Tag Archives: Secular Humanism

Podcasts

William Lane Craig on Sam Harris’ attempt to ground morality with science

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William Lane Craig is going to be debating atheist Sam Harris in April, so I thought that I would link to a couple of resources in which Craig assesses Harris’ views. Harris thinks that you can use science to discover an objective morality. Does his view make sense?

Here’s an audio clip from Youtube:

And in this MP3 file, Craig assesses Harris’ attempt to grounded morality on naturalism.

Topics:

  • Harris opposes ground moral values and moral duties on a theistic worldview
  • Harris thinks that the factual statements made by science can ground moral values and moral duties
  • Harris thinks that these findings of science lead to an objective morality
  • Harris’ view is that what is “good” is what contributes to “human well-being”
  • Human happiness and flourishing is “good” and human unhappiness and decline is “evil”
  • Craig agrees that science can show what factors contribute to human flourishing
  • On atheism, there is no reason to select the fourishing of human beings as “good”
  • Craig asks: why say that human well-being and flourishing is a moral good?
  • there are non-moral uses of the word “good” and moral uses of the word “good”
  • the moral sense of “good” refers to the “good life” and what we ought to do to be good
  • Harris equivocates between different uses of the word good
  • in chess, there are good moves and bad moves with respect to winning the game – but that’s not moral good
  • similarly, someone who cleans your yard can do a good job or a bad job – but that’s not moral good
  • what is the explanation, on atheism, for human flourishing having the moral dimension of being “good”?
  • how does Harris deal with the fact-value divide? (the fallacy of deriving an ought from an is)
  • how does Harris leap from facts about brains to the moral property of “goodness”?
  • what scientific experiments does Harris propose to show that human flourishing is the “good”?
  • is Harris’ view just utilitarianism? (the view that the good is whatever makes the most number of people happy)
  • can Harris ground human rights like the right to life on his view?
  • Can human rights be overridden if it makes lots of people happy, on Harris’ view?
  • does Harris’ view lead to eugenics? how could Harris oppose the elimination of the weak or undesirables?

I think the question that Sam Harris has to answer is this: on atheism, why should a person limit their own pursuit of happiness when they can be more happy by being selfish and spurning the “flourishing of humans”? Why should any individual atheist care about the flourishing of humans when self-sacrificial actions to improve the flourishing of others diminishes his own happiness?

You can hear even more about Harris’ views from New Zealand philosopher Glenn Peoples.

News

Obama administration seeks repeal of conscience protections for health care workers

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From the Examiner.

Excerpt:

Religion aside, since 2008, health care workers have had the protection of law to say that they would not help with procedures such as abortion, sex changes, or other similar controversial medical procedures.

And now, the U.S. Health & Human Serviced Department (HHS) headed by Kathleen Sebelius is apparently attempting to remove the “conscience protections” for health care workers!  This would eliminate any protection of a health care worker that attempts to opt out of helping with abortion procedures or other controversial medical procedures where the worker feels that his/her conscience tells them, no!
Elimination of the “conscience protections” would put many health care workers at risk of being punished, or actually fired from their jobs.  There have been many cases prior to the 2008 implementations of these protections where the Pharmacist, nurse, or even doctors have been reprimanded, or even fired because they claimed “conscience protections”.  Without these protections, there is no limit as to what may be required of health care workers.

In a letter signed by 46 members of the U.S. House of Representatives, it asks her to explain why her department is seeking to repeal conscience protections for health care workers in light of known attacks on such workers. The two situations cited in the letter involve clients represented by attorneys with the Alliance Defense Fund.

Another reason for the government to stay out of the private sector. The more money you give them is the more they can regulate your behavior.

News

Flordia A&M university shuts down Christian campus group

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From the Examiner.

Full text:

In January, Florida A&M University officials had placed the student group “Commissioned 2 Love” on “inactive status”.  Their reasoning was; because the club’s adviser [who was assigned by the university] was not present at all of the group’s gatherings. The Florida A&M Student Handbook states that student organization advisers, who are assigned by the university and not chosen by the clubs themselves, must “attend and remain present for the duration of all organizational meetings, official functions, and sponsored activities.”

Based on this, the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) sent officials of Florida A&M University a letter yesterday urging them to reinstate a Christian student group they de-recognized in January and banned from engaging in activities on campus.  This rule, says ADF’s Jeremy Tedesco , would allow the university to “appoint an atheist to oversee a Christian group, a meat-eater to advise a vegetarian group, or a Republican to provide direction to College Democrats”.  He said that the policy is not only unconstitutional, but absurd.

According to the ADF letter, this requirement is unconstitutional because it gives university employees complete and unbridled discretion over whether a student group’s meeting or speech will occur.

The ADF letter also points out that the university’s policies violate the Constitution because they “compel student organizations to associate with government employees who they may not want to associate with, and who in fact may be adverse to the group’s mission and expression.

Even worse, the students are not given the authority to select their own advisers, but rather the Associate Vice President for Student Life appoints advisers for student organizations…. FAMU’s policies are particularly egregious violations of the right to association, since they require the government employee with whom student organizations must associate to…‘[p]rovide counseling, leadership and direction regarding…the mission of the club or organization.’”

According to a related Competitive Enterprise Institute post, Obama has made it a priority to increase the amounts of money extracted from Christian taxpayers that are paid to secular universities that treat Christians like dirt.

Excerpt: (with links removed)

Education expert Neal McCluskey earlier lamented the failure of House Republicans to propose meaningful cuts in education spending, “despite the fact that the ivory tower is soaking in putrid, taxpayer-funded waste. Quite simply, the federal government pours hundreds of billions of dollars into our ivy-ensconced institutions every year, but what that has largely produced is atrociously low graduation rates; at-best dubious amounts of learning for those who do graduate; ever-fancier facilities; and rampant tuition inflation that renders a higher education no more affordable to students but keeps colleges fat and happy.” Shortly thereafter, in an effort to trim the deficit, House Republicans came out with some additional cuts, proposing the elimination of some wasteful education programs.

If the GOP is reluctant to make cuts, Obama is much, much worse: he earlier sought to double education spending, and Obama’s recent State of the Union called for more increases in education spending (and other wasteful boondoggles at taxpayer expense), even though many students learn little in college. As we noted earlier, half “the nation’s undergraduates show almost no gains in learning in their first two years of college,” according to a study cited in USA Today. “36% showed little change” even after four years. Although education spending has exploded, students “spent 50% less time studying compared with students a few decades ago.” “32% never took a course in a typical semester where they read more than 40 pages per week.” States spend hundreds of millions of dollars operating colleges that are worthless diploma mills, yet manage to graduate almost no one — like Chicago State, “which has just a 12.8 percent six-year graduation rate.”

Wake up! Not only do Christians need to do a lot more studying of these issues, so that we can ground our social views with public evidence and research, but we also need to do a lot better job of developing an understanding of fiscal conservatism that reflects our individual goals and priorities. The left is not on your side – stop giving them other people’s money.