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07/21/2005: "Astrophysics, Fred Flintstone and the Sin of Onan"
And if that Subject doesn't get Mr Lusiphur looking...
Thanks to David Pi (as opposed to David Po, who would also be amused by it, I think) for this. I suspect the article's author is probably onto something when he says:
the longer I listened the clearer it became that creationism is not about science. It's about morality. Specifically, creationists worry that biological evolution undermines people's moral beliefs, leading to lawlessness, family breakdown, homosexuality, pornography, and abortion. The real heart of creationism is existential dread.
This has been a revelation for me. A belief that the constituent bits & pieces of the universe are still flying apart, but decelerating and will eventually be pulled back together by gravity, is clearly causally responsible for a predeliction for Asian Babes. But there's a sort of serious point here too, and it's the danger of making one's moral precepts entirely contingent on certain empirical assumptions.
Want to read more of this waffle? Check out the extended entry, 'cos I'm not cluttering up my nice Homepage with it!
Still here?
Remarkable. Wish I could get students to pay this much attention.
OK, where was I? Facts, values, etc. Example: I teach a class called 'The Value of Life', which considers why, and when, we ought to attribute moral status to various organisms (embryo, fetus, permanently unconscious, animals, folk from Paisley, etc, etc.). I start off with various general value statements that class members might endorse or reject, statements like 'all life is intrinsically valuable,, or 'all human life is intrinsically valuable'. Then, bastard that I am, I set about picking holes in whatever they've agreed with.
Anyway, the 'all human life...' one is usually a popular choice, which leads me to push further & enquire whether human-ness is a necessary as well as a sufficient criterion for the attribution of moral status. What if, for instance, we encountered a species of intelligent, sentient, friendly, but thoroughly non-human extra-terrestrials. In which sense would it be approrpriate to 'have them for dinner'?
On one occasion, a mature student in the class responded to this with utter derision. This was just typical of philosophers, he snorted, playing around with abstractions. As far as we know, there are no ETs, so arguing about that was just so much intellectual masturbation (that theme again!).
Maybe he had a point: we do love our gedenk-experiments, the more fantastic the better. But I think I had a point too; to premise your answer to 'what makes life valuable' on certain falsifiable empirical presumptions is a dangerous strategy, one likely to leave you floundering if those falsiable assumptions are Popper-ized. Of course, we all have views that are predicated on factual assumptions. Anyone who has clicked on my LA article on the links bar (plug! plug!) will see that my views on abortion are based on certain beliefs about the neuro-physiological development of the embryo/fetus. And I could be wrong about all that stuff, couldn't I?
The first thing that distinguishes me from the Faith Brigade is that I'm willing to concede that, yes, I might be wrong about that stuff. I very much doubt it, but it is possible. The thing is, though, that even if it were proved to me that the fetus becomes self-aware long before 24 weeks, I could modify my position on abortion without ditching the whole moral axiom that underlies it. I could recognise that early fetus should be counted as a member of the community of beings to which I owe moral obligations (even if it's only the obligation not to kill it) w/out rejecting the notion that sentience is a prerequisite for membership of that community.
Similarly w/ non-human animals; if we one day devise an experiment that can prove that Descartes was right, and they are just automata with no subjective experiential existence, then I will happily stop worrying about buying those pricey RSPCA-approved eggs, & will have no compunction about holding down the pot lid will you live-boil your lobster.
But again, the moral core remains intact. Sentience is a pre-requisite for moral value. The only factual problem lies in ascertaining which things are sentient.
So there's a danger in tying your morality too closely to very specific, falsifiable empirical assumptions. If your whole ethical framework relies on belief that God created the Universe in seven days, then it's no wonder you find yourself creating fantasies that Fred Flintstone really did have a pet dinosaur. Stop believing that, and the whole house of cards comes down around you. A more robust morality accepts that there's a lot we don't know, and a lot about which we might be wrong, but recognises a clear demarcation between fact & value, between 'ought' and 'is'. If I'm wrong about evolution, and velociraptors really did chase my ancestors - so what? What's that got to do with my ideas about war or poverty or sexual ethics? The sin that onan invented feels good, & hurts no-one (except those guys with the sandpaper, and they liked it that way!). And that's the case whether my ancestors have been doing it for 200,000 years, 2000 years or ten minutes.
