Losing the will to review: Evidence Unseen or Arguments Unconsidered?

When I announced this book review project in September last year I made a proviso about reviewing James M. Rochford's Evidence Unseen:

...I've decided to read it and (if in my opinion it merits a review) to review it here on the blog.

I reviewed the introduction in March, and continued reading last weekend. Does it merit a review? It's going downhill fast. I had hoped for something substantial, but if the first chapter is typical I'm tempted to give it up as a waste of time. Rochford's arguments are ill-considered and sloppy, relying too much on emotion rather than logic. He refers often to atheists, "atheistic thinkers" and even an "atheistic ethical philosopher" as if they are a breed apart. I can only assume that atheists are not his target readership:

Yet, a certain tension of which they are unaware plagues them: While they are content in their atheistic worldview, they are not consistent with it... [Loc 325]

Basically telling atheists that they are psychologically defective. They are plagued with a tension — but they're unaware of it? This looks like classic projection.

If God doesn’t exist, is it possible to have a life that is ultimately significant? Unfortunately, it isn’t. [Loc 331]

Nothing unfortunate about that, as far as I know. Like many Christian apologists Rochford seems obsessed with ultimate absolute objectivity. It doesn't exist.

If the Christian God is real, then we have the hope of eternity. [Loc 368]

What is emerging here is a massive argument from consequences.

Of course, if the Christian God exists and all humans are made in his image, as the Bible teaches (Gen. 1:26-27; Jas. 3:9), then this would be both objectively true and truly important. On the other hand, if God does not exist, then human beings would hold nothing in common that could make them truly equal. [Loc 391]

This comes after a section trying to debunk "equality" — saying that people aren't really equal (when what he's actually saying is that people aren't all the same — which is true). But just because people aren't the same, that's no excuse for not treating them then with equal fairness, especially before the law.

But if everything in nature is only natural, then how can a naturalist call murder, rape, or genocide unnatural? [Loc 433]

I'm not aware that naturalists do call murder, rape and genocide "unnatural" — seems like he's setting up a straw man here.

...when we claim that morality comes from chimpanzees... [Loc 454]

Um ... we don't. More straw-manning.

Atheist Richard Dawkins argues... [Loc 455]

A Dawkins quote! (Just goes to show that Dawkins continues to rattle theists' cages.)

If morality is truly objective, then it is binding over people whether or not they agree to it. [Loc 501]

Now we're getting to the nitty gritty. Let's define "morality" and "objective", shall we? Apparently not — we're straight on to an argument with Sam Harris:

Why should we think that the flourishing of the human species is ultimately the greatest good? [Loc 508]

This is pretty easy if we're actually members of the human species ourselves (barring any quibbles over the use of "ultimately"). Then we get the seven dying patients in need of organ transplants versus one healthy person:

...wouldn’t it make sense to capture a healthy young man in the lobby to harvest his organs—the seven organs the dying people needed—to “maximize happiness”? [Loc 512]

Actually no, it wouldn't make sense — unless you're content to live in a world where you might be randomly killed so that your organs could be harvested.

While we might not know the right moral action, we still know that one must exist. [Loc 526]

By using the term "right" this is begging the question. There may be a preferable action, based on circumstances and consequences — an action that would be preferred by those affected by the consequences.

Many atheistic thinkers will openly admit that morality is not objective in a universe without God. [Loc 533]

It depends what you mean by "objective". If you mean independent of any single individual, then I'd disagree, because in a universe without God, morality can indeed be independent of any single individual. That's not to say morality is relative, or absolute. It has to be more nuanced than that (certainly more nuanced that a list of rules in a book).

“If thought is the undesigned and irrelevant product of cerebral motions, what reason have we to trust it?” [Loc 564]

This a C. S. Lewis quote. But as usual with Lewis, his facility with words outruns his analytic capacity. What he's saying is circular, because trust and reason are part of thought. And even if thought is undesigned, it certainly isn't irrelevant to the one who's thinking. Naturally this comes back to the theistic aversion to determinism and lack of free will. There's quite a lot in this chapter about determinism and free will, and what the consequences are if they are true. Rochford uses them to illustrate the horror of naturalism, but I couldn't help reading that section as a likely true account of reality.

That concludes my "review" of Chapter 1. It's not deep, but then the chapter reviewed is ridiculously superficial. And I should probably come clean and say that this concludes my review of the entire book. From the introduction and first chapter I infer that the rest of Evidence Unseen will be more of the same — not worth the bother.

Moral argument for the existence of tedium

The moral argument for the existence of God is in my opinion so completely wrong, so groundless and so obviously flawed, that I find it astonishing anyone takes it seriously. And when I come across a screed that proposes the moral argument without a shred of embarrassment, I can only shake my head and move on. One such screed is this, by Jonathan McLatchie. I've looked at it, shaken my head and moved on from it more than once, but there remains a nagging concern that though its falsehood is plain to me, some people still — amazingly — take the argument seriously.

It's all very well for me to assert that the arguments put forth in this piece are spent and vacuous, but it seems there are some people to whom this is not apparent. Therefore, despite the tedium involved (and despite having done it before), I must perforce demonstrate why the argument so spectacularly fails.

Moral Argument – Overview
The moral argument for the existence of God refers to the claim that God is needed to provide a coherent ontological foundation for the existence of objective moral values and duties. The argument can be summarised in the following syllogism:

Premise 1: If God does not exist, then objective moral values and duties do not exist.
Premise 2: Objective moral values and duties do exist.
Conclusion: Therefore, God exists.

Since this is a logically valid syllogism, the atheist, in order to maintain his non-belief in God, must reject at least one of the two Premises. By “objective” morality we mean a system of ethics which universally pertains irrespective of the opinions or tastes of human persons: for example, the holocaust was morally wrong irrespective of what Hitler and the Nazis believed about it, and it would have remained morally wrong even if the Nazis had won World War II and compelled everyone into compliance with their values. This view, known in philosophy as “moral realism,” contrasts with “moral relativism” which maintains that no-one is objectively correct or incorrect with respect to their moral values and judgements.

This doesn't work at all. For a start it isn't a logically valid syllogism, because there's more than one definition of objective. McLatchie (like William Lane Craig) seems to be using a definition that requires objective moral values to mean God-given moral values — which of course is begging the question. His definition above is too vague: "a system of ethics which universally pertains irrespective of the opinions or tastes of human persons" and it craftily slips in the idea of universality being a necessary part of what it is to be objective.  But objective is simply the opposite of subjective, that is, independent of any single individual. This does not rule out objective moral values that are formulated jointly, after consideration of the consequences of moral actions. Nor does it rule out objective moral values that can change according to circumstances. Right at the start, therefore, Premise 1 fails.

Moreover, in the absence of theism, nobody has been able to conceive of a defensible grounding for moral values.

This always makes me laugh, because it implies that theism can provide "a defensible grounding for moral values." No theist can justify this, only merely assert it. Where do theists get their moral grounding? It's in a book — a book that no present-day theists had a hand in writing, that has no demonstrably sound provenance, and that contains "moral guidance" even theists admit — by their textual wrangling to make things fit — is of dubious moral value. When it comes to making moral decisions, I submit that ignoring circumstances and consequences in favour of "playing by the book" is an abdication of moral responsibility.

Moral Argument – An Important Distinction
It is important to bear in mind that the moral argument pertains to the ultimate source of objective moral values and duties (moral ontology) and not how we know what is moral or immoral (moral epistemology) and not 'what we mean' by good/bad or right/wrong (moral semantics). The theistic ethicist maintains that moral values are grounded in the character and nature of God. 

This doesn't work either. McLatchie has not established that there is, or needs to be, an "ultimate source of objective moral values and duties". In referring to moral ontology McLatchie is claiming that objective moral values and duties have some kind of existence in reality, independent of anything else. He hasn't established this, he's just assuming it.

There follows a fairly straight exposition of the Euthyphro dilemma, with this addendum:

The question is posed this way: Is x the right thing to do because God commands it, or does God command it because it is already the right thing to do? I take the former option. Normally, the problem with accepting the horn is that there is a presumption that the commands in question from God are arbitrary (i.e. God could have commanded that we ought to lie). But that's just false. The theist wants to say that God is essentially loving, honest etc., and therefore, in all worlds at which God exists, his commands are going to be consistent with his nature. And therefore, in all worlds, he will disapprove of lying.

Theists may indeed want to say that God is essentially loving, honest etc., but unfortunately they have no justification for saying it, other than to define God in this way. "It's God's nature," they say. But is God's nature essentially loving, honest etc., because it is God's? Or is God essentially loving, honest etc., because he is beholden to his nature? In answer, theists will eventually say that God and his nature are one and the same thing, which kind of makes the whole thing circular: God is good because good is God, and vice versa — unhelpful at best.

Moral Argument – The Shortcomings of Utilitarianism

There are various nontheistic systems of ethics, none of which succeed in providing a robust ontological foundation or objective moral values and duties. One of these systems, popularised recently by Sam Harris in his book The Moral Landscape, is called utilitarianism, and (in its most common formulation) refers to the view that ethics are determined by what constitutes the greatest happiness for the greatest number. One difficulty lies in the fact that it attempts to balance two different scales employed to assess the moral virtue of an action (i.e. the amount of utility produced and the number of people affected). This can often lead to conflicting answers—in some cases an activity might be considered better for a greater number of individuals whereas a different activity might create a greater overall utility. Utilitarians try to maximize with their actions the utility of the long-term consequences of those actions. However, short of possession of omniscience, it is impossible to evaluate the respective long-term results of different activities. Utilitarianism also does not take into account the individual’s intent—Activity X could be done sincerely by an individual who believes that what he is doing will create the maximum utility. But if activity X turns out in the long-term not to produce the desired utility, then his action, under the philosophy of utilitarianism, would be considered less moral than an activity that created more utility.

Yeah, this stuff is hard, in case you hadn't noticed. So much easier to look it up in a book, and disregard any subsequent ramifications. Personally I'd rather entrust moral decisions to people who have carefully considered the circumstances and consequences of those decisions, than entrust them to a bunch of Christians with a crib-sheet.

Moral Argument – Conclusion
In conclusion, the moral argument is a robust argument for the existence of God.

Actually it's not.

Humans, being shaped in the image of God, have an intuitive sense of right and wrong.

Christians like to say that humans are "shaped in the image of God," but this is one of those meaningless phrases they can never explain. And the reason why we have an intuitive sense of right and wrong is because we have an evolved conscience.

It is not at all clear how the atheist, except at the expense of moral realism, can maintain an objective standard of ethics without such a being as God as his ontological foundation.

 It's not at all clear to Jonathan McLatchie — that much is clear.

The Evil God debate: William Lane Craig vs Stephen Law

Listeners to the Pod Delusion of about a month ago will have heard Premier Christian Radio host Justin Brierley promoting the Reasonable Faith Tour — a week and a half of debates and lectures throughout the UK by American philosopher and theologian William Lane Craig. Much was made, then and since, of Richard Dawkins' refusal to engage William Lane Craig in a formal debate, though the fuss seems to have had more to do with promoting the tour than real regret at not having the the world's most famous living atheist on the speaking list. Clearly Dawkins could not "win", either in debate or out of it. If he accepted he would be lending his name to a religious event — which would be trumpeted far and wide — and if he declined, his refusal would be (and was) … trumpeted far and wide. Whatever he did would be (and was) used as promotional material for the Reasonable Faith Tour. (Perhaps the three Pauls should invite Richard Dawkins on to the Skepticule Extra podcast. I'm sure I've an empty chair I could put by for him.)

Until recently the promotional hoo-hah was of only peripheral interest to me, as I was heartily sick of listening to Craig's debates, especially after those with Lawrence Krauss and Sam Harris, both of whom have original things to contribute about their respective fields, but whose points Craig roundly ignored. When Polly Toynbee withdrew her name from the tour's speaking list after having initially accepted, I sympathised with what I considered a wise decision. For myself I felt I'd had enough of Craig, and I wasn't interested in attending any of the tour.

When Stephen Law "stepped up to the plate", however, I felt differently. Here was a professional philosopher, known as an atheist and clearly a deep thinker — as his previous appearances on Justin Brierley's radio programme Unbelievable? had demonstrated. Suddenly the prospect of yet another William Lane Craig debate became intriguing, as perhaps this time the Craig steamroller might have something concrete and unyielding in its path.

And that's why I found myself in Westminster Central Hall on Monday 17^th October, for the initial event of William Lane Craig's Reasonable Faith Tour — a debate between a Christian and an atheist on the question, "Does God exist?"

I had arrived early to secure a good seat in the magnificent and capacious building, and was in the third row. I made my own estimate of its seating capacity — about 2000 on two levels. I thought it likely that the lower level would be mostly filled, probably to about 900 (a good crowd by any standard, for an event such as this). But as 7:30 approached — and I'd witnessed the separate arrivals of William Lane Craig and Stephen Law — the upper level began to fill up too. Five minutes before the start I estimated about 1800 people were seated in the hall (Justin Brierley has since mentioned an attendance of 1700, so I wasn't far out).

Stephen Law isn't best at the podium — his approach is probably better suited to the discussion or small seminar format. William Lane Craig on the other hand has the big speeches to big audiences down pat — but this is nothing new. Anyone who has seen a few debates by Craig knows what to expect, so I should not have been surprised to hear him launch into three of his tried and tested arguments: the Kalām cosmological argument, the argument from objective moral values, and the argument from the resurrection of Jesus. In terms of presentation Stephen Law is not as slick or as superficially convincing as William Lane Craig, but in terms of philosophical engagement Law can clearly hold his own.

I shall not detail each speech here — this has been extensively done elsewhere*, and the unedited audio of the entire two hours is available for streaming and download at the Unbelievable? website. What follows are mostly my immediate impressions of the evening, jotted down during my return train journey that night, interspersed with retrospective comments.

I expected Law to use his Evil God Challenge — and he did, in my view to solid effect, and Craig's efforts to brush it aside were, in my view, ineffective. As usual Craig spoke first, and as usual he attempted to define the scope of the debate by stating what his opponent must do in order to refute him. The reason he does this is so that when he sums up he can point out anything in his list that his opponent didn't address, and claim victory by default. In this case however, Stephen Law — speaking second — made it clear that he would present one argument only. Then he presented his Evil God Challenge, which I've heard him deliver before but never with such clarity and depth.

The Evil God Challenge goes something like this: the evidential problem of evil is well known — with so much gratuitous suffering in the world, both now and in the past, how could an omnipotent, omniscient and omnibenevolent God allow it? Theists have developed theories — theodicies — to explain how such a good God could allow so much suffering, so much "evil". Whether you think these theodicies are effective reconciliations of the problem of evil will probably depend on your own perspective.

The effectiveness or otherwise of these theodicies, however, isn't relevant to Stephen Law's Evil God Challenge. Even if theists try to explain suffering by claiming it's an inevitable result of God allowing us free will, or that we cannot know the mind of God and he might have good reasons unknown to us to allow so much suffering, or that suffering is necessary in order to throw goodness into sharp relief — all of these arguments (or theodicies) can be applied in reverse to the idea that the universe was created by an omnipotent, omniscient but omnimalevolent God who is seeking to maximise the amount of suffering in the world. But how can the Evil God exist when there's so much good in the world? The evidential problem of good is just as effective in disproving the existence of an evil God as the evidential problem of evil is in disproving the existence of a good God. The two scenarios aren't necessarily entirely symmetrical, but they're symmetrical enough to maintain that if observation is sufficient to dismiss the Evil God Hypothesis — and most people seem to agree that it is — it's also sufficient to dismiss the Good God Hypothesis.

Craig tried to refute the Evil God Hypothesis — or rather, to shrug it off — by simply defining his God as good. But this is an arbitrary definition that can be just as simply reversed, as Law demonstrated. Law quite rightly called out Craig for resorting to the mystery card — Craig predictably claimed that we cannot know what's in the mind of God — that God might have morally sufficient reasons to allow suffering, reasons of which we're unaware. That's not good enough, as Law pointed out.

During the post-debate discussion Law objected to Craig's claiming he had conceded that the cosmological argument was proof of God's existence because he didn't address it. Craig defended his tactic as legitimate in the debate format, which goes to show that he's not debating in order to get closer to the truth, and it reinforces the widely held impression amongst atheists that Craig is only interested in point-scoring. Law then took the opportunity to answer Craig's cosmological argument with a simple statement that he doesn't know why the universe exists, but that doesn't give theists a free pass to say their God did it.

As Law further explained, just because he doesn't know what, if anything, caused the universe, he is nevertheless justified in ruling out certain hypothetical causes. One such is the Evil God, and by reflection — the essence of the Evil God Challenge — another is the Good God. Law also rebutted Craig's evidence for the resurrection of Jesus by citing corroborated UFO reports, showing just how flawed human cognition can be, even en masse.

I think Law put up a good case against Craig, who is acknowledged as a formidable debating opponent. Craig's success at debating, however, relies less on his arguments, which have multiple flaws — some of which Law highlighted — than on his debating style: speaking first, defining the limits of the topic, and listing what his opponent must do to refute him (regardless of what his opponent might think). Added to which Craig is clearly an accomplished public speaker, even if he's usually saying much the same thing every time.

In the face of such debating prowess Stephen Law stuck to his guns — he had a good argument and refused to be deflected. But he also showed that he's no one-trick pony. He's known for the Evil God Challenge, but he was also able to identify the flaws in Craig's use of the cosmological argument (despite not initially addressing it) and the argument from the resurrection of Jesus.

I had originally decided not to attend this debate because I was fed up with William Lane Craig's monotonous repetition of the same arguments, even though I think the question, "Does God Exist?" is the only question in all of theology worth asking (and of course it's the one question theology itself never properly addresses).

The reluctance of certain atheists to go up against Craig is understandable. Craig takes debating seriously and is in it to win. He doesn't seem to be interested in an exchange of ideas — rather, it's all about scoring points. Stephen Law, however, appeared wise to Craig's technique, requiring him to address the challenge in depth rather than letting him shrug it off. This was especially noticeable in the discussion at the end, when Craig couldn't exploit the restrictions of the debate format.

On the whole I'm glad I changed my mind.

---

*Deeper analysis of the debate abounds online. Here are a few samples, beginning with Stephen Law's own notes:
http://stephenlaw.blogspot.com/2011/10/my-criticisms-of-craigs-moral-and.html
http://stephenlaw.blogspot.com/2011/10/opening-speech-craig-debate.html
http://stephenlaw.blogspot.com/2011/10/my-closing-statement.html
http://stephenlaw.blogspot.com/2011/10/notes-for-responding-to-craigs-possible.html
http://stephenlaw.blogspot.com/2011/10/brief-sketch-of-my-overall-argument-in.html
http://stephenlaw.blogspot.com/2011/10/my-remaining-notes-from-craig-debate.html
http://stephenlaw.blogspot.com/2011/10/thanks-for-all-feedback-re-wlc-debate.html

A comprehensive graphical analysis:
http://www.thepolemicalmedic.com/2011/10/stephen-law-vs-william-lane-craig-debate-argument-map/

Randal Rauser's typically idiosyncratic (and continuing) view:
http://randalrauser.com/2011/10/stephen-law-vs-william-lane-craig-round-one/
http://randalrauser.com/2011/10/was-stephen-law-guilty-of-a-bait-and-switch/
http://randalrauser.com/2011/10/stephen-law-vs-william-lane-craig-round-2-craigs-first-rebuttal/
http://randalrauser.com/2011/10/where-stephen-law-goes-wrong-with-his-evil-god-argument/
http://randalrauser.com/2011/10/did-a-fairy-kill-stephen-laws-apple-tree/
http://randalrauser.com/2011/10/stephen-law-vs-william-lane-craig-round-2-laws-first-rebuttal/

Paul Wright's analysis:
http://pw201.livejournal.com/159259.html

A Christian who judged Stephen Law a rare winner in this debate:
http://apologiapad.wordpress.com/2011/10/19/bill-craig-loses-a-debate-and-all-sorts-of-goodies-are-revealed/

17th October — Stephen Law vs William Lane Craig

Polly Toynbee, president of the British Humanist Association, was due to debate William Lane Craig, to kick off his October tour of the UK. She pulled out once she realised what kind of thing a debate with Craig is, and philosopher Stephen Law has stepped in to take her place.

I had decided not to attend the debate, as I was getting pretty sick of Craig's debating style. He does these things not in an effort to explore the arguments, but to "win". We saw this with two recent debates, first with Lawrence Krauss, and then with Sam Harris. Both Krauss and Harris have interesting and original things to say about their particular areas of concern, cosmology and morality respectively. But Craig isn't concerned with learning from either of them. Perhaps though, Krauss and Harris learned something from Craig — but it would not have been anything about the evidence for God, or the moral necessity of God. They may, however, have learned how to score superficial debating points — not that either of them would have been interested in doing such a thing.

So I decided, as noted above, that I was done with Craig and his "Reasonable Faith Tour".

I have, however, reconsidered. Previously I decided not to attend a conversation between Sam Harris and Giles Fraser (regular readers will know how much Fraser irritates me), but later regretted my decision, because when I changed my mind I discovered all tickets were sold.

To forestall potentially similar regrets I do now have a ticket for the Craig vs Law debate at Westminster Central Hall at 7:30 pm on Monday 17th October. Partly this is because I'm currently reading Stephen Law's new book, Believing Bullshit, and partly because of all those put up against Craig on this tour and elsewhere, Stephen Law seems likely to be the most capable of tackling Craig on his own terms. Perusal of his blog indicates he's not taking the debate lightly (he is, at least, getting plenty of advice).

Naturally you can expect a full report.

A Moral Maze — of science and morality (BBC Radio 4)

On Wednesday BBC Radio 4 concluded the present series of the Moral Maze, its weekly live panel discussion on topical issues of morality. Unlike most other radio discussion panels, the Moral Maze adopts a cross-examination format, calling witnesses one by one to be quizzed by the regulars. As it's a live show, things can sometimes get a bit heated. (This also depends on which of the regulars are on the show in any given week, and who is chairing the panel — David Aaronovitch has temporarily replaced Michael Buerk for the latter part of this series. Melanie Phillips' more incendiary views often spark fireworks, though she wasn't on this week.)

The topic on Wednesday was science and morality, and two of the witnesses were Giles Fraser and Jerry Coyne. Fraser doesn't seem to have learned from his encounter with Sam Harris (but Fraser's views appear remarkably ill-defined at the best of times, especially on Thought for the Day). He impaled himself categorically on one horn of the Euthyphro dilemma by stating that God's morality is not intrinsic to God but external to him (which surely makes him less of a god). But theology has never been Fraser's strong point.

Jerry Coyne dealt patiently with his interrogators' questions, but clearly could have used more time to develop his responses. In some ways he was an untypical choice for this topic (maybe they couldn't get Sam Harris), but nevertheless he did well.

The audio can be streamed from the Moral Maze website or direct from iPlayer:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/console/b011jv8m
Check out Jerry Coyne's two posts on his blog Why Evolution is True:
http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2011/06/01/i-iz-on-moral-maze-today/
http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2011/06/02/moral-maze-podcast/

Half an hour with the man of the week: Sam Harris on the Pod Delusion

A bit of a coup for the Pod Delusion, snagging what appears to be an exclusive interview with Sam Harris. Full marks to James O'Malley and Liz Lutgendorff for their insightful questions to the man of the week:


Direct link to mp3:
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/PodDelusionExtra/~5/e-5lvw8K4EY/73131_20110415011202.mp3

Edited highlights of this interview are included in this week's regular Pod Delusion episode:
http://poddelusion.co.uk/blog/2011/04/15/episode-80-15th-april-2011/
Direct link to mp3:
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ThePodDelusion/~5/lzcbhEY7GgQ/73128_20110415010548.mp3

The audio from Sam Harris's conversation with Richard Dawkins is also available:
http://poddelusion.co.uk/blog/2011/04/13/sam-harris-richard-dawkins-talk-about-the-moral-landscape/
Direct link to mp3:
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/PodDelusionExtra/~5/sKNwf1rmyI4/72635_20110413141016.mp3

Enjoy!

Debate: Is there evidence for God? William Lane Craig vs Lawrence Krauss

Another day, another debate. This one is William Lane Craig vs Lawrence Krauss, arguing the toss over "Is there evidence for God?" The topic, alas, is poorly framed. What kind of evidence? If we're talking about pretty poor evidence, then Craig has it sewn up. Indeed this was exactly the tack he took, though needlessly (and somewhat comically) dressing it up with a ridiculous equation. In effect he said, "I have some evidence. Not very good evidence, but evidence. Therefore I win."

As in his debate a few days later with Sam Harris, he succeeded in frustrating those who might have wanted him to get to grips with the important issues. Lawrence Krauss is one of the foremost scientists in the world today, and he has much interesting insight into the nature of the cosmos, and — because he's thought about these things — whether the cosmos has a god in it. But Craig simply repeated his painfully circular syllogisms ad nauseam, and the whole thing seemed like a waste of time.

Krauss, it appears, thought so too. In a substantial guest-post on P. Z. Myers' blog Pharyngula he explains why:

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2011/04/05/lawrence-krauss-vs-william-lan/

But perhaps before reading Krauss's post mortem report you should watch the debate itself (but be warned — the audio on these videos is dreadful):

Part 1 of 6 http://youtu.be/71ZhJL56bdQ

Part 2 of 6 http://youtu.be/jHHTYbusTmw
Part 3 of 6 http://youtu.be/Tutz5id90lk
Part 4 of 6 http://youtu.be/vpv5mMRFUgQ
Part 5 of 6 http://youtu.be/WVOCxP8aWIY
Part 6 of 6 http://youtu.be/Fs_pgaSrxP8

P. Z. Myers also has some things to say about the debate, this amongst them:

Also, Craig claims to be using Bayesian logic. No, he is not. Scribbling a few trivial equations on his slides does not substitute for Craig's painful ignorance of physics.

Watching William Lane Craig used to be interesting, but I've seen him do the same stuff over and over, and now he's just boring.

Giles Fraser lays aside his woolly mantle to review Sam Harris

Tonight Sam Harris is discussing morality with Giles Fraser. As I previously blogged, this is the event nearest to me, out of Sam Harris's three announced appearances on his UK book tour. Nevertheless I decided not to get a ticket because so far I've been severely underwhelmed by Giles Fraser (his recent spot on the Today Programme with A. C. Grayling is an example).

Earlier today, however, I discovered that last Saturday Guardian Online published Giles Fraser's review of The Moral Landscape, and reading it I found myself wishing I had swallowed my misgivings and arranged to attend the discussion. (The fact that IQ2 decided not to live-stream the event after all, is but one more regret.)

So what is it about Fraser's review that has brought on my change of heart? Mostly it's because he seems to have cast off the woolly mantle that has to date muffled anything of his I've come across. He reviews The Moral Landscape in a forthright manner, with hardly any wishy-washy equivocation. I still think he's wrong in most of what he says about the book, but his review convinces me that his discussion with its author would be more interesting than I had thought.

Fraser takes some potshots at Harris, but I think they misfire. For instance, on David Hume's point that you can't derive values from facts:

But Harris will have none of it. Science has sold itself cheap. The peace treaty must be torn up. Science can indeed tell us about morality. Indeed, science can determine morality.

Fraser also commits — on a grand scale — what might be called the "not my religion" fallacy:

With regard to the god Harris describes, I am a much more convinced atheist than he – even though I am a priest. For Harris asks constantly for evidence, with the implication that if he discovered some, he would change his mind. My own line would be that even if the god he described was proved to exist, I would see it as my moral duty to be an atheist.

He goes on to imply that he's heard it all before:

What is presented as Harris's big new idea is really just reheated utilitarianism with wellbeing in place of pleasure.

I also think Fraser has missed one of Harris's key points:

There are so many problems with utilitarianism, it's a pity Harris does so little to address them. How can one quantify the sum total of wellbeing produced by a single action when the potential consequences of any particular action are infinite? So keen is he to turn morality into science that Harris presses on regardless. His demand is that all morality be calibrated on a single scale. Yet if one observes what it is that people call good (and isn't observation a scientific golden rule?), instead of assuming what good ought to look like, one surely recognises very different sorts of moral value.

It seems to me that Harris does indeed address this — it's what I understand by there being different peaks in the moral landscape. Fraser legitimately raises the necessity of some kind of metric for determining how high up the peaks or deep in the valleys moral actions are, as have other critics, but Harris isn't saying he's got all the answers. He's asking for science to be brought to bear on moral questions. Fraser, however, won't have it:

Harris sees the great moral battle of our day as one between belief and unbelief. I see it as between those who insist that the world be captured by a single philosophy and those who don't.

Here we see Fraser's woolly equivocation breaking through once more. It sounds to me like a plea not just for pluralistic society but for pluralistic belief. Such is, after all, the Anglican way.

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UPDATE 2011-04-13:
The mp3 audio of the Fraser/Harris discussion can be downloaded here:
http://iq2.podbean.com/mf/feed/bhegmw/sam-harris-IQ2.mp3

Debate: Is Good from God? — William Lane Craig vs Sam Harris

Though I've not yet seen the video, I've heard the audio recording of this debate that took place on April 7 between William Lane Craig and Sam Harris, hosted by Notre Dame University. The motion was "Is Good from God?" The following are my thoughts, noted while listening.

Craig starts, using his "argument from morality", which he frames in his usual way:

• If God exists, objective moral values exist.
• If God does not exist, objective moral values do not exist.
• Objective moral values do exist, therefore God exists.

The problem with this argument is the definition of objective. Craig characterizes Harris's formulation of morality in The Moral Landscape — where Harris says that morality is about the well-being of conscious creatures — as just a redefining of morality, which is no more than saying that the well-being of conscious creatures is about the well-being of conscious creatures. This, says Craig, is circular tautology. But Craig's own definition of morality — in particular objective morality — is itself circular. You only have to listen to his "argument from morality" to realize (despite his denials) that his definition of objective morality is morality originating from a transcendent source, so it's no surprise that in his view morality can't come from a source other than God.

What many of Sam Harris's critics fail to grasp is that he's not attempting to resolve the "value problem". He's not trying to derive values from facts (ought from is). His book The Moral Landscape begins not with an is but with an ought, as he explains in this debate. He starts off with the worst possible misery for everyone, then says that everything else — states or conditions that are not "the worst possible misery for everyone" — is obviously better. It's higher up the moral landscape; no-one can doubt this. It's a value judgement, but it's a judgement we all share, and it's as near to objective as we're likely to get.

Naturally Craig doesn't accept this. He claims that objective morality must come from an authority, and in the absence of God, that authority is moot. Like many theists, Craig cannot get around his authority fixation. He claims there's nothing, in the absence of God, to say that the well-being of conscious creatures is "good". He insists that Harris isn't using the words "good" and "bad" in a moral sense. Again this is hardly surprising from someone who believes that goodness and badness in the moral sense can only be derived from a transcendent source. Craig's definition of morality is inextricably entwined with his personal concept of transcendent authority.

Perhaps Harris misjudges his audience in his first rebuttal, launching into an excoriation of religious morality without tying it sufficiently to his argument. What he says is true, but possibly not on point.

Predictably Craig follows up with the claim (he always does this in debates, whatever his opponent says) that his points have not been responded to, then goes on to claim that theism provides a foundation for morality — even though Harris has just illustrated the moral vacuity of divine command theory. But Craig insists that the existence of evil proves the existence of God; that moral authority comes from God, therefore God exists. God exists, therefore we have objective morality. Of course you can't refute this because objective moral authority, by Craig's definition (despite his denial) comes only from God.

Harris, in his second rebuttal, points out that Craig has misquoted him, but concentrates on the theme of his book — that we can use science to investigate ways to maximize the well-being of conscious creatures. He does, however, point out that Craig is merely defining God as good.

In his concluding statement Craig takes up this last point, denies it, then proceeds to do precisely what Harris accuses him of: he defines God as good. Remarkably, Craig objects to Harris's statement that we rely on certain axioms. Craig says that's taking something on faith, which it isn't. Axioms are self-evidently true — no faith is required in order to believe them.

In his concluding statement Harris gives an impassioned plea for rationality in our investigations into how we should live. It's heartfelt, but probably too subtle a response to Craig's rather simplistic, point-scoring style of debate. Craig is a good debater; he uses rhetorical tricks to get his audience on side, but the philosophical content of his speeches is relatively low. He sticks to basic points (most, incidentally, long since refuted), and repeats them, usually along with the mantra that they've received inadequate response from his opponent.

Harris, on the other hand, is less interested in point-scoring, just wanting people to see where he's coming from, and to give his ideas serious consideration.

Half an hour of mostly insightful questions follows the debate proper, and the answers are necessarily short and consequently not very enlightening, except to show that Harris and Craig are never going to agree on the foundation for morality. It seems likely, therefore, that the two sides of this question will continue to talk past each other.

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Audio here:
http://www.brianauten.com/Apologetics/debate-craig-harris.mp3

Video here:
Part 1 of 9 http://youtu.be/7UigeMSZ-KQ

Part 2 of 9 http://youtu.be/rh8FU2UlHp4
Part 3 of 9 http://youtu.be/L2CJgPTOHSY
Part 4 of 9 http://youtu.be/lmeSjF6CSQA
Part 5 of 9 http://youtu.be/ljXCHgPaZO4
Part 6 of 9 http://youtu.be/wAcdg2RlUJY
Part 7 of 9 http://youtu.be/Pa2fHkpOfoA
Part 8 of 9 http://youtu.be/uQTZBBkkcxU
Part 9 of 9 http://youtu.be/YTdQ_u1-xfc

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UPDATE 2011-04-22:
YouTube now has the whole debate in single video:
http://youtu.be/yqaHXKLRKzg

D. J. Grothe at TAM London 2010

JREF president D. J. Grothe's talk at TAM London 2010 was a bit like a State of the Union address, focussing on the moral imperatives of skepticism (briefly referencing Sam Harris's new book just published) and on how he sees the skeptical movement in general, both globally and locally. As for locally, he announced that the fund-raising of TAM London would be channelled to JREF projects in the UK, and mentioned the grass-roots, loosely affiliated Skeptics in the Pub gatherings that seem to be burgeoning nationwide. Some of these appear to be a direct result of unofficial arrangements made at TAM London itself.



I was looking forward to hearing the new JREF president, and DJ's rallying cry to "the troops" didn't disappoint.

Sam Harris — three UK appearances

Last night I eagerly followed a link on Twitter to discover that Sam Harris is coming to the UK next month, and will appear in London, Bristol and Cambridge. This is something for which I'd been on the look-out, as I'm a big fan of Sam Harris's writing. I have to admit that The Moral Landscape doesn't have quite the literary sparkle of The End of Faith and Letter to a Christian Nation, but I nevertheless consider it a highly important work.

Naturally I'd like an opportunity to hear Harris speak in person. My anticipation has been dampened, however, on discovering that his appearance nearest to me — 11th April in London — will be a discussion with the Rev Giles Fraser. Who on earth thought that would be a good idea? To me it seems like a complete mismatch. Giles Fraser is a woolly-thinking theologian whose utterances on BBC Radio 4's Thought for the Day range from the somnolently bland to the jaw-droppingly vacuous.

Sam Harris's appearance at the Cambridge Wordfest on 16th April will be a discussion with Ian McEwan. That's something I'd be keen to hear, though Cambridge is a bit far from Portsmouth for an evening event. The other date, 13th April at the Bristol Festival of Ideas, appears to be Harris on his own, and is even farther from me. Regrettably, therefore, I may just content myself with the Intelligence Squared live video stream from the 11th April London event.

(I note from the Lecture Schedule on Sam Harris's website that he is this very day debating William Lane Craig — I wonder if a recording will be made available....)

Moral argument fails to impress

In the second instalment of my review of Evidence for God edited by Dembski & Licona, I look at "The Moral Argument for God's Existence" by Paul Copan.*

The short form:

In a fairly blustering manner Copan merely asserts that objective moral values are built in to humans because they are made in the image of God. He refers obliquely to Alvin Plantinga's Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism but doesn't offer much else. To him the only options are moral absolutism on the one hand and moral relativism on the other. (He should read Sam Harris.)

The longer form:

Copan is using the same argument as William Lane Craig:

1. If objective moral values exist, then God exists.
2. Objective moral values do exist.
3. Therefore, God exists.

This is a tired old argument that fails in both its premises (it's also poorly — and circularly — worded.) For a start, Copan doesn't define objective moral values in any other way than existing "whether or not a person or culture believes in them" (p 20.) This says nothing about their source. Copan simply assumes that humans are aware of these values because humans "have been made in the image of God" (p 21.) As usual for proponents of this argument he doesn't explain what this is supposed to mean. Premise 1 is an example of begging the question, in which the premise contains the assumption it's attempting to prove: by objective, Copan and Craig mean transcendent or god-given, because that's what they think is meant by "existing whether or not a person or culture believes in them".

But there's no reason to suppose that so-called objective moral values exist independent of what people believe. We know that humans tend to detect agency, and do so even when — in some cases — no agents are present. They evolved as such because detecting agency gave them a survival advantage — it's better to detect agents when no agents are present, than not to detect them when they are. This propensity for attributing agency led early humans into animism, and then into varieties of theism. So the idea of a "supreme agent" comes rather easily to a culture steeped in the necessary detection of agency, and that superior agent is naturally assumed to have intentions and desires regarding the beings over which it is supreme.

The truth, however, is that moral values are not handed down from above, but built up from within the evolving culture itself, as matters of social glue, co-operation for common benefit, and mutual flourishing. Organised religion seeks to codify these values in order to offer shortcuts to moral decision-making, unfortunately tending to set the values in stone, often with disastrous results.

But back to the book. In several places Copan contradicts himself. He places objective morality and relative morality as opposites with nothing in between, yet quotes Samuel Johnson as saying, "The fact that there is such a thing as twilight does not mean that we cannot distinguish between day and night" (p 22.) He goes on to maintain that without objective moral values we cannot know right from wrong. He also maintains that "normally functioning human beings" are aware of objective moral values, and then uses Jeffrey Dahmer — a psychopath — as an example of what happens if you don't believe in them. He's already said that atheists can be moral, yet here he's equating them with psychopaths?

This is really unimpressive. We're only two chapters in, and I can only assume Dembski and Licona put the weakest arguments first, and that the strong ones are later in the book. I hope so, else this review is going to be an extremely tedious project.

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*A version of Copan's chapter is available here:
http://www.4truth.net/fourtruthpbgod.aspx?pageid=8589952712

Should atheists talk about evil?

That depends. "Evil" could be said to be an exclusively religious term. To talk about good and evil is to talk in the same realm as that occupied by "sin" — which seems a much more religious term.

Some might make the case that talk of "morality" is also exclusively religious. Indeed many religionists scoff at atheistic moral pronouncements, claiming that atheists have no business talking about morality because they have no grounding for it. But such a view is itself not so much grounded as perilously perched atop one horn of the Euthypro dilemma: that what is morally good is whatever God decrees — and however arbitrary such a decree may be, nothing else really counts as "moral".

It should also be recognised that some religionists make no distinction between morality and absolute morality. They seem unable to grasp that there can be any morality that isn't absolute. As an atheist who occasionally engages in online debate and discussion, I've come across this religious blind-spot more than once. After explaining at length how I see morality — what it is, where it comes from and so on — I'm still asked to justify it on metaphysical, transcendental grounds.

I'm currently reading The Moral Landscape by Sam Harris. I'm about halfway through, but so far Harris has fairly comprehensively laid the groundwork for a thesis that the distinction between facts and values is not as clear cut as the philosopher David Hume would have us believe. Hume's contention that you can't derive an ought from an is sounds on the face of it to be reasonable, leading to the kind of demand for moral grounding mentioned above.

Harris makes a good case for knowledge of moral facts about the world without resort to metaphysics. We know what the difference is between a state of everything being as lovely as it possibly could be, and the state of everything being as horrible as it possibly could be. And crucially we know that one of these is good and the other is bad. We do not need a transcendental moral law-giver to tell us which is which. Spread out between these two extremes are a myriad states of relative well-being, and while it may be difficult and in some cases impossible in practice to tell exactly where on a hypothetical scale of well-being these states lie, there can be no doubt that such a determination is possible in principle.

From what I've read so far it's too early to draw definitive conclusions from Harris's moral exposition, but I'm looking forward to the rest of the book.