Being Good without God.

[elfs]

Daniel Dennet, as old-timers to my blog know, is one of my favorite philosophers. Relentlessly materialistic and naturalistic, he nonetheless spells out a lot of excellent details regarding why human beings are the way they are. Dennet has a really good podcast on why it is possible to be good without God on meaningoflive.tv:

"Let's talk about "transcendent" and "morality". One of the things that we have evolved to discover on this planet is arithmetic. We didn't invent it, we didn't make it: we found it. It is eternal, a priori, true: it's just great stuff. And it's true everywhere in the universe; it's true everywhere in any universe. There's only one arithmetic. Now, is that transcendent? I would say, Yeah.

"If we discovered another civilization somewhere in the galaxy that was intelligent, what would it share with us? Well, it would certainly share arithmetic. Maybe not base-10 arithmetic -- that's anybody's guess. It might be base 12 or base 16 or base 8. Who knows? That's an accident. But it would still be arithmetic. Now, we can say: "And would it share ethical principles with us?" And I think, in some regards, "Yes, it would." Now, does that make those principles transcendent? Yeah."

Dennet here states clearly what has been a staple argument of the science fiction community for years, and why such silly things as Klingons and the aliens from V are more or less nonsense: in order to be a spacefaring civilization, one must first be civilized. The economics of scale needed to fund a "get off your planet" program require that people get along, that they understand the Golden (or at the very least Brass, "Do not do unto others as they have not done unto you") Rule, and that they comprehend reciprocity.

They certainly will not share any concept of God with those we have on our planet; it's even reasonable to believe that a majority of them may not believe in God at all. But given that we have evolved to have reciprocity as a measure of civilization, it is reasonable to assume that every civilization will have reciprocity (as well as arithmetic) as a sheer measure of civilization in the first place.

"Goodness" is part of the superstructure of the universe as surely as the physics that underlies evolution in the first place; this is evident in that we humans get along. Does that make it "transcendental," as Dennet argues? I believe it does. Does that necessarily make it theistic in orgin? I do not believe so.

In fact, I'll make the counter-claim: "goodness" is a much an accident of the way our universe is organized as we are ourselves. There is no reason to believe otherwise. More importantly, given what we know of the way various religions have independently discovered, codified, and implemented the Brass and Golden rules, it is reasonable to assume that one does not need any particular God or any god at all to know of them.

Yet, since religion is clearly a commonplace organizing instutition for civilizations, let's change things around: it is not that one must believe in a god in order to be good, but that one (and one's neighbors) must be good to begin with, in order to found a common belief in god. Without being good, all is chaos. Without god, all is still capable of good.

Comments

Re: mathematics

[elfs.livejournal.com]

I don't think that invalidates the point, since you have not yet faced the possibility that those perceptive mechanisms, if they are to be anything like ours, will derive the same meaning we call arithmetic as they have the meaning of reciprocity.

Dennet's argument is that there is a Platonic standard of goodness at loose in the universe, just as there is a Platonic standard of accumulation and sums, just as there are objectively stochaistic processes that give rise to thinking matter. Whether or not you belong to a Platonic school of thought is another issue entirely.

Re: mathematics

[happy-hacker.livejournal.com]

It's entirely possible that other (alien) species, particularly space-fairing species, will experience the universe like we do, with similar sensory equipment. Elf, you've summed up our difference of opinion beautifully. I do not believe in a Platonic ideals, be they Good or Arithmetic. (note the capitalization) If more than one species comes up with similar good, it would be because they are similar themselves, in my opinion, not because the good itself is universal.

Now, if the good is *practical*, which is how I read the original argument - the idea that to evolve the knowledge for space travel takes the brainpower of an entire sentient race working together, for example - then it may recur time and time again. Again, this is not because of any transcendent quality of the value, only that the work required takes that much brainpower put together. As I said originally, I bought his argument, but I didn't buy the example.

I think there's a flaw with the argument against Klingons. On Earth today, the brand of civilization that has thrived the most is Western European. In Guns, Germs, and Steel, Diamond postulates that while China was at least equal to Western Europe in terms of domesticatable food animals and plants, and a good climate for food production, and while they clearly had the same ideas (centuries earlier, usually) that came up in Western Europe, Western Europe's knowledge evolved faster because of the instability and competition between the various states of Europe. China, by contrast, was unified very early in its history. As a result, if the government wanted a particular line of inquiry suppressed, it was supporessed. In Western Europe, doing so might well put your state at a disadvantage to your neighbors, who would overrun you for your troubles.

I think it's entirely plausable that a warlike people like the Klingons might push themselves into space as a species just so the other guys don't get there first. Do remember that much of America's original dominance in space exploration came from competition with the Soviet Union. Bragging rights, veiled threats (our ICBMs can carry THIS much into space over your head), and national pride motivated people a lot more than the altruistic desire to Boldly Go where No One Has Gone Before. Witness NASA's ongoing funding problems.

Anyway, thanks for an interesting discussion, all. And if any of y'all haven't read Guns, Germs, and Steel, I highly recommend it.

-HH

Re: mathematics, addendum

[happy-hacker.livejournal.com]

Something I forgot to say. Diamond, in Guns, Germs, and Steel, suggests that war as we think of it today - fighting to the death, organized and widespread destruction, fighting over ideals, rather than the occasional territorial confrontation and random killing - *is* a function of civilization.

Professional soldiers require a society with sufficient food production to feed them, to feed the people who make their weapons, and to feed the politicians who send them to war. Whether people fighting wars are uncivilized or not is not the question. If they can fight wars as we know them today, they are. The problem is what they're doing with that civilization. Or what we're doing with it, if you prefer.

-HH