Metaphysical naturalist Alex Rosemberg has exposed some of the actual implications of a consistently assumed metaphysical naturalism in his article The Disenchanted Naturalist' Guide to Reality.
As I've mentioned on other posts, metaphysical naturalists are very strange guys. What they have in common is atheism (the belief that God doesn't exist and strong hostility to everything related to spirituality, religion, etc.), intellectual submission to mainstream (orthodox) science; extreme credulity in the (transitory) scientific consensus; pseudo-skepticism (pathological disbelief in and urge to debunk any kind of unconventional scientific ideas or research program, specially of the ones that investigate phenomena incompatible with naturalism and materialism, like parapsychology and afterlife research). These traits are absolutely ESSENTIAL in every naturalist and pseudo-skeptic, and hence are definitory of them.
But, once agreed about these core aspects (no actual naturalist or pseudo-skeptic is intellectually free to disagree with them), naturalists will disagree about many things, and the comments on Rosemberg's article by fellows naturalists is a fine example of this.
In this post, I'll comment on Richard Carrier's objections to Rosemberg's arguments and conclusions. Given that Carrier has mentioned 8 objections, and each of them deserves a deep critical analysis, this post is only the first of a series of posts dealing with them.
Carrier's objections:
1-(Objection 1) I disagree that there are no meanings or purposes. Human brains evolved to be meaning and purpose generators. And as a result, we have generated many significant meanings and purposes, even a meaning of life and a purpose for living. These just aren’t “cosmic” meanings and purposes. They’re just the meanings and purposes we evolved (largely by accident) to want. But we still want them, and enjoy fulfilling them. It doesn’t matter how we came to be that way. And when we are sane and rational, we all agree the most desirable purpose of life, the “meaning” of life, is to live it, live it well, and pass it on to the next guy, preferably in better shape than you found it. Alex concludes his essay by claiming “purposes are ruled out of nature–biological, social, psychological,” but he never proves the latter, nor can he appeal to any science that has done so. Social purposes are simply a collection of psychological purposes. And psychological purposes are simply aims and goals, which are the consequence of motives, which are the consequence of desires, which science has actually confirmed are real and do exist, and actually have the effects we believe they do. More on that to come. But in short, to claim I have no motive for taking time out to write this, no purpose in mind in doing it, is simply retarded.
Carrier makes a distinction between human-generated purposes and meaning, and "cosmic" purposes and meaning. His point is that the latter don't exist, but the former do.
He defends, therefore, the existence of actual purposes and meaning in a limited sense. And he supports this contention with the following arguments:
1-Human brains evolved to be meaning and purpose generators
2-They’re just the meanings and purposes we evolved (largely by accident) to want
3-When we are sane and rational, we all agree the most desirable purpose of life, the “meaning” of life, is to live it, live it well, and pass it on to the next guy
Objections to Carrier's objection 1:
1-Carrier doesn't explain why the human brain evolved to be ACTUAL meaning and purpose generators, instead of purely ILLUSORY meaning and purpose generators. How does Carrier know the meaning and purposes generated by our brains are actually (ontologically) existing instead of merely fictional or illusory?
This is the key point of Rosemberg's paper: if naturalism is true, ACTUAL meaning and purposes don't exist, even in the limited sense defended by Carrier.
So, Carrier misunderstands Rosemberg's point and, additionally, begs the question against him.
In Rosemberg's words: "It’s all just the foresightless play of fermions and bosons producing, in us conspiracy-theorists, the illusion of purpose"
Rosemberg doesn't deny that we have or believe in purposes. His point is that such purposes are illusory, without any actual ontologically foundation, if naturalism is true.
2-Carrier claims that science has proved that psychological purposes are "real and do exist, and actually have the effects we believe they do" but he doesn't prove such assertion. And this assertion is argueably false if naturalism is true.
Naturalist Tom Clark (who also commented Rosemberg's paper) writes: "Science arguably provides the best answers to factual questions about what exists, but doesn’t itself have the resources or competence to answer (in the negative, as Rosenberg would have it) the “persistent questions” of human meaning, purpose and morality. To suppose science alone can answer such questions is indeed to be scientistic in the original and rightly pejorative sense" (emphasis in bold added)
Note that Clark doesn't include the human meaning, purpose and morality in the category of "factual questions" that science is competent to answer. In fact, Clark is explicit in that science doesn't itself have the resources or competence to answer these "persistent questions", and to think otherwise is to be scientistic in the pejorative sense of the word.
If it's true, then Carrier's claim is false and his position "scientistic".
Carrier's arguments for the actual (instead of merely illusory) existence of purposes and meaning in a naturalist worldview are so weak that they fail to convince even his fellows naturalists.
If Carrier's argument were "science-based" and meaning and purposes were proved to exist by science, then we would expect that naturalists (who are intellectually submitted to whatever idea is accepted by the authority of mainstream science) would agree with Carrier. And many of them DON'T.
3-Carrier's idea that "They’re just the meanings and purposes we evolved (largely by accident) to want" implies that we're not free to choose to want whatever purposes and meanings but only the ones determined by evolution.
So, our entire purpose-meaning generator is only a by-product of (largely by accident) evolution.
This belief forces Carrier to make a purely trivial, simplistic and crude justification of the "meaning" of life: "When we are sane and rational, we all agree the most desirable purpose of life, the “meaning” of life, is to live it, live it well, and pass it on to the next guy"(emphasis in black added)
Note that Carrier asserts that the "meaning" of life is to live it. But if it's true, then dogs, birds and bacteria satisfies a similar Carrier's criteria for "meaning", because all of these living organisms (specially complex organisms like mammals) try to "live" their lives (and "live them" well, getting pleasure, avoiding predators, dangers, etc.). And "reason" is not needed to do that.
Obviously it's an extremely simplistic and crude view of the meaning of life.
But Carrier even goes beyond, claiming that "psychological purposes are simply aims and goals, which are the consequence of motives, which are the consequence of desires"
Let's to make a diagram of this:
Desires---> motives ----> psychological purposes (aims and goals)
Desires cause motives, which in turns cause purposes. The ultimate cause are not the purposes themselves, but the desires (in Carrier's book, he adds that desires are caused by "emotions", so the ultimate cause of all this process is emotional)
Given that desires (and emotions) are subjective, and purposes depend on desires, then the conclusion follows: purposes are determined by purely subjective factors. And if it's true, what criteria are we going to apply to justify our and other people purposes?
From the point of view of the cause of the purposes, all of them are equal (that is, caused by emotions and desires). Why are your emotions and desires superior or inferior to mine?
Carrier might reply that emotions and desires that produces purposes consistent with biological survival are superior. And he's right, if by "superior" we understand "favourable to biological survival". But why are these purposes superior from an ontological, ethical and moral sense?
I think Carrier's position is very weak.
In other posts, I'll examine other of the Carrier's objections against Rosemberg's article.
TO BE CONTINUED...
Link of interest:
-My post on Richard Carrier's Blue Monkeys Flying Out of My Butt argument against God's existence.
As I've mentioned on other posts, metaphysical naturalists are very strange guys. What they have in common is atheism (the belief that God doesn't exist and strong hostility to everything related to spirituality, religion, etc.), intellectual submission to mainstream (orthodox) science; extreme credulity in the (transitory) scientific consensus; pseudo-skepticism (pathological disbelief in and urge to debunk any kind of unconventional scientific ideas or research program, specially of the ones that investigate phenomena incompatible with naturalism and materialism, like parapsychology and afterlife research). These traits are absolutely ESSENTIAL in every naturalist and pseudo-skeptic, and hence are definitory of them.
But, once agreed about these core aspects (no actual naturalist or pseudo-skeptic is intellectually free to disagree with them), naturalists will disagree about many things, and the comments on Rosemberg's article by fellows naturalists is a fine example of this.
In this post, I'll comment on Richard Carrier's objections to Rosemberg's arguments and conclusions. Given that Carrier has mentioned 8 objections, and each of them deserves a deep critical analysis, this post is only the first of a series of posts dealing with them.
Carrier's objections:
1-(Objection 1) I disagree that there are no meanings or purposes. Human brains evolved to be meaning and purpose generators. And as a result, we have generated many significant meanings and purposes, even a meaning of life and a purpose for living. These just aren’t “cosmic” meanings and purposes. They’re just the meanings and purposes we evolved (largely by accident) to want. But we still want them, and enjoy fulfilling them. It doesn’t matter how we came to be that way. And when we are sane and rational, we all agree the most desirable purpose of life, the “meaning” of life, is to live it, live it well, and pass it on to the next guy, preferably in better shape than you found it. Alex concludes his essay by claiming “purposes are ruled out of nature–biological, social, psychological,” but he never proves the latter, nor can he appeal to any science that has done so. Social purposes are simply a collection of psychological purposes. And psychological purposes are simply aims and goals, which are the consequence of motives, which are the consequence of desires, which science has actually confirmed are real and do exist, and actually have the effects we believe they do. More on that to come. But in short, to claim I have no motive for taking time out to write this, no purpose in mind in doing it, is simply retarded.
Carrier makes a distinction between human-generated purposes and meaning, and "cosmic" purposes and meaning. His point is that the latter don't exist, but the former do.
He defends, therefore, the existence of actual purposes and meaning in a limited sense. And he supports this contention with the following arguments:
1-Human brains evolved to be meaning and purpose generators
2-They’re just the meanings and purposes we evolved (largely by accident) to want
3-When we are sane and rational, we all agree the most desirable purpose of life, the “meaning” of life, is to live it, live it well, and pass it on to the next guy
Objections to Carrier's objection 1:
1-Carrier doesn't explain why the human brain evolved to be ACTUAL meaning and purpose generators, instead of purely ILLUSORY meaning and purpose generators. How does Carrier know the meaning and purposes generated by our brains are actually (ontologically) existing instead of merely fictional or illusory?
This is the key point of Rosemberg's paper: if naturalism is true, ACTUAL meaning and purposes don't exist, even in the limited sense defended by Carrier.
So, Carrier misunderstands Rosemberg's point and, additionally, begs the question against him.
In Rosemberg's words: "It’s all just the foresightless play of fermions and bosons producing, in us conspiracy-theorists, the illusion of purpose"
Rosemberg doesn't deny that we have or believe in purposes. His point is that such purposes are illusory, without any actual ontologically foundation, if naturalism is true.
2-Carrier claims that science has proved that psychological purposes are "real and do exist, and actually have the effects we believe they do" but he doesn't prove such assertion. And this assertion is argueably false if naturalism is true.
Naturalist Tom Clark (who also commented Rosemberg's paper) writes: "Science arguably provides the best answers to factual questions about what exists, but doesn’t itself have the resources or competence to answer (in the negative, as Rosenberg would have it) the “persistent questions” of human meaning, purpose and morality. To suppose science alone can answer such questions is indeed to be scientistic in the original and rightly pejorative sense" (emphasis in bold added)
Note that Clark doesn't include the human meaning, purpose and morality in the category of "factual questions" that science is competent to answer. In fact, Clark is explicit in that science doesn't itself have the resources or competence to answer these "persistent questions", and to think otherwise is to be scientistic in the pejorative sense of the word.
If it's true, then Carrier's claim is false and his position "scientistic".
Carrier's arguments for the actual (instead of merely illusory) existence of purposes and meaning in a naturalist worldview are so weak that they fail to convince even his fellows naturalists.
If Carrier's argument were "science-based" and meaning and purposes were proved to exist by science, then we would expect that naturalists (who are intellectually submitted to whatever idea is accepted by the authority of mainstream science) would agree with Carrier. And many of them DON'T.
3-Carrier's idea that "They’re just the meanings and purposes we evolved (largely by accident) to want" implies that we're not free to choose to want whatever purposes and meanings but only the ones determined by evolution.
So, our entire purpose-meaning generator is only a by-product of (largely by accident) evolution.
This belief forces Carrier to make a purely trivial, simplistic and crude justification of the "meaning" of life: "When we are sane and rational, we all agree the most desirable purpose of life, the “meaning” of life, is to live it, live it well, and pass it on to the next guy"(emphasis in black added)
Note that Carrier asserts that the "meaning" of life is to live it. But if it's true, then dogs, birds and bacteria satisfies a similar Carrier's criteria for "meaning", because all of these living organisms (specially complex organisms like mammals) try to "live" their lives (and "live them" well, getting pleasure, avoiding predators, dangers, etc.). And "reason" is not needed to do that.
Obviously it's an extremely simplistic and crude view of the meaning of life.
But Carrier even goes beyond, claiming that "psychological purposes are simply aims and goals, which are the consequence of motives, which are the consequence of desires"
Let's to make a diagram of this:
Desires---> motives ----> psychological purposes (aims and goals)
Desires cause motives, which in turns cause purposes. The ultimate cause are not the purposes themselves, but the desires (in Carrier's book, he adds that desires are caused by "emotions", so the ultimate cause of all this process is emotional)
Given that desires (and emotions) are subjective, and purposes depend on desires, then the conclusion follows: purposes are determined by purely subjective factors. And if it's true, what criteria are we going to apply to justify our and other people purposes?
From the point of view of the cause of the purposes, all of them are equal (that is, caused by emotions and desires). Why are your emotions and desires superior or inferior to mine?
Carrier might reply that emotions and desires that produces purposes consistent with biological survival are superior. And he's right, if by "superior" we understand "favourable to biological survival". But why are these purposes superior from an ontological, ethical and moral sense?
I think Carrier's position is very weak.
In other posts, I'll examine other of the Carrier's objections against Rosemberg's article.
TO BE CONTINUED...
Link of interest:
-My post on Richard Carrier's Blue Monkeys Flying Out of My Butt argument against God's existence.
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