[extropy-chat] Books: Harris; Religion and Reason

[Jef Allbright]

Russell -

Thank you very much for your response which was truly to the point of my post.

I'll consider responding in more depth tomorrow.

- Jef

On 1/11/06, Russell Wallace <russell.wallace at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 1/12/06, Jef Allbright <jef at jefallbright.net> wrote:
> > When Robert has proposed destroying some portion of that which he very
> > publicly and very obviously values, he was trying to promote
> > intelligent debate about a certain class of decision-making that is
> > very difficult for many people to even consider, let alone decide.
> >
> > Sometimes a military leader is faced with the difficult choice of
> > sacrificing some of his troops in order to save the rest.  Sometimes
> > an individual will sacrifice himself to allow others to survive in an
> > overloaded lifeboat.  Sometimes a surgeon will advise a patient to
> > undergo radical amputation in order to have a chance at life.
> > Sometimes a politician will risk loss of popularity in order to
> > contribute to a greater good.
> >
> > And too often people recoil in moral repugnance for lack of seeing the
> > bigger picture.
> >
>
>  Thinking a bit more about it, I suppose in a sense I didn't really answer
> this. I'll try for a more complete answer.
>
>  Eliezer makes a useful distinction between, as he uses the terms, "morals"
> (utilitarian analysis of what is good, what ends we aim for) and "ethics"
> (restrictions on what means we should employ for some end even when we think
> the overall result will be good); I think this is a useful distinction, and
> I will use this terminology here.
>
>  For example, I think child welfare is infinitely more morally important
> than animal welfare; so if I have a choice between donating money to an
> animal welfare charity and a child welfare charity, I'll choose the latter,
> no problem. But suppose I have the opportunity to steal money from the
> former to give it to the latter? This would be _moral_ (achieving a good
> end) but my _ethics_ prohibit me from doing it. One need not regard this as
> an ultimate condition; one could hold the view that a god would have no need
> for ethics; the fact that we humans are fallible suffices to make it
> appropriate to be cautious when considering whether the end justifies the
> means.
>
>  Now, along with (as far as I recall) everyone else, I rejected Robert's
> proposal on _ethical_ grounds. But his proposal was a utilitarian one - it
> was claimed to be _morally_ right - something that would lead to the
> smallest amount of harm in the long run; and you have a valid point when you
> say that we should also be willing to discuss unpleasant ideas in moral
> terms. (If we decide something is morally right, whether it's ethically
> permissible would be a separate discussion.) So I'm going to answer it in
> moral terms.
>
>  Today we have a hard won world order - not by world government, thank God,
> but by consensus, at least among all civilized countries and most of the not
> so civilized ones - that the slaughter of populations is not permissible. It
> wasn't always that way. Last century, the Germans set up death camps and
> killed millions of Russian civilians; the Russians retaliated in kind. The
> Japanese army went on genocidal killing sprees wherever they set foot; the
> Americans carpet-bombed Japanese cities. I'm not blaming the Allies for
> their actions under the circumstances, but I think it's a good thing we
> managed to get to a point where that sort of thing is no longer considered
> business as usual; we paid a bloody high price to climb out of that pit, and
> we should think long and hard before stepping back into it.
>
>  My Visualization of the Cosmic All isn't clear enough to predict exactly
> what would happen if Robert's proposal were followed, but here's what I
> think would happen:
>
>  While I can't speak for Muslim governments, I suspect that as far as most
> of them are concerned, we in the West aren't their favorite people; I
> imagine they think we're decadent and godless, and it's not like there isn't
> truth in that. But most of them recognize that as a matter of ethics and
> practical reality, it's best to deal in a civilized fashion even with people
> you're not wildly fond of on an emotional level. They recognize that there
> is a line, and mad dogs like al-Qaida have crossed it. So Colonel Gaddafi
> buries the hatchet with the West, and the Pakistanis help hunt down
> terrorists in the mountains.
>
>  If we start pre-emptively dropping hydrogen bombs on a bunch of Muslim
> cities, that hard-won order will be gone. We'll be back to a world where the
> meanest killers come out on top. The first wave of nuclear explosions won't
> be the end of the bloodshed, it'll be the start of it. Yes, the West could
> win a global conflict as far as military strength goes, but at what cost?
> Not just external, but internal. Remember the original proposal was the
> elimination of all "faith-based thinkers". Should the Americans nuke Alabama
> to get rid of their faith-based fifth column? Should the Alabamans march
> west to slay the godless Californians in a pre-emptive strike? Actions have
> echoes; I'm reminded of the time some Latin American governments started
> talking about the First World banks "forgiving" their national debts (i.e.
> defaulting); it stopped when their own citizens started writing to the
> taxman, "Well our government is talking about forgiveness of all those
> billions so I've a little debt here you can forgive". None of this is proof,
> of course, but I think it at the very least casts grave doubt on the claim
> that the original proposal would be beneficial in the long run. (And after
> all, doubt is a reason for having ethics rather than just utilitarian
> analysis.)
>
>  Normally I wouldn't bother replying at all to proposals that nobody agrees
> with - there's no need. But I think the challenge to think rationally about
> unpleasant ideas is a fair one, and perhaps answering it in this case has
> been a useful exercise; there might be a need to do it in the future in some
> less clear-cut case.
>
>  - Russell
>
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