Sye - latest installment

Hi Sye

Thanks for the answers. Very helpful. This post deals with your response to my post Sye's argument below.

Gosh this is getting all very complicated, what with others challenging you on the objectivity of logic, etc. But let's not lose sight of the original debate. It was about the "proof" you offer on your website for the existence of God.

OK, so to summarize:

My contention is that the argument on your website is not a “proof’ – certainly it does not establish its conclusion beyond reasonable doubt. You insist it is a “proof” and now add that it does establish its conclusion beyond reasonable doubt.

We have both previously set out the argument like so:

1. The existence of the laws of logic necessarily requires the existence of the Christian God
2. The laws of logic exist
Therefore: the Christian God exists

I point out that for an argument to provide such a proof, it must be more than just deductively valid. It must not, for example, contain any contentious and unargued-for premises.

Now the first premise is contentious and unargued-for. So this argument fails as a “proof”

Now of course I pointed out that you might supply supporting argument for (1). But no such argument is actually supplied in your presentation of your "proof". You simply assert:

"Only in a universe governed by God can universal, immaterial, unchanging laws exist."

Thus, as it stands, your argument fails as a proof.

True, you want, it seems, to now try to salvage your original “proof” by saying (1) is established “by the impossibility of the contrary”.

But that is not something you even attempted to establish in your original “proof” – the one I am criticizing. You merely asserted (1) without any supporting argument.

So, it obviously fails as a proof. Right?

[incidentally, I notice you are saying that not only is the argument deductively valid, its premise is also true. But of course even this is not enough to establish the conclusion beyond reasonable doubt. You can’t just assert the first premise is true. Nor is it enough that it happen, as a matter of fact, to be true. Given the first premise is highly contentious, you need to demonstrate to your audience, beyond reasonable doubt, that it’s true. And that, in your website’s presentation of the “proof” you fail to do. You simply assert (1.)].

I will deal with your response to God and Logic (II) in a separate post. But, so far as I can see, the issue of whether or not your original argument, as presented on your website, proves beyond reasonable doubt that God exists, has now been resolved. It doesn't.

Logic and God (II)

Sye is still pressing the question (paraphrasing): “But how do you atheists account for the laws of logic? As a Christian, I can. But you atheists can’t explain (or have not explained) how you account for them.”

I have already explained why this challenge is irrelevant so far as my main criticism of Sye’s original proof is concerned. Sye still has not responded to that criticism, by the way.

But still, let’s investigate Sye’s accounting-for-logic challenge further. Just for fun. Despite the fact that my criticism of Sye's argument places me under no obligation to do so.

An atheist world view, is, as I said, simply a world view that excludes God. That’s it. There’s no requirement that it be materialist, let alone crudely reductive materialist. Atheists are free to be substance dualists, property dualists, idealists, etc. They can allow for a Platonic heaven of abstract entities, etc.

So atheism, as such, has no particular problem with making room for the existence of laws of logic. Its tent is easily big enough.

Simply asking:

“But how can there be both laws of logic and no God? How can your God-free universe contain them? Explain!”

is a bit like asking:

“How can there be both horses, but no unicorns? How can a unicorn-free world contain horses? Explain!”

If we are simply being asked how this is possible, without being given any reason why it shouldn't be possible, the question is bizarre. There simply is nothing to explain here (perhaps beyond pointing out that one without the other involves no logical contradiction). For we have been given no obstacle to overcome.

Still, that won’t satisfy Sye.

Sye’s challenge seems to be: “But what, on your atheist world view, makes the fundamental laws of logic hold? What underpins and explains them?”

Sye’s point is, I think, that, unless the Christian God exists to do this job, the laws won’t be absolute and necessary. Which they are.

There's the obstacle Sye has set us: we must identify what explains and underpins the laws of logic, without appeal to the Christian God.

Is that right Sye?

If so, here are two opening observations:

1. We could atheists could just say "We don't know what explains and underpins the laws of logic". This is not a problem, in fact. Just because I cannot explain the mysterious new dents in my lawn, whereas you, with your theory that a flying saucer landed on it last night, can, provides us with very little reason to suppose you are right.

2. We atheists have rich resources at hand, even if we can't now answer the question. We are NOT lumbered with the crude reductive materialism that Sye seems to want to foist on us. Our options include:

(i) the laws of logic exist and are themselves intrinsically necessary, and are not underpinned by anything. They are themselves bedrock (after all, all explanation has to stop somewhere - so why not here? Why add on a further necessary thing: God? I'm thinking Hindus, elephants and turtles.)

(ii) rejecting the question (e.g. in the style of the later Wittgenstein). There may be something wrong with the question: "What makes the laws of logic necessary?" (as there is with the question "What makes all the vixens female?"). In which case, the question doesn't need an answer.

There are countless other options we might pursue. The one option I am not much tempted to pursue is:

(Sye's answer) The laws of logic are explained and underpinned by the Christian God.

After all, we possess overwhelming evidence that there is no such being, don't we? See my "God of Eth".

Even if I was to go for a "necessary being" type explanation, it certainly wouldn't be Sye's all-powerful and all-good Christian God. This last answer seems about as plausible as that the laws of logic are underpinned by my evil God (in the "God of Eth"). And how plausible is that?

Sye needs to respond to these two points

Hello Sye - you do need to respond, surely, to the two points I made in Sye's argument and Sye's proof, just below.

These are two key criticisms. You did say that your website offered a "proof" of God's existence (a "proof" in the sense of establishing as true that God does indeed exist), but unless you can deal with these two points, surely you cannot in good conscience continue to maintain that.

Of course, you can acknowledge this, yet still believe in God, and still suppose your belief is rationally founded, and indeed try to come up with a new, improved proof. So it's not the end of the world so far as your Christian belief system is concerned.

My guess is you are now aware that your claim that your website offers a "proof" is not, or is probably not, true.

While I know you want to save people's souls by converting them to Christianity, surely you don't want to turn them into believers using what you now know to be a bogus proof? Surely that's not what God would want either, is it? People "saved" by a bit of dodgy logic?

So, given your heart is in the right place, I am guessing you will now acknowledge this, and we can move on to discuss other issues, such as how your original argument might be fixed up...

Of course, you'll have to redo your website, which is a bummer. But still, you'd rather be right, wouldn't you? Remember your own motto: "He who hates correction is stupid"!

Andalucia - switchbacks accident and Sye's "script"

Had a great day Sunday with Switchbacks, doing singletrack trails with group of 6 plus tutor Michael. Was excellent, except at end we did a 3ft drop off, and when I compressed my fork for lift off, nothing happened as I had a front puncture (Michael tells me) so hit ground hard. Lost consciousness for a moment, woke making horrible breathing noise as I was winded. Nothing broken but can no longer drive or raise either arm from shoulder.

This does not prevent me typing, however, and replying to Sye, who's is being very tenacious...

I should say, Sye, that I think you are a bright, and nice, bloke - and obviously concerned for our well-being too, which is why you are pursuing this - but are using your intelligence to create a sort of intellectual black hole from which you cannot now escape.

In this case, you seem to have constructed a kind of script, as Paul C. nicely puts it, that has us, and you, going round and round in circles, with no way out but the one your script determines. It's like dealing with one of those cold call telesales scripts, where, whatever you say in response to the double-glazing salesperson's questions, you will inevitably find yourself directed to "Buy!" - their script allows for no other answer. Cults are fond of these scripts too... They have little to do with logic, and much to do with - marketing.

I guess you, Sye, think I am simply under the influence of Satan...

Anyway, do please respond to my latest posts if you get time.

God and logic

Sye said:

"Look folks, whether you agree with me or not, 220 posts ago, I asked how universal, abstract, invariants such as the laws of logic make sense in the atheist worldview. Don't you find it odd that no one has answered that yet?"

As I just explained here, my criticism of Sye’s argument doesn’t require that I possess any answer to this question. But, let’s look at it anyway.

What is an atheist world view?

Simply put, it’s a view of what there is that doesn’t include God. That’s it. Atheists don’t have to sign up to materialism, reductionist or otherwise. They can be substance dualists, property dualists, etc. etc. They can also allow for a Platonic heaven of abstract entities, if they wish.

Thus an atheist world view can include abstract and objective laws of logic.

Voila!

But Sye is really pushing two different questions:

1. How can the laws of logic possibly exist without the Christian God?
2. How do you justify your use of the laws of logic?

So, while he will no doubt come back to me on my preliminary answer to 1, let’s turn to 2.

Justifying logic is tricky. Here’s one reason why. If such a justification takes the form of some sort of inference, it will itself make use of logic. And so the justification will be circular, and thus no justification at all!

Oh dear! And oh dear for Sye too, if he uses an inference to justify logic, which he does!

So there’s a general sceptical problem here, whether you happen to believe in the Christan God or not.

How to sidestep the problem? One possibility would be to remind ourselves that not all justification is inferential. I am justified in supposing there is an orange on the table in front of me, say, because I can just directly see it there. I don’t infer the orange is there. Its presence is just directly revealed (a "revelation" if you like!)

Now, if that is right - if such non-inferential, perceptual justification is possible - then one possible justification of the very basic rules of deductive inference might be that we can just directly see that they are truth-preserving.

Of course, Sye might not like this justification, but notice:

(i) he himself faces the sceptical problem – appeal to the Christian God doesn’t help.
(ii) Worse still, appeal to the Christian God as a justification in any case looks like an even worse bet given the overwhelming evidence against the Christian God's existence (see my “The God of Eth”).

Sye's argument

Sye said….

"Look folks, whether you agree with me or not, 220 posts ago, I asked how universal, abstract, invariants such as the laws of logic make sense in the atheist worldview. Don't you find it odd that no one has answered that yet?"

The reason I have not answered this question that is that I refused to be deflected from the specific issue at hand, which is to push home my conclusion that your original argument, as presented on your website, is not a "proof" of God’s existence – certainly, it does not establish its conclusion beyond all, or even reasonable, doubt.

I have, several times, explained that whether or not I am justified in using logic is irrelevant.

Here’s why. We both agree that a valid argument containing a contentious and unargued-for premise does not establish the truth of its conclusion. Now, even if, as an atheist, I am not justified in believing this, you (by your own lights) are justified in believing it, so, given your original argument does indeed contain a contentious and unargued-for premise, you are justified in supposing your argument fails to establish the truth of its conclusion.

You need to address this specific point Sye.

Now to my views about logic… see following post.

Sye's proof

The comments on Sye's proof of the existence of God (discussed two posts below) have reached 250 in number, so let's start a new page.

To newcomers - Sye, the author of this proof, is here defending it.

My latest response:

Hello again Sye

Well, we are getting somewhere, actually, as I now discover that by “proof” you seem to mean deductively valid argument.

Is that correct? If so - well, Golly, that's a very misleading way of using the term "proof".

"Proof" usually means, argument establishing the conclusion as true beyond all doubt, beyond reasonable doubt, or whatever. People will be very misled by your website's claim to "prove" God exists, if all you are really claiming is to have put "God exists" at the end of a deductively valid argument. We have all been very misled, in fact.

When I suggested that by “proof” we mean, proof beyond reasonable doubt, I thought I was doing you a favour by going with the weakest notion of “proof” I was aware of, but if by “proof” you actually just mean deductively valid argument, then, hey, I agree you have a “proof”!

But then, by your definition, this is a "proof" too:

1. The existence of the Cosmic Wombat is a necessary precondition of the existence of the laws of logic.
2. The laws of logic exist
Therefore, the Cosmic Wombat exists.

See? - deductively valid. So I have a "proof" too! If this wombat argument is not a proof, can you explain why?

My question is: by "proof" do you mean deductively valid argument? If not, what do you mean?

I will do a post on my views about logic next.

Andalucia - switchbacks

Booked a day mountain biking with these guys on sunday.

"Proof that God Exists"

Andrew Louis commented about this "proof" that God exists on offer over at Sinner Ministries. Here's a quick comment from me. Check out the "proof" first though. It's short, and kind of amazing.... (n.b. choose objective laws, etc. as it saves time).

Stephen wrote: Checked out the "proof". So it runs: if you believe in objective laws of logic and maths and science and moral truths (that are immaterial, by which author means not made out of material stuff), you must believe in God because, er, they couldn't exist if God did not.

Clearly, the author really thinks he's got a "proof". But it is shot full of holes.

First, where's the argument that objective laws of logic, etc. require the existence of God? There isn't one. Just the assertion that they do. Yet, amazingly, this is offered as the "proof".

The author's chutzpah is kind of breath-taking. Only a religious zealot would dare offer this as a "proof" with a straight face.

Note that, even if the laws of logic DID require the existence of some sort of deity to underpin them, we could still ask, why this particular God - the Judeo-Christian God? Particularly as there's overwhelming evidence that there is no such being (see my "God of Eth").

(P.S. notice the quote "He who hates correction is stupid" from Proverbs 12.1 - featured at the bottom of a website that offers a "proof" of God's existence, but that provides no way to respond or, indeed, correct, the egregious errors contained therein. The irony is lost on these guys, I guess...)

Andalucia - Veleta cycle

Rode up to Veleta today - highest [correction, second highest] peak in the Sierra Nevada. First picture is villages of Bubion and Campiera on the right hand hill side with Veleta (sharpest point on skyline, with tiny patch of snow) behind.

Then two photos of high up.

It's a fabulous place. 5hr return ride climbing from 1800 to 3396 metres, which is, er, 1596 metres or 5226 feet of climbing.... gosh that's why my bum hurts.

In the last photo you can see the trail I rode up on disappearing on right of image on hillside in far background.

...get back to philosophy shortly.

Andalucia

I will now be in Spain for 3 weeks. Should be able to keep posting, I believe, but if not, You'll know why.

My Flickr page

I have started a black and white photography photostream at flickr under the name stephenwilliamlaw, if anyone is interested...

Speciesism, Potential and Normality

(about 2,000 words)

Abstract

Philosopher Roger Scruton and others have attempted to justify our discriminating between pigs on the one hand and equally dim humans on the other by appealing to the notions of potential and normality. Even dim humans have, or at least once had, the potential to be smart sophisticated creatures like ourselves, capable of entering into rich, complex moral communities. Moreover, human beings will, under normal conditions, develop into such individuals. Pigs won’t. That is why we are under a powerful moral obligation to care for and nurture dim humans, but can in good conscience send equally intelligent pigs off to the abattoir. This paper presents a thought experiment designed to bring out the inadequacy of this type of justification.

Introduction

Why is it typically wrong to kill and eat human animals, but not other sorts of animal? What is the difference between our species and others that justifies us in treating them so differently?

This is a notoriously difficult question to answer. There is no doubt that we do quite properly morally discriminate between different kinds of being. For example, we treat children differently to adults. We restrict what children are able to do; we don’t allow them to vote, and so on. But this is justified. Children are not sufficiently rational or responsible to be able to look after themselves properly or to exercise the vote. There’s a morally relevant difference between children and adults that warrants this difference in treatment.

Not all differences are, in this respect, morally relevant. Take skin colour and sex, for example. Both black people and women were at one time denied the vote. Their freedom was also heavily restricted, and in some places still is. But while black people and women have been discriminated against, the differences between them and their oppressors did not and does not justify the difference in treatment. When it comes to the right to be free and to have the vote, what’s morally significant about race or sex? Nothing at all. Those who discriminate on the basis of race or sex are guilty of racism and sexism: forms of prejudice and bigotry against those who are different.

The challenge facing those of us who believe it is morally acceptable to kill and eat, experiment upon, etc. other species but not our own is, in effect, to point out the difference between us and them that morally justifies this marked difference in treatment. Unless we can point up some such difference, it seems that we, too, are guilty of a form of bigotry: the form for which Richard Ryder coined the term speciesism.

The appeal to mental sophistication

It is widely supposed that the difference between humans and other species that justifies this difference in treatment is that the non-human species are comparatively unintelligent and unsophisticated. The members of other species cannot master language. They are incapable of entering into or even grasping the complex social relationships that bind we humans together into moral communities. It is this, some argue, that gives us the right to kill and eat them, experiment upon them, and so on.

Despite it’s popularity, at least among the general public, this sort of justification runs up against a well-known counter-example. What are we to say about human beings who are no more intellectually or morally sophisticated than is, say, the average pig? If the morally relevant difference between humans and other species lies in this kind of mental sophistication, then these humans will be no more deserving of our moral respect than is a pig (which is, no doubt, deserving of some moral concern, though of course nothing like the level concern we afford to all human beings, no matter how dim the latter might happen to be). Those who wish to discriminate on the basis of intellectual and moral sophistication must say either that it would be morally acceptable to kill and eat, experiment on, etc. these mentally impaired humans, or else we must say that, if these human beings are sufficiently mentally sophisticated to qualify them for the right not to be killed and eaten, experimented upon, etc. then so too are pigs.

That is not, of course, how we currently discriminate.

The appeal to potential and normality

How, then, might we justify discriminating as we do, if not by a straightforward appeal to mental sophistication? I now turn to one of the most popular responses to this challenge.

It has been argued that it is not what a mentally impaired human being is that is important, but what he or she might have been. While the impaired individual may not now have the potential to be smart, there was a time in the when, had things been different in a not-so-improbable way, they would have turned out smart.

Suppose for example, that someone is mentally impaired because as a foetus they were damaged in the womb, or because their father was accidentally irradiated, causing damage to the sperm from which that individual then grew. We can say about this person that the potential to be a smart, morally aware individual was once there, even if it has now been lost. And that, some suggest, is the morally relevant difference between this individual, on the one hand, and a pig, on the other: the difference that morally permits us to kill and eat, experiment upon, etc. the pig but not the human.

A slightly different move is to suggest that the pertinent difference between pigs and mentally impaired humans is one of normality. Human beings, under normal circumstances, develop into smart creatures belonging to moral communities. Pigs do not. It is the fact that human beings normally develop in this way that qualifies even atypical members for special moral consideration far beyond that which we extend to pigs.

The appeals to potential and normality are not quite the same. After all, while each member of a species may have - or once have had - a clear potential for X, it does not follow that becoming an X is normal for members of that species. While each bee once had the potential to become a queen, bees do not normally become queens.

Scruton’s suggestion

Roger Scruton attempts to justify our discriminating between pigs etc. and similarly dim humans by appealing to both potential and normality:

It is in the nature of human beings that, in normal conditions, they become members of a moral community, governed by duty and protected by rights. Abnormality in this respect does not cancel membership. It merely compels us to adjust our response… It is not just that dogs and bears do not belong to the moral community. They have no potential for membership. They are not the kind of thing that can settle disputes, that can exert sovereignty over its life, that can respond to the call of duty or take responsibility on a matter of trust.

Scruton concludes that, because of these differences between pigs, etc. and similarly dim humans, we are morally justified in discriminating as we do.

There is, I think, something deeply unsatisfactory about Scruton’s attempt to justify our current discriminatory practices. Consider the following thought experiment.

Thought experiment: a dim parallel species

Suppose that on a planet many light years from the Earth there has evolved a species that bears an uncanny resemblance to we humans. They look much like us, and indeed are physiologically and genetically very much like us. However, they are dim. They have no moral or aesthetic sense. In fact, they are no more mentally sophisticated than is the average pig. As a species, they are not, to borrow Scruton’s phrase ‘the kind of thing that can settle disputes, that can exert sovereignty over its life, that can respond to the call of duty or take responsibility on a matter of trust’.

Now imagine we are presented with two groups of individuals. The first group are orphan offspring from this other planet. They are dim because individuals belonging to that species are normally, naturally dim. The second group are terrestrial human beings: the orphan children of men and women like ourselves. But they too are dim, as dim as the extraterrestrial group, in fact. The second group’s mental impairment is due to a nuclear mishap. Their fathers were accidentally irradiated, resulting in damage to the genetic code handed down to them.

Let’s suppose these two groups are otherwise identical. Indeed, they are molecule-for-molecule duplicates of each other. The immediate cause of their dimness is in each case the same: their genetic code. However, while the two groups share the same code, they possess it for different reasons. The terrestrials possess it because they are the unfortunate victims of a recent nuclear accident. The extra-terrestrial group possesses it because of their evolutionary ancestry.

Note that while the members of the extra-terrestrial are ‘normal’ for their kind, the terrestrials are not. Human beings, under normal conditions, develop into smart, sophisticated creatures like ourselves. They are that kind of thing.

Also notice that, unlike the extraterrestrials, the terrestrials once had the potential to be smart. Had their fathers not been involved in that nuclear accident, they would have been as mentally sophisticated as ourselves. The extra-terrestrials, on the other hand, were always going to be dim. That is their nature.

Let’s now test our moral intuitions with the following question: Are we morally permitted to discriminate between these two groups? In particular, would it be wrong to kill and eat, experiment upon, etc. the second group but not the first?

If we are permitted to kill and eat, experiment upon, etc. those who belong to species the normal members of which are dim, but not those who, while dim, are members of a species that, as a kind, is morally and intellectually sophisticated, then we may kill and eat, experiment upon, etc. the dim extraterrestrials, but not the dim terrestrials. If what matters, morally speaking, is what under normal conditions the members of a certain kind will become, then while we are morally obliged to extend to the dim terrestrials special treatment, we can kill and eat, experiment upon, etc. their molecularly-indistinguishable doppelgangers with impunity.

Similarly, if it is potential that counts, then while we have a special duty of care towards the terrestrials, their extra-terrestrial doppelgangers can in good conscience be loaded onto the truck bound for the abattoir.

But of course this verdict is profoundly counterintuitive. How can we possibly be justified in treating these molecule-for-molecule duplicates so very differently simply because they differ in terms of potential and what is “normal” for their kind?

Suppose a mistake is discovered: a couple marked out for the special care centre we have designed to look after the dim humans are suddenly discovered to be of extraterrestrial origin. Would there be anything wrong in diverting these two to the abattoir instead? Surely there would.

What this thought experiment elicits (in me, at least) is the very strong intuition that the difference between the terrestrial and extraterrestrial groups in terms of both normality and potential does not justify such a difference in treatment.

Indeed, the question arises: Why are we justified in discriminating between humans and other species on the basis of potential and what is normal for the species. Why suppose that this difference justifies us in supposing that, while we are under a powerful moral obligation to care for the dim humans, the pigs can happily be sent off to the abattoir?

Clearly, it is not enough simply to assert that it justifies such an attitude. The onus is on Scruton and those who wish to discriminate in this way to explain why we should consider this difference between pigs and dim humans morally relevant. After all, when it comes to having the vote, a racist might simply assert that race is a morally relevant difference, and a sexist might just baldly assert that sex is a morally relevant difference. But that’s not good enough. We need to be told why race and sex are relevant.

The right response to the racist who points out that black people differ in colour from white is: “But why is that difference morally relevant?” The right response to those who wish to discriminate between pigs and dim humans on the basis of what is “normal” for the species is, similarly, “But why is that difference morally relevant?” The onus is on them to explain why this difference justifies such radically different moral attitudes.

What this thought experiment brings out, I hope, is that not only has Scruton not provided such an explanation, it is extremely difficult to see how the difference in what’s “normal” for the species could possibly justify this discrimination.

Crackers

This is a very strange story. Death threats issued to student who smuggled a cracker out of Eucharist....

Centre for Inquiry - visit

I am currently staying in Buffalo, NY, as a guest of Paul Kurtz and the Centre for Inquiry (transnational). We are sorting out how CFI London will proceed. I am interested in what kind of talks and events people would like to see put on, If you've got suggestions let me know...

POST SCRIPT: Here are ideas I am currently playing with. Comments please.

1. LEAD EVENT: PUBLIC DEBATE: THE NEW ATHEISM. Perhaps with a certain well-known atheist and his nemesis. Not mentioning any names....

2. Course: Exploring the paranormal. 2hrs for one evening per week, over 5 weeks. Possible charge of £20. With leading parapsychologists.

3. Course: The Omega Course. (or Alpha plus course). an alternative to the Church of England's cultish Alpha Course.

3a. Course or event on how cults work.

4. EVENT: Psychic powers. Come along and see fantastic demonstrations of psychic ability! (Some of you may remember I did this for the launch of THINK with Tony Youens, and it was a lot of fun. Got lots of punters in. Many were clearly upset, but rather wiser, when the scams were subsequently revealed... I'm thinking Sally Morgan type thing).

5. Course. Psychology of Religion. There's some fabulous work being done in this area. we should get some of the leading researchers in from Oxford and elsewhere to explain their work (n.b. many are religious). Again, should we charge?

6. Science talks. Mind blowing talks from leading astrophysicists, etc. to popularize science.

7. Socials? CFI Amherst has mountain biking trips and white water rafting. Not sure if we can manage that.

NB courses are likely to be 5 weeks, one evening a week. That sound about right? Probably with different speaker each week. The downside to this is lack of continuity (course is very "bitty"). The upside is no speaker has to do more than one evening, so easier to get a commitment from the best speakers. (Also we may be able to avoid paying them!)

PPS: Help is going to be needed, especially re events, socials, etc. Anyone willing to give an hour here and there do please let me know.

Why knowledge of other faiths is not enough

Many seem to think that, so long as a faith school is providing children with knowledge of other faiths, that's good enough.

It isn't. Here are 3 reasons why:

1. For a start, knowledge of other faiths does not necessarily lead to a reduction in friction between faiths. In fact, often the most vicious and violent religious conflicts are between groups with detailed knowledge with what the other believes, e.g. Catholic vs. Protestant; Shia vs. Sunni. Mere knowledge of other faiths does not produce tolerance and respect. Actual interaction with members of other faiths (and none), on the other hand, probably does have a beneficial effect.

2. Mere knowledge of other faiths, in the absence of any robust critical thinking about faith, often also promotes a very intellectually flabby sort of relativism. Pupils presented with a range of faiths are likely to realize that, as these faiths all contradict each other, most of them (perhaps all of them) must be largely false. Teachers who want to avoid endorsing this conclusion may be tempted to sidestep the issue by taking a relativist stance: "Well, that Jesus is God is true for Christians, but false for Muslims". Relativism conveniently makes the religious beliefs of all believers come out as "true"!

3. Most importantly, unless children acquire the sort of critical thinking skills and robust intellectual defences that I'm arguing all schools, religious or not, should foster (and which traditional religious eduction often works so hard to suppress) schools provide the perfect, gullible fodder for the charlatans, snake oil salesmen, cultists and religious zealots waiting outside the school gates.

Religion and Philosophy in Schools

Religion and philosophy in schools

[my chapter from Hand and Winstanley (eds.) Philosophy in Schools, Continuum 2008]

WARNING: THIS IS LONG!

Stephen Law

Is philosophy in schools a good idea? The extent to which early exposure to a little philosophical thinking is of educational benefit is, of course, largely an empirical question. As a philosopher, that sort of empirical study is not my area of expertise.

But of course there is also a philosophical dimension to this question. As a philosopher, conceptual clarification and the analysis of the logic of the arguments on either side certainly is my field. That is where I hope to make a small contribution here.

This chapter is in two parts. In the first, I look at two popular religious objections to the suggestion that all children ought to be encouraged to think independently and critically about moral and religious issues. In the second part, I explain a well-known philosophical distinction – that between reasons and causes – and give a couple of examples of how this conceptual distinction might help illuminate this debate.

PART ONE: Two popular religious objections

Philosophy in the classroom involves children thinking critically and independently about the big questions. These questions include questions about morality and the origin and purpose of human existence. Examples are: “Why is there anything at all?”, “What makes things right or wrong?” And “What happens to us when we die?” These questions are also addressed by religion. The subject matter of philosophy and religion significantly overlap. And where there is overlap, there is the possibility of disputed territory. Proponents of philosophy in the classroom may find themselves coming into conflict with at least some of the faithful. While many religious people are enthusiastic about philosophy in the classroom, there are also many who are either totally opposed to it, or else want severely to restrict its scope. Some Christians, Muslims and Jews consider the introduction of philosophy an unwelcome intrusion into those parts of the curriculum that have traditionally been deemed theirs. They have developed a whole range of objections.

I want to look at two very popular objections to the suggestion that all children should be encouraged to think critically and independently about moral and religious questions. The first is:

To encourage a thinking, questioning attitude on these topics is to promote relativism.

The second is:

Parents have a right to send their child to a school where their religious beliefs will not be subjected to critical scrutiny.

Here is an illustration of both worries being expressed simultaneously. In 2004, the U.K.’s Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) proposed that all children should be exposed to a range of religious faiths and atheism, and also that they be taught to think critically about religious belief. The IPPR recommended that the focus be on

learning how to make informed, rational judgements on the truth or falsity of religious propositions… Pupils would be actively encouraged to question the religious beliefs they bring with them into the classroom, not so that they are better able to defend or rationalise them, but so that they are genuinely free to adopt whatever position on religious matters they judge to be best supported by the evidence. (Hand, 2004)

What the IPPR proposed is, in effect, a form of philosophy in the classroom: the philosophical examination of religious belief.

Many religious people were entirely comfortable with this proposal. But not all. The Daily Telegraph ran a leader condemning the IPPR’s recommendations. Here is Daily Mail columnist Melanie Phillips quoting from it approvingly:

As [this] Telegraph leader comments, this is nothing other than yet another attempt at ideological indoctrination: 'It reflects the belief that parents who pass on the Christian faith are guilty of indoctrinating their children, and that it is the role of the state to stop them. The IPPR and its allies in the Government are not so much interested in promoting diversity as in replacing one set of orthodoxies by another: the joyless ideology of cultural relativism.'’ (Phillips, 2004)

Here we find both of the concerns mentioned above expressed simultaneously. Surely parents have a right to send their children to a school where their religious beliefs will be promoted without being subjected to this sort of independent critical scrutiny. The state has no right to interfere. And in any case, isn’t encouraging such critical thought itself a form of indoctrination – in this case, indoctrination with the poisonous dogma of relativism?

The charge of relativism

I’ll consider that charge of promoting relativism first.

Relativism, as Melanie Philips and the Daily Telegraph use the term, is the view that the truth in some particular sphere is relative.

Some truths are indeed relative. Consider wichitti grubs – those huge larvae eaten live by some aboriginal Australians. Most Westerners find them revolting (certainly, the model Jordan did when she was recently required to eat one on I’m a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here). But at least some native Australians consider them delicious.

So what is the truth about wichitti grubs? Are they delicious, or aren’t they? The truth, it seems, is that, unlike the truth about whether wichitti grubs are carbon-based life forms or whether they are found in Australia, there is no objective, mind-independent truth. The truth about the deliciousness of wichitti grubs is relative. For Jordan, that wichitti grubs are delicious is false. For others, it’s true. When it comes to deliciousness, what’s true and false ultimately boils down to subjective opinion or taste.

The relativist about morality insists that the truth of moral claims is similarly relative. There’s no objective truth about whether female circumcision, stealing from supermarkets, or even killing an innocent human being, is morally wrong. Rightness and wrongness ultimately also boil down to subjective preference or taste. What’s true for one person or culture may be false for another.

The relativist about religious truth similarly insists that the truth about whether or not Jesus is God is relative. That Jesus is God is true-for-Christians but false-for Muslims. The “truth” about religion is simply whatever the faithful take it to be.

Often associated with relativism is a form of non-judgementalism – if, say, all moral and religious points of view are equally “valid”, then we are wrong to judge those who hold different moral and religious views.

This brand of non-judgementalist relativism about truth is widely considered to be eating away at the fabric of Western civilization like a cancer. It is supposed to be deeply destructive – resulting in a culture of selfish, shallow individualism in which personal preference trumps everything and, ultimately, anything goes.

Relativism is certainly commonly supposed to have infected the young. Schools are often blamed. Marianne Talbot of Brasenose College Oxford, says about her students that they

have been taught to think their opinion is no better than anyone else’s, that there is no truth, only truth-for-me. I come across this relativist view constantly – in exams, in discussion and in tutorials – and I find it frightening: to question it amounts, in the eyes of the young, to the belief that it is permissible to impose your views on others. (quoted in Phillips, 1997, p. 221)

The U.S. academic Allan Bloom writes:

[t]here is one thing a professor can be absolutely certain of: almost every student entering university believes, or says he believes, that truth is relative. (Bloom, 1987, p. 25)

The new Pontiff is also deeply concerned. He says,

We are moving towards a dictatorship of relativism which does not recognize anything as for certain and which has as its highest goal one's own ego and one's own desires. (Ratzinger 2005)

Relativism even gets the blame for the rise of dangerously rigid political and religious dogmas. Just last week, it was reported that the Ministry of Defence believes that

the trend towards moral relativism and increasingly pragmatic values [is causing] more rigid belief systems, including religious orthodoxy and doctrinaire political ideologies, such as popularism and Marxism. (quoted in Baginni, 2007)

Interestingly, when Nick Tate, head of the UK’s QCAA (the U.K. body responsible for devising and assessing the national curriculum) introduced compulsory classes in citizenship for all pupils attending state-funded schools, he was explicit that one of his chief concerns was to “slay the dragon of relativism”. (Tate, 1996)
So, relativism is supposed to be rampant. But where did it come from?

The roots of relativism

In the minds of many, the blame lies with the Enlightenment and the 1960’s.Take the U.K.’s Chief Rabbi, Jonathan Sacks, for example. He finds particular fault with the Enlightenment philosopher Immanuel Kant. Kant provides the classic definition of Enlightenment. He says individuals should think independently and make their own judgement, rather than defer more or less uncritically to some external authority:

[Enlightenment is the] emergence of man from his self-imposed infancy. Infancy is the inability to use one’s reason without the guidance of another. It is self-imposed, when it depends on a deficiency, not of reason, but of the resolve and courage to use it without external guidance. Thus the watchword of enlightenment is: Sapere aude! Have the courage to use your own reason! (quoted in Honderich, 1995, entry on Enlightenment))

It is no coincidence that “Sapere” and “Aude” have been adopted as the names of two philosophy-for-children organizations.

The Chief Rabbi considers Kant’s thinking dangerous. He says that

according to Kant…[t]o do something because others do, or because of habit or custom or even Divine Command, is to accept an external authority over the one sovereign territory that is truly our own: our own choices. The moral being for Kant is by definition an autonomous being, a person who accepts no other authority than the self. By the 1960s this was beginning to gain hold as an educational orthodoxy. The task of education is not to hand on a tradition but to enhance the consciousness of choice. (Sacks 1997, p. 176)

It’s this Kantian rejection of any external moral authority that might decide right and wrong for us - Kant’s insistence on the moral autonomy of the individual - that is the root cause of our problems. It’s here that we find the origin of today’s relativism. For to teach in accordance with Kant’s thinking, says Sacks, requires,

…non-judgementalism and relativism on the part of the teacher” (Ibid.)

Melanie Phillips concurs. “It seems reasonable,” she says “to regard the Enlightenment as the defining moment for the collapse of external authority” (Phillips, 1996, p. 189) The problem with Enlightenment thinking, argues Phillips, is that

instead of authority being located “out there” in a body of knowledge handed down through the centuries, we have repositioned it “in here” within each child. (Phillips, 1996, p. 28)

Because each individual “has become their own individual arbiter of conduct” so relativism and the view that “no-one else [is] permitted to pass judgement” have become the norm.

For Sacks, Phillips, and many other religious conservatives, Kant’s “Sapere Aude!” – the battle cry of the Enlightenment – lies at the very heart of the West’s “moral malaise”. It is not surprising, then, that Phillips would oppose the IPPR’s recommendations that children be encouraged to think critically about their own religious beliefs and traditions.

According to Sacks, Phillips, and very many others, encouraging children to think independently, particularly about moral and religious matters, is precisely what got us into the awful mess in which we now find ourselves. They believe the time has come to move back in the direction of the traditional, authority-based moral and religious education that tended to predominate before the 60’s.

Philosophy in the classroom promotes relativism?

I have sketched out just one of the many reasons social and religious conservatives will give when explaining their hostility to the suggestion that all children ought to be encouraged and trained to think critically even about moral and religious beliefs. Such encouragement, they claim, promotes relativism. But need it?

No. In my book The War For Children’s Minds, I deal with this sort of objection – as well as many others – in much greater detail. Here I will merely sketch out three very obvious reasons why to encourage and teach children to think critically even about morality and religion need not entail the promotion of relativism and non-judgementalism.

1. Relativism entails no point to thinking critically. If relativism were true, there would be no point in engaging in the kind of critical thinking that proponents of philosophy in schools recommend. For if relativism is true, the belief that you arrive at after much very carefully critical thought will be no more true than the one you started with. Those who recommend we think critically about the Big Questions – including moral and religious questions – even from a young age are, in effect, opposed to relativism insofar as they think that this sort of activity is able to get us closer to the truth.

2. Philosophy can combat relativism. Secondly, a children’s philosophy programme is free to include critical discussion of relativism. A little close critical scrutiny is able pretty quickly to reveal precisely why the usual politically-motivated arguments for relativism (such as that only relativists can promote tolerance) are, frankly, awful. I believe children should have the failings of moral relativism explained to them. That should form part of their education.

3. Relativism and respect for religious authority. Thirdly, there’s at least anecdotal evidence that, rather than relativism being a product of a thinking, questioning culture, embracing relativism may be a strategy teachers embrace in order to avoid thinking critically about – and, in particular, questioning the authority of – any given religious tradition. If a teacher is required to teach a range of faiths, children are likely to spot that they contradict each other, and will inevitably ask, “Which is actually true? Is Jesus God, as Christians claim, or merely a prophet, as Muslims claim?” Suggest that one religion must be mistaken and phone calls may ensue (“My daughter has been told the Pope might be mistaken”). Embracing relativism provides teachers with an easy escape from this dilemma. They can say “That Jesus is God is true-for-Christians, but false-for-Muslims”. Religious relativism conveniently makes all religious beliefs come out as true. As Marilyn Mason (former chief education officer for the British Humanist Association) here explains, rather than promoting relativism, clear philosophical thinking is actually well placed to combat this sort of shoddy, relativistic thinking.

I used to wonder where my students’ shoulder shrugging relativism and subjectivism about knowledge came from, though I think I now know: talk of “different truths” or “subjective truth” seems to have become the accepted RE way of demonstrating tolerance and mutual respect when confronted with differing and sometimes conflicting beliefs and views on morality or the supernatural… Here is an area where the clear thinking characteristic of philosophy at its best would surely help. (Mason, 2005, p. 37)

Regarding the last two points, I should add, incidentally, that I do not mean that children should simply be told that they must more-or-less uncritically accept that relativism is twaddle. The idea is not to encourage independent critical thought about everything… except, er, relativism. But I see no reason why children cannot be given the very good arguments against relativism (which, presented correctly, are both engaging and fairly easy to grasp) to reflect on at an appropriate stage in their development.

I should perhaps also add that the kind of philosophy programme I would recommend is not, then, an exclusively hands-off affair in which topics are always chosen by children, in which children are never taught basic skills, positions and styles of argument, and in which the supposedly “philosophical” discussion is allowed to take the form of little more than a free association of ideas, with little, if any, logical structure or rigour.

While I am enthusiastic about class discussions on the P4C model (which are often excellent), I think they probably need to be paired at some stage with some teaching of the basic skills, arguments and positions – including relativism. (This is not to say I favour a dry semi-academic approach either – I think we need to develop new, engaging ways of teaching skills, arguments and positions.)

I don’t deny, of course, that this sort of teaching would need to be carried out by people who are at least reasonably competent in the area, by teachers who, for example, are well-versed in the arguments for and against relativism. Nor do I deny that an intellectually flabby “philosophy for children” programme might inadvertently end up promoting relativism. But there is certainly no necessity that philosophy in the classroom should promote relativism. As I say, done correctly, philosophy in the classroom is actually well-placed to combat the kind of relativism that is allegedly carrying Western civilization to hell in a hand basket.

A parental right to a philosophy-free religious and moral education?

Now let’s turn to the second objection I mentioned at the beginning of this section – that parents have a right to send their child to a school where their religious beliefs will not be subjected to critical scrutiny.

Of course, many who favour philosophy in schools will agree with this. They may say, “I believe philosophy in schools is a very good idea, but I don’t think it should be forced on religious parents if they don’t want it.”

My view is that the IPPR recommendations are sound: all children should, without exception, be encouraged to think critically – and thus philosophically – even about the moral and religious beliefs they bring with them into the classroom. Religious parents should not be able to opt out.

I am not going to attempt to make much of a positive case for that perhaps rather illiberal-sounding assertion here. I will simply offer a challenge to those who, like Phillips and the Daily Telegraph, believe that schools that promote a religious faith in a wholly uncritical way are acceptable.

Suppose political schools started springing up – a neoconservative school in Billericay followed by a communist school in Middlesbrough. Suppose these schools select pupils on the basis of parents’ political beliefs. Suppose they start each morning with the collective singing of political anthems. Suppose portraits of their political leaders beam down from every classroom wall. Suppose they insist that pupils accept, more or less uncritically, the beliefs embodied in their revered political texts. If such schools did spring up, there would be outrage. These establishments would be accused of educationally stunting children, forcing their minds into politically pre-approved moulds. They’re the kind of Orwellian schools you find under totalitarian regimes in places like Stalinist Russia.

My question is, if such political schools are utterly unacceptable, if they are guilty of educationally stunting children, why on Earth are so many of us still prepared to tolerate their religious equivalents? Why, if we cross out "political" and write "religious", do these schools suddenly strike many of us as entirely acceptable?

Assuming that Phillips and the Daily Telegraph would consider such political schools unacceptable (irrespective of the desire of parents to send their children to them), the onus is surely on them to explain why we should consider their religious equivalents rather more acceptable – indeed, even desirable.

One move they might make would be to say that our political beliefs are clearly far too practically important – they are far too likely to have a concrete impact in terms of the kind of society we live in – to be left in the hands of the indoctrinators. Religious beliefs, on the other hand, are more other-worldly, and so less of a concern.

But this would be to overlook that religious beliefs are often intensely political. Clearly, religious points of view on homosexuality, charity, a woman’s place in the home, abortion, the State of Israel, jihad, and even poverty and injustice, are all political. There are few aspects of religious belief that don’t have an important political dimension.

In which case, my challenge becomes sharper still: if such authoritarian political schools are unacceptable, then why are their religious equivalents acceptable, particularly as these religious schools are, in effect, highly political?

Conclusion

I see no reason why an enlightened, liberal approach to moral and religious education of the sort recommended by the IPPR cannot be conducted in religiously-affiliated schools. It is not incompatible with a religious upbringing. Teachers at a Christian school, for example, might say “This is what we believe, and these are the reasons why we believe it. Obviously we would like you to believe it to, but not just because we tell you to. We want you to think and question and make up your own minds.” A school can have a strong Christian ethos even while encouraging independent critical thought- indeed, even while promoting philosophy in the classroom.

I don’t yet see that the appeal to relativism and parental rights justifies either the conclusion that philosophy in the religious classroom is largely undesirable or the conclusion that it be made, at most, an optional extra.


PART TWO: Reasons and causes

In this second part of this chapter, I want to make a well-known philosophical distinction – that between reasons and causes – and then draw out a couple of conclusions concerning philosophy in the classroom.

Reasons and causes

People’s beliefs can be shaped in two very different ways, as illustrated by the two different ways we might answer the question “Why does Jane believe what she does?”

First, we might offer Jane’s reasons and justifications – the grounds of her belief. Why does Jane believe our CO2 gas emissions are causing global warming? Well, she has seen the figures on how much CO2 we are putting into the atmosphere, and she has seen the graphs based on Antarctic ice cores showing how global temperatures have closely tracked CO2 levels over the last 600,000 years. So, concludes Jane on the basis of this evidence, the rising temperatures are very probably a result of our CO2 emissions.

Another example: why does Jane believe there is a pencil on the table in front of her? Because there appears to be a pencil there. She remembers just putting a pencil there. And she has no reason to suppose that there’s anything funny going on (that she’s hallucinating, the victim of an optical illusion, or whatever).

Of course, explaining why someone believes something by giving their grounds or reasons is not yet to say that they are good reasons. Mary may believe she will meet a tall, dark, handsome stranger because that’s what a psychic hotline told her.

So we can explain beliefs by giving people’s reasons. But this is not the only way in which beliefs can be explained. Suppose John believes he is a teapot. Why? Because John attended a hypnotist’s stage-show last night. John was pulled out of the audience and hypnotized into believing he is a teapot. The hypnotist forgot to un-hypnotize him, and so John is still stuck with that belief.

Of course, John needn’t be aware of the true explanation of why he believes he is a teapot. He may not remember being hypnotized. If we ask him to justify his belief, he may find himself oddly unable. He may simply find himself stuck with it. He may well say, with utter conviction, that he just knows he is a teapot. In fact, because such non-inferentially-held beliefs are usually perceptual beliefs, it may seem to John that he can see he’s a teapot. “Look!” he may say, sticking out his arms “Here’s my handle and here’s my spout!”

So we can explain beliefs by giving a person’s reasons, grounds and justifications, and we can explain beliefs by giving purely causal explanations (I say purely causal, as reasons can be causes too [see for example Davidson, 1963)).

Purely causal explanations range from, say, being hypnotized or brainwashed to caving in to peer pressure or wishful thinking. These mechanisms may even include, say, being genetically predisposed to having certain sorts of belief (it has been suggested by Daniel Dennett (2006) and others that we are, for example, genetically predisposed to religious belief).

Of course, both kinds of explanation may be relevant when it comes to explaining why Sophie believes that P. Sophie may believe that P in part because there is some evidence for P, though not enough to warrant belief in P, and in part because she is, say, biologically predisposed to believe P. It may be that neither factor, by itself, is sufficient to explain Sophie’s belief.
We may well flatter ourselves about just how rational we are. Sometimes, when we believe something, we think we’re simply responding rationally to the evidence, but the truth is we have been manipulated in a purely causal way. I might think I have decided that sexism is wrong because I’ve recognized the inherent rationality of the case against it, when the truth is that I have simply caved in to peer pressure and my unconscious desire to conform.

Brainwashing

So there are two ways in which we might explain belief. There are, correspondingly, at least two ways in which we might seek to induce belief in someone. We might attempt to make a rational case, try to persuade them by means of evidence and cogent argument. Or we might take the purely causal route and try to hypnotize, apply peer pressure, etc. instead.
One of the most obvious ways of engaging in purely causal manipulation of what people believe is, of course, brainwashing. Kathleen Taylor, a research scientist in physiology at the University of Oxford who has published a study of brainwashing, writes that five core techniques consistently show up:

One striking fact about brainwashing is its consistency. Whether the context is a prisoner of war camp, a cult’s headquarters or a radical mosque, five core techniques keep cropping up: isolation, control, uncertainty, repetition and emotional manipulation. (Taylor, 2005)

The isolation may involve physical isolation or separation. Control covers restricting the information and range of views people have access to, and includes censorship. Cults tend endlessly to repeat their beliefs to potential converts. This repetition may include, for example, very regular communal chanting or singing. Under uncertainty, Taylor discusses the discomfort we feel when presented with uncertainty: by providing a simple set of geometric certainties that cover and explain everything, and also constantly reminding people of the vagaries and chaos of what lies outside this belief system, cultists can make their system seem increasingly attractive. Emotional manipulation can take many forms – most obviously the associating of positive feelings and images (e.g. uplifting or serenely smiling icons) with the belief system, and fear and uncertainty with the alternatives.

Of course, the extent to which these techniques are applied varies from cult to cult. Clearly, they are also applied by non-religious cults and regimes. A school in Mao’s China or under the present regime in North Korea would almost certainly check all five boxes.

I note (though Taylor doesn’t), simply as a point of fact, that religious schools of the sort that tended to predominate in this country up until the 1960’s also very clearly check all five boxes.
That these and other purely causal mechanisms are effective at influencing belief even outside a cult’s headquarters or a prisoner of war camp is surely undeniable. We are all very heavily influenced by them. The success of the advertizing industry is testimony to their effectiveness. Indeed, many advertising campaigns check many, if not all, of Taylor’s five boxes for brainwashing.

When challenged on this, the industry typically insists that it is primarily concerned with “informing” the public - providing good reasons and evidence on which consumers can base a rational and informed choice. Nevertheless the main tools of the advertizing trade are for the most part purely causal. An advertisement for soap powder, lipstick, a car or a loan typically contains very little factual information or argument. The power of these adverts to shape our thinking and behaviour is mostly purely causal – they play on our uncertainties and rely very heavily on repetition and emotional manipulation.

The question of balance

That such purely causal mechanisms are going to shape what people believe is something that is, to some extent, unavoidable. Even in a very liberal educational setting in which philosophy is involved, there will inevitably be many purely causal factors also influencing belief. Certainly, we should admit that a classroom is not wholly given over to the space of reasons. All sorts of causal and psychological pressures are applied, knowingly and unknowingly, within a school. This may even, to a very significant extent, be desirable.

The question is how these purely causal influences should be balanced against giving reasons and justifications, encouraging rational reflection, and so on.

Now I would suggest that the extent to which religious people tend to favour or oppose the introduction of philosophy in the classroom (and the extent to which they would recommend a return to more traditional religious educational methods) tends to a very large extent to correspond with the degree to which they prefer reliance on techniques that are, in effect, purely causal.

Philosophy in the classroom is of course about thinking critically and independently about many of the same issues in which religion has a stake. Free and open discussion, in which all views are open to close critical scrutiny (religious views included) means operating within what Wilfred Sellars called “the logical space of reasons” (Sellars, 1956, p. 169)

On the other hand, while traditional religious education might also involve a degree of free discussion (typically within certain parameters: children may be subtly or not so subtly steered away from asking certain sorts of question or making certain sorts of point), it was generally orientated far more towards purely causal techniques of influencing belief. Daily repetitive acts of worship, repetitive prayer, isolation from other belief systems (including physical isolation from those who hold them), control over the range of materials children have access to (such as writings critical of that faith), the punishment of those who dare to question (a colleague of mine educated in a Catholic School in the 1960’s was punished simply for asking why the Catholic Church opposed contraception) and emotional manipulation (associating “all things bright and beautiful” with the faith, images of moral chaos and hell with the alternatives) – these techniques were the mainstay of religious education.

So while every style of moral and religious education inevitably involves a blend of both engaging children’s rational, critical faculties and (whether or not intentionally) applying purely causal mechanisms, one of the fundamental issues dividing proponents of philosophy in the classroom from religious traditionalists is how these two ingredients should be balanced.

Truth-sensitivity

I want now to look at some of the ways in which reason-involving educational methods differ from purely causal mechanisms for shaping belief. Let’s begin with truth-sensitivity.
One interesting fact about these two ways of getting someone to believe something is that, generally speaking , only one is truth-sensitive.

The purely causal mechanisms of isolation, control, repetition, uncertainty and emotional manipulation, for example, can be used to induce the belief that Paris is the capital of France. But they can just as easily be applied to induce the beliefs that Paris is the capital of Germany and that Big Brother loves you.

The attractive thing about appealing to someone’s power of reason, by contrast, is that it strongly favours beliefs that are true. Cogent argument doesn’t easily lend itself to inducing false beliefs. You are going to have a hard time trying to construct a strong, well-reasoned case capable of withstanding critical scrutiny for believing that Swindon is inhabited by giant wasp-men or that the Earth’s core is made of cheese.

Sound reasoning and critical thought tend to act as a filter on false beliefs. Of course, the filter is not foolproof – false beliefs will inevitably get through. But it does tend to allow into a person’s mind only those beliefs that have at least a fairly good chance of being correct.

Indeed, unlike the purely causal techniques of inducing belief discussed above, the use of reason is a double-edged sword. It cuts both ways. It doesn’t automatically favour the teacher’s beliefs over the pupil’s. It favours the truth, and so places the teacher and the pupil on a level playing field. If, as a teacher, you try to use reason to persuade, you may discover your pupil can show that it is you, and not them, that is mistaken. That’s a risk some “educators” are not prepared to take.

Causal vs normative determination

Some post-modern thinkers insist, of course, that “reason” is a term used to dignify what is, in reality, merely another purely causal mechanism for influencing belief, alongside brainwashing and indoctrination. Reason is no more sensitive to the “truth” than these other mechanisms (for of course there is really no truth for it to be sensitive to). Reason is, in reality, just another form of power – of thought-control. It is essentially as manipulative as any other mechanism.
But this is to overlook the fact that while a rational argument can in a sense “force” a conclusion on you, the “force” involved is normative, not causal.

Causal determination determines what will happen. For example, given the causal power of these rails to direct this train, the train will go Oxford. Indeed, it is causally forced or compelled to. Normative determination, on the other hand, determines not what will happen, but what ought to. It is an entirely distinct kind of determination involving an entirely different sort of “compulsion” or “force”.

A rational argument shows you what you ought to believe if you want to avoid contradiction and give your beliefs the best chance of being true. Take this valid deductive argument:

All men smell
John is a man
Therefore, John smells.

To recognise that this argument is valid, is just to recognize that if you believe that all men smell, and that John is a man, then you ought to believe that John smells. But of course this argument doesn’t causally compel you to accept that conclusion even if you do accept the premises. You’re free to be irrational.

This isn't to deny that rational arguments have causal power. Of course they do. A good argument can have the power to change history (consider the wonderful arguments of Galileo, or the campaigner against slavery William Wilberforce). But when rational arguments have the causal power to shape people’s thinking, they typically have it as a result of their having normative power. People change their opinions precisely because they recognize the normative force of the argument.


[Notice, by the way, that we can easily demonstrate that a rational argument doesn’t have normative power simply in virtue of its having the causal power to shape people’s thinking (though critics who fail to understand the difference between normative and causal determination or "force" typically miss this point). The obvious counter-example is fallacious argument. A fallacious argument lacks any normative power. But notice that, if the fallacy is seductive, it will still have considerable causal power to shape belief.]

So rational arguments have causal powers. But that is not to say that rational argument is in reality just another purely causal mechanism alongside e.g. brainwashing and peer pressure.

So far, I have stressed how rational argument differs from purely causal mechanisms for influencing belief. In particular, rational argument is truth-sensitive, while purely causal mechanisms are typically not. Also, rational arguments, while possessing causal power to shape belief, typically have this power in virtue of their normative power. The kind of “determination” a rational argument “imposes” on us is, in the first instance, normative, not causal. Rational argument is certainly not a form of coercion or manipulation in the way that purely causal mechanisms are.

Let’s now develop that last point a little further. As I explain below, it seems to me that rational arguments allow for a form of freedom in a way that purely causal mechanisms do not.

Reason and freedom

Enlightenment liberals like myself tend to feel uncomfortable about heavy reliance on purely causal mechanisms. Here’s one reason why.

When you use reason to persuade, you respect the other’s freedom to make (or fail to make) a rational decision. When you apply purely causal mechanisms, you take that freedom from them. Your subject may think they’ve made an entirely free and rational decision, of course, but the truth is that they’re your puppet – you’re pulling their strings. In effect, by ditching reason and relying on purely causal mechanisms – peer pressure, emotional manipulation, repetition, and so on – you are now treating them as just one more bit of the causally-manipulatable natural order – as mere things.

On one of the formulations of his categorical imperative, Kant says that we ought always to treat both others and ourselves always as ends in themselves, and never purely as means to an end. We should not treat others or ourselves in an entirely instrumental way, as we might treat a screwdriver or car, to get the result we want. We should have “respect for persons” – for their the inherent freedom and rationality, which, according to Kant, is what distinguishes them from mere things.

Here’s an illustration (not Kant’s) of the kind of respect Kant has in mind. Suppose I need food to feed my starving children. I might get food from the local shop by lying – by saying that I will pay for it next week knowing full well that I won’t. Or I might try to get food by honestly explaining my situation to the shopkeeper and hoping she will be charitable. In both cases, I “use” the shopkeeper to get what I want. But, unlike the first option, the second does not involve using the shopkeeper purely as a means to an end. I respect her rationality and freedom to make her own decision about whether to provide food without payment. Kant says that only the second option shows the shopkeeper the proper respect she is due as a person. The first treats her purely instrumentally, as if she were merely a thing.

Avoiding the purely causal route so far as influencing the beliefs of others is concerned is, presumably, one of the things that Kant would insist on. Indeed, if Kant is right, it seems that reliance on purely causal mechanisms to shape belief also involves a fundamental lack of respect for persons.

How to influence belief?

It is undeniable that, as educators, we do want to influence children’s beliefs. Influencing beliefs is not all there is to education, not by a very long way. But that this is one of the things we are interested in doing in the classroom is surely undeniable. We don’t want to send children out into the world believing that a woman’s place is behind the sink, that it’s morally acceptable to torture animals, that Jewish people are untrustworthy, or that the entire universe is just six thousand years old. Well I don’t, anyway.

So let’s admit that we want to influence what children believe . The question is: how?

My central aim in the second part of this paper has been to show how the philosophical distinction between reasons and causes can help illuminate this question. We have seen that rational argument differs from taking the purely causal route in at least three important ways:

(i) it is truth-sensitive (whereas purely causal mechanisms typically are not)
(ii) while rational arguments can be causally powerful, their causal power typically derives from their normative power – which is a categorically distinct non-causal form of “power”.
(iii) Rational argument allows for an important form of freedom - a freedom that the purely causal mechanisms actually strips from us.

We have also seen that religious traditionalists lean rather more towards purely causal mechanisms for influencing belief then do proponents of philosophy in the classroom. Indeed, this is one of the fundamental issues, perhaps the fundamental issue, dividing them.

How the distinction can illuminate the debate

To finish, I want to provide a couple of examples of how thinking about the debate between proponents of philosophy in the classroom and religious traditionalists in these terms might shed some light on some of the arguments offered on either side.

1. A temptation

First, the distinction makes a little clearer, perhaps, why taking the purely causal route can be tempting. When you open up debate and critical discussion, you run the risk that people won’t believe what you want them to believe. If we suppose that certain beliefs are very important indeed, perhaps even vital for the survival of Western civilization, well then the temptation to take the purely causal route can become very strong indeed.

For example, some argue that, whether or not religious belief is true, it is socially necessary. Remove it, and society will eventually fall apart. So we must rely on traditional religious education to instill it. Bring reason into religious education, and, given its truth-detecting power, the dubiousness of religious belief might be exposed. The results may be disastrous. So philosophy in the classroom – and certainly in the classoom where religion is discussed – is a bad, if not downright dangerous, idea. Many American neo-conservatives take this view.

At least some of these kinds of concern deserve to be taken seriously.

2. Muddling reasons and causes

Secondly, a failure properly to understand this distinction may lead defenders of traditional religious educational techniques to think that their methods are, in essence, really not so very different to what proponents of philosophy in the classroom have in mind. At bottom, aren’t both really just forms of causing-people-to-believe-what-you-want-them-to-believe? As we saw above, Melanie Phillips considers what the IPPR proposes (critical scrutiny of religious beliefs in the classroom) to be, just “another attempt at ideological indoctrination”. In Phillips’ mind, philosophy in the classroom is not an alternative to indoctrination. It’s just a different kind of indoctrination.

It is certainly in the interests of religious opponents of philosophy in the classroom to obscure the distinction between educating within the logical space of reasons, and educating via the purely causal route. In particular, it is in their interests to obscure the fact that the distinction raises some very fundamental questions about freedom, and also about what Kant calls “respect for persons”.

That many proponents of traditional religious educational methods (who would oppose philosophy in the classroom) fail fully to realize the extent to which they are applying purely causal mechanisms to induce belief is also indicated by the fact that when the beliefs in question are political, not religious and when the techniques are applied in political schools rather than religious schools, they consider these same techniques “brain-washing”.

That many of the faithful simply don’t recognize that their preferred educational methods come at least very close to brainwashing is, I suspect, largely due to fact that - within the religious setting of convent schools, madrassas, etc. and, of course, within their own upbringing (“After all, it never did me any harm”) - these techniques have acquired the rosy glow of comfortable familiarity.

REFERENCES

Asch, S. (1951) “Effects of group pressure upon the modification and distortion of judgments”, in Guetzkow, H. (1951), pp. 177-190.
Baginni, J. (2007) “What The Clash of Civilizations is Really About”, The Guardian 14th April.
Bloom, A. (1987) The Closing of The American Mind, New York: Touchstone.
Davidson, D. (1963) “Actions, Reasons and Causes”, The Journal of Philosophy, vol. 60, No. 23, pp. 685-700
Dennett, D. Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon, Viking (Penguin).
Feigl, H, and Scriven, M. (1956) The Foundations of Science and the Concepts of Psychoanalysis, Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science, Vol. I, Minneapolis MN: University of Minnesota Press.
Guetzkow, H. (Ed.) (1951) Groups, Leadership and Men: Research in Human Relations, Pittsburgh: Carnegie Press.
Hand, M. (2004) ‘What is RE for?’, in the IPPR Event Report What is Religious Education for? Getting the National Framework Right, (http://www.ippr.org/uploadedFiles/projects/RE%20Event%20Report%20-%20FINAL%20for%20pdf.PDF).
Honderich, T. (1995) The Oxford Companion to Philosophy, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Mason, M. (2205) “Philosophy – can’t live with it, can’t live without it”, THINK, issue10, p. 37
Phillips, M. (1996) All Must Have Prizes, London: Warner Books.
Phillips, M. (2004) http://www.melaniephillips.com/diary/archives/000330.html.
Ratzinger J. (Cardinal) (2005)Homily at the mass for the election of the Roman Pontiff. 18th April.
Sacks J. (1997) The Politics of Hope, London: Jonathan Cape.
Sellars, W. (1956) "Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind", in Feigl and Scriven (1956) pp 127-196.
Tate, N. (1996) Speech to the SCAA, 15th January
Taylor, K. (2005) “Thought Crime” The Guardian, 8th October.

Philosophy and Religion in schools

I have posted my chapter from the book Philosophy in Schools here, if you are interested.

PS oops I posted it above by mistake. It'll have to stay there now...