importantly, Shermer apparently fails to notice that if asking “Why should I be moral?” is like asking, “Why should I be horny?” then asserting, “You ought to be moral” is like asserting, “You ought to be horny.” As goes the interrogative, so goes the imperative. But if the latter seems out of place, then, on Shermer’s view, so is the former.

One might thus observe that if morality is anything at all, it is irreducibly normative in nature. But the Darwinian account winds up reducing morality to descriptive features of human psychology. Like the libido, either the moral sense is present and active or it is not. If it is, then we might expect one to behave accordingly. If not, why, then, as a famous blues man once put it, “the boogie woogie just ain’t in me.” And so the resulting “morality” is that in name only.

In light of such considerations, it is tempting to conclude with C. S. Lewis that, if the naturalist remembered his philosophy out of school, he would recognize that any claim to the effect that “I ought” is on a par with “I itch,” in that it is nothing more than a descriptive piece of autobiography with no essential reference to any actual obligations.

When it comes to morality, we are not interested in mere descriptions of behavior. We want to know about prescriptions of behavior, and whether why we should care about following those prescriptions. We are interested in what grounds our sense of moral obligation in reality. What underwrites our sense of moral obligation? If it is just rooted in feelings, then why should we obey our moral sense when obeying it goes against out self-interest? Feelings are subjective things, and doing the right thing in a real objective state of affairs requires more than just feelings. There has to be a real objective state of affairs that makes it rational for us to do the right thing, even when the right thing is against our own self-interest. That’s what morality is – objective moral obligations overriding subjective feelings. I wouldn’t trust someone to be moral if it were just based on their feelings.

The PDF is right here for downloading, with the permission of the author.

News

Feminists angered by suggestion that alcohol education would curb sexual misconduct

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From Campus Reform.

Excerpt:

Dr. Stephen Joel Trachtenberg, president emeritus and current professor of public service at The George Washington University (GWU), has become the subject of outrage from feminists on social media for suggesting that alcohol education may help prevent sexual assaults on campus.

During an episode of the Diane Rehm Show last week, Trachtenberg participated in a panel discussion about Greek Life at U.S. colleges in which he suggested that binge-drinking is a factor in instances of sexual misconduct.

“Part of the problem is you have men who take advantage of women who drink too much and there are women who drink too much,” said Trachtenberg, adding that “we need to educate our daughters and our children in that regard.”

Although Trachtenberg prefaced his remarks by saying people should further encourage women to not drink in excess “without making the victims responsible for what happens,” female students and women’s groups flooded Twitter, calling his remarks “irresponsible” and accusing him of “gross victim blaming” and being a “rape apologist.”

Sally Kaplan, a recent graduate of GWU and peace alliance coordinator at the non-profit organization, the Peace Alliance, created a petition using the online platform Change.org to demand that Trachtenberg “issue an apology to the GWU community” and match her and other students’ crowdfunding efforts to hire a full-time “Survivors Advocate” at the university.

The petition also calls on the university to provide “better support for university students including more prevention, intervention, education and survivor advocacy resources.” Ironically, in a piecepublished by administrators the day after Trachtenberg’s remarks, the university promoted a sexual assault prevention event sponsored by GWU’s Center for Alcohol and other Drug Education.

According to Campus Safety Magazine, “at least 50 percent of college student sexual assaults are associated with alcohol use.”

In a column published last October, Slate contributor Emily Yoffe explained that “a misplaced fear of blaming the victim has made it somehow unacceptable to warn inexperienced young women that when they get wasted, they are putting themselves in potential peril.”

“Let’s be totally clear: Perpetrators are the ones responsible for committing their crimes, and they should be brought to justice. But we are failing to let women know that when they render themselves defenseless, terrible things can be done to them,” wrote Yoffe.

I think I should not marry a radical feminist for the following reason. They want to be able to perform reckless actions and then blame other people when predictable consequences occur. That is scary to me. I want to marry someone who checks her own behavior and makes good decisions. When things go wrong, I want her to take responsibility for her own actions instead of playing the victim. I think the reaction by feminists is also revealing because it seems to show why they are so pro-abortion. In that issue, the feminists want the recreational sex, but not the responsibility for what the choice to have recreational sex produces. Except in that case, it’s the innocent child who suffers from the mother’s recklessness.

News

Who warned about the consequences of pulling out of Iraq in 2007?

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From the leftist Washington Post, of all places.

Excerpt: (links removed)

In the summer of 2007, Bush warned of the dire consequence of pulling U.S. troops out of Iraq against the advice of our commanders on the ground. All of Washington was telling Bush that the surge he had launched would fail and that the time had come to withdraw from Iraq and accept defeat.

At a White House news conference on July 12, 2007, Bush declared: “I know some in Washington would like us to start leaving Iraq now. To begin withdrawing before our commanders tell us we’re ready would be dangerous for Iraq, for the region and for the United States. It would mean surrendering the future of Iraq to al-Qaeda. It would mean that we’d be risking mass killings on a horrific scale. It would mean we’d allow the terrorists to establish a safe haven in Iraq to replace the one they lost in Afghanistan. It would mean we’d be increasing the probability that American troops would have to return at some later date to confront an enemy that is even more dangerous.”

[…]In 2010, Obama did precisely what Bush warned against and withdrew all U.S. forces from Iraq — overruling his commander on the ground, Gen. Lloyd J. Austin III, who had recommended that Obama keep 24,000 troops. And since then, everything that Bush warned would happen has come to pass.

Bush warned that withdrawing against the advice of our military commanders would result in “mass killings on a horrific scale.” Check. We’re now seeing mass killings on a horrific scale — summary executions, women and children buried alive, people being crucified, the attempted genocide of the Yazidis and two American journalists beheaded.

Bush warned that withdrawal would “allow the terrorists to establish a safe haven in Iraq to replace the one they lost in Afghanistan.” Check. The Islamic State now controls a safe haven the size of Belgium.

Bush warned withdrawing too soon would “mean we’d be increasing the probability that American troops would have to return at some later date to confront an enemy that is even more dangerous.” Check. The Islamic State is far more dangerous now, the United States is back carrying out airstrikes in Iraq and Obama will address the nation on Wednesday to lay out a new military strategy to defeat the Islamic State.

That’s not all. In a July 14, 2007, radio address, Bush also warned that U.S. withdrawal would allow “terrorists to . . . gain control of vast oil resources they could use to fund new attacks on America.” Check. The Islamic State now controls vast oil resources, which are bringing the group an estimated$3 million a day — helping it to become the wealthiest terror network in the world.

In a Sept. 13, 2007, Oval Office address, Bush warned that “Iran would benefit from the chaos” after U.S. withdrawal from Iraq. Check. Just last week, the United States provided air cover for Iranian-back Shiite militias as they took back the town of Amerli — which means we are now serving as the de-facto air force for the same Iranian-backed militias who were responsible for many of the U.S. casualties in Iraq.

[…]In an April 24, 2007, news conference Bush warned that U.S. withdrawal “could unleash chaos in Iraq that could spread across the entire region.” Check. After the United States withdrew from Iraq, the Islamic State moved into Syria, killing thousands and using that country as a staging area to recruit jihadists and plan its re-invasion of Iraq.

He was one of the good ones, and I miss his moral clarity – especially when it comes to foreign policy. This man knew right from wrong. If you want to have an influence in a theater of war where your enemies are active, then you need to have boots on the ground. We have an enemy in the Middle East, and that enemy is radical Islam. Bush knew that, and Obama – well he plays golf while American-born journalists have their heads hacked off. Bush knew how to promote American interests abroad with strength, but Obama does not.