Randy,

Generally, I hold no brief for metaphysical speculations as I find them to be more reports of one’s own psychology than any deep insight into the so called ‘nature of things’.

That said, that *something* exists necessarily hardly seems to be a logical truth. It would seem entirely possible that there should be nothing rather than something- the domain of quantification (that which our particular and universal quantifiers range over) is empty.

Essentially, why there exists something rather than nothing is an open area of inquiry in physics, not philosophy, and there have been some interesting conjectures from that quarter.

Hi Aaron.

I don’t see any reason to think physics can find anything outside itself for why there is something rather than nothing, so it seems it’s ill-equipped to ensure a metaphysical job is done well. And further note it seems there really isn’t much of an escape from the PSR even with physics–for there is an assumed explanation for why it is there is something and not nothing. Otherwise, physics is just going to assert the universe’s existence as a brute fact, for no reason at all!

Randy,

Thank you for replying to a comment on a superseded post. There is much I could say on this topic, but I will try to stay concise.

First, I have no use for metaphysics as I view it as pure obscurantism, and thus metaphysical speculations really amount to naught for me. A quote from C.S. Peirce aptly captures my view:

“Metaphysics is a subject much more curious than useful, the knowledge of which, like that of a sunken reef, serves chiefly to enable us to keep clear of it.”

Second, I would like to press you on what, exactly, an explanation is. You say the business of science is formulating ‘explanations’ of physical phenomena. While I may agree prima facie, we may reduce so called ‘explanations’ to predictive hypotheses: The business of science is a matter of framing hypotheses which imply past observations and which imply future observations under specifiable conditions, which in turn would then serve to confirm or disconfirm said hypotheses. ‘God’, I would argue, admits of no logical deductions of observable criteria, and is thus cognitively insignificant. In other words, ‘God’ explains nothing (or, one could argue, ‘God’ explains everything and thus explains nothing).

Third, that matter exists as a brute fact is an open question to be answered by physics. If physics makes room for brute facts and this offends our metaphysical sensibilities, that is our intuitions, so much the worse for our intuitions: Science is on much firmer epistemic grounds than philosophy is or could ever hope to be. (As an aside, I am not sure what ‘intuitions’ are if not one’s personal prejudices.) 

Lastly, Alex Pruss’s business about denying the PSR stems from a “fear that acceptance of the PSR will force one to accept various theological conclusions” is silly. First, Peter van Inwagen, a prominent theist, rejects the PSR. Second, quite a few atheists accept the PSR (e.g. Arthur Schopenhauer and Quentin Smith).

Hi Aaron,

Thanks for the response! As far as Pruss is concerned, it is evident he doesn’t think this is a necessary condition for rejection of the PSR, but a strong motivator. Nor could we conclude that some atheist’s acceptance of the PSR functions as a counterexample, for his claim is not that all people who hold a fear of God would do this.

As far as metaphysics is concerned, it’s only concerned with logic and “the way things work.” I don’t see any argument contained therein, implicit or otherwise.

Moving to the business of explanations, I would say an explanation is just a reason, thing, or state of affairs in virtue of which some other thing, event, or state of affairs has obtained as true and not some other thing. I don’t see that as being away from science’s mission, but a part of it.

Next, I don’t see how physics can have the tools to answer the question! It must rely on philosophy to know whether or not there even are brute facts, much less whether the universe just is a brute fact. Only on an assumption of naturalism would we be forced to work only with physics, which of course would be question-begging here. Also, it’s noteworthy science both cannot operate apart from philosophy (even while philosophy can operate in certain areas apart from science) and cannot operate apart from intuition. For the former, just any conclusion reached will depend upon reasoning. For the latter, what justifies any inductive reasoning whatsoever?

Take the apply falling from the tree to the ground, or a man who releases a ball from shoulder length. If he does this on Earth today, is he justified in thinking it will drop? If not for intuition, it’s difficult to see how. For if he says “it has dropped every other time I have done it,” he is just assuming a principle that cannot be justified apart from its own truth. He has no reason to think it will not drop. If he says, “well we’ve seen multiple experiments confirming Earth’s gravity and gravity and space–physics confirms it everywhere,” but problems abound, of the same variety. Perhaps some mathematical reasoning may come into play here, but that misses the point. We would be forced to conclude that unless the man had knowledge of these mathematical truths, he is not in fact justified in assuming the apple will fall. This is absurd. Our intuition–the shared intuition that drives science to this day–is that if X happens under specified conditions over and over and over, controlling for other factors, we are justified in assuming it’s going to happen again. Science cannot account for itself. It desperately needs philosophy, and we do well not to abandon it.

Randy,

Again, thank you for your response.

Re: ‘As far as metaphysics is concerned, it’s only concerned with logic and “the way things work.”‘

Logic is the development of systematic techniques for the assessment of arguments for deductive validity and inductive support. The area of inquiry into ‘the way things work’ is science, the development of systematic empirical techniques & methods for the investigation into the physical world, i.e. the domain of physical ‘things’. Neither science nor logic require one to make recourse to ‘metaphysics’.

Re: ‘I would say an explanation is just a reason’

A ‘reason’ is a psychological term which involves intentionality, etc. An explanation / hypothesis is a linguistic entity which describes & predicts some state of affairs under specifiable conditions; think of explanations as linguistic instruments through which we account for existing data and predict future patterns of sensory stimuli. Though in common parlance many certainly conflate the two, they are distinct. So, e.g., the ‘God’ hypothesis (so called) admits of no logical deductions of observable criteria, and thus it is not explanatory- indeed, it is not even cognitively significant.

Re: ‘Only on an assumption of naturalism would we be forced to work only with physics, which of course would be question-begging here.’

Not at all. The issue is one about methodology, not about whether a non-physical personal deity (whatever that means) exists. Even if one were to exist (whatever that type of ‘existence’ would amount to), it is not at all clear that (1) it did create us (we could still be the result of purely physical processes) and (2) that methodological naturalism is not the appropriate methodological approach.

Traditionally conceived, philosophy was concerned to provide a firm foundation upon which to build science. However, the history of philosophy is largely a history of its cannibalization by the special sciences, which shows in dramatic relief the problem-solving poverty of traditional philosophical analysis (cf. Leibniz, Descartes, Malebranche, Kant, etc.) and the problem-solving success of scientific methodology. As I said previously, science is on much firmer epistemic grounds than traditional philosophical analysis can ever hope to be.

Having said this, I should offer the following caveat. Philosophy, as conceived by naturalists, is consonant with science- indeed a part of science- differing only in abstraction: scientists tell us what exists & how these things interact, whilst philosophers analyze the connective tissue of science via logical analyses of concepts such as ‘causation’, etc. So, conceived in this sense, I can agree in part with you in that science without philosophy is blind, and philosophy without science is empty.

Re: Science’s dependency on intuition.

‘Intuition’ is often ambiguously used to connote different things, e.g. subconscious reasoning processes, so-called mystical experiences, or some queer cognitive faculty that modern anatomical science has yet to identify. I suspect you are using the term in the latter sense, in which case the lion’s share of modern cognitive science research shows that ‘intuition’ amounts to little more than our preconceived personal and cultural prejudices and is thus not the type of thing which justifies beliefs. In other words, ‘intuitions’ are evidence of nothing except for the contents of our psychology.

Now, if science is in an important way premised upon ‘intuition’ (in the sense in which you are using the term), science is founded upon base irrationalism, much like pseudoscience, faith healing, and every other nonsense under the sun are, and thus science can make no claims to epistemic authority. However, there is something importantly different about science and pseudoscience & mysticism- look at the successes of the former and the failures of the latter.

It is not that one ‘intuits’ (whatever that means) the epistemic justifiability of an evidence-gathering method, but rather we look at its reliability and truth-tracking ability in an instrumental sense (we would explicate ‘reliability’ via something like epistemic iteration [see my post over at FSPB for a presentation of epistemic iteration])- if a method, e.g., induction, continues to produce successful results, we continue to employ it and we partly assess the rationality of beliefs, hypotheses, claims, etc., by virtue of it.

So, we could run an argument for the rationality of inductive methods over alternatives in the following way:

First, let us use a standard disquotational schema for truth:

DS: ‘p’ is true if and only if p

Second, let us consider a standard principle of epistemic justification:

EJ: S is justified in believing p at t if and only if S’s evidence supports p at t and S believes p at t on the basis of the evidence.

I take EJ to be true analytically, but by ‘evidence supports p’ I take it that, on the evidence, p is more likely to be true than not-p, where not-p is the set of all alternatives to p. It seems clear to me that it is plausible to say that the evidence makes p more likely to be true than not only if it is plausible to say that the evidence tracks the truth of p, or reliably discriminates p from its competitors.

Essentially, your options for response are limited. DS is uncontroversial enough and you are, at the terminus of your analysis, committed to EJ, so via some variant of the problem of induction you need to reject that epistemic iteration delivers an appropriate notion of reliability.

We can pragmatically justify inductive methods in the following way (this is not to imply, however, that this is the only way):

Pace Hume we agree that we cannot know a priori if nature is appropriately uniform so as to permit inferential methods. If nature is not, no rule of inference will work, inductive or otherwise. If nature is, some rule of inference will work. If some rule(s) of inference will work, clairvoyance, extispicy, or any other claptrappery under the sun may or may not work. If some rule(s) of inference will work, induction must work, since if any method works, standard inductive methods or not, the success of the method can be exploited inductively. So, e.g., if clairvoyance works, that is, leads to more accurate forecasts than not, then we can exploit clairvoyance inductively. The method via which we would discover the operable rule(s) of inference would be epistemic iteration. In nuce, we have nothing to lose if we reason inductively, but we have a world to gain.

Thus, reason obliges that we reason inductively.

REMINDER

2^nd Annual Florida Undergraduate Research Conference

at Stetson University on March 16^th & 17^th

Deadline for Abstract Submission: February 15^th

Deadline for Registration: March 8^th

Stetson University in Deland will be hosting the 2^nd Annual Florida Undergraduate Research Conference on March 16 & 17, 2012. This conference is ideal for students to present their research and scholarly projects in an environment that promotes professional development and models professional conferences. This conference will also offer faculty the opportunity to network and develop collaborative relationships with faculty from other institutions. The UNF Office of Undergraduate Research will provide group transportation and hotel accommodations for as many students and faculty as possible. Please contact LouAnne Hawkins in the Office of Undergraduate Research if you are interested in assistance with travel and accommodations.Registration is $35 and the deadline for registration is March 8, 2012.

Students: Undergraduates are invited to submit abstracts for posters from faculty mentored research and scholarly projects. An undergraduate must be the first author on the poster, but graduate students and faculty members may also be included as authors. Undergraduates interested in submitting an abstract should discuss their intentions with their faculty mentor and obtain editorial feedback on their abstracts before submission. Abstracts are due by February 15, 2012.

Here is a post on Frege’s Puzzle and belief at Splintered Mind.

Here is a post critiquing evidentialism at Think Tonk.

And here is a post on colour at NewAPPs.

Enjoy!

Call for Papers

 UNF’s Department of Philosophy invites paper submissions from undergraduate or graduate students for the 15th Annual Northeast Florida Student Philosophy Conference:

“Philosophy and Media”

March 31^st, 2012
Jacksonville, Florida

Plenary Speakers:

Christopher Grau (Clemson)

Vance Ricks (Guilford College)

Directions: Submit both (i) a cover sheet that includes your name, the title of your paper, your university affiliation, your e-mail address, and a 150-word abstract, and (ii) a copy of your paper – 3000 words or less, prepared for blind review (i.e., omitting any information that might allow a referee to identify you) – to Mitch Haney (mhaney@unf.edu).

Note: Papers on any topic of philosophical interest will be considered, although papers related to media or the following areas are preferred:

• Social Philosophy

• Social Epistemology

• Aesthetics

• Applied Ethics

Deadline for Submissions: Wednesday, February 1^st, 2012

Notifications: Authors of papers accepted for the conference will be notified by February 29th, 2012.

[The following was presented to the UNF Philosophy Club on December 9, 2011. By no means is it complete and it is my intention to develop a more coherent paper arguing against the Moral Error Theory. I am open to any comments and criticisms]

As we approach the 35^th year anniversary of John Mackie’s, Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong, it has become an appropriate time to commemorate the arguments put forth along with more recent ones, as well as some criticisms of his argument. Though, to begin outright with the arguments discussed may create some confusion. Therefore, in an attempt to avoid this confusion, it is essential that a brief account of the origins of the Moral Error Theory be given.

John Mackie introduced the Moral Error Theory to us in 1977. In it, Mackie opens with a provocative statement; he says, “There exist no objective values” (Mackie 1997: 15). He continues with his exposition explaining:

[T]hat values are not objective, are not part of the fabric of the world, is meant to include not only moral goodness, which might be most naturally equated with moral value, but also other things that could be more loosely called moral values or disvalues – rightness and wrongness, duty, obligation, an action’s being rotten and contemptible, and so on.[1]

Mackie goes on to make an argument from relatively and an argument from queerness with the latter proved more convincing then the former. Mackie explains the potential queerness of the ontological status of moral values; he states, “If there were objective values, then they would be entities or qualities or relations of a very strange sort, utterly different from anything else in the universe” (Mackie 1977: 38). Consequently, Mackie insists that what we are left with is an error theory of morality.[2]

Contemporary philosopher Richard Joyce has picked up where Mackie left off. However, Joyce, along with philosopher of biology Michael Ruse, has moved away from the argument from queerness towards an ‘argument from evolution’.[3] They insist that given that our moral sentiments are a product of natural selection, and that we have no reason to suppose that evolution is sensitive to objective moral truth, then we have no justification to suppose that our moral values and judgments are indeed true (Joyce 2000; 2001; 2006; Ruse 1984; 1985; 1986a; 1986b; 1989; 1993; 1999a; 1999b). Consequently, Joyce and Ruse insist that all our moral claims and judgments are systematically false, and that, at least according to Joyce, we should subscribe to a fictionalist view of morality (Joyce 2001; 2006). From here, I will expound on Joyce and Ruse’s argument from evolution. Next, some challenges will be presented, which may cause some suspicion in Joyce/Ruse’s argument, where subsequently, one may reject the error theorist’s argument from evolution or perhaps the Moral Error Theory all together. First, I must explain and present how Joyce and Ruse use what is often called an evolutionary debunking argument in regards to morality.

I. Evolutionary Debunking and Error

An initial question here may be, “what is an evolutionary debunking argument”? Well, it is not an argument, which attempts to debunk evolution. Rather, it is an argument that utilizes empirical research in the evolutionary sciences (biology/psychology/anthropology) in an attempt to discredit some form of belief (the targets have commonly been religious and moral beliefs). Philosopher Guy Kahane’s model of evolutionary debunking is of use here:

(P1) S’s belief that p is explained by X

(P2) X is an off-track process

(C) S’s belief that p is unjustified[4]

According to Kahane, an off-track process is one in which the process is not sensitive to whether the beliefs are really true. Since evolution is not sensitive to beliefs of type p being true, then we have no reason to believe that beliefs of type p are indeed true. Therefore, we are unjustified in beliefs of type p and the error is revealed.

Let us briefly consider the implications of this model. It is certainly plausible that evolution is sensitive to cognitive mechanisms influencing beliefs about depth perception, colors, and counting, for example. Therefore, a belief such as ‘things/animals of the color red should be avoided’, or that ‘this paper is approximately one foot in front of my face’ is warranted on grounds that evolution granted us with somewhat reliable cognitive mechanisms that are influencing these beliefs.

However, what the error theorist will respond with is that evolution is not sensitive to the truth of, for example, ‘red is ugly’, or more generally, to any aesthetic appeal towards colors. Since evolution does not track the truth of what colors are considered beautiful or ugly, the error theorist would argue that aesthetic appeal is really just a useful illusion foisted upon us by an evolutionary process and explains what Joyce calls that an intrinsic ‘omphf’. That is, bthe overwhelming sensation and belief (the omphf) that, for example, ‘red is ugly’, was really evolution’s way of keeping individuals in a certain environment away from the color red, as it was detrimental for some reason to their survival (perhaps certain poisonous plants were red).

At this time, one may consider the following, “why can’t I just denote the same meaning for ‘red is ugly’ from the meaning as ‘red is something to avoid because things associated with it were selectively disadvantageous”. That is, “why can’t just some form of ‘aesthetic naturalism’ become suitable here”? I ask that you hold on to this thought, as it will be revealed that this line of reasoning is a fatal mistake, at least according to the error theorist. For now, I will turn to the error theory’s argument from evolution.

The Argument from Evolution

Richard Joyce insists that

[H]umans are by nature moral animals [and] may be understood…as meaning that the process of evolution has designed us to think in moral terms, that biological natural selection has conferred upon us the tendency to employ moral concepts. According to the former reading, the term “moral animal” means an animal that is morally praiseworthy; according to the second, it means an animal that morally judges.[5]

He goes further though, insisting that evolution has instilled upon us a tendency to believe that moral values exist in a way similar what Kant calls a categorical imperative. That is, certain inescapability exists for morality; it something one cannot opt out of, or at least not without serious penalty. So, to use Joyce’s example

Imagine the child asking why he mustn’t pinch his play mate. The parent replies “because it’s wrong.” The child continues “but why mustn’t I do what’s wrong?” The parent might give an exasperated “because you mustn’t!”[6]

In this sense some cognitive drive is pushing one towards behaviors we associate with morality whose origins, if we recall, lie in cooperation, reciprocal altruism, and inclusive fitness, which are essential for an individual’s survival and their genes. What better way of motivating an individual to act in such ways, than for evolution to simply create the illusion that doing such things is in some sense a ‘universal law’. At this point, it should be made clear precisely how the argument from evolution goes; Michael Ruse provides that argument.

(P1) In many social animals, cooperative behavioral strategies have

evolved because of their adaptive value on the basis of natural

selection among individuals.

(P2) Belief in moral (prescriptive, universal, and nonsubjective) guidelines has

arisen in humans because such belief results in the performance of

adaptive cooperative behaviors.

(P3) We have no reason to believe that moral guidelines are both adaptive and

true.
(C) Moral guidelines are an (adaptive) illusion, our belief in them false.[7]

The question, which may still be lingering and the one I asked you to hold on to earlier, is “why can’t we denote the same meaning from moral values with words such as cooperation, reciprocal altruism, and inclusive fitness?” That is, “why isn’t some form of moral naturalism suitable?” I imagine Joyce would respond with just a subtle question asking “why couldn’t we just denote the same meaning we used when we talked about phlogiston with the discovery of oxygen?” Well the answer seems obvious; talk of phlogiston theory meant that combustible bodies contained and released a fire like substance called ‘phlogiston’ when ignited. However, an anomaly was revealed when it was realized that combustible bodies retained and often gained weight after combustion. Therefore, we had reason to reject phlogiston theory when Lavoisier showed that another gas, oxygen, was gained during combustion, and more so when the caloric theory of combustion was introduced.

Likewise, Joyce is convinced that since our moral discourse is discussed as ‘universal laws’ independent of human experience, and that this is fundamentally different than what evolutionary science has revealed about the nature of morality, which is that its origins lies in an evolutionary process (i.e., cooperation, reciprocal altruism, and inclusive fitness), then all our moral discourse has been systematically in error. Therefore, simply changing our old understanding of morality being objective with what evolutionary science presents would be the same mistake a chemist replacing the meaning of phlogiston with oxygen; the two properties are fundamentally different and cannot be reconciled with each other.

Powerful as it may seem, the argument of evolution, and more generally the Moral Error Theory, is not without its critics. I will focus the remainder of this discussion on some of those criticisms presented by two philosophers.

II. Responding to the Error Theory

There are certainly more than just a couple critics of the Moral Error Theory’s argument from evolution. However, two critics that seem to be particularly fruitful with their arguments are philosopher of biology, Fritz Allhoff, and philosopher and biologist, David Lahti. I’ll begin with Allhoff’s challenge.

Allhoff’s challenge

Allhoff’s challenge insists that some social contract model of morality can vindicate morality while still being sensitive to the initial premises of the error theory. He describes the social contract as follows:

“ø is wrong” =“ø was (or would have been) prohibited by rules agreed upon by informed, rational, and autonomous agents.[8]

Allhoff insists that this model “avoids the metaphysical commitments of moral realism because, on this approach, there are no moral facts which exist independently of us; morality is something that we construct as informed, rational, autonomous agents.” Thus, if moral realism need not be linked with metaphysics, then morality can still be vindicated even with an evolutionary explanation for its existence. In fact, Allhoff claims that the “evolutionary story can provide an empirical basis for the motivations of contracting agents” (Allhoff 2009: 103)

Allhoff goes on to provide such an evolutionary based social contract, or more specifically an evolutionary based contractarianism, which he describes as the view that “the equality of the contracting parities is ‘merely de facto and their choice of principles rationally self-interested’” (Allhoff 2009: 103). For the contractarian, such as Hobbes, contracting parties need not appeal towards a moral equality, only towards a natural equality, which is simply due to individuals having equal attributes, i.e., similar physical and mental features.  It is for this reason that Allhoff insists an evolutionary based contractarianism to be more plausible, then one based on contractualism because in contractualism some form of mutual respect, understanding, etc. needs to exist. Perhaps if group selection played a dominant role in evolutionary history, then there could exist an evolutionary based contractualism. However, Allhoff objects to this stating:

[T]he favored view seems to be that group selection did not play such a role. Rather, it is more plausible that the dominant mechanism in our evolution was individual selection, in which case we would have evolved to be self-interested rather than to be interested in mutual respect and understating.[9]

In short, contracutalism is incompatible with the premises of Darwinian evolution. Hence, we are left with an evolutionary based contractarianism, which seems to vindicate morality, as our moral discourse is sensitive to this model. In fact, much empirical research in evolutionary game theory seems to shed positive light on Allhoff’s argument. But for now, I turn to David Lahti’s challenge.

Lahti’s Challenge

Lahti, like Allhoff, is willing to grant the basic presuppositions of the moral error theory’s argument from evolution, e.g., morality being an evolved trait. However, he disagrees with the how the error theorist’s constructs her argument, particularly in P2 Ruse’s argument (Lahti 2003).

Lahti elucidates that P2 requires us to distinguish between two types of altruism and their connections; that is, the connection between ostensible altruism and intentional altruism, and the connection between intentional altruism and morality. Ostensible altruism stems from what Bart Voorzanger called ‘bioalturism’.[10] It is means

[T]hat the behavior appears (to some observer) to incur a net cost to the performer, which is the only reason it is called ‘altruism’. In reality the prima facie cost may persist after scientific investigation, or it may not; appearance may or may not be actuality. If a cooperative behavior appears to an observer to incur a net cost to the performer, that behavior can be labeled ostensible altruism…saying that a behavior is ostensibly altruistic implies that we are ignorant about whether it incurs a fitness cost to the performer.[11]

Intentional altruism, on the other hand, is different. It is a deliberate action an individual takes, which increases the fitness advantage of another individual; it is understood (and in some sense can be measure) as to whether a fitness cost exists for the performer. It is not controversial to claim that intentional altruism arose in humans as a mechanism for ostensible altruism and the literature supporting this is significant.

The mistake Lahti reveals is the move from intentional altruism to morality where he questions how would, or for that matter why would, morality serve as a mechanism for intentional altruism, as the psychological predispositions needed in morality already exist for intentional altruism? For Lahti, the question might be comparable to asking why would something like fins appear in penguins for swimming when they already had phenotypic structures perfectly adequate for swimming in the water? The error theorist might regard this as silly, but insofar as the psychological mechanisms needed for morality were already fulfilled with intentional altruism, then the challenge holds.

Allhoff’s evolutionary contractarian-based view might be of use here. Recall that one need not appeal to morality to motivate behaviors, only that contracting agents possesses similar endowments. This is similar to Lahti’s argument, as one need not appeal to morality to motivate individuals to perform certain actions; rather, all that is needed are the psychological mechanisms influencing intentional altruism, which is void of any appeal to metaphysical ‘laws’ associated with morality. This seriously undermines the error theorist’s argument as Ruse insists that “unless we think morality is objectively true— a function of something outside of and higher than ourselves— it could not work” (Ruse 1989: 286). However, Lahti insists that  “given the role of intentional altruism, human would be cooperative regardless of whether we recognized an apparently objective moral law demanding it of us” (Lahti 2003: 644). Thus, the Moral Error Theory’s argument from evolution fails to provide an adequate explanation for morality because the connection between intentional altruism and morality is flawed, as it makes morality superfluous.

There exists a potential problem here; morality exists and Lahti needs to offer an explanation for its emergence if it indeed it wasn’t to serve as a mechanism for intentional altruism. Lahti presents an alternative to how the ‘universal law like morality’ emerged over the course of human evolution. Lahti offers a simple explanation that it occurred after the Paleolithic era (the era our minds are best adapted) in order to ‘update’ existing behavioral strategies.[12] Understanding what Lahti means requires me quoting him in full, which I will also use as the closing remarks for his challenge:

Moreover, the moral law, in Ruse’s sense of a set of universal, prescriptive, and nonsubjective guidelines, is likely a recent phenomenon, postdating the hunter-gatherer period. This concept of a moral law may function to update our behavior to the present social environment from that of our paleolithic ancestors. A much older predisposition to obey parents and other leaders real and imagined may have been co-opted, with existing sources of moral authority being replaced by a universal God or a value-laden universe. A prediction from this hypothesis of the moral law as an updating mechanism, is that moral guidelines should play a larger role in motivating a behavior the more different that behavior is from what would have been adaptive in the ancestral environment. For example, Jesus did not need to give, and so did not give, an exhortation to care for members of one’s own social group. Rather, one of his most cited commands (in the Good Samaritan parable, Luke 10:30–37) was to care for strangers, even those with varying religious beliefs or ethnicity. This command is at variance with evolved predispositions, and was required to steer behavior in a manner more appropriate in the modern situation.

III. Conclusion and Discussion 

To wrap up what as been argued thus far, I will recall that it was not my immediate intent to show the Moral Error Theory as false. Rather, I wished only to expound on the argument from evolution, which has, in recent times, become the dominant feature of the Moral Error Theory. If I have my done work appropriately, then there should exist suspicion for the Moral Error Theory’s argument from evolution, though perhaps, I have convinced some to reject it. In any case, it is my intention to reconcile the criticisms of Allhoff and Lahti more coherently while providing some form of an instrumentalist account for morality using a model similar to philosopher Michael Smith’s;[13] if follows that:

If a subject has an intrinsic desire to cooperate, increase human flourishing, etc. and a belief that she can bring about this by bringing about morality, then she has an instrumental reason to desire that she bring about morality.

[In a future version of this paper I wish to utilize what is mentioned above to undermine and eventually show the Error Theorist’s argument from evolution is indeed false. This last section is where I feel I will need to make a clearer argument]

Works Cited

Alhoff, F. (2009). “The Evolution of the Moral Sentiments and the Metaphysics of Morals.” Ethical Theory and Moral Practice. 12:97–114.

Hobbes, T. ([1669] 1994). Leviathan. Curley, E. (ed) Hackett Publishing Co. Indianapolis IN.

Joyce, R. (2000). “Darwinian ethics and error.” Biology and Philosophy. 15:713–732.

Joyce, R. (2001). The Myth of Morality. Cambridge University Press. Cambridge.

Joyce ,R. (2006). The Evolution of Morality. MIT Press. Cambridge.

Kahane, G. (2011). “Evolutionary Debunking Arguments.” Nous. 45, 1: 103-125.

Lahti. D. (2003). “Parting with illusions ins evolutionary ethics.” Biology and Philosophy 18: 639–651, 2003.

Mackie, J. L. (1977). Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong. Penguin. London.

Ruse, M. (1985). “Evolution and morality.” Philosophy Exchange.16:5–26.

Ruse, M. (1986a). “Evolutionary ethics: a phoenix arisen.” Zygon 21:95–112.

Ruse, M. (1986b). Taking Darwin Seriously: A Naturalistic Approach to Philosophy. Blackwell, Oxford.

Ruse, M .(1989.) The Darwinian Paradigm: Essays on its History, Philosophy and Religious Implications. Routledge, London.

Ruse, M. (1993). “The new evolutionary ethics.” In: Nitecki MH, Nitecki DVN (eds) Evolutionary ethics. State. University of New York Press, Albany NY, pp 133–162.

Ruse, M. (1999a). “Evolutionary ethics: what can we learn from the past?” Zygon 34:435.

Ruse, M. (1999b). Monad to Man: the Concept of Progress in Evolutionary Biology. Harvard University Press, Cambridge MA.

Smith. M. (2010). “Beyond the Error Theory in A World Without Values:” Essays on John Mackie’s Moral Error Theory edited by Richard Joyce and Simon Kirchin. New York: Springer, 2010) pp.119-139.

Here is a piece on Plantinga’s new book on science and God.

Enjoy!

Plantinga’s argument, though, does not immediately commend itself to acceptance: Essentially, the empiricist / naturalist must provide an argument for the foundational reliability of our cognitive faculties only if she first accepts a foundationalist epistemology. However, empiricists / naturalists need not accept a foundationalist epistemology. Indeed, the empiricist / naturalist should instead reject the premise that knowledge requires an Archimedean foundation. (I guess Plantinga could assert that the empiricist / naturalist is somehow committed to a foundationalist epistemology, but I would like to see the argument for that. In any case, I have little confidence the argument would work.)

Rather, pace Hasok Chang (epistemic iteration), C.S. Peirce (pragmatism) or W.V.O. Quine (coherentism), the empiricist / naturalist can take other routes. Though I have significant misgivings about coherentism, it remains a viable option. However, a more promising route, I believe, would be Chang’s idea of epistemic iteration, which is a thoroughly proper empiricist epistemology (situated within a largely Peircean pragmatist framework). To see this, let us look at Chang’s analysis of the historical problem of the reliability of thermometry in early and mid 19^th science. Though crude and without the requisite scholarly detail, the synopsis should suffice to give the rough view.

The key assumption in thermometers is that mercury (or any other thermometric fluid) expands uniformly (linearly) with increasing temperature. But of course we construct the thermometer in order to provide quantifiable temperature values. We could provide initial temperature values for the calibration of any given thermometer with some other thermometer, but how do we know that the prior thermometer provides reliable temperature values? So, you see, the assumption, essentially, is circular and thus we simply cannot know that our thermometric instruments are reliable. However, we can reliably measure temperature values; we do it all the time. Though, we did not solve the circularity with a foundationalism of any sort.

Epistemic iteration is a method wherein one records successive stages of knowledge, each building on the preceding one, in order to improve fullfilling certain epistemic goals, such as precision, consistency, prediction and retrodiction, problem-solving, simplicity, etc. No recourse is made to indubitable or self-evident truths, or to such things as properly basic beliefs. We use our thermometers though we have good reason to believe they are not reliable in the way we want them to be and, through processes of calibration via successive measurements in similar experimental arrangements, establish consistently obtained temperature ranges. We use these temperature values to establish more precise thermometric instruments and, through simplifying idealizations such as perfect gases, absolute temperatures, etc., we create broadly theoretical temperature scales, and so forth. Even the notion of uniform expansion is a tentative, explanatory hypothesis which admits of testing via our improved thermometers (and theoretical implications). (For a wonderful case study of this process, see Percy Bridgman’s work on high pressure physics. He constructed instruments which allowed him to surpass known pressures and had to establish new ways of measuring the pressure and the properties of matter under these conditions.)

Think of it in other terms: A near blind man cannot see that the physical objects in his room are variously colored. He puts on glasses which permit him to see colors. He notices that some of the objects seem to change colors under various conditions. He theorizes about how this could be, establishes some explanatory hypotheses, and begins to test them. He suspects his glasses are not as reliable as he would like them to be. So, he uses the glasses to make new glasses, and he observes that the colors are less sporadic, more consistent, and seem to begin to form identifiable patterns, etc. With his new glasses, he also sees that his first pair of glasses were scratched in certain ways which could account for the haphazard color experiences. Nevertheless, he proceeds to improve his glasses at each successive state, all the while cataloguing what works and what does not, keeping the former and proceeding.

In the same way that thermometers are instruments, our sense organs are also instruments; likewise for our cognitive faculties. The progressive trial-and-error method of working through our problems with temperature is analogous to the way in which we proceed with our broad physical interactions with the external world. Our brain develops heuristics and epistemic rules of thumb and constructs hypotheses which are tested by sensory stimuli. I would further argue that the logic we use in our evidential frameworks is also instrumental and it too must admit to broadly empirical support / considerations. (In this way I would say we ought to reject so-called classical logic and adopt a relevance-intuitionistic logic, but this is for another post entirely.) In a nutshell, we form hypotheses about the external world, receive the impoverished bits and pieces of stimuli, organize and arrange the data, locate patterns, formulate general rules (which we precisify, test, and generalize as the process proceeds), test our conjectures amongst their competitors, record and store what is useful, record and store (sometimes discard) what is not, and begin again.

In a sense a measure of circularity remains, but the circle is a virtuous one- or, at least, an innocuous one. It is as problematic as the problem of naming landmarks and roads in a small town. A small town has one street and one bridge. When people stop to ask directions to a shoppe they are told to take the road over the bridge and their destination will be on the left. When another street pops up, though, the two streets must be distinguished. So, the street which passes over the bridge is called ‘Bridge Street’ and the other ‘Grove Street’ (it runs past orange groves). When another bridge is constructed, the two bridges must be distinguished. The first is called ‘Bridge Street Bridge’ and the other ‘Grove Street Bridge’. In a sense, the names involved are all circular, but insofar as people get to and fro without difficulty, the system works. As more need for naming arises, we progress in the usual way; making amendments as need arises. If the system breaks down in a fundamental way, that is, people become consistently misdirected, then we devise another nomenclature entirely.

As same-sex marriage gains acceptance, a greater number of caring relationships enjoy legal recognition. But what about polygamous and polyamorous relationships? What about non-romantic relationships, such as friendships? In this episode, Brake and May discuss Brake’s controversial view that individuals should be allowed to assign the rights and privileges of marriage to whomever they want, so long as the purpose is to support a caring relationship. They also discuss the case for same-sex marriage (11:56), whether legal marriage should be abolished (33:48), caring relationships as Rawlsian primary goods (45:40), and May’s objection to polygamy (54:49).

Keynote Speaker:  Professor Valerie Tiberius  -  University of
Minnesota: “To Be or Not To Be (A Parent):  How interdisciplinary
research on well-being can help us with the big questions.”

Location: Georgia State University, Atlanta, GA

Topics: Original, high quality submissions in any area of philosophy
are welcomed from undergraduate or graduate students.

Notes: Papers must be no longer than 3750 words and should be
presented in approximately 25 minutes. All papers should be prepared
for blind review: papers should be free of identifying information,
and accompanied by a brief abstract (not to exceed 250 words).
Notifications of acceptance will be emailed by February 21, 2012. Only
one submission per person will be considered.

Deadline for Submissions: January 20, 2012

Submissions: To submit a paper, please email Noel Martin at
nmartin11@student.gsu.edu. All submissions will be acknowledged within
72 hours of receipt.

For further inquiries, contact Claire Murata Kooy at kkooy@gsu.edu.

For full details, see the conference website: www.gsu.edu/ethics
(select link to Philosophy Symposium).

In a recent class discussion a debate brewed over the topic of Randy Thornhill’s and Craig Palmer’s A Natural History of Rape. The arguments proposed in their book have been widely criticized and rejected by much of the scientific and philosophical community (for good and bad reasons). What follows is some general thoughts; perhaps though, a formal paper will emerge for this topic if a good discussion results.  It seems there are some important flaws that can be revealed in the assumptions Thornhill and Palmer use to make their argument.  I am inclined to use an example from the history of evolutionary biology, namely, Stephen Jay Gould’s criticism of the assumptions underlying the adaptation of antlers in “Irish Elk.” Similar to Gould,  I will reveal a similar ‘bad’ assumption that Thornhill and Palmer use and then present an alternative argument that may prove more convincing.

Recall that the assumptions the adaptationist program was using to explain the immense antlers (and bodies) of the Megloceros, or “Irish Elk,” focused on combating predation where antlers served as weapons. However, the largest predator that this creature would ever face in the late Irish Pleistocene was a wolf pack. In fact, these massive antlers could be harmful to the survival of the Elk. That the antlers were often detrimental to the survival of the Elk seemed to present and anomaly for Darwin’s theory of natural selection, as a trait was being selected for that was harmful to the individual. It was Gould who pointed to the faulty assumption that antlers were weapons combating predators and that this was the only way large antlers would emerge. Gould challenged this assumption and insisted that competition for females may have led to large bodies. That is, Elk with larger body size would tend to triumph over those males who were smaller ultimately leading them to pass their genes on to offspring. A consequence of this, of course, are larger antlers; this follows a principle of allometry.

Likewise, it is my contention that Thornhill and Palmer use a faulty evolutionary assumption, that rape is intended for procreation. There are at least two general categories that we can place rape in: (1) genetically predisposed (I am not suggesting a ‘rape gene’, rather just that there could exist genes that when malfunctioning or ‘overly present’ may create an anxious and violent drive for sex leading to something such as rape) and (2) conditionally predisposed (e.g., watching violent pornography may construct an anxious and violent cognitive drive for sex). (1) is where Thornhill and Palmer would need to focus there argument, as individuals regarding (2) could not pass their traits on to their offspring, or at least not genetically. Further, the argument that Thornhill and Palmer would need to insist upon would be similar to Gould’s—that rape isn’t being selected for per se. Rather, genes correlated with behaviors of dominance (perhaps testosterone genes) are selected for via sexual selection. Suppose that in early hominins males with higher levels of testosterone are selected for because they can dominant their opponents for mates (not a surprising behavior among apes). These individuals will pass their genes on to their offspring who in turn compete for mates and pass their genes on. What tends to emerge are males with aggressive behavior causing genes. Since these genes will also correlate with sex drives, then a by-product—an unfortunate one in this case—emerges where individuals with increased aggressive and sexual drives may ‘rape’ other members in the population. That “rape is selectively advantageous for procreation” can be rejected in the same fashion that the original argument used in Megaloceros’ antlers was rejected.

Is it really true that “nothing can satisfy a given sortal predicate if it is a proper temporal part of something which satisfies that predicate — no proper temporal part of a banana can be a banana”? I don’t think so. Consider a banana that exists from time t1 to t3 (and is ripe and fully formed throughout that time period). Hawley says that the temporal part of the banana that exists from time t1-t2 is not a banana, but merely a banana temporal part. But consider a possible world in which the banana had ceased to exist after time t2 — it doesn’t make it to t3. Is the banana temporal part that exists from t1 to t2 a banana? Well clearly it is, even by Hawley’s own criteria (the temporal part from t1-t2 is not a temporal part of a banana). It seems to me that this indicates that the banana part extending from t1 to t2 was a banana all along. For how could the annihilation of the banana part extending from t2 to t3 change the intrinsic properties of the temporal part extending from t1 to t2? And how could whether or not the temporal part extending from t1 to t2 is a banana be determined by anything other than its intrinsic properties (it doesn’t seem as if it could be determined by its relational properties, right?)?

I see two ways out, both of them bad for the perdurantist.

First, the perdurantist could say that there are no other possible worlds in which this banana extended only from time t1 to t2, and, in fact, there are no other possible worlds in which the same temporal part extending from t1 to t2 is not followed by a temporal part extending from t2 to t3. In other words, objects cannot exist across possible worlds (or at least only bananas cannot exist across possible worlds, but I’ll ignore this possibility). This sort of perdurantist should believe in counterpart theory, as this is the most plausible account of world bound objects. However, even if this is the most plausible account of world bound objects, it’s still, I think, very implausible. So, in a possible world exactly like this one except where Alpha Centauri is composed of one more atom, I don’t exist? Nope.

The perdurantist’s second option is to concede that something can satisfy a given sortal predicate even if it is a proper temporal part of something which satisfies that predicate. But this sort of perdurantism has some very counterintuitive consequences. For example, if the argument I gave above with bananas works, then it works for people as well, in which case my temporal part extending from my birth to, say, October 21, 1995, is a person. Is it a proper part of another person, namely the person extending from my birth to my future death? But how could one person be a proper part of another person? Let’s say it is not. It must, then, be a person, one that is at best a proper part of merely a mereological aggregate of other persons. But pick any other temporal part of me, and that’s a person too, and by the indiscernibility of identicals, my various temporal parts are different persons. So, the person I am now is a different person than the person I was five seconds ago. In fact, there may be an uncountably infinite number of Andrew Brenners, one for each temporal instance since “my” (or what I think of as my) birth, until “my” death. Some confused philosophers embrace this conclusion.

In any case, here’s the upshot of this post. Perdurantists should either be counterpart theorists, or they should be stage theorists, or both.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-frank-darwin-economics-20111018,0,5949996.story

Too many people take the so-called theory of intelligent design seriously, which is unfortunate since nobody who takes a scientific view of the world should, and everyone ought to take a scientific view of the world. As many have argued, ID theory is not, properly, a theistic explanatory model. However, I am not convinced that this is the case, and for two primary reasons. (Though, I find that insofar as ID theories are not theistic models, they actually suffer from more problems, so they really ought to welcome theistic interpretations. But this we may skip for now.) First, the correlation between theism and ID theory is too great for it to be an accident of honest inquiry. The overwhelming majority of ID theory proponents are theists, and theistic conceptions of god are, not surprisingly, suitable candidates for the intelligent designer. Second, the Discovery Institute, the main intellectual impetus behind ID theory in the English speaking world, published The Wedge, wherein they explicitly advocate for a theistic interpretation of ID theory. (FYI: One may read the document here: The Wedge.)

In any case, what is to follow is a rough and ready argument against theistic explanatory models.

An explanatory model must meet at least three conditions: (1) it ought to contain less information than the previous level of explanation; (2) it ought to facilitate more testable predictions than previous levels of explanation; and (3) it ought to contain enough information so as to permit the deduction of testable predictions.

E.g., the molecular theory of chemistry far surpasses earlier substance theories of matter in (1) – (3), and we can further reduce the former to the atomic theory of matter, which we can even further reduce to the Standard Model.

Theistic models, however, fail to be explanatory in this way because, insofar as they attempt to satisfy (2), they satisfy (3) in a manner which violates (1). To clarify, let us begin with an example.

Take the fine tuning argument (FTA) for the existence of god. Proponents of the FTA claim that the existence of a universe suitable for life is more likely than not given the existence of god. [Insert here all the prima facie appropriate and impressive numbers on this-and-that finely and seemingly improbably balanced physical constant.] That is to say, given god, one should expect that the universe one inhabits would exist, and, given not-god, one should not expect that the universe one inhabits would not exist. Our universe exists. Thus, god likely exists.

This argument is a bit too swift. Technically, nothing besides the existence of a supernatural agency follows from the existence of a supernatural agency. If we are to deduce the existence of the life permitting universe we inhabit from the existence of god, we must add at least one assumption: god desired and thus intended to bring about a life permitting universe. (We may find that we have to add the further supposition that god desired and thus intended to bring about intelligent beings (though, not necessarily homo sapiens), but for present purposes we need not consider this.] Otherwise the existence of a life permitting universe is no more evidence for a god than the existence of a life prohibiting universe, since, ceteris paribus, the existence of a life permitting universe would be a statistical accident; god created a random universe (through whatever process) and let matters unfold in appropriately deterministic ways. To be sure, god could have created an infinite amount of universes and the current one we find ourselves in would be just one of many, in which case we could not differentiate the theistic state of affairs from the multiverse, quantum loop theory of infinitely many universes, or any other non-theistic state of affairs.

Now, given the existence of god and the assumption that god intended to bring about a life permitting universe, we can very well deduce the current universe. Which is to say that a theistic model which incorporates the assumption of god’s intentions satisfies (2). However, the problem is that the assumption adds quite a lot of information to the theistic model; so much information, in fact, that (1) above is violated.

The assumption turns the theistic model into a psychology-based model. Now, the only psychologies with which we are familiar are very complex phenomena; perhaps the most complex phenomena know to modern science. Moreover, the only pyschologies with which we are familiar are those of material beings with material brains. We know what it is like for material beings to have psychologies: we can dissect, image, and otherwise interact with brains and identify brain structures which control emotions, intentional states, reason, etc. In short, we can identify the physical systems which give rise to human psychology.

We can also explain human psychology in terms of evolution and social factors. We can further explain human psychology in terms of physiology and brain chemistry. At each level- from the evolutionary and social to physiology and brain chemistry, right on down to the molecular theory of chemistry and atomic theory of matter and the Standard Model- we can reduce the amount of information, but retain enough information, while retaining the ability to make testable predictions. In short, we can satisfy (1) – (3).

However, with god, we cannot avail ourselves of any simpler physiological, biological, social, molecular, or atomic theory; there are no god brains; no god particles; no god societies (presumably there are none; the standard arguments for god all allow for many gods, though, and thus for a society); no general principles by which to explain god’s psychology. Insofar as one makes assumptions about god’s intentions, one complicates the explanatory model in such a way that it no longer remains explanatory. (Indeed, one cannot think of anything in more need of explanation than god.) The explanatory state of affairs would be thus: we have explained in a relatively economical way through our scientific theories the origin of our universe, but then fastly complicate our model by postulating the existence of a god and making necessary assumptions about its psychology.

Theists invariably attempt to obviate this problem by making recourse to divine simplicity, which amounts to little more than bare assertion in trying to simplify their model: “god is simple because, well, he just is, otherwise he would not be god!” But of course this is fraudulent and transparently so; anyone can claim simplicity without explaining the details.

To conclude, theistic models fail to explain anything since they fail, inevitably, to satisfy (1) – (3).

Call for Papers

 UNF’s Department of Philosophy invites paper submissions from undergraduate or graduate students for the 15th Annual Northeast Florida Student Philosophy Conference:

“Philosophy and Media”

March 31^st, 2012
Jacksonville, Florida

Plenary Speakers:
Christopher Grau (Clemson)

Vance Ricks (Guilford College)
 
Directions: Submit both (i) a cover sheet that includes your name, the title of your paper, your university affiliation, your e-mail address, and a 150-word abstract, and (ii) a copy of your paper – 3000 words or less, prepared for blind review (i.e., omitting any information that might allow a referee to identify you) – to Mitch Haney.

Note: Papers on any topic of philosophical interest will be considered, although papers related to media or the following areas are preferred:

• Social Philosophy

• Social Epistemology

• Aesthetics

• Applied Ethics

Deadline for Submissions: Wednesday, January 4th, 2012

Notifications: Authors of papers accepted for the conference will be notified by February 29th, 2012.

You do not know me, but I write to you as a brother. (Excuse me if I have mistaken your gender. Remember, I do not know you.) I know that, in your current place, the brotherhood relationship can have no value, but I invoke the relationship as a way to tell you this: We are from the same philosophical family, which is just to say that you and I have lived under the same roof with that bastard of a father, Nihilism.

You and I have suffered together the presence of his absence. He abandoned us because that is his character. That is how he shows himself. If we were wiser, we would have expected nothing more, or shall I say nothing less? We have suffered his present-absence on those quiet nights when we have looked up at the cold and uncaring sky, when we have contemplated the vastness of the earth and our next-to-thing-ness among it all, when we have come to that same breathtaking truth Solomon discovered many years ago: Everything is nothing. All is vanity, a chasing after the wind.

I am sorry, dear brother, to stab you again with those words. The wound I inflict here, however, is necessary. “Necessary for what?”, you ask. You are both angry and suspicious with your question. Angry, because you have been mildly successful at forgetting the present-absentness of our father. (Be not excessively angry, dear Brother, for you and I know that forgetfulness of this kind can be rekindled as easily as it is disturbed.) You are suspicious because the phrase “Necessary for” hints at some goal for one’s actions, and if we really are brothers, then neither of us can have such goals. Your suspicion is correct, and this is the purpose of my letter to you.

Indeed, brother, it turns out that the declaration of our brotherhood might only be half-true. I write to you now from the home of a different philosophical family. Yes, your suspicion is confirmed with clarity: I have disowned our father, Nihilism. I am writing to invite you to do the same. Be not unchangeably incredulous at the possibility of this suggestion, dear brother. I know that you have attempted a thousand times to disown our father before, but I want to suggest to you a new way.

This new way came to me as I was conversing with another brother of ours. It came as we were wallowing in that shit-hole that is our father’s house. I will present this new way as it occurred to me, in dialogue with a brother.

Brother19385736: The problem is contingency!

Brother492001: Ah, yes! Contingency! That is what is wrong with this house! It always changes. There is no stability. There is no guarantee that it will not be swept away.

Brother19385736: And to make matters worse, we live in a tumultuous town.

Brother492001: You are right.

Brother19385736: I know I am.

Brother492001: Why do we talk about these things?

Brother19385736: AH! How many times must I tell you that you must not ask questions of that kind.

Brother492001: I’m sorry. I can’t help it. But now the question has been raised, and so we must proceed as usual.

Brother19385736: Yes we must. But can we make this the last time that we do this? I’m tired of this same process. We ask. We answer that there is no answer. We experience despair. Then dignity…and then despair again. Then we must try to forget that we asked such questions. We must forget the “why’s” and ask only “what’s.”

Brother492001: You don’t think I’m tired of that too? I think that’s why I have to keep asking the question.

Brother19385736: Ha! What hope is there in asking the question a 19385737th time? Do you suspect your reason will finally come to aid you? Both Reason and our father left. They were brothers. Don’t you remember?! Have you not felt forsaken?

Brother492001: Of course I remember. It is not the aid of reason I seek here. I know that it has left us. I am simply hoping that we will get lucky this time.

Brother19385736: My young brother, I will entertain your wasted hope.

Brother492001: Sometimes I wonder, brother, if it is really strange to hope for such luck. After all, were we not just discussing contingency? Were we not just remarking upon the possibility of an unlucky occurrence? Why then do we suppose that we cannot get lucky this time?

Brother19385736: AH! You asked it again! Twice the shame. Twice the pain.

Brother492001: My apologies, brother. Back to original “why.” Shall we?

Brother19385736: I suppose we shall.

At this point, brother, I could bore you with all of the details of our conversation, but these details were nothing but the conversation that all of us brothers have had. We weighed the evidence for and against the existence of God or Meaning or Value etc. We thought, in other words, about the possibility of us having a different father than Nihilism. And as usual, we concluded that the truth was that we were stuck with Nihilism even though he was a most terrible father.

I became surprisingly angry at this conclusion. I did not know that I had that passion left in me still. I was angry at our father. I was frustrated that luck did not pull us through. I began punching the walls around us and destroying furniture in our father’s house.

Brother19385736: What are you doing?

Brother492001: That bastard! He left us!

I threw down the bookshelf that was leaning against the wall. The works of Nietzsche, Goethe, Hesse, Tolstoy, and Dostoevsky were strewn across the floor. They were staring up at me now.

Brother19385736: He left us, but he’s here too at the same time. Don’t you see? This will not help. Remember, this is our lot. This is our dignity. We’ve worked hard to build this house. This is all we have, and all that we can have. Do not destroy it.

Brother492001: But Why!

Brother19385736:AHHHHHHHHH!

We sat in silence. And then, a new question was formed in my mind. This question was the luckiest thing that has ever occurred. I was excited to ask it. I knew not where it would take me, but because it was a new question, I thought there might be a new answer.

Brother492001: Why don’t we leave him.

Brother19385736: We can’t do that.

We both realized that he had just done something that we did not think was possible. We gave an answer to the “why” question. How could we give such an answer? We are children of the man who taught us not to ask “why.” We are children of the man who showed us that to ask “why” is pointless because there is no meaning to anything at all. There is no justification for this place that we found ourselves in, and thus, there is no justification for the questions that we ask in this absurd place.

Brother492001: But why can’t we?

We were silent.

Brother19385736: Because the truth is that he is our father.

And as soon as the words left his lips, he made the same realization as I did. He had the same questions.

Brother492001: What is truth to us, brother? Why should we care that Nihilism truly is our father? Has he not taught us that truth is nothing but perspective? Has he not taught us that truth is not worth a rat’s ass? Has he not made himself equal among the imaginary fathers that we might run away to?

Silence.

Brother19385736: To delude ourselves is…it is beneath us.

Brother492001: Is it not what we try to do anyway?! Look at us. We rush to and fro around this house. Cooking. Eating. Drinking. Sexing. Cleaning. When we finally sit down after it all, we sit and answer the “what” questions and refuse to ask the “why’s.” Why not a more radical deception?

Brother19385736: It is impossible.

Brother492001: Oh is it? Contingency! It is not the problem, brother. It is the solution. We make a mockery of the frailty and mutability of human existence. We lament our broken reason. We poke fun at our limited cognitive capacities. We sulk about the amazing ability of humanity to deceive ourselves. These are precisely the things we can use to leave our father. They are our supplies. They are our food and water, our tent and pillow, our map and our compass.

Brother19385736: No they are not!

Brother492001: We can embark on that journey into the desert of delusion! We can leave this place that is both forsaken and infested by Nihilism, our father! And when we have walked a thousand miles, when we have forgotten our name and where we live, when we feel that we are barely alive, we will see a mirage. Yes, a mirage! And it will be the house of our new father! I do not know his name, but he will welcome us because He will be everything we ever hoped for! Come, brother, let us leave now!

Brother19385736: We cannot.

Brother492001: But why?

Brother19385736 screamed more than I had ever heard before. He tore his clothes. He dug his fingernails into his face. He beat his breast. He threw himself on the floor and writhed. He wept. He utter profanities. He sprinted around the room a hundred times. He tripped and fell…And laying there with a bloodied face and a bruised breast, he spoke as the most honest man who ever lived.

Brother19385736: I like it here.

But I did not, dear brother. I was tired of that place. And I write to you because you too might also be tired. There is a chance that you are like my older brother. You may enjoy living with our father, the bastard. Insofar as we are brothers, we both see that the choice is absolutely yours whether you stay or leave.

But if you leave, leave completely! Read not another word of one of our brothers! Make this the last contact you have with your brethren. Truly strike out into the desert. Listen intently to the delusions of others. You may find, like I did, that those delusions start to sound and look like Truth.

And now because I’ve said that word, you might say that we not brothers at all. And maybe you’re right. But I am now in a place where our relationship means something. It has value, and thus, I felt the urge to write to you. It is my deepest hope either that I will see you soon or that you may find what you are looking for in your current house. Either way, I want you to be well. If you decide to make the journey, my prayers and best wishes will be with you.

Your former-eternal-brother,

Matthew