CONSCIOUSNESS 'THE Sour

Home , Alan Ryan, Daniel Dennett, Michael Ruse, Neurophilosophy, The Case for God

( Fall 1995 Vol.15, No.4

HMMM... CONSCIOUSNESS 'THE sour. ABE ARTIFICIAL IIITELLIGENCE

Exclusive Interviews with Cognitive Scientists Patricia Smith Churchland and Daniel C. Dennett

BERTRAND RUSSELL

Also: The Disneyfication of America Situation Ethics in Medicine 74957 Reactionar Black Nationalism FALL 1995, VOL. 15, NO. 4 ISSN 0272-0701 !ee WTI :

Contents Editor: Paul Kurtz Executive Editor: Timothy J. Madigan Managing Editor: Andrea Szalanski 3 LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Senior Editors: Vern Bullough, Thomas W. Flynn, R. Joseph Hoffmann, Gerald Larue, Gordon Stein

5 EDITORIALS Contributing Editors: Robert S. Alley, Joe E. Barnhart, David Berman, Notes from the Editor: Pro Ecclesia et Commercia, Paul Kurtz I H. James Birx, Jo Ann Boydston, Bonnie Bullough, Reactionary Black Nationalism: Authoritarianism in the Name of Paul Edwards, Albert Ellis, Roy P. Fairfield, Charles W. Faulkner, Antony Flew, Levi Fragell, Adolf Freedom, Norm R. Allen, Jr. / The Founding Fathers Were Not Grünbaum, Marvin Kohl, Jean Kotkin, Thelma Lavine, Tibor Machan, Ronald A. Lindsay, Michael Christian, Steven Morris I Religious Right to Bolt GOP?, Skipp Martin, Delos B. McKown, Lee Nisbet, John Novak, Porteous I Humanist Potpourri, Warren Allen Smith Skipp Porteous, Howard Radest, Robert Rimmer, Michael Rockier, Svetozar Stojanovic, Thomas Szasz, Roh Tielman 16 NEWS AND VIEWS V. M. Torkunde, Richard Taylor, Associate Editors: Molleen Matsumura, Lois Porter 19 CONSCIOUSNESS REVISITED Editorial Associates: 19 FI Interview: A Conversation with Daniel Dennett Doris Doyle, Thomas Franczyk, Roger Greeley, James Martin-Diaz, Steven L. Mitchell, Warren 22 FI Interview: The Neurophilosophy of Patricia Smith Churchland Allen Smith

25 Neurological Bases of Modern Humanism José Delgado Cartoonist: Don Addis 29 Revisiting 'New Conceptions of the Mind' Noel W Smith CODESH. Inc.: Chairman: Paul Kurtz 33 Consciousness, Math, and Aristotle Adam Carley President: Timothy J. Madigan Executive Director: Matt Cherry Chief Development Officer: James Kimberly 35 BERTRAND RUSSELL REMEMBERED Public Relations Director: Norm R. Allen, Jr. 35 Introduction Timothy J. Madigan President, Academy of Humanism: Paul Kurtz Executive Director, Secular Organizations fbr 36 Russell vs. Dewey on Religion Michael J. Rockler Sobriety: James Christopher 38 Why I Am Not a Russellian John M. Novak Chief Data Officer: Richard Seymour 39 Bertrand Russell's Intellectual Odyssey . . Gladys Garner Leithauser Fulfilbnent Manager: Michael Cione 41 Russell and the Contemplation of Philosophy Typesetting: Paul E. Loynes, Sr. John Shosky Graphic Designer: Jacqueline Cooke 42 Russell and the Happy Life Marvin Kohl Audio Technician: Vance Vigrass 43 Russell at Century's End Alan Ryan staff:. 45 Onto the Past! What the 1990s Georgeia Locurcio, Anthony Nigro, Ranjit Sandhu Mean to Bertrand Russell Nicholas Griffin Executive Direcuir Emeritus: Jean Millholland FREE INQUIRY (ISSN 0272-0701) is published quarterly by the Council for Democratic and Secular Humanism HUMANISM AND MEDICAL ETHICS (CODESH, Inc.), a nonprofit corporation, 3965 Rensch Road, Amherst, NY 14228-2713. Phone (716) 636-7571. 47 Joseph Fletcher's Situation Ethics, Once Again Richard Taylor Fax (716) 636-1733. Copyright ©1995 by CODESH, Inc. 50 God and the Patent Office Richard J. Goss Second-class postage paid at Amherst, N.Y., and at additional mailing offices. National distribution by International Periodicals Distributors, Solana Beach, 52 REVIEWS California. FREE INQUIRY is available from University Microfilms and is indexed in Philosophers' Index. The Acid Test of Evolution, H. James Birx / Quite A Life, John R. Printed in the United States. Lenz / Crossing the Bleak Threshold, Thomas W Flynn / Psychoanalysis Subscription rates: $28.51) for one year, $47.50 for two Takes Its Lumps, Michael Ruse \ Sayings of the Skeptics, James A. years, $64.50 for three years. $6.95 for single issues. Naught / Arguing for God, Address subscription orders, changes of address, and Michael Martin / Books in Brief advertising to FREE INQUIRY, P.O. Box 664, Amherst, NY 14226-0664. VIEWPOINT Manuscripts, letters, and editorial inquiries should be 59 Church/State Separation in Germany— addressed to The Editor, FREE INQUIRY, P.O. Box 664, Amherst, NY 14226-0664. Editorial submissions must For Now This Wall Stays Up Edmund D. Cohen be on disk (PC: 3-1/2" or 5-1/4"; Mac: 3-1/2" only) and accompanied by a double-spaced hardcopy and a stamped, self-addressed envelope. Acceptable file for- 65 IN THE NAME OF GOD mats include any PC or Mac word processor, RTF, and ASCII. Opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect the Cover photo of Patricia Churchland by Union-Tribune/Roni Galgano views of the editors or publisher. Postmaster: Send address changes to FREE INQUIRY, P.O. Box 664, Cover photo of Daniel C. Dennett by Susan Dennett Amherst, NY 14226-0664.

A moment's thought is surely sufficient to show that these lines express a Letters to the Editor grotesque falsehood rather than a profound truth. If such a piece of nonsense is to be an important or indeed any kind of tenet of humanism, then count me out. Is There a Need for Fantasy? to anthropomorphize). Religion then is an incidental develop- Professor Antony Flew Kenneth Marsalek's article on "Human- ment resulting from a misunderstanding Reading, England ism, Science Fiction, and Fairy Tales" (FI, of cause and effect, not an escape valve Summer 1995) gave an excellent presenta- for a too-inquisitive mind. tion of the role of science fiction in the As for Hans Vaihinger's idea It is true, as Edythe McGovern points out development of the imagination. I often ("Vaihinger and the 'As If" by Rollo in "Secular Humanism in Literature" (FI, find science fiction a source of inspira- Handy) that cultivation of religion will Summer 1995), that humanist values can tion, and was glad to find some references eventually give way to true knowledge, I be found in literature, and not only in to intriguing SF works that I haven't read would no more believe such a thing than those writers who openly express their yet. Bart Kosko's discussion ("The Future to imagine that communism can result opposition to traditional religion, like of God") of the role of gods in science fic- from the formation of a bureaucratic and Shelley, Twain, Whitman, Shaw, et al., tion was also intriguing... . totalitarian state! but also in writers like Shakespeare, who Mike Jolley seem to accept traditional beliefs. But so Gary McGath New Orleans, La. can religious readers can find their val- Hooksett, N.H. ues in Shelley, Twain, Whitman, Hemingway, Stevens, etc., (not only While formal history and geography sum because) we tend to find what we are The idea that we need religious supersti- up definitions of events and places of the looking for, but because of the very tion to save us from "senseless" meta- past, legends are a part of mythology. nature of literature. physics makes very little sense ("Fantasy, They are not a representation of facts We enjoy literature for much the same Religion, and Missing Teeth," by because the facts in a legend are dis- reason that we enjoy music or any art: for Timothy J. Madigan). In the first place, torted, beautified, or amplified by imagi- its ability to give us an experience that we how do we know in advance which ques- nation or partiality. They are most often cannot have in any other way. At its best, tions to ask? What's the essential differ- an exaggeration or a misinterpretation for this literary experience is more likely to ence between asking "What is the mean- adaptation to popular taste. Sometimes challenge our beliefs than to reinforce ing of life?" as opposed to "What causes they are lies. them. That is why most good readers do thunder?" Both questions must originally Many legends have an European back- not judge literature by standards of moral have been considered answerable. Had ground with a supernatural component. correctness but how deeply the writer can our forefathers simply dismissed the lat- Legends are not really adapted for chil- involve us in the feelings of the character as a "senseless" question, we'd still be dren, who ignore their place in a context ters. The important point about a novel or without an explanation not only for thun- of culture, and some may mislead or a play or a poem is not whether its author der, but for any phenomena we now frighten them. Without knowledge of their is a humanist or a Christian but whether explain by assigning to it a naturalistic background, legends rather betray poor the work gives us an experience that goes cause. education and deter from historical truth. beyond the ideas and feelings that we Our consciousness, or self-conscious- Legends most often stand by themselves already have, what, in the words of T. S. ness, or ability to self-reflect, or if you while, to have a meaning, there is an order Eliot, "was not in existence before the will our metaphysical capacity, is a char- into which events are to be related. work was created." acteristic that possesses survival value in and of itself, according to a recent book Andrée Spuhler Lawrence Hyman by Richard Leakey (The Origin of Winter Park, Fla. Ridgewood, N.J. Humankind). After discussing work in pri- matology that would shed light on the origin of human consciousness, he concludes In her "Secular Humanism and Literature" Opus Dei Postscript as follows: "Consciousness is a social tool (FI, Summer 1995) Edythe McGovern for understanding the behavior of others tells us that if John Keats "had written I believe that Opus Dei, if anything, is by modeling it on one's own feeling." In nothing except 'Ode on a Grecian Urn' he even a more fanatic organization than addition, he says that "It is a simple and would have given us an important tenet of revealed in FREE INQUIRY ("Opus Dei and natural extrapolation to impute these humanism in its closing lines, `Beauty is Other Secret Societies," FI, Fall 1994). motives to aspects of the world that are Truth, truth beauty—that is all ye know on Last year, I had the opportunity to meet an nonhuman but nonetheless important" (or earth and all ye need to know." eighteen-year-old aspiring member of Fall 1995 3 Opus Dei. This young man was already an Advocates and Critics of Children, Religion, alcoholic and a chain smoker. Right-to-Die Laws and Skepticism When I informed him that my mother was an Auschwitz survivor and that her Readers of FI might like to know that the In his letter to the editor (FI, Spring father and brother were killed there, he Oregon Death with Dignity Act is being 1995) Francis Brislawn accuses me of said that, as much as he sympathized blocked not by religious groups but by so- advocating the indoctrination of children with the pain that she underwent, he called disability rights advocates. in science and skepticism. I plead guilty. quite honestly had ambivalent feelings According to New Mobility magazine, Although personally I don't favor it, I do toward the Holocaust, because of the his- disability activists have used an Americans not object if parents wish to give their toric Jewish resistance to conversion to With Disabilities Act (ADA) based argu- children a good religious upbringing. Catholicism. When I then asked him if he ment to temporarily block Oregon's But this should not preclude the instruc- believed that the Inquisition of the thir- Measure 16, otherwise known as the tion of young children in science and teenth through sixteenth centuries, in Assisted Suicide Act. The major argument, independent thinking. Such instruction, I which the Roman Catholic church had they claim, is that a disabled person's wish think, will lessen the children's suscepti- Jews burned alive for refusing to accept for self-termination will be looked upon bility later on in life to religious cults Catholicism, was justified, he sheepishly differently than a non-disabled person's and and New Age nonsense. responded that, deep in his heart, he did to offer different treatments based on a per- believe that the Inquisition was a morally son's disability is discrimination. Sidney Kash proper undertaking for the one true The suit claims that Measure 16 lacks Manhattan Beach, Calif. church. necessary safeguards such as providing When I told him that even though I am consultations with social workers, hospice a Jew who has rejected all conventional professionals, and independent living spe- No Offense Intended religious dogma, I went to a Jesuit law cialists to fully explore social services that school, he commented that the Jesuits might assist individuals with disabilities As a card-carrying humanist and long-time were worse than communists in many to live in "comfort and dignity." "People subscriber to FREE INQUIRY, I was bitterly ways. in the disabled community are scattered disappointed to read "little old lady"—a This young man was very neurotic, and isolated (claimed one disability-rights very demeaning descriptor—repeated very high strung, and completely preoccu- activist). They can get seduced by the three times in one paragraph in "A Call for pied with keeping fidelity to some ideal of well- oiled right-to-die PR machine that Common Decency" by Greg Erwin (FI, doctrinal orthodoxy that was so rigid, he says Oregon's law bolsters the right to Summer 1995). Yes, I know Erwin was was almost breathless from the unceasing self-determination...." quoting John Ralston Saul. Could he not task of holding to what he perceived to be The suit claims that Measure 16's defin- have selected another example? the party line. ition of "terminal"—an incurable, irre- When do we qualify for the term? Opus Dei is the worst manifestation of versible disease that has been medically When we are fifty-five years, seven a church that already sees itself as infalli- confirmed with reasonable medical judg- months? When we are sixty-five? When ble in matters of spiritual correctness. In ment to produce death in six months—falls we are seventy-one? Was Barbara the United States today, the Catholic within the meaning of "disability" under Tuchman a little old lady? Eleanor church criticizes its critics by calling them the ADA. Thus, discrimination as a result Roosevelt? Mother Teresa (heaven for- anti-Catholic bigots. of Measure 16 would violate the ADA. bid)? Nonbelievers should be able to As a humanist with a disability, I find it "Little" obviously means unimportant. ridicule and criticize a religion without appalling that any advocacy group would Why do we not hear of "little old men"? being accused of bigotry against believ- assume that the very people they claim to Why is the term viable when all the other ers. Those of us who fight the Catholic support are just way too stupid, naïve, or insults have been banned—politically church on issues of reproductive free- victimized to know what's really good for speaking? dom and personal sexual liberty are not them. If they were truly representing our To hell with you. I walk this earth trying to restrict the civil liberties of interests, they should be working on proudly. I am a valuable, contributing Catholics. We are only trying to prevent increasing the channels of communication member of society. I walk tall. And I am the church from crippling our freedoms. and enhancing the public image of disabil- outraged. Having emerged from a Jewish back- ity in the media, rather than imposing fur- ground, I only wish that, historically, the ther limits what rights we do have. I com- Kate vanHorn, M.A., NCSP Catholic church had displayed the same mend the efforts of Compassion for Dying, Newark, Del. live-and-let-live attitude toward my and urge all humanists, disabled and ancestors as I hold toward the church nondisabled alike, to continue their efforts Sorry! No offense meant. Our articles are and its followers. toward the cause of individual self-determi- intended to stimulate discussion, not nation on all fronts. insult.—EDs. Edward Tabash Karen Hwang Beverly Hills, Calif. Watchung, N.J. (Continued on p. 63)

4 FREE INQUIRY with nary a dissent from those who are charged with enforcing the antitrust laws. Economic libertarians argue that a free Notes from the Editor market without governmental regulations is the best guarantee of a prosperous economy. Not much is heard today about the idea that the government should play an Pro Ecclesia et Commercia effective role as a countervailing force, balancing the power of huge corporations and other large institutions and defending Paul Kurtz the public interest. Perhaps this is due to the steady decline of industrial unions in The Disneyfication of America posais to revamp this regulation. the United States and the worsening plight Reuben Frank, former president of of the paycheck of the average worker as he United States is undergoing a fun- NBC News (now owned by General a result. Believers in the free market say Tdamental economic revolution that is Electric) observed in the New Leader: "It they wish to keep competition alive. If so, drastically transforming society. It is occur- is daily becoming more obvious that the should not the government now seek to ring without our freely given consent. biggest threat to a free press and the cir- restrain the monopolistic or oligopolistic I am here referring to the corporate culation of ideas is the steady absorption domination of the economy? That was the takeover of America and especially the of newspapers, television networks, and rationale for the breakup of AT&T and the unrestrained growth of media conglomer- other vehicles of information into enor- opening of the telecommunications indus- ates, which are swallowing up newspapers, mous corporations that know how to turn try to competition. magazines, television and cable networks, knowledge into profit—but are not The growth of monopolies in the media radio stations, movie studios, and publish- equally committed to inquiry or debate or and publishing industry especially has ing companies with a vengeance. In my the First Amendment." ominous repercussions. Already, most judgment, that process poses a serious The Wal-Marting of America continues cities in the United States have only one threat to our democratic institutions. everywhere at a rapid pace, with mergers newspaper. In many communities this Disney's acquisition of Capital Cities- and consolidations pervading the econ- seriously curtails the expression of dis- ABC is the latest in this monopolistic omy. Larger and larger banks, computer senting viewpoints, especially when these trend. Rupert Murdoch, the Australian- conglomerates, airplane companies, retail criticize the power structure. Today, there born media mogul, continues to buy up chains, and even utilities are emerging, is a similar concentration developing in everything in sight and to further vulgarize news broadcasting. The merger of Time- Warner and Ted Turner's cable enterprises is another example. Every day still new mergers are announced—as, for example, the acquisition of Multimedia by Gannett d News, or the purchase of Scientific American and Nature, two of the best inde- reserve

pendent science magazines, by Springer- hts The USA Today - ig r Verlag, a German conglomerate. All of this l ABC CBs•NBC- Fox - Al portends the further Disneyfication of our Disney- Westinghouse. 4.( te. dica culture, which focuses on fantasy and sen- News-Entertainment n Sy sationalism and avoids real issues. And Appliance Group This trend unfortunately is being Press l

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Fall 1995 5 the buying up of local radio stations. One Things, argues in an op-ed piece in the texts all sorts of moral, social, and politi- consequence of this is that radio talk- Wall Street Journal (July 6, 1995) that cal commandments are drawn that affect shows are rapidly becoming "national- "the next century will be religious." everyone in the community, Christian and ized," and local viewpoints are being Extolling the recently issued papal non-Christian alike. squeezed out to the detriment of diversity encyclical "Ut Unum Sint" ("That They I happened to be in France during the of opinion (witness Rush Limbaugh's May Be One"), Father Neuhaus maintains recent presidential elections and was sur- meteoric rise). The same trend in maga- that there are great efforts to unite the 1.8 prised to hear President François Mit- zine and book publishing is occurring billion Christians in the world (one-third terand say on national television that he with great rapidity, as I outlined in my of the population) under the tutelage of was an agnostic, and to read in the news- article in FREE INQUIRY, "Are We the pope. This would bring together the papers that Lionel Jospin, socialist candi- Approaching the End of the Age of Eastern Orthodox church and the diverse date for the presidency, was an atheist (he Books?" (Winter 1993/94). Protestant and Evangelical churches barely lost the election). Would any The trend is compounded by the fact under the guidance of the Roman Catholic American politician today have the that a few conglomerates can own virtu- church. "Although it comes as a surprise courage to admit that he or she is an unbe- ally all of the major channels of commu- to many," writes Neuhaus, "the twentieth liever? I doubt it. Neuhaus's boast about nication. Unfortunately, the conglomer- century has been the century of greatest the twenty-first century can become a ates are more interested in providing missionary expansion in Christian his- self-fulfilling prophecy, unless secularists entertainment—as a source of profit— tory." Evangelicals are making tremen- and humanists are willing to battle for the than conveying information and knowl- dous strides in Latin America, Asia, and minds and hearts of men and women by edge. Proponents of the media conglom- Africa. Similarly for the political mission- contesting those basic religious claims erates argue that this trend is caused by ary efforts of the Roman Catholic curiae that are shrouded in dubious history and economic pressures and the need to in Eastern Europe, Africa, and elsewhere. obfuscatory mystery. achieve economies of scale. They say that Neuhaus derides textbooks that since the the newer technologies that are emerging Enlightenment herald modernity and sec- The `Religious Equality' will require massive infusions of capital ularization. He boasts that "the great new Amendment and that companies need to become larger fact at the edge of the third millennium is in order to compete. But this must be bal- the desecularization of world history." he principle of separation of church anced with other values vital to the sur- I quote Neuhaus only to emphasize the Tand state embodied in the First vival of democracy. dangers of complacency that has overtaken Amendment is everywhere being eroded. The serious question to be raised is many people in America and elsewhere The U.S. Supreme Court recently issued this: If democracy presupposes a free about the current religious revival. FREE two disquieting rulings. First, it approved market of ideas, what will be the conse- INQUIRY has consistently criticized mono- by a 7-2 vote to allow the Ku Klux Klan quences if we end up with a few major theistic religions and questioned their to erect a cross in a plaza in front of the media giants dominating virtually all the claims—in spite of a blasé attitude of many Ohio State House. The majority held that media of expression? The mega- that this is in bad taste or unnecessary. this form of religious expression did not conglomerates are now global in scope, Some humanists and secularists believe violate the establishment clause of the often more powerful than the countries in that we should soft-pedal our "anti-reli- First Amendment. Surely, people should which they do business. They threaten gious stance," and instead emphasize what have a right to express any point of view democracy, not only in the United States we share in common with religious folk. in a democracy, but that public property but in other countries as well. What assur- It is nice to focus on the affirmative. should be available for the display of reliance will we have that the avenues for free But the disturbing fact is that religious gious symbols seems highly questionable. expression in the future will be kept open forces are gaining by leaps and bounds in In a second case, the Court ruled by a nar- to dissenting, creative, and critical view- the United States and throughout the row 5-4 majority that the University of points so essential to thriving democra- world, in spite of secularization, and there Virginia was in error when it denied fund- cies? Are media barons in effect replacing is very little dissent in the public square ing for Wide Awake, a Christian student presidents and prime ministers as the real about their premises and goals. The newspaper. The Court held that the school wielders of power? In my judgment we beliefs that "God exists," that the Bible or discriminated against religious expres- are facing a clear and present danger to the Koran is the "revealed word of God," sion, since it funded nonreligious publica- our freedoms. And there seems to be or that religion is the "sole source of tions. Justice David Souter, in a dissenting almost no dissent as the corporate steam- moral virtue" are very rarely critically opinion, maintained that the Court for the roller gobbles up everything in sight. examined. There is a constant barrage of first time "is ordering an instrumentability pro-theistic propaganda and very few dis- of the state to support religious evangeli- Will the Twenty-First Century senting criticisms are heard. We think that calism." This unwise ruling now opens the Be 'The Religious Century'? there is little or no evidence for any of the floodgates to requests for public funds above claims, and that it is important that from religious groups everywhere. D ichard John Neuhaus, editor of the this be pointed out, especially since on the Many conservative religious stalwarts, onservative religious journal First basis of these so-called divinely inspired and especially the Christian Coalition, corn-

6 FREE INQUIRY plain that religious exercise is being stifled tion) defending "traditional religious val- aging supplication to an absent deity? because of the establishment clause of the ues" and declaring that schools should First Amendment. There is a movement not be "religious-free zones." No doubt Jewish Intermarriage underway to "restore balance" by a pro- the president wishes to outflank the reli- posed "Religious Equality" Amendment to gious right in his bid for re-election. AA:n editorial in the Jewish Ledger, a the Constitution. Congress has already Regrettably, he has marshalled the sup- that has 30,000 sub- begun hearings. Its supporters are deter- port of many civil libertarians and liberal scribers in Connecticut, has embroiled the mined to protect, they say, student-led groups who also wished to forestall the Jewish community in a heated contro- prayers, particularly in elementary and sec- right-wing's amendment by moving to versy. Jonathan S. Tobin, editor of the ondary schools, and also the displays of any the center on this issue. The president newspaper, in an editorial asked, "Is an and all religious symbols, such as crosses, issued a memorandum to the attorney intermarriage a Jewish simcha"? [the crèches, and menorahs, on public property. general and secretary of education about Hebrew word for "joyous celebration"]. The defenders of the "Religious religious expression in the schools, in He boldly stated that the marriage Equality" Amendment are insensitive to which he avowed that "religious freedom between a Jew and a non-Jew is not an the rights of dissenting minorities. In is perhaps the most precious of all event to be celebrated by the Jewish com- many communities the tyranny of the American liberties." munity. The newspaper had refused to majority is apt to prevail by compelling Very little is heard today about the print notices of weddings between Jews participation in religious ceremonies and, rights of nonconforming dissenters. Yet it and non-Jews, which caused distress in effect, intimidating nonconforming cit- was to escape religious persecution of any among couples and their parents, who izens. In some areas of the country where type that the First Amendment was asked that the policy be reversed. certain sects are preponderant—such as enacted, and it guarantees the right of Intermarriage between Jews and gen- Baptists in the South, Roman Catholics in unbelief as well as belief. In his speech, tiles in the United States is widespread, northern cities, Jewish Orthodox in the president pointed out that in 1993 he encompassing more than half of such mar- Brooklyn, or Mormons in Utah, etc.—stu- signed the Religious Freedom Restoration riages. A 1990 survey found that only 28 dents are apt to follow the lead of their Act, and that earlier an Equal Access Act percent of the mixed couples were rearing elders and demand prayers and the had been enacted. The latter accords to their children as Jews, 30 percent were singing of sectarian hymns. student religious activities the same access raised as Christians, and 42 percent A good case in point is West High to public school facilities accorded by stu- brought them up with no religion. Many School in Salt Lake City, where a choral dent secular activities. Prima facie this Conservative rabbis are disturbed that, if teacher chose two Christian hymns for may appear to be fair-minded. these trends continue, the long-term graduation. A sixteen-year-old student, Unfortunately, Mr. Clinton's speech and decline of Judaism in America will in time Rachel Bauchman, objected, and the fed- memoranda could be used as justification lead to the disappearance of the Jews as a eral court ruled that the singing of the for the imposition of a de facto state reli- distinct religious minority. They rail hymns were a violation of the establish- gion (Judeo-Christian), particularly in against secularism for undermining faith in ment clause of the First Amendment. Two those communities in which militant Judaism. To which secular humanists reply nonreligious songs were sung at the grad- believers control the boards of education. that they would be glad to welcome such uation ceremony instead. In defiance of It would leave little room for dissent and couples and their children into the secular the court order, however, a student-led unbelief. humanist fold. Secular humanism seeks to revolt broke out at the graduation and the Do we need to point out again that the transcend the restrictions of traditional reli- two hymns were loudly sung anyway, as most basic traditional value in America is gion and to achieve higher common ground school officials sat quietly on the stage. "It freedom of conscience, upon which the in which all can participate on equal terms is a shame to see that once minority republic was founded? America has thus far as members of the human family. Mormons inflict the same persecution that avoided the fratricidal religious warfare they once fled from," wrote one Mormon now engulfing large sectors of the world. Its Islamic Intolerance in the Letters to the Editor column in the mainstay has always been the First Salt Lake City Tribune. Amendment. The current efforts on all sides n a previous article (FI, Spring 1995, If the "Religious Equality" Amend- to weaken this precious freedom could Ipp. 36-38) about the "Ibn Rushd and ment is enacted, student groups anywhere engender religious intolerance and hatred. Enlightenment" conference held in Cairo, and everywhere can lead public prayer or The religious forces of this country have a Egypt, in December 1994, I pointed out sing hymns in the public schools. Would church, synagogue, or mosque on virtually the existence of a growing dissenting this not in effect mean the de facto estab- every street comer of the country. Why do minority in the Muslim world that yearns lishment of religion? they insist that all institutions of society be for freedom of conscience and free In order to forestall this movement, dominated by their religious faith? expression. Regrettably, academic free- President Bill Clinton delivered an Besides, I doubt the efficacy of prayer, dom and civil liberties were dealt a severe address at a suburban Virginia school since there is no one listening on the other setback in June 1995, when an Egyptian (ironically named after James Madison, a side. Would it not be better to educate stu- appeals court ruled that Nasr Abu Zaid, leading proponent of church/state separa- dents to be self-reliant instead of encour- who teaches in the Arabic Department at

Fall 1995 7 In Retrospect: Corliss Lamont 1902-1995

e note with sadness the passing of Among Lamont's many interests Corliss Lamont. Corliss was a were his belief in civil liberties and long-standing friend and colleague, and I democracy. And so he publicly battled worked with him closely as an active Senator Joe McCarthy and later the State member of the humanist movement. He Department, which had denied him his was a mainstay of the American Humanist passport. But, as Sidney Hook has docu- Association, which he supported finan- mented, Corliss Lamont also became an Abu Zaid cially over the years. His Philosophy of apologist for some of the worst excesses Humanism and his Illusion of Immortality of communist totalitarianism. We need Cairo University, and his wife, Ibtihal were assets in the effort to make humanist to set the record straight about a sad Younis, who teaches French at the same ideas better known. I took my Ph.D. in chapter in Lamont's career. Although university, should be legally separated— philosophy from Columbia University in never a member of the Communist Party against their will—because of Abu Zaid's 1952. Corliss Lamont was a lecturer in the he was surely a fellow traveler, and as "apostasy." Both professors participated such refused to recognize the brutal in the Cairo conference. Department of Philosophy, and I got to know his writings and particularly his character of Stalinism and Leninism. As The court's ruling was in response to a defense of naturalistic humanism and his head of the American-Soviet Friendship suit by six Islamicists who charged him role on the board of the Journal of Committee, Lamont even denied that the with being an apostate on the basis of his Philosophy. Moscow purge trials were phony, and he published writings. Abu Zaid's crime, When I became editor of The became a proponent of Soviet policies. they said, was that he attempted to inter- Humanist magazine in 1967, one of my He often said that he was a "critical sym- pret the Koran by presenting it in its his- first acts was to invite both Corliss pathizer" of the Soviet Union, and many torical context and that he had written crit- Lamont and Sidney Hook (a former pro- people thought that sympathizer should ically about the application of medieval fessor of mine at New York Uni- be emphasized in that description. Islamic jurisprudence to the current scene. versity)—arch-ideological foes in the Lamont strongly supported North Abu Zaid had been denied a professorship past and by then on the opposite ends of Vietnam during the Vietnam War—many only two weeks earlier by a faculty com- the political spectrum—to join the edito- other Americans opposed U.S. policy, so mittee on the grounds that he was an "infi- rial board. Both Hook and Lamont had that was not unique. During the terrible del." The Islamicists say that on the basis tangled on a wide number of issues. Cambodian genocide, however, when of the Koran they can declare his marriage Lamont had at one time been influenced millions were being killed by the Khmer null and void; and, since his views were by Hook. In his autobiography, Out of Rouge, Lamont took out a full-page ad in incompatible with the Koran, he should Step, Hook says he recruited Lamont to the New York Times, endorsed by many not be allowed to influence young people. both atheism and socialism, but their supporters, defending the Khmer Rouge The growth of Islamicism in other relationship soured in later years. Indeed and denying reports of carnage. Again, in Muslim countries has led to extreme intel- Hook had resigned from the American 1979, when Joan Baez and 250 other lectual intolerance, intimidation, and Humanist Association at one time prominent personalities took a full-page harassment. Many Islamic countries— because of its excessive left-wing bias, ad condemning the Vietnamese regime such as Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Iran, and which he thought was encouraged by for harassing the boat people, refugees the Sudan—have enacted anti-blasphemy Lamont's financial support. I was at that who were fleeing Vietnam, Lamont and anti-apostasy laws. Such laws pro- time attempting to build a strong con- refused to endorse it, but instead ran a hibit speaking or writing against the sensus for a new humanist focus on con- counter-petition in the New York Times prophet Muhammad. The penalty is death. crete moral issues, and I wished to tran- charging that Baez was lying. Corliss Militants are demanding the same laws in Lamont visited Castro in 1993 in Cuba, Egypt, and Algeria. scend the bitter acrimony that had developed among the old left. Both again with nary a word of criticism of the Abu Zaid is fearful that the Islamicists' Lamont and Hook accepted my invita- excesses of the Castro dictatorship, or his ultimate goal is to murder him. An tion. I worked with both Corliss and suppression of civil liberties. Egyptian human rights organization has Sidney over the years, and in one sense When Prometheus Books published protested the court's ruling, saying that it stood between them. Indeed, as editor- Lamont's Voice in the Wilderness in was in violation of the rights of freedom in-chief of Prometheus Books, I pub- 1974, a collection of his articles and of thought and expression recognized by lished books authored by both Lamont papers, I pointed out to Lamont that until international declarations of human and Hook. rights, to which Egypt is a signatory. then he had not criticized the Soviet dic-

8 FREE INQUIRY tatorship in print. And so Lamont grudg- Lamont, a power in the J. P. Morgan ventions would issue resolutions con- ingly penned a statement at my behest, financial empire, Corliss apparently demning U.S. intervention in Vietnam, or which we published, in which he with- never got over the image of his silver Lebanon, or the Dominican Republic, I drew his views about the Moscow purge spoon, and perhaps he sided with social- would introduce a resolution condemn- trials, and he criticized the Soviet ism as a counter-balance. He used his ing the Soviet invasions of Hungary and Stalinist dictatorship for its denial of considerable fortune to support both left- Czechoslovakia—which my erstwhile civil liberties and democracy. wing and humanist causes throughout his humanist left-wing colleagues invariably The truth is that Lamont was naïve. life. opposed. The double-standard, I called it. He considered himself a socialist and I make these points now in retrospect I have long maintained that humanism believed in "state planning." He was an because it is important to clarify should not be wedded to a specific polit- idealist; and this so blinded his percep- Lamont's influence on humanism. In the ical platform. Humanism, in my view, is tion that he was unable to see that com- mind of many critics, humanism is still a method of inquiry, rational and experi- munist dictatorships had raped democ- identified with Lamont's brand of left- mental, and its programs must change racy and civil liberties, and that one wing politics. But this is a mistake, for with the needs of the times. Humanists cannot hope to build a humanist society many humanists opposed Lamont's left- thus can be libertarians or socialists, con- if one abandons democratic principles wing bias and his views on the Soviet servatives or liberals. One thing that they and human rights. The son of Thomas Union. When left-wing humanists at con- cannot do, in my judgment, is abandon a full commitment to democracy, civil liberties, and human rights, nor compromise these principles in the name of any end, however glorious it may appear to them to be. Thus it was a mistake for some within the humanist movement in the past to ally humanism with doctrinaire left-wing politics; just as it is a mistake today to declare that the test of humanism is allegiance to Ayn Rand's form of economic libertarianism, as some secular humanists are wont to do. Corliss Lamont was an heroic defender of the philosophy of humanism. He was a secular and not a religious humanist. He believed that one could live the authentic life here and now without deity; and that this was possible through the use of reason and science. Corliss Lamont's flir- tation during his life with communist totalitarianism—deplorable as that was—in no way detracts from his other contributions to the humanist outlook.

—Paul Kurtz

Fall 1995 9 to men, who supposedly need such sub- mission to restore their long-lost man- Reactionary Black Nationalism: hood. It should therefore not be surprising that not a single RBN has come out in opposition to female genital mutilation Authoritarianism in the (FGM), euphemistically referred to as "female circumcision." Thus "strong Name of Freedom black manhood" comes with a price—a very large one that women are supposed to pay. Norm R. Allen, Jr. RBNs have a strong attraction for hard- ened prisoners and ex-cons. RBNs—per- Many times cultural nationalists fall Universal Negro Improvement Asso- haps more than any other organizations— into line as reactionary nationalists. ciation (U.N.I.A.). Other influential have had some success in turning black Papa Doc in Haiti was an excellent example of reactionary nationalism. He RBNs throughout history include Noble criminals away from drugs, alcohol, and oppresses the people but he does pro- Drew Ali, the founder of the Moorish crime, and toward relatively moral mote the African culture. He's against Science Temple of America; Fard lifestyles (Malcolm X being the best and anything other than black, which on the Muhammad (whom many contend was brightest example). surface seems very good, but for him it an Arab passing as a black man and who But it is not the goal of RBNs to com- is only to mislead the people. He merely kicked out the racists and replaced them was believed to have been God incar- pletely transform all of the ex-cons who with himself as the oppressor. Many of nate), founder of the Nation of Islam embrace their ideology. The willingness the nationalists in this country seem to (NOI); Elijah Muhammad, spiritual of many former criminals to engage in desire the same ends. leader of the NOI; Ron Karenga (now violence for "the cause" is highly valued Maulana Karenga), of the United Slaves by RBNs. For while the RBNs are —Huey P. Newton, Defense Minister of (US) organization and the creator of the allegedly opposed to black-on-black vio- the Black Panther Party, from a Kwanzaa celebration; H. Rap Brown lence, one clear exception is when black pamphlet published by The Move- ment and republished in The Black (now Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin); Stokely individuals or groups are branded as Panthers Speak. Carmichael (now known as Kwame "Toms," traitors, or "sellouts." In such Touré); LeRoi Jones (now known as cases, violence is not only tolerated, but it Amiri Baraka); Malcolm X before his is strongly encouraged. History is full of lack radicals, socialists, progressives, departure from the NOI; and current NOI examples of intolerant and dogmatic Band conservatives have been among leader Minister Louis Farrakhan. RBNs inflicting often deadly violence on the many critics of Reactionary Black Not surprisingly, the most influential their black enemies, the most famous Nationalism (RBN). RBN is much like and easily recognized RBNs have been example being the assassination of religion—it has good and bad aspects and males. This is probably due in large part to Malcolm X by members of the NOI. numerous contradictions and inconsisten- RBNs' reactionary views of women. Interestingly, the courageous black free- cies. On the one hand, Reactionary Black Despite their popular cry of "Love, pro- dom fighter of today can quickly and eas- Nationalists (RBNs) advocate self-love, tect, and respect the black woman," RBNs ily be regarded as the worst kind of traitor self-respect, self-acceptance, self-help, are blatantly sexist. Stokely Carmichael tomorrow. pride, unity, and so forth—much like the once said that the best position for women Many RBNs believe in the right-wingers who promote "traditional in the black liberation struggle is "prone." biblical/Qur'anic system of justice. NOI family values." But—also like the holier- Ron Karenga reportedly made "his" members speak glowingly of the idea of than-thou right-wingers—RBNs promote women walk at least three paces behind administering amputations to thieves bigotry, intolerance, hatred, sexism, him. Female NOI members are taught to and putting rapists to death under an homophobia, anti-Semitism, pseudo- obey their men (which mirrors obedience Islamic government. They talk noncha- science, irrationality, dogmatic historical to God), and black nationalist author lantly of "taking heads" and administer- revisionism, violence, and so forth. Thus Shahrazad Ali wrote in her popular book, ing strong and swift "justice" whenever RBN is a strange mixture of profound The Blackman's Guide to Understanding a crime against God has been commit- thought and patent nonsense. the Blackwoman, that black men should ted. But as the philosopher Nietzsche RBN reached its zenith during the hit their women in the mouth if they get wisely observed, one should "Distrust 1920s under the Marcus Garvey-led out of line. anyone in whom the impulse to punish is Any woman who advocates equality strong." Norm R. Allen, Jr., is the executive direc- between the sexes is accused of being a The merging of church and state (or tor of African Americans for Humanism. feminist, or worse. A woman is expected mosque and state) is advocated by many He is currently working on a book about to "get with the program" or risk being religious RBNs. Religious African nation- Reactionary Black Nationalism. branded as a rabble rouser and traitor to alists contend that the concept of the cause. Women are expected to submit church/state separation is totally foreign

10 FREE INQUIRY to the African way of life, and is therefore and the head of the White Aryan influential authoritarian, neofascist, and "un-African." Black Muslim and Black Resistance, and six other white suprema- even downright evil leaders and organiza- Christian nationalists have advocated cists to attend an NOI rally. Metzger tions. The NOI has—or has had—close merging religion with the state. Some praised the NOI in an interview in the ties or given verbal support to neofascist Christian nationalists have gone so far as September 30, 1985, Washington Times, Lyndon LaRouche's organization, the to say that there is no such thing as saying "They speak out against the Jews Ayatollah Khomeini, strongman Moam- church/state separation among blacks in and the oppressors in Washington." mar Gaddafi of Libya, and the current America. And in an interview with Steven Metzger donated $100 to the NOI and regime of Sudan. Barboza, author of American Jihad, a said, "We were treated quite well" at the Numerous organizations have issued book on Muslims in America, Farrakhan rally. (One can only wonder how comfort- reports of chattel slavery in Sudan, includ- stated that he advocates setting up a sepa- able a group of blacks would be made to ing Human Rights Watch/Africa, the rate Black Muslim government based on feel at a meeting of the White Aryan British Anti-Slavery Society, the the principles set forth by the Prophet Resistance or the KKK!) Moreover, International Labor Organization (ILO), Muhammad. (This would be challenging, Metzger said of the NOI, "They are the the U.S. State Department, United indeed, as most blacks in America are not black counterpart to us." Nations investigators, the American Anti- Muslims!) Many white supremacists and RBNs Slavery Group (AASG), and the Coalition Many RBNs routinely preach hate. Just consistently deny that they are preaching Against Slavery in Africa. Yet the NOI as white supremacists have referred to hate and blame the mainstream media for and other RBNs insist that slavery does blacks as "devils," so have many RBNs misrepresenting them. (A striking excep- not exist in Sudan and are blindly devoted referred to whites. White supremacists tion is the NOI's Khallid Muhammad, to the defense of the Muslim Khartoum have verbally attacked gays, as have who, according to Gates, admitted in a regime. RBNs. White supremacists embrace para- taped speech titled "No Love for the noid conspiracy theories, as do their black Other Side," "Never will I say I am not RBNBN has been attractive because it counterparts. RBNs and white suprema- anti-Semitic. I pray that God will kill my millions of blacks hope, pride, cists bash white Jews and sell anti-Jewish enemy and take him off the face of the self-confidence, and a sense of commu- literature. (According to the distinguished planet.") Rather, they claim they are nity. It has taught blacks self-acceptance Harvard scholar Henry Louis Gates, the teaching "truth" and advocating the love on their own terms, after being taught NOI purchases its anti-Jewish literature of their own people, as though love of self-hate for centuries by the dominant such as Henry Ford and the Jews and The self and hatred of others are mutually white culture and media. Blacks have Jews and Their Lies from white suprema- exclusive positions. On the contrary, learned to take pride in their history and to cist organizations!) RBNs preach love of self and hatred of defend themselves against white suprema- While RBNs have spoken out fear- their enemies. (Indeed, it often seems cist attacks from all directions. lessly against white supremacist hate that these groups are motivated more by But the ugly side of RBN must not go groups, even advocating that blacks hatred of their enemies than love of their unopposed. The fight against white defend themselves against racist violence, people.) supremacy must be waged in a principled oddly, some RBNs have joined forces Farrakhan said in an interview in the manner. While RBNs equate any strong with white supremacist organizations. February 28, 1994, issue of Time: "The criticism of them or their ideas with a Though the Garvey-led U.N.I.A. once truth of the matter is that white suprema- threat to black unity, they often pose marched through Harlem with a sign that cists built a world on that ideology [devel- threats to the very unity they are seeking. read "The New Negro is Ready for the oping a sense of pride by denigrating oth- For as Linda Harrison, writing in the Klan:' they later joined forces with the ers]...." He is correct. RBN was not February 2, 1969, issue of The Black KKK, with Garvey even inviting a KKK created in a vacuum. It came about as a Panther, related: "Cultural nationalists in spokesman to speak at one of his rallies reaction to white supremacy, which is one their finery support many of the evils (the speaker received cheers and applause reason the two ideologies are so similar. which have put them in the position of from the black audience, but the U.N.I.A. Furthermore, controversial rapper Sister servitude." And while not a few Black lost many members as a result of this and Souljah says of RBN, "Two wrongs don't Panthers held reactionary views of their other actions). make a right, but it damn sure makes it own, their critique of RBN should not be In the 1960s, though members of the even" This is the goal of RBN—to even dismissed or minimized. NOI railed against the violence of white up the score with whites. But Martin Finally, the idea of a chosen people supremacists, their organization joined Luther King's observation is more accu- must always be opposed. As writer Greg forces with George Lincoln Rockwell's rate: "That old law about an eye for an eye Erwin has noted, "If you and your group American Nazi Party. (Malcolm X later leaves everybody blind." Sensible people are the epitome of all that is good, some admitted that he was ashamed of having do not want to live in a world in which other group is likely the epitome of all that been a part of the alliance.) they and their children are groping around is evil." And this simplistic dichotomy On September 14, 1985, Louis in the darkness. will ultimately produce more negative Farrakhan invited Tom Metzger, the for- Perhaps the most worrisome aspect of consequences than positive ones, as his- mer Grand Dragon of the California KKK RBN is its tendency to gravitate toward tory clearly demonstrates. •

Fall 1995 11 the clergy, the "pretended sanctity of some absolute dunces."' Late in life he The Founding Fathers Were wrote, Twenty times in the course of my late Not Christians Reading, have I been upon the point of breaking out, "This would be the best of all possible Worlds, if there were no Steven Morris Religion in it"!!!!'

he Christian right is trying to rewrite of hell) was invited to become an army It was during Adams's administration that Tthe history of the United States as chaplain, the other chaplains petitioned the Senate ratified the Treaty of Peace and part of its campaign to force its religion Washington for his dismissal. Instead, Friendship, which states in Article XI that on others. According to this Orwellian Washington gave him the appointment. "the Government of the United States of revision, the Founding Fathers of this On his deathbed, Washington uttered no America is not in any sense founded on country were pious Christians who the Christian religion." This treaty with wanted the United States to be a Christian Tripoli was written and concluded by Joel nation, with laws that favored Christians "The early presidents and patri- Barlow during Washington's administra- and Christianity. ots were generally Deists or Uni- tion.' Not true! The early presidents and tarians, believing in some form of Thomas Jefferson, third president and patriots were generally Deists or Uni- impersonal Providence but re- author of the Declaration of Inde- tarians, believing in some form of imper- jecting the divinity of Jesus and pendence, said: "I trust that there is not a sonal Providence but rejecting the divinity young man now living in the United of Jesus and the absurdities of the Old and the absurdities of the Old and States who will not die a Unitarian"` He New Testaments. New Testaments." referred to the Revelation of St. John as Thomas Paine was a pamphleteer "the ravings of a maniac"` and wrote, whose manifestos encouraged the falter- words of a religious nature and did not ing spirits of the country and aided ma- call for a clergyman to be in attendance? The Christian priesthood, finding the terially in winning the War of Inde- John Adams, the country's second doctrines of Christ levelled to every pendence: understanding and too plain to need president, was drawn to the study of law explanation, saw, in the mysticisms of but faced pressure from his father to Plato, materials with which they might I do not believe in the creed professed become a clergyman. He wrote that he build up an artificial system which by the Jewish church, by the Roman found among the lawyers "a noble air might, from its indistinctness, admit church, by the Greek church, by the and gallant achievements" but among everlasting controversy, give employ- Turkish church, by the Protestant ment for their order, and introduce it to church, nor by any church that I know of.... Each of those churches accuse the other of unbelief; and for my own part, I disbelieve them all.`

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12 FREE INQUIRY profit, power and pre-eminence. The Buchanan, he stopped his own wedding Boller Jr., pp. 16, 87, 88, 108, 113, 121, 127 (1963, doctrines which flowed from the lips of ceremony when the judge asked him if he Southern Methodist University Press, Dallas, Tex.). Jesus himself are within the comprehen- promised "to live with Fanny Buchanan sion of a child; but thousands of vol- 3. The Character of John Adams by Peter Shaw, umes have not yet explained the agreeable to the laws of God." Allen p. 17 (1976, North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill, N.C.) refused to answer until the judge agreed quoting letter by JA to Charles Cushing Oct. 19, Platonisms engrafted on them: and for 1756. this obvious reason that nonsense can that the God referred to was the God of 4. John Adams, A Biography in His Own Words, never be explained.' Nature, and the laws those "written in the edited by James Peabody, p. 403 (1973, Newsweek, great book of Nature."" New York, N.Y.) quoting letter by JA to Jefferson April 19, 1817. James Madison, fourth president and Benjamin Franklin, delegate to the 5. Thomas Jefferson, Passionate Pilgrim by Alf father of the Constitution, was not religious Continental Congress and the Consti- Mapp Jr., p. 311 (1991, Madison Books, Lanham, in any conventional sense. "Religious tutional Convention, said Md.) quoting letter by TJ to Dr. Benjamin Waterhouse, June, 1814. bondage shackles and debilitates the mind 6. Thomas Jefferson, An Intimate History by and unfits it for every noble enterprise."8 As to Jesus of Nazareth, my Opinion of Fawn M. Brodie p. 453 (1974, W. W. Norton & Co. whom you particularly desire, I think Inc., New York, N.Y.) quoting letter by TJ to During almost fifteen centuries has the the System of Morals and his Religion Alexander Smyth Jan. 17, 1825. legal establishment of Christianity been . . . has received various corrupting 7. Thomas Jefferson, Passionate Pilgrim by Alf on trial. What have been its fruits? More Changes, and I have, with most of the Mapp Jr., p. 246 (1991, Madison Books, Lanham, present Dissenters in England, some Md.) quoting letter by TJ to John Adams July 5, or less in all places, pride and indolence 1814.) in the Clergy, ignorance and servility in Doubts as to his Divinity; tho' it is a 8. The Madisons by Virginia Moore, p. 43 (1979, the laity; in both, superstition, bigotry question I do not dogmatize upon, hav- McGraw-Hill Co., New York, N.Y.) quoting letter by and persecution.' ing never studied it, and think it need- JM to William Bradford April 1, 1774. less to busy myself with it now, when I 9. James Madison, A Biography in His Own expect soon an Opportunity of knowing Words, edited by Joseph Gardner, p. 93 (1974, Ethan Allen, whose capture of Fort the Truth with less Trouble.12 Newsweek New York, N.Y.) quoting Memorial and Ticonderoga while commanding the Remonstrance against Religious Assessments by JM Green Mountain Boys helped inspire June 1785. He died a month later, and historians con- 10. Religion of the American Enlightenment by Congress and the country to pursue the sider him, like so many great Americans G. Adolf Koch, p. 40 (1968, Thomas Crowell Co., War of Independence, said, "That Jesus of his time, to be a Deist, not a Christian. New York, N.Y.) quoting preface and p. 352 of Christ was not God is evidence from his Reason, the Only Oracle of Man by EA 1784. 11.A Sense of History compiled by American own words." In the same book, Allen Notes Heritage Press Inc., p. 103 (1985, American Heritage noted that he was generally "denominated Press Inc., New York, N.Y.). a Deist, the reality of which I never dis- 1. The Age of Reason by Thomas Paine, pp. 8, 9 12. Benjamin Franklin, A Biography in His Own (republished 1984, Prometheus Books, Buffalo, Words, edited by Thomas Fleming, p. 404 (1972, puted, being conscious I am no N.Y.). Newsweek, New York N.Y.) quoting letter by BF to Christian.""' When Allen married Fanny 2. George Washington and Religion by Paul F. Ezra Stiles March 9, 1790. •

San Diego on August 15-18, 1996, on the Religious Right to Bolt GOP? heels of the Republican National Conven- tion. "Be a part of history in the making," a flyer promoting the convention says. Stipp Porteous "The eyes and ears of the world will be focused on San Diego where both the U.S. n the likely event that the Republicans the Republican nomination, plans are in Taxpayers Party and the Republican Party Ifail to nominate an ultra-conservative the works to place two of them on a third- conventions are being held." ticket at their 1996 convention in San party ticket. The ticket would probably The Freedom Writer received a fax Diego, religious right strategists plan to consist of Buchanan for president and from Colorado Springs containing a June immediately promote a radical, third- Keyes for vice-president. 2, 1995, memorandum from Phillips to party ticket. "It is possible constitutionally and Focus on the Family head James Dobson. The leading contenders for a radical legally to be on the November ballot in all "A President can be elected outside the conservative slate are political commenta- 50 states in 1996," said Howard Phillips, Republican and Democratic Parties in tor Pat Buchanan, African-American talk- president of the Conservative Caucus, 1996," Phillips said in his memo. "That show host Alan Keyes, and Congressman "and to withhold a decision about the President can be a pro-lifer, such as Alan Robert Doman. Admitting that none of identity of an independent, pro-life ticket Keyes or Pat Buchanan." Calling the plan these men have much chance of capturing until after the Republican Convention in a "political insurance policy," Phillips told San Diego." Dobson, "More than anyone else in Former fundamentalist Stripp Porteous is Phillips, a disciple of Christian America today, you have the power to national director of the Institute for First Reconstructionist theologian R. J. Rush- make this happen." Amendment Studies. doony, also heads the U.S. Taxpayers According to the strategy outlined by Party, which will hold its convention in Phillips, the first objective is to get the

Fall 1995 13 U.S. Taxpayers Party on the ballot in all wrote, "Pat Buchanan CAN be elected everything from NAFTA, GATT, and the fifty states. With Dobson's help, Phillips President in 1996, but only if he runs for New World Order to abortion, homosexu- thinks he can succeed. He may be right. President—not if he runs simply for the ality, and Federal spending." "Millions of Americans now look to Republican nomination." While these plans are formulated [Dobson] for spiritual and sometimes, Phillips contends that Buchanan can behind the scenes, Pat Robertson's political guidance," the New York Times raise unlimited amounts of funding for his Christian Coalition continues to grab the editorialized. "He has emerged as one of campaign if he does two things: reject headlines. The Christian Coalition is a the country's most influential religious federal matching funds and have a differ- key factor in the 1996 elections. figures." ent running mate in each of the fifty Currently, the group's executive director, In his January 1995 newsletter, Dobson states. "Each of those running mates (if Ralph Reed, thinks they will do better if stunned conservative Christians when he they are running as a team with Pat with they remain within the Republican Party. suggested supporting a third-party candi- the same campaign committee) can spend Nevertheless, last February, Reed, speak- date. "If the Republicans fail to address unlimited sums in behalf of the Buchanan ing at a Conservative Political Action the things that matter most, I believe a candidacy." Conference, said that the religious right third party will coalesce around an In an interview published in the June would withdraw support from the emphatically pro-life candidate in '96," 1995 Chalcedon Report, Phillips said that Republican ticket in 1996 unless both Dobson wrote. In a March letter to it was "very unlikely" that conservative candidates opposed abortion. He vowed Republican National Committee chairman Christians will capture the Republican to mobilize the Christian Coalition Haley Barbour, Dobson warned that "you Party. "Even if a Pat Buchanan," he added, against the Republican Party if it nomi- leave us and millions like us with no "were to win the Republican nomination nated pro-choice candidates for president recourse but to consider a third-party can- (an outcome which I regard as extremely or vice-president. didate for president in 1996." The letter unlikely), his potential for winning in In spite of what Reed said then, the was co-signed by hundreds of attorneys November would be undermined by his Christian Coalition's "Contract with the and their spouses attending a conference perceived ability to unite his own party, a American Family" is viewed by some as a at Dobson's Focus on the Family head- significant proportion of whose members compromise and has come under fire from quarters in Colorado Springs, Colorado. have different views than those of Pat on other conservative Christians. • In his effort to get the U.S. Taxpayers Party on the ballot in every state, Phillips told Dobson, Humanist Potpourri I urge you to help me make sure that those ballot lines will be available in all 50 states so that if the Republicans in Warren Allen Smith San Diego fall short of what you and I know to be necessary, (Remember, we he American Academy of Arts and Senegalese poet and former president had a "good" GOP platform in 1980, TLetters is one of United States' best- Léopold Sédar Senghor; Russian poet 1984, and 1988—but the policies of the kept secrets. Founded in 1904, the presti- Yevgeny Yevtushenko; and Nigerian Reagan and Bush Administrations, in gious organization consists of the nation's playwright, poet, and novelist Wole significant respects, advanced abortion—by approving hundreds of billions major artists, writers, composers, and Soyinka. Of these, Paz, Senghor, and of dollars in subsidies for Planned humanists. Although many know of Soyinka are members of the Council for Parenthood, by naming pro-abortion France's l'Académie française, which Democratic and Secular Humanism's judges, etc.) in the days immediately dates to the 1630s and has a fixed mem- (CODESH's) Academy of Humanism. following, it will be possible for us to bership of forty, few know about the Also, Freud, Murdoch, and Yevtushenko nominate a ticket and give it the support it needs to march forward to victory Academy, which is located on 156th are nontheists. when the voters choose in November, Street in New York City and is limited in Poets Carl Sandburg and E. E. Cum- 1996, and when the electors meet in the membership to 250 artists (painters, mings and novelist John Steinbeck all 50 state capitols in December. sculptors, architects), writers (play- disliked being labeled, but each was non- wrights, poets, novelists, non-fiction writ- theistic. Sandburg and Cummings had After placing the U.S. Taxpayers Party ers), and musicians. In addition, the been Unitarians. Steinbeck's The Grapes on the ballot in each state, the second step American Academy has seventy-five for- of Wrath, a humanistic treatment of the is to prepare to nominate two ultra-con- eign honorary members, including such Cain and Abel myth, depicts man's strug- servative, high-profile candidates should individuals as English painter Lucien gle between good and evil and highlights the Republicans fail to do so. Phillips Freud; English novelist Iris Murdoch; the memorable character Ma Joad, who believes that Buchanan is their man, and Mexican poet and critic Octavio Paz; symbolizes the plight of expropriated will accept the U.S. Taxpayers nomination Oklahoma farmers when she exclaims, after his rejection by the Republicans. In Warren Allen Smith is a FREE INQUIRY edi- "We ain' gonna die out. People is goin' The Howard Phillips Issues and Strategy torial associate. right on." Meanwhile, the character of Bulletin of February 28, 1995, Phillips Grandma is a tired and fanatically reli-

14 FREE INQUIRY gious person, and an ex-preacher with the seems undeniable." would have delighted d'Holbach, he meaningful initials J. C.—Jim Casy—is a Only one member has ever been spoke of Moses as "the chief of a horde of rustic socialist whom The Establishment expelled, believer Wilhelm Diederich in ferocious nomads"; Baron Charles Louis throws in jail because he is a labor orga- 1947, for writing anti-Semitic letters on the de Secondat Montesquieu (1689-1755) nizer. That novel's final scene, which is Academy's official stationery. Some who —he wrote that churchmen "are interested shocking in its realism, is among the most have been elected, however, rejected the in keeping the people ignorant"; Evariste vivid presentations of nontheistic human- offer. Psychologist William James (a Désire de Forges de Parny (1756-1814), ism ever before delineated. believer of sorts) declined, saying, "My writer of erotic poetry; Claude Past nonbelievers in "the divinity of younger and shallower and vainer brother Emmanuel Joseph Pierre de Pastoret Jesus" who were in the Academy are Julia [Henry] is already in the Academy," a (1756-1840), writer on comparative reli- Ward Howe, a Unitarian and the first remark worthy of psychological analysis. gion and a strong supporter of the separa- woman so elected; Samuel Clemens, Nonbeliever Sinclair Lewis declined in tion of church and state; Jean Françoise William Dean Howells, and Augustus 1922 and, when he accepted a Nobel Prize de Saint Lambert (1717-1803), encyclo- Saint-Gaudens, who were among the first in 1930, lambasted the Academy: "It repre- pedist; and Hippolyte Adolphe Taine seven to have been originally chosen; sents only Henry Wadsworth Longfellow," (1828-1893), historian. George Santayana, philosophic naturalist; he declared while naming twenty-one writ- Many nonbelievers are unknown to Van Wyck Brooks, critic; poet William ers he considered should have been elected other nontheists. For example, outgoing Carlos Williams, Unitarian; and Leon and apparently aware that Longfellow had French President Françoise Maurice Edel, James scholar, to name but a few. been dead for over four decades. Gore Marie Mitterand is a declared atheist. Which current Academy members are Vidal has said that his philosophy is close When in 1994 he met 93-year-old Jean nontheists? Paul Cadmus, the painter to that of Lucretius and the Atomists, but Guillot, a devoutly Catholic French who has completed more inspiring studies his "Live From Golgotha" travesty of early philosopher, and the subject of death of the male nude than anyone since Christianity puts him clearly in the secular came up, Mitterand, who suffers from Michelangelo, is a naturalistic humanist. humanist camp. When Vidal was offered prostate cancer, said his major goal was to Artist Wayne Thiebaud has written, "It Academy membership, he declined, say- live at least until May 1, 1995, in order to seems to me that painting is somewhat ing, "Thanks, but I already belong to the complete his second seven-year term. His anti-categorical by its `nature.' So natural- Diners Club." (Atheistic existentialist goal was realized. istic (or aesthetic) humanism is closest to Jean-Paul Sartre declined a Nobel Prize Actress Katharine Hepburn told a my easel and my life." Musician David in 1964, also illustrating that some consider reporter for Ladies' Home Journal, "I'm Diamond is against "all superstitious themselves above all such honors, Sartre, an atheist, and that's it. I believe there's mumbo-jumbo." Composer Lou Har- who was 5 feet 4 inches tall, obviously saw nothing we can know except that we rison, an admirer of Epicurus and no the world from a different perspective.) should be kind to each other and do what believer in immortality, has described In France, it was difficult for some we can for other people." himself as "a card-bearing humanist" for nontheists to be approved by existing English film actor and director years. Architect Cesar Pelli, noting that Academy members. Two noted nonbeliev- Charlie Chaplin, instead of saying he various forms of humanism have affected ers—Balzac and Zola—were never personally was an atheist, said that "In artists over the ages, has written that "sec- elected. But, mon dieu, the number who Philadelphia, I inadvertently came upon ular humanism defines our moment." were! Et voila: Dominique Françoise an edition of Robert Ingersoll's Essays Historian Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., Jean Arago (1786-1853), astronomer; and Lectures. This was an exciting dis- although liking Reinhold Niebuhr's inter- Pierre Eugéne Marcelin Berthelot covery; his atheism confirmed my own pretation of the incompleteness of merely (1827-1907), chemist; Comte de belief that the horrific cruelty of the Old human experience and the inadequacy of Georges Louis Leclerc Buffon Testament was degrading to the human merely human resources, is a Unitarian (1707-1788), deist; Jean Lévesque de spirit." and a naturalist rather than a supernatural- Burigny (1692-1795), historian of pagan John Lennon, an atheist who once ist. Novelist Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., is the philosophy; Georges Duhamel (1884- veered toward mysticism, said his Beatles Humanist Laureate in the Academy of 1966), novelist and playwright; Victor were "bigger than Jesus." He added, "God Humanism. Hugo (1802-1885), poet, dramatist, nov- is a concept by which we measure our Many Academy members, however, elist (in order for his naiïonal funeral to be pain." Asked once if he was worried about both dislike accepting labels and taking in the Pantheon, the building had to be the prospect of nuclear destruction, specific stands, suggesting that their phi- secularized by removing its cross); Pierre Lennon replied, "Well, like everyone else losophy can best be found in their work. Simon Laplace (1749-1827)—when I don't want to end up a festering heap, Asked if he is a secular humanist, for Napoleon asked why he had not men- but I don't stay up nights worrying. I'm example, playwright Arthur Miller has tioned God in his book on astronomy, preoccupied with life, not death." replied, "Depends on the day. I'd call Laplace replied, "Sire, I had no need of Our major publications always cite a myself a secular humanist, excepting that hypothesis"; Charles Marie René noted person's religion, but seldom men- when the mystery of life is overwhelming Leconte de Lisle (1818-1894)—although tion when he or she carries around no reli- and some semi-insane directing force he wrote a history of Christianity that gious baggage. •

Fall 1995 15 Steve Allen, Time magazine science editor emeritus Leon Jaroff, Nobel Laureate News and Views Herbert Hauptman, and former New York State Lieutenant Governor Stan Lundine. FREE INQUIRY editors Gerald Larue, Joe Barnhart, and Robert Alley also were fea- Matt Cherry Joins CODESH Staff Center for Inquiry tured speakers. The Center now holds a Grand Opening library complex with a capacity for We are pleased to welcome Matt Cherry of 50,000 volumes, meeting and conference Great Britain as the new Executive Nearly 250 people attended the grand rooms, audio and video production facili- Director of CODESH. He will also direct opening ceremonies of the Center for ties, and new offices for staff members. the new International Secreatariat for Inquiry, June 9 to 10, 1995, hosted by Paul We wish to thank our readers for your Growth and Development of the Inter- Kurtz. Talks were given by entertainer generous support in making this possible! national Humanist and Ethical Union.

International Conferences

FREE INQUIRY editors have participated in several international conferences under the auspices of the new International Secretariat housed in the Center for Inquiry. In April, Paul Kurtz, Tim Madigan, and Gordon Stein gave talks at a conference entitled "El Humanismo Racional Ante el Nuevo Milenio" (Rational Humanism for the New Millennium), held at the prestigious Anteneo de Madrid, Spain. It was the first official meeting of La Asociacion Espanola de Humanismo Racional, which FREE INQUIRY helped to establish under the direction of Jesus Puertas Fuertes and the presidency of Dr. César Navarro de Francisco. In June, Kurtz, Madigan, and Vern and Bonnie Bullough joined several other laureates of the Academy of Humanism at the C0DESH mentors at the Center for Inquiry. first "International Multidisciplinary Conference on Human Behavior and the Meaning of Modern Humanism," in Delphi, Greece. The purpose of the conference, organized by Dr. Dennis Razis, was to gather contributions on how human beings could rationally deal with such potential catastrophes as human overpopulation, war, famine, and other ecological crises. A new organization, the Delphi Society, was founded at this meeting. Finally, a gathering of South American humanists was held in San Jose, Costa Rica, in July and attended by FREE INQUIRY editors Madigan, H. James Birx, and Warren Allen Smith. It was the first conference of the Ibero American Rationalist Humanist Organization, designed to stimulate the growth of humanism in Latin America. Musical entertainment at the Grand 0pening of the Center for Inquiry,

16 FREE INQUIRY Nobel Laureate Herbert Hauptman Steve Allen

CATALINA

POSICIONES

Warren Allen Smith listens to Marjanella Nunez Gamboa, secretary of ASE Tim Madigan and Paul Kurtz in Madrid. HUCO, the Costa Rican Humanist Association.

Delphi Conference: Euthanasia spokesperson and medical doctor Pieter Admiraal (Netherlands); Matt Cherry director Jules Dassin; Fl editor Bonnie Bullough (USA); and astronomer Jean-Claude Pecker (France).

Fall 1995 17 FUND FOR THE FUTURE CODESH at the Center for Inquiry

With the completion of its headquarters campus, the Council for Democratic and Secular Humanism is poised for an explosion of growth. We appeal for your help in assuring adequate funding—now and in the future—for the bold initiatives that will shape the outreach of secular humanism in the years to come. To carry out its objectives in the second half of this decade, CODESH has formulated specific program and project goals. 1. MORAL EDUCATION AND CRITICAL THINKING - FOR ADULTS AND CHILDREN CODESH proposes to develop new materials—ranging from publications to audio and video cassettes and instructional course material—to teach moral education and foster critical thinking in areas such as religious doctrine, moral values and philosophy. 2. THE INSTITUTE FOR INQUIRY CODESH proposes to complete the development of its Institute for Inquiry adult education program. The Institute is already the nation's foremost provider of education in the subjects of secular humanism, skepticism and the scientific evaluation of religion. Our long-term goal is to establish the Institute for Inquiry as a bona fide degree-granting institution. 3. MEDIA OUTREACH/RAPID RESPONSE We propose to equip the Center for Inquiry to monitor major media on a continuing basis, and to respond to news stories in a timely fashion. This will entail additional staffing for media monitoring, establishment of an e-mail network to permit rapid formulation of responses by qualified experts, and development of e-mail, FAX broadcast, and other capabilities to assure instanta- neous dissemination of responses to local, national and/or world media. In addition, CODESH plans to step up its production of audio and video materials through Inquiry Media Productions. Targets include a new public education video on secular humanism, talking books, a radio op-ed series, and a new public affairs series for public radio. 4. THE LIBRARIES The Center for Inquiry has in place a permanent repository to house and maintain the world's largest collection of freethought, humanist and skeptical literature. Expanded funding is needed to provide for: journal subscriptions, continual updating of the reference collection, acquisition of new and historic volumes in our areas of specialty, and technical library staff to catalog and maintain volumes. CODESH has many exciting projects it wishes to develop. With your help, these will become a reality. Please fill out and return the attached card for further details. All requests will be held in strictest confidence. CODESH at the Center for Inquiry Box 664, Amherst, N.Y. 14226 • (716) 636-7571 Consciousness Revisited In the following pages we return to a topic first addressed in FREE INQUIRY in its Fall 1994 issue ("New Conceptions of the Mind"). Some of the foremost researchers in the field discuss what is known about the nature of consciousness and the direction further examinations should take— EDs.

FI Interview A Conversation with Daniel C. Dennett Daniel C. Dennett is Director of the Center for Cognitive Studies at Tufts University, and author of such highly praised books as Consciousness Explained, Elbow Room, and Brainstorms. His latest book is Darwin's Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meanings of Life (Simon & Schuster, 1995). The following interview was conducted by FREE INQUIRY editors Tom Flynn and Tim Madigan.—EDs.

REE INQUIRY: Synthesizing the subsection of the brain. It is, if you like, an Fwork of many thinkers, yourself artifact of the organization of the brain. included, Adam Carley wrote a recent The unity is imperfect and changing and article in FREE INQUIRY (Fall 1994) in problematic, and it is something that is which he described "consciousness" as an achieved—it's not something one is born illusion arising from the operation of with. The idea that one has, for instance, short-term memory. In his view, con- an immortal soul, which is the locus of sciousness is an evolutionarily useful fic- responsibility—we replace that idea with tion that enables the intelligent brain to one of a developing, virtual center of con-

reflect on its own decision-making tt trol, what I call "the center of narrative processes and learn from its experiences e gravity." Once it develops, and once it is Denn

more effectively, but it is altogether fic- n trained by enculturation and learning, then tional in any naïve sense of reality. What sa the body that is thus organized has a self, Su

do you think of that model, and how by is a person, and is a locus of responsibility. would you go about testing it? to But we are all familiar with the ways in Pho DANIEL DENNETT: I think that's partly which people move the boundaries of the right, but it's very misleading in some this is provided in limited useful form by self. There is nothing more familiar than regards. The way I would put it is that the the way the brain is organized. This gives to hear somebody say, after having uttered brain needs what's called a "user illusion" rise to the illusory sense that there is this something terrible, "That wasn't me the same as when we use a word proces- one place—which I call "the Cartesian speaking, no, no, I disown the recent sor. You can use a word processor without theater"—where it all comes together: the motion of my own body. The real me knowing what's actually going on inside subject, the ego, the "I." There's no deny- would never have said anything like that." the computer. You need to have some use- ing that that's the way it seems. But that is FI: "It was the booze talking." ful metaphors though, and that's the user just the way it seems. That is the benign DENNETT: Yes. "The devil made me do illusion. But notice, it's a benign and illusion of consciousness. it." Or "That wasn't me, that was just the extremely useful illusion. FI: If we dismantle the Cartesian the- darn urge that I have somewhere that Well, the brain works similarly—the ater, if we abandon the idea of an "I" who sometimes takes control." This is a very brain of a human being, not of any other makes our decisions, what are the impli- natural way of talking and there's an ele- species. It is equipped with a very power- cations for moral philosophy? Is there any ment of truth in it. That is to say, a person ful user illusion. It sounds like a trick with point in talking about moral responsibility is in fact a rather delicately poised com- mirrors, I know, but I'm saying that the if the moral agent cannot be conceived as mittee—or not even something as well brain is both the user and the provider of a unitary entity? organized as a committee—sort of a the user illusion. There are various agen- DENNETT: The moral agent can be crowd of sometimes cooperating, some- cies in the brain that require information conceived as a unitary entity, but not as a times competing agencies, and one is just from other agencies within the brain, and sort of organ of the brain, or a particular the sum total of them. And in fact, when

Fall 1995 19 people say, "That wasn't me," we very ogists have been willing to admit, and the DENNETT: British opera, theater, and often disallow that, and say "Now, take residual antagonism to the idea has to be television director and polymath Jonathan responsibility." As I put it in Elbow Room, exposed, analyzed, and finally dismantled. Miller, the Chicago neuropsychologist if you make yourself really small you can I think eventually—I'm not sure how Jerre Levy, and I were invited to a week- externalize just about everything. long it will take—people will calm down end retreat for ABC television executives. FI: If you do away with the idea of the about this. It's been hundreds of years When we got there we found that our role soul as an immortal entity and a moral since Copernicus and Galileo overthrew was to be the heavies—to debate with agent, what implications does this have the idea that the Earth is the center of the believers in the paranormal and other for religion, in particular for Christianity? universe, and now every school child sorts of West Coast holistier-than-thou Do you see Christianity and other Western learns that without tears or terror. This is mystics. We tore them to shreds. The dis- religions as being opposed to your ideas, not a deeply troubling idea, it turns out, cussion wasn't ferocious or embittered— in the way that many are opposed to the although there was a time when it caused we just made nice mincemeat of them. At theory of evolution? a lot of anxiety. In due course, every child the end of the workshop, Jonathan taught DENNETT: It continues to fascinate me will learn about the four-billion-year his- me a lesson. He asked the assembled how ambivalent Christians are about the tory of evolution on this planet, and how group of several hundred people—highly relationship between morality and part of from self-replicating macromolecules educated people, movers and shakers in the Judeo-Christian tradition. Nietzsche every living thing on this planet is the very competitive world of televi- was wonderfully scornful of the vision of descended, without divine intervention at sion—how many of them, before the Christianity that made morality depend any point. But the date when calm accep- weekend, had thought there was some- upon pie in the sky; that is, be a good boy tance of the truth is widespread is still a thing to the paranormal. Perhaps 20 to 30 or girl now and in heaven you'll get your ways off. I'm very actively advocating percent put up their hands. "Now, after reward. On the face of it, this is an igno- that the time has come to say to the cre- this weekend," he asked, "How many of ble foundation for morality. It concedes ationists and the "intelligent design" theo- you think there's something to the para- the selfishness of the agent. It abandons rists, "Come on, give us a break. This is a normal?" Maybe 50 or 60 percent of the the hope of an agent's conceiving of his or losing battle. You're only upsetting your hands went up. This was really disturbing her acts as worthy in their own right, inde- children and prolonging the agony. to me. "Well, Dan," he said, "you've got pendent of any reward. The idea that a Eventually, and perhaps quite soon, to understand, the way these people are reward in heaven or a punishment in hell they're going to know that you tried to thinking is, if these three industrial- is a necessary foundation for morality is a misinform them when they were children, strength academics work this hard to deeply pessimistic, almost nihilistic, idea. and that's a really bad thing. That's an combat it, there must be something to it." And yet, of course, there it is, enshrined in unforgivable sin." That's a depressing lesson. many aspects of the Judeo-Christian and I'm reminded of an occasion in I think that people are almost immune Islamic traditions. I think that most reli- Sweden, in 1967. On one shocking and to rational persuasion about some of the gious thinkers recognize this, and, if wonderful weekend an amazing thing things that they really want to believe. pressed, would disavow the importance of happened. Drivers were instructed to They are sometimes candid and self- heaven and hell and even of immortality switch from driving on the left to driving reflective enough to say, "I don't care of the soul as a foundation of ethics. We on the right side of the road. The change about your arguments, I don't care if the can have ethics; we can have responsibil- was planned very well and carried out arguments on my side are invalid or ques- ity without pie in the sky and without the with scarcely a hitch. There were almost tion-begging. I like the conclusion." tortures of hell. no accidents. It would have been com- FI: You are quite interested in the area FI: At what point do you think your pletely foolish to have tried to do that of artificial intelligence (AI). Can you explanation of consciousness will be gen- gradually. Some things you want to do in describe the Turing test? erally accepted? Do you think there may one big gulp, with everybody holding DENNETT: Alan Turing, who is as be some physical discovery that will lead hands. I think that's exactly what we have deserving as anybody to be called the to this, in the same way that evolution is to do with evolution in this country. We inventor of the computer, proposed this now generally accepted? have to say "Come on, everybody. Let's test back in 1949, in an article in the jour- DENNETT: Ah! If only that were true. drop this silly business about creationism nal Mind, as a way of stopping a futile The pockets of resistance to the theory of and accept that evolutionary biology is debate over the question, Can machines evolution are not just confined to funda- good science, on a par with everything in think? He said, "Let's set that question mentalist religious groups and scientifi- chemistry and physics. It explains so aside. I propose a test, and why don't we cally uneducated people. So widespread is many things so well that it doesn't have just ask, could a machine pass this test?" the antagonism to or fear of Darwinian any plausible rivals." He deliberately chose a test that he thinking in science that I decided I had to FI: It may be that taking away people's thought was so difficult that nobody write a book about it, which has just come belief in a soul and immortality may strike would quibble about whether anything out, Darwin's Dangerous Idea. The point much deeper existentially than Galileo's that passed the test could think. of that book is to show that Darwinian discovery. Perhaps most people can't The test that he chose was in fact thinking cuts a lot deeper than a lot of apol- accept this. inspired by Descartes. Nobody knows

20 FREE INQUIRY whether Turing read Descartes, but in The the universe we would still not be within a from there it is very human. It can bend Discourse on Method, written in the mid- trillionth of 1 percent of the computer we and turn at the waist. It has two arms, two seventeenth century, Rene Descartes pro- would need to pass the test, and unless we hands, and a head with 3 degrees of free- posed essentially the same test. He said, violate the speed of light we aren't going dom of motion. It can track with its eyes "Oh, you could make a machine that to be able to answer these questions in real and ears and react to sudden motions and could utter a few sentences. If you pushed time. Of course, Turing didn't even bother sounds. It has pain sensors everywhere it here it might say, 'That hurts, stop."' to rule this possibility out, but if need be and touch sensitive skin on its fingertips. But one couldn't make a machine, he said, we can add a proviso—"It has to pass the Now, our humanoid robot is going to that could hold a conversation, that could Turing test, and it has to be smaller than have an infancy. It won't grow in size, but respond appropriately to the essentially the Pentagon, and we have to hold that the it's going to start out like a human infant, infinite variety of topics that any normal rules of physics are intact." with a lot of hardwired autonomic under- human being can converse about. Although it's very hard to say what lying capacities. It's going to have to learn Now, Turing said, let's set up a test structural or internal requirements we hand-eye coordination, a sense of its own where we put a human being behind one really have as thinkers, at a minimum we body, and its place in the world. screen and a computer behind another suppose that the work gets done locally; This is an enormously ambitious pro- screen. Have each contestant interrogated that is, it's a response in real time that ject, of which a tremendous amount has by a vigorous and skeptical judge. The takes the current input and does some sort already been completed. At this time, its judge's task is to figure out which one is of an analysis of it, that determines its left arm and left hand are essentially com- the human being. If, more often than not, meaning, and then, on the basis of that plete, and its head and eyes and torso are the machine can fool the human judge meaning, generates a response. How many intact and working. Its eyes have pretty into declaring that it is the human being, different sorts of systems could there be good capacities to notice and track things. then it is manifestly very intelligent. He that might actually meet those results? It has color, three-dimensional vision. It didn't propose this test as a research strat- Well, who knows? Those are very abstract doesn't have any language capacity at egy for AI, but just as a thought experi- specifications. Turing saw an elegant way birth but this is a dream of the future. ment that was supposed to stop a certain of in effect operationalizing them. FI: Does it have a soul? sort of discussion. But in fact, brilliant as FI: Adam Carley suggests that, in the DENNETT: Not yet. But I must say, one the test was, it completely backfired in future development of AI, the Turing test of my favorite sociological predictions is one of its aims, because untold gallons of essentially has it backward. He says that already being borne out. Long before we ink have been spilled by philosophers the most productive way to go is not have robots who have moral status, we're arguing about the validity or probability toward working to fool a human observer, going to have onlookers who are fervently of the Turing test. I think in fact it is quite but rather toward working to fool the convinced that this is a suitable moral clear that the test is extraordinarily diffi- machine, to create for the machine an illu- patient, whose rights have to be protected. cult, if properly conceived, and indeed sion of self much like your description of And sure enough, both the graduate stu- that Turing was right. There is just no seri- what goes on in the human person. dents working on this project and a lot of ous possibility at all that something could DENNETT: In some ways I agree with people who've learned about it have pass that test and not be in every impor- that, but then the Turing test was never a begun to be really quite concerned about tant sense a thinker. realistic goal. That was never anybody's what their moral responsibilities are to People have fantasized about how one idea of how to constrain one's researches COG itself, not just to the COG team. can pass the test with one cheap bucket of into AI. Regarding better methodologies FI: People for the Ethical Treatment of tricks or another. The most well known of or research strategies, indeed the better Robots? these fantasies is by the philosopher Ned goal of AI is to build robots that need to DENNETT: Absolutely. I don't know if Block: There is a giant lookup table, in develop a sense of self in order to get a committee has been formed yet, but which all possible intelligent conversa- through the day. In fact, we're working on some of my students are in effect mobiliz- tions in English are stored in alphabetical just such a program now at the ing to address the questions of just when order. When the judge comes up and says, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. COG develops the moral status of an ani- "Hi there, what's your name?" it goes to Rodney Brooks and Lynn Andrea Stein mal. And I quite agree with their initiative. "H," and looks under "Hi there, what's are the directors of the COG Project, and To give you an instance of this, when you your name?" and then it simply gives the I'm part of it. We're building the most walk by COG and its eyes flick over and canned response. Block says, quite plausi- humanoid robot that has ever been lock on you and then track you across the bly, that this imaginary computer could attempted by a very wide margin. room, there's an overpowering sense that pass the Turing test. There's no conversa- It is now not quite intact. It's adult you are being watched by another con- tion that is unavailable to it, and mani- human size, but it doesn't have legs, scious agent. Now, those of us who are festly it wouldn't be thinking. because if it walked it would have to have working on the project know that these are The problem with this thought experi- a huge umbilical cord to carry its power still basically blind eyes that have just a ment is that this giant lookup table isn't supply and its input/output to its brain, few autonomic reflexes, but already the just giant, it is so much larger than the uni- which is about the size of a telephone sense of presence is very strong, and it's verse that if we harnessed every electron in booth. So it is fixed on a pedestal, but then going to get stronger and stronger. •

Fall 1995 21 your interaction with practicing neuroscientists changed the philosophical ques- FI Interview tions that interest you? CHURCHLAND: Like Hume or Kant I The Neurophilosophy of would very much like to understand the physical basis of consciousness—that is, how it is that out of three pounds of neural Patricia Smith Churchland tissue there manages to be experiences of Pat Churchland is professor of philosophy at the University of California, San Diego, and pain and colors and so forth. Because psy- a humanist laureate of the Academy of Humanism. She is the author of numerous works chology and neuroscience have advanced, on philosophy and neuroscience, including Neurophilosophy (1986, MIT Press) and The I have the luxury of considering other spe- Computational Brain (1992, MIT Press, with Terrence J. Sejnowski). In this FREE INQUIRY cific questions that bear upon the larger interview, Dr. Churchland discusses modern notions of consciousness, neuroscience, and problem. For example, it is likely that the ethics. It was conducted by David Noelle, president of the San Diego Association of intralaminar nucleus of the thalamus plays Secular Humanists.--EDS. a special role in consciousness. What really does it project to? Why is it that when it's lesioned, the subject becomes unconscious? What is its special role in REE INQUIRY: Pondering the coordinating activity in the brain? Fnature of the mind has been a primary FI: When I think of consciousness, it's occupation of philosophers since the hard for me to escape the notion of the inception of their field. But your approach homunculus—the "inner self' that to the study of thought seems to take you receives my perceptions and directs my far from the armchair introspections and actions. How are modern notions of con- coffeehouse discussions stereotypically sciousness different from this naïve view? associated with philosophy. In addition to CHURCHLAND: First of all, we evi- your professorship in the Department of dently do have a representation of our- Philosophy, you are a faculty member of selves as a kind of inner being. That's a the Institute for Neural Computation, you representation that brains make, and it participate in the Cognitive Science probably serves an important role in our Interdisciplinary Program, and you spend cognitive economy. Therefore, it's no sur- much of your time with neuroscientists at prise that it's hard to get around the feel- the Salk Institute. What has led a philoso- ing that there must be an anatomical cor- pher into the laboratory? relate of the self. It does look like the PATRICIA CHURCHLAND: The ques- activity subserving the representation of tions that philosophers have been inter- self is distributed over a variety of ested in for a long time are the questions regions. Probably thalamic structures are that also interest me. I, too, want to under- critical, and probably some cortical struc- stand the nature of consciousness, how it tures are critical. Redolfo Llinas and Joe is we perceive, the role of learning and in space move, what humans are, and Bogen have the hypothesis that the memory, the degree to which emotions what consciousness is. These were all part intralaminar nucleus of the thalamus plays play a role in rational decision-making, of natural philosophy. Many of the ques- a sort of coordinating role. That's a very and so forth. What is new about our time tions—the sun, the moon, and what we plausible hypothesis, and we'll have to in history is that data from neuroscience now call chemical change—have become see where it goes in the next ten or fifteen and experimental psychology are putting part of the natural sciences. Only really years. If they are correct there is a kind of powerful new constraints on our hypothe- within this century has it been possible for representational structure built up of neu- ses. In other words, we now have data that questions about the nature of humans to ronal activity that is not like a central are relevant. My position is really very become part of a specialized science, homunculus and it's not like the pineal straightforward. If the data are relevant, namely the science of the mind/brain. Just gland, but which does seem to play a crit- then let's take them into account and learn as earlier questions about astronomy or ical role in awareness. what we can. physics ceased to be "armchair ques- FI: How does this relate to other find- Assuming the Greeks to be the foun- tions," so we are in a transition period ings of localization in the brain? There are tainhead of modern science and modern where questions about the mind are ceas- known brain centers associated with types philosophy, we see that they were inter- ing to be such. of visual processing, with motor ested in a whole range of questions. They FI: Do you see yourself as asking the responses, and with aspects of language wanted to know the nature of light, what same questions as other philosophers of use, to name a few. Do you see this as a the moon is, what the sun is, why objects mind or philosophers of science? Has kind of localized "seat of consciousness"?

22 FREE INQUIRY CHURCHLAND: No, not at all. None of tiny lesions to the intralaminar nucleus of mitochondria. And, similarly, you hear those functions that you mentioned are the thalamus result in a vegetative state. certain things as bits of language. It's localized in centers as traditionally con- FI: What role do you think language almost unavoidable. So, having experi- ceived. Localization implies a task-dedi- plays in consciousness? Can one be con- ence and culture and having language cated, processing-insulated module whose scious without language? means that you, of course, do pattern operations are necessary and sufficient for CHURCHLAND: Here's where Dan recognition of a very complicated kind. getting a specific job done. It has become Dennett and I part company. Can you be Perhaps when Dan Dennett says you very clear in the last decade that that's not aware of colors and shapes and sounds and need language for consciousness, all he the right way to think about brain organi- pains and feelings in the absence of lan- means is that you need language to do cer- zation. It does look like there are regions guage? I can't see why not. We know that tain kinds of complex pattern recognition. of specialization. We don't know exactly aphasic patients who have lost language I doubt even this version. Animals in the how it is that specialization emerges, on capacity have sensory experiences as well wild, who, after all, can have a very tough what it depends, and what the limits of as thoughts and reflections. We think that life and have to be very smart to get plasticity are. In any case, it's pretty preverbal children do, as well. I very much around, perform kinds of complex pattern clearly not the case that there are regions doubt that, with the acquisition of lan- recognition that do not require language. of localization—that there are modules in guage, sensory data suddenly become con- So, my own feeling is that language is that sort of old-fashioned sense. scious. Also, by virtue of similarity in very important for lots that humans do, Redolfo Llinas has but I don't for a suggested that the moment think, like intralaminar activity Dan Dennett does, provides a context or that consciousness framework and that l TUNIC, comes into exis- the specific sensory tence as a virtual thalomo-cortical TNERE RAZE machine as you activity, from vision l AM... acquire language. or from the somato- I see no evidence. sensory system for THINK I agree, of course, example, provides the that there is no content. This implies homunculus and that you need a kind there is no Car- of dialogue between tesian theatre, but thalamic structures Hume taught us and other structures that in the eigh- in order to have teenth century. awareness. Con- , FI: Has neuro- scious experience is science taught us pretty clearly a phe- anything about our nomenon that in- consciousness of volves spatially dis- our own thoughts tributed structures, and of ourselves? some of which are especially critical. anatomical structure, lots of mammals CHURCHLAND: One of the virtues of FI: Consciousness somehow arises in have largely comparable sensory aware- Francis Crick's approach is the simple the interaction of these processes? ness. They're aware of smells, colors, point that you want to start where you can CHURCHLAND: Probably. You need shapes, pains, and tastes, and so on. make the most progress. [See "Francis visual areas in order to have visual aware- Some studies on humans show that Crick on the Workings of the Brain," FI, ness, and you need auditory brain areas through education and experience you can Fall 1994.—EDs.] That implies working intact in order to have auditory awareness, become aware of things that you weren't on sensory awareness before working on and so on. For sensory perception the cor- aware of before. This is really a matter of abstract thought. The more difficult phe- responding sensory cortices are extremely extending pattern recognition skills nomena will just have to wait until we've important. However, there is a kind of through language-mediated training. You, uncovered the cards in these basic areas. misplaced infatuation with cortex as the as a student of neuroscience, will look Having said that, though, it's certainly seat of the soul. Here is a reason for through a microscope at, say, a cell body very interesting that there are patients like doubting that idea. You can lose huge of neurons, and you will see mitochon- Boswell, who has no hippocampus or chunks of cortical structure and have dria. You will just look and see them. You autobiographical memory. He doesn't remaining kinds of awareness— won't have to say, "There is this blob of have a sense of himself as a person con- somatosensory awareness or awareness of such and such a shape, so that must be tinuing through time. He has a forty-sec- your thoughts. On the other hand, even mitochrondria." You see the smudge as ond time window that he lives in and

Fall 1995 23 moves in. Nevertheless, when you meet sentations come into the brain and are doing, and try to behave wisely. him, he's personable, charming, and integrated. That's quite plausible, actually. This humanizing side of science needs attentive. He uses language, and he inter- FI: Many people seem to feel threat- emphasis. One only needs to think about, acts well. He makes you feel comfortable. ened by this sort of scientific investigation say, the example of anesthesia. When There's no doubt that Boswell has aware- of consciousness. Some seem to think that anesthetics were first discovered, many ness. It shocks the pants off people who such knowledge belittles their self-value. people, and the Catholic church in partic- think autobiographical memory is neces- Others see science as threatening their ular, were deeply opposed to their use on sary for awareness. It's also significant to cherished beliefs in substance dualism—in the grounds that they were unnatural. consider patients who have lost much of a non-material, and perhaps immortal soul. These were tools of the devil! Pain was their frontal structures. They will show How have you dealt with such opposition? what God intended. Pain was part of life inappropriate emotional inhibition and are CHURCHLAND: Indeed, it's not silly to and had to be suffered. Now, we look back unable to plan for the future appropriately. worry about others controlling our brains. on that position with utter disbelief. How They are unable to delay gratification. But A genuine worry that people have is that, could having a leg amputated without are they conscious? Yes. Not conscious of if the workings of the brain are under- anesthetic be good for one's character? I the importance of making a plan for the stood in great detail, then others will have think that similar humanizing results will future, but certainly conscious of pains, access to their private thoughts and may emerge with greater understanding of itches, tickles, touches and smells. One be able to control them. It's extremely what makes us what we are. But, as with point that Antonio Damasio has empha- unlikely that that could ever happen, given any science, one also has to bear in mind sized, which I think is correct, is that there the complexity of the brain, but people that there can be misuses. As a rational are probably many aspects to conscious- need to be reassured that it is unlikely. caring community, we have to see to it ness. Losing some structure, like frontal Given that complexity, the most we can that rules are in place, that decency and structure, means that you lose certain con- realistically aim for is a grasp of the gen- civility are honored, and that science is sciousness capacities, such as being aware eral principles of brain function—not to not turned to evil uses. of the importance of the future, but you be able to predict, moment by moment, FI: Has neuroscientific research con- don't lose awareness of colors. In losing what somebody else will do. tributed to our understanding of ethics and visual cortex you lose the capacity to be The further issue has to do with what ethical reasoning? aware of colors. all this implies for a non-physical soul. CHURCHLAND: One of the very impor- I don't actually know of any lesion I'm inclined to say that it certainly seems tant developments that has emerged from where people entirely lose the sense that to me improbable. This view raises some the Damasios's work in Iowa City does they are themselves but are otherwise very deep questions about how to live a bear upon ethics and decision-making. In aware. There are lesions in which people life. Probably, as it is suggested in particular, lesion data strongly suggest are convinced that they're dead, but they Ecclesiastes, for example, we need to that emotion and feelings are essential still think "I am me." There is also a not make the very best of life, here. Many components of rational decision-making. uncommon phenomenon in patients with people do feel we should have something Consequently, early education to engen- temporal lobe epilepsy, resulting from a beyond us that is greater than us. Of der the appropriate socialized feelings is car accident, for example, where they discourse, there is something, beyond us and extremely important. When the circuitry play an interesting confluence of traits that is greater than us and, in a way, that's is gummed up or is absent due to some that weren't seen before. They suddenly the planet, or, if you like, the universe as a sort of fetal abnormality or through an become hyper-religious and hyper- whole, toward which, I think, it's possible accident, then the ability to feel remorse is graphic. They 're constantly writing to have very rich feelings of belonging lost. We have to take very good care that poems, stories, and letters. They may also and care. Feelings that often get funneled those people don't run amok. The capac- become hyper-sexual. Those three fea- into very specific metaphysical ideas can ity to learn civility seems to be innate, and tures have a tendency to go together. That actually be funneled as easily into care for the relevant circuitry can be destroyed. doesn't mean that there's a physical center others in the human community, the biotic The other point is something that I owe for those things, but it is rather remarkable community, or for the planet itself. Rather to Paul Churchland. We teach complex that character traits can be altered in this than expecting that the wrongs will be pattern recognition to children as they fashion. Other lesion studies important for made right in the hereafter, we need to grow up. We teach them to recognize cer- the self and self-representation are right care very much about we do right here. tain paradigm situations as "unfair" and parietal lesions, where people tend to That's usually my response to worries then they extrapolate from that. An impor- neglect, say, the left hemi-space and about the mind as brain-dependent. It's tant part of teaching pattern recognition is everything in it. I suspect that the repre- useful to remind people, too, that even not just the purely cognitive aspects, but sentation that the brain builds of the idea something like the Bible is not univocal that the right emotions are felt. that there is "me" is quite deep. Antonio on the issue of an afterlife. Ecclesiastes is Aristotle isn't sexy and glamorous. He Damasio thinks that self-representation one example of a book where the message doesn't have an outlandish theory of depends on a more basic body representa- is much more like the message of secular knowledge politics that Plato does. As a tion. We're able to think of ourselves as a humanism: do good works, make a decent freshman one reads Plato and says, "Wow! "me" because of the way that body repre- life for yourself, think about what you're This is so cool! This is really wild! I never

24 FREE INQUIRY thought about this before!" Then one reads behavior algorithm. Alas, as Socrates mentally important in developing moral Aristotle and thinks, "This guy sounds like made painfully clear, one of life's tough understanding. In the moral domain, com- my Dad. That can't be very interesting." realities is that, however morality is mon sense seems to be a blend of instinc- But over the long haul you realize that the based, it is not on any set of rules that can tual sympathy (Hume's moral sentiment) much deeper, much more insightful, much be reliably followed to always guarantee and experience-dependent understanding more sensible position is Aristotle's. the correct choice. The Ten Command- (Aristotle's practical wisdom). Our feel- I think we need a rethinking—a sort of ments can be give us a rough guide. The ings are some guide, but they can lead us bringing up to date—of Aristotelian ideas Koran or the ideas of Chief Seattle or astray. Our reason is some guide, but it about socialization, politics, ethics, and so Confucius all can give us rough guides. needs the balance of feeling and the forth. It's not glamorous, it's just very sen- Problems inevitably arise, however, breadth of experience. As we understand sible. If you think of the neo-Nazis on one because there is no rule for telling us more about how brains work, we shall side and the "woo-woo" postmodernists when morality requires a departure from likely achieve new insights about human on the other, it's very possible to see an edict, such as "Tell the truth" or needs, choices, and springs of action. Aristotle as giving you a very sensible "Though shalt not kill," or what to do Such knowledge will not by itself solve alternative. You can be a realist about some when edicts conflict. As with the develop- ethical problems, but it may help as we things and a relativist about others. You ment of any kind of understanding about struggle to develop a more adequate moral can be sensible about ethics without being the world, common sense seems funda- understanding. • doctrinaire. You can see the importance of knowledge in making ethical decisions and in development of ethical wisdom and ethical understanding, but without being Neurological Bases of an absolutist or Gospel-truther. There is a really interesting confluence between Aristotle and our modern understanding, Modern Humanism from within psychology and neuroscience, in of the way the brain actually works. FI: At least part of the story of the José Delgado Damasios's studies seems to be that ethical decision-making involves more than he book Physical Control of the cold, unfeeling rational thought. TMind: Toward a Psycho-civilized CHURCHLAND: Absolutely! One of the Society, published twenty-six years ago interesting results, actually, of modern (Delgado, 1969), discussed two main neuroscience is that we can see that Kant achievements of natural evolution: (1) the was wrong when he claimed that the most ecological liberation of human beings; moral character is the one who strips away and (2) man's ecological domination. all emotion, all feeling, and is purely Considering evolution in terms of the rational. Those are the people can't make opposition of human intelligence to nat- good ethical decisions. Of course, it drives ural fate has dramatic appeal, but in real- the philosophers up the wall when I say, ity the existence of humankind, together "We now think that there is empirical rea- with all of its attributes including its own son to show that Kant was just flatly ecological liberation and domination of wrong. Hume was right, and Kant was nature, is simply the result of destiny. wrong. There's a result." But I think it's Humankind did not invent humankind. No true. There's much more to say about that conscious efforts were ever made to with wings was a result of natural evolu- story, and about how cognition and emo- design or modify the anatomical structure tion; thus we cannot claim that birds lib- tion need to interact, the role of early edu- of the brain. The appearance of creatures erated themselves from the pull of gravity. cation, what this biasing really comes to Their wings were a gracious gift of evolu- in neurobiological terms, the role of logic José Delgado is one of the world's most tion, which did not require them to have and mathematics, and so on. But, pure noted researchers on the brain, and a knowledge of physics, mathematics, or reason unfettered by emotion? No. member of the Academy of Humanism. He even a desire to own wings. Birds fly and FI: This naturalistic view of ethical rea- taught at Yale University for many years humankind thinks. Humankind's libera- soning seems to run counter to the popular and is now located in Madrid. This article tion from and domination of many natural religious views in which proper behavior is based on a talk presented on June 16, elements and the existence of our mental is legislated by a divine authority. 1995, at the First International Confer- activities are changing the world's ecol- CHURCHLAND: How lovely it would ence on Human Behavior and the ogy and influencing the needs, purpose, be if life were simple enough such that a Meaning of Modern Humanism in Delphi, and general organization of human life. set of rules could suffice as a moral- Greece. —EDS. Philosophy and science originally had

Fall 1995 25 a common purpose, which was, in Plato's ism as follows: (1) continuation and sup- destructive orientation of civilization. In words, "the vision of truth," and which port of science to integrate present knowl- this possible redirection of goals, modern persisted for centuries until ideological edge and define methods of inquiry; (2) humanism could be of crucial importance. and technological revolutions introduced emphasis on ethical values, including free- Its impact could produce an evolution of new methodologies involving sophisti- dom of thought, rights to privacy, and the the mental quest and could be more sig- cated specialization. As a result, philoso- establishment of objective ethical stan- nificant for human behavior than the rev- phy and science were unable to resolve dards; (3) significance of social theory olutions in industry, atomic sciences, their basic differences and tore apart their supporting democracy and the open soci- mass communications, and outer space common subject of inquiry. Philosophers ety with tolerance and respect for cultural exploration. Archaic philosophical ideas and theologians carried with them mind differences; (4) consideration of the pur- and wishful thinking will not solve our and soul, while scientists kept matter and pose of human life; and (5) realistic opti- present problems. A new economic and body. Psychologists, being newcomers, mism about human potential and a reen- political system based on scientific reality initially confused neurobiological activi- chantment with the ideals of humanism. is necessary. ties involving spirit and substance without These aims are well supported by var- Modern humanism should not be a sta- receiving enough scientific recognition or ious authorities and some groups, such as tic doctrine based on ancient beliefs: it philosophical support. In ancient times, Eranos, founded in 1933 in Switzerland should reflect a dynamic, progressive atti- from the Sophists and Socrates onward, by Fröbe-Kaptain (1994) and Ortiz-Oses tude based on today's scientific knowl- the program of "paideia" inspired peda- (1994), which are proposing mediation edge, which inevitably influences individ- gogic uniformity in the West, but this pro- between occidental and oriental cultures, ual behavior and ethical values. In order to gram was subsequently discredited with- taking into consideration myths and irra- maximize the ideals of freedom of out being replaced by new ideas, and it tionality as well as logic, rationality, reli- thought and rights to privacy, their biolog- has caused a crisis in modern education. gion, and science, to blend comparative ical and societal limits must be acknowl- When some authorities attempted to mythology with cultural anthropology edged and clarified. Personal freedom replace classical studies with "modern and symbolic hermeneutics dealing with must be assessed, recognizing that our humanities," based on exact sciences and text interpretations. genetic endowment depends on chance. technology, human values were deempha- As we have indicated (Delgado, 1969), Which spermatozoon will succeed in fer- sized and people ceased to be the princi- the present imbalance between science tilizing an ovum? What circumstances and pal concern of humankind. This peda- and philosophy has been partially deter- biological mechanisms will be involved in gogic malaise underlies the present crisis mined by methodology because "the mind the growth of each fetus? Embryological of civilization. was considered a metaphysical entity research is slowly unveiling some of these According to Encyclopaedia Britannica beyond experimental reach" and "it unknowns but it is rather doubtful that (1943-1973), "In order to bring together appeared more practical to invent com- parents or society will attain the power to tradition and modernity and to merge clas- bustion engines or to investigate the struc- choose what they judge to be ideal combi- sical and universal culture, the time has ture of cells than to speculate about emo- nations among over 100,000 genes and come now for a new updating of the study tions and thoughts." Against this trend, their variables. It is also unclear that we of man." In agreement with this proposal, recent investigations are demonstrating could ever know enough to select or con- the central themes of the present interna- the importance of neurobiology and its trol the vital elements that influence the tional conference on "Human Behaviour support of modern humanism. development and connections of our inter- and the Meaning of Modern Humanism" It is reasonable to assume that, just as cerebral neurons. are, in the words of its organizer, Professor more knowledge of natural mechanisms Dennis Razis: (1) to counteract stagnation allows us to use and control natural Modification of in the evolution of human ethics, which is forces, a clearer understanding of the Genetic Determinism not developing at the rate of science and human central nervous system should technology; (2) to define modem human- enable us to refine and direct our mental uman beings differ from bees, mon- ism; (3) to develop strategies to prevent a activities more effectively. As expressed Hkeys, and other animals because of global catastrophe; and (4) to organize an by Beach (1966), "Man's greatest prob- specific programs written in their chromo- international society dedicated to the sur- lem today is not to understand and exploit somes, which are responsible for the vival of the human race. his physical environment but to under- development of characteristic organs and All these goals should be based on "a stand and govern his conduct." functions during embryological evolution sense of unity in the human species," a Our alternatives are either to enjoy and and tissular differentiation. Human possi- "new view of biological evolution" lead- promote material progress without dedi- bilities and limitations depend on the mes- ing to "new kinds of cooperative ventures" cating much effort to unveiling the great sages hidden in the genetic chains of reflecting a "new unity" of the human potential of our own power source, the amino acids. Our neuronal structures, race. Professor Paul Kurtz, formerly co- brain, or to dedicate more of our intellec- heart, lungs, and other organs appear president of the International Humanist tual and economic resources toward inves- regardless of individual desires, evolving and Ethical Union, has outlined the key tigation of the mechanisms of mental from the fertilized ovum's automatic features of a new postmodern neohuman- activity, in an effort to modify the present sequences of cellular differentiation fol-

26 FREE INQUIRY lowing processes established during mil- lenia of existence. Until recently, mechanisms and consequences of embryological development were totally unknown and the reasons for individual characteristics were a mystery beyond human comprehension. Natural destiny, perhaps with a supernatural intervention, was assumed to be the origin of the good and evil properties of each individual, for his or her normal or abnormal development, for his or her social or anti- social characteristics. This decade is the beginning of a new era in brain exploration due in part to breakthroughs in DNA research. In 1990 the Human Genome Project was formally initiated by Drs. Anderson, Blaese, and Culver, who successfully treated two girls suffering from congenital immunodefi- ciency due to a lack of the enzyme adenosin-desaminase in their immune system. About fifty research projects concerning possible future therapy of genetic abnormalities, including blood diseases and some brain tumors, have already been approved in the United States by the National Institutes of Health, and another twenty projects are in progress in other countries. In theory, genetic manipulation may be considered ethical and acceptable for the therapy of mongolism and other with the victory of human intelligence dependent on the artificial environment cre- functional abnormalities and degenerative over the fate of mindless nature. Primitive ated by their intelligence, which has con- diseases. Anderson and most investiga- man, thousands of years ago, existed in structed cities, mass communications, and tors, however, reject its use for the possi- close contact with nature, but suffered machines. We do not need to go to bed at ble "improvement" of human qualities. In from bad weather, hunger, insects, poor sunset, but can turn on electrical lights. It is the future, when the human genome and health, and short life. Natural conditions in not necessary to spend the day hunting for its intervening mechanisms are deci- the wild were rather uncomfortable and food: instead we can telephone our orders phered, crucial ethical problems will the artificiality of modern civilization to the supermarket. Rather than traveling by appear: Shall we continue to accept blind seems to be far preferable, provided that a foot or by horse we have mechanized trans- destiny in the structuring of human balance is maintained between natural and portation to carry us over the land, sea, and beings, or should we apply scientific tech- artificial elements in our lives. We may sky. Electronics intervene in music repro- nology to modify our genetic inheritance? then question how much initial genetic duction, in communications, and in war. When methods become available it is manipulation and later cultural inculcation Laws and governments control human rela- always difficult, if not impossible, to pre- should be ethical, practical and acceptable. tions, economy, health, education, and even vent their beneficial or malevolent use. Human beings are not born free but are sports and spectacles. The air necessary for Modern humanism will have an increas- products of their genes and modifiable by breathing in space vehicles is precisely cal- ing responsibility in establishing ethical their culture. Nutritional and educational culated and artificially released. In spite of norms and technological limits. deficiencies may produce irreversible dis- many problems, the artificiality of human Medicine, including organ transplants, turbances of mental functions, as unfortu- existence is an inescapable reality and the has increased the span of life and nately happens to millions of children, possibility of genetic control is only one of improved the human condition; electronics especially in underdeveloped countries. The its many aspects to be regulated in agree- permits worldwide communications; infant brain is born rather immature, being ment with natural laws that cannot be industrialization has been beneficial in shaped by sensory inputs that provide infor- ignored or rejected. The great advantage of spite of many new problems. The general mation and cultural values stored as frames human intelligence is that we may investi- tendency is to increase the liberation from of reference in the complexity of neuronal gate these laws and utilize them to benefit and the domination of natural elements networks. Adults become increasingly mankind.

Fall 1995 27 Genetic laws have always been domi- influence mental manifestations. rejections the incoming cultural informa- nant factors in embryological evolution The distinction between material car- tion. Therefore, the baby's infantile frame producing anomalies and causing suffer- riers, codes, and meaning is essential, and of reference will be given without his or ing in parents and their progeny. In the one example may clarify the subject: The her consent and even without his or her future, genetic determinism will be only wires of telephone lines constitute the knowledge. Parents and educators are the partially dominant and ethical principles materials that carry codes of information "sculptors" of the baby's neurons, should prevail in decisions affecting the (as electrical patterns), requiring instru- imprinting in them everlasting marks. welfare of humankind. ments to decode the signals and a listener In later years of childhood and adult- able to understand the message. All val- hood, the early infant inculcations may be Establishment of Humanistic Values ues, including humanistic, are stored in modified by encouraging critical thinking, the material structures of the brain as cod- which should be one of the main tasks of he fertilized ovum is a single cell full ified patterns that influence neurons, the educational process: to teach and to Tof programs and possibilities exhibit- synaptic connections, and neurochemical learn how to think. ing an extraordinary power for multiplica- reactivity, constituting a frame of refer- Genes may provide preferential learn- tion, but it has no brain, heart, or any other ence for the interpretation of incoming ing abilities, for example for music or organ. Mental activities cannot exist in the sensory signals. Personal interpretation mathematics, but they do not provide ovum, blastocyst, or embryo. Anthro- will modulate behavioral reactions, which information, which must come from the pologists, psychologists, and sociologists could be peaceful or hostile. environment through sensory receptors. agree that both genes and information are Immediately after birth, intelligence is Reality, for example, a landscape or a necessary for brain development. We may rudimentary, judgment is minimal, and book, cannot penetrate the brain, which consider the roles of these two elements mental activities are in the process of only accepts chemical and electrical and also the biological mechanisms that being structured, while neuronal connec- codes. Aggression, tolerance, prejudices, participate in the establishment of human- tions and brain development are evolving emotions, and other aspects of personal istic values. In this analysis, the error of under the influence of genetic programs reactivity are not programmed by genetic potentiality should be avoided. This error and sensory inputs. Infants receive milk determination; they depend on elements supposed that functions appear automati- and baby food selected by their parents provided by culture and learned by per- cally when the organs develop because without being consulted. At this early sonal experience. sequential growth, anatomy, and physiol- stage there is no verbal communication Modern humanism should investigate, ogy are programmed by genetic activities. and nourishment is provided with the best and then apply, the neurobiological bases This happens in the heart that starts con- intentions, hoping that the baby will grow of human personality in an attempt to help tracting very early during its formation, strong and healthy. in the establishment of greater personal even in the absence of blood, but it is not In a similar way, but with little aware- happiness and more peaceful relations true for neuronal activities which require ness of the parents, the baby is receiving a among individuals and nations. elements from outside the embryo, espe- kind of intellectual and emotional "food" cially nutrition and sensory stimuli. as "education," which is shaping his or her References Genetic heredity is not sufficient to struc- referential system, neurons, and brain. Beach, F. A., "The perpetuation and evolution of bio- ture a baby. Starting at birth, personal The baby learns a language, a religion, logical science," Amer. Psychologist, 21: 943-949, experiences leave material traces in the ethical principles, and also cultural values 1966. Delgado, J. M. R. Physical Control of the Mind: neuronal network of the individual orga- and even prejudices. Who is going to ask Toward a Psycho-Civilized Society, Harper and nizing frames, which are necessary for the a little baby his or her ideological, politi- Rowe, New York, 1969. understanding of the information circulat- cal, or idiomatic preferences? The brain, Mi Cerebro y Yo, Temas de Hoy, Madrid, 1994. ing inside of the brain. in full evolutionary swing of develop- Ortiz-Oses, A. Arquetipos y Símbolos Colectivos, Mental activities require material sup- ment, will receive without questions or Anthropos, Barcelona, 1994. • porting structures with normal neuronal functions. It is well known that, when cir- Annoucing the 1995 Prometheus Lecture Series culation stops, consciousness is lost "Nietzsche-Freud-Reich: because neurons cannot function. Sup- A Critical Examination of Their Leading Ideas" porting mechanisms, however, should not Lecturer: Professor Paul Edwards, Editor, The Encyclopedia of Philosophy be equated with mental activities. In the Friday, November 3: "FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE" absence of oxygen, for example, it is not Friday, November 10: "SIGMUND FREUD" possible to think or to love, but obviously Friday, November 17: "WILHELM REICH" this gas is unrelated to ideas and emo- Free and open to the public. tions, being only a basic element for the 7:00 P.M. Room 510, New School for Social Research, 66 West 12th Street, New York City. maintenance of nonspecific cerebral activ- Professor Edwards is author of the upcoming book REINCARNATION, which will be published in ities. Lesions of some brain areas, chemi- February 1996. The Prometheus Lecture series was founded in 1992 by Prometheus Books to support cal deficits, metabolic disturbances, work in the fields of philosophical naturalism and materialism. For further information call 716-636-7571. drugs, and other factors may profoundly

28 FREE INQUIRY organism is capable of doing. A few centuries later the church fathers converted Revisiting 'New Conceptions psyche into a nonphysical entity. The English word soul was originally as naturalistic as Aristotle's psyche. In Beowulf of the Mind' (composed about 700 c.E.) soul refers to (1) life itself (or loss of life); (2) blood as life; and (3) life actions of thinking and reasoning. Under the influence of Noel W. Smith Christianity, by the ninth century the meaning had become transcendental. he three articles under the heading time. Kant argued that the real world only However, it still manifests its original T"New Conceptions of the Mind" (Fl, produces phenomena in the mind ("tran- meaning in such usage as "300 souls lost Fall 1994: "Francis Crick on the Workings scendental unity of apperception") and at sea." Mind originally meant thinking, of the Brain"; "The `Soul': Modern those phenomena are all that we know or remembering, or intending (e.g., "I have a Psychological Interpretations" by Morton ever can know. The pioneers in physiol- mind to go") and still retains some of Hunt; and "What Is `Consciousness'?" by ogy converted Kant's ghostly phenomena those meanings, but by the twelfth century Adam Carley) invoke so many old ideas into biology. Charles Bell suggested that the Christian influence rendered it, like that they cry out for re-examination. I will each sensory nerve conveys one kind of soul, also into something nonphysical and argue that (1) the "new conceptions" are quality or experience. Visual nerves con- distinct from the body.' None of these continuations of religious assumptions vey only visual impressions, auditory only three terms implied mind-body dualism from the past in different guise and (2) auditory impressions. Johannes Müller prior to their Christianization, but all alternatives are available to both the proposed specific nerve energies: a partic- became dualistic and organocentric as a "new" and the "old" conceptions they are ular energy of a nerve produced by a par- result of it. supposed to replace. ticular stimulus leads to a particular sen- Today's organocentric assumption is All three authors assume a highly sation. Hermann von Helmholtz modified well represented by Francis Crick in the organocentric (centered on the organism this formulation to one in which nerve lead-off article (an interview) in which he or a particular organ of the organism) endings analyze the stimulus rather than claims that "all feelings and thoughts are position without recognizing any possible the nerves having specific energies. The essentially the behavior of an enlarged set alternatives to that assumption. Organo- next step was to make the brain rather of nerve cells, neurons, and their associ- centrism is continuous with psychophysi- than nerve endings the interpreter. ated molecules and other cells in your cal dualism, which descends from the In the Kant-Bell-Müller-Helmholtz brain." As an "astonishing hypothesis" he church fathers in the Greco-Roman theory we do not react to the world but apparently believes that the neuronal ver- period. They expressed it as divine psyche only to something inside of us—either a sion of the soul gets rid of the homuncu- residing in the organism and determining transcendental mind or nerves. Thus, we lus, but in fact it merely imbeds it in biol- such actions as thinking and willing.' live in a double world, a mental one inside ogy. It puts the causative agent in the (They usually left sensing in the body that may be illusory and a physical one neurons and thereby invokes self-causa- because of the clearly bodily nature of the outside that is real. Psychology books are tion. Feedback loops and other hypotheti- sense organs.) This dualism remained replete with references to the representa- cal mechanisms still leave the organism largely a matter of theology until it gained tion in us of the world. B. E Skinner causing its own actions. John Dewey and the attention of philosophers beginning points out that this assumption typically Arthur Bentley noted that about the seventeenth century. With holds visual objects to be represented in Immanuel Kant in the eighteenth cen- us, but less often does it claim that the After physics knocked the animism out of physical reports . . . all the spooks, tury—but with roots going back to St. symphony orchestra we hear is only a rep- fairies, essences, and entities that once Augustine in the fifth—it took on a new resentation, and almost never do we hear had inhabited portions of matter now twist that reverberated down to the present an argument that the texture of wood that took flight to new homes, mostly in or at we feel is only an inner representation? the human body, and particularly the Noel W. Smith is professor of psychology If we go back to the pre-Christian human brain. . . . "Mind," "faculty," "I.Q.," or what not as an actor in charge at the State University of New York at period we find that such dualistic terms as of behavior is a charlatan, and "brain" Plattsburgh. He specializes in the history psyche, mind, and soul had naturalistic as a substitute for such a "mind" is of psychology and current theoretical sys- rather than dualistic and divine meanings. worse.' tems of psychology. His most recent book Let's look at each of these in turn. To is An Analysis of Ice Age Art: Its Aristotle, psyche is "the first grade of Dewey and Bentley were dissatisfied with Psychology and Belief System (Lang, actuality of a natural body having life an "actor" in the organism that was run- 1992). In progress is Current Systems of potentially in it." That is, it is the actual- ning it, regardless of what it was called. Psychology: Theory, Research, and ization of the organism's fundamental The problem of an actor engaging in self- Applications. potentiality of actions. It is what the action—causing itself—needed remedia-

Fall 1995 29 tion. Do we know of anything in the uni- attempt to reduce psychological events to are influenced by the setting factors or verse that causes itself? Even as a biolog- biology. Giorgi notes that researchers context in which the interaction takes ical organ does the brain cause itself? have searched for the memory trace in the place. All of these factors together com- Dewey and Bentley developed a "transac- neuron, the synapse, and in RNA and prise the psychological event. It is not tionalism," which holds that inquiry must DNA. "Thus in the history of the search, reducible to any of them but all are neces- consider the organism-in-the-environ- one moves nonchalantly from anatomical, sary. ment. Organism and environment are so to functional, to chemical conceptions Thus, such biological factors as interdependent that they are separate enti- without blinking.."" In treating perception phenylketonuria or brain tumors may ties only in abstraction and are said to be Merleau-Ponty regards the body as pro- impair interactions, and a large complex parts of a transaction. In other words, the viding the condition for perception of brain may facilitate extremely complex psychological event is not localized in a objects and the meanings that come from interactions, but the biology does not con- biological organ or even in the entire the perception rather than regarding per- tain or produce the event. Similarly, cul- organism but is an interrelationship of ception as a product of the body's physi- tural factors may be of considerable organism and environment. ology. Meaning is a joint product of the importance, as are the setting conditions The dialectical psychologists have object and the body as they relate to one and history of interactions; but the psy- advanced a similar position. The person another.'° Similarly, Giorgi points out that chological event is not caused by them. and the world the sleekness of an airplane "belongs to Each of the factors in the field is a necessary condition, but are intertwined in only the entire an individual-world field that comprises field is a sufficient their unity. Within UJHo? OK? condition." And this gestalt, various each of these fac- aspects (e.g., indi- V&)NERE? WHEN? Now? tors is identifiable vidual, world) may WNY? WHIc i? Now Muti as a concrete be distinguished, but they are always F1 vJ AAWY? N oW Lo0(9? HOW FAR7, object, event, or parts of the field and uJNATNurr? -tHEN situation. There is refer to it for their Mixt roR? no mind in a body identity. The indi- wHAT? WHY m6? nor is there a bodi- vidual requires the less mind. Such a worldly context for the content of his dualistic construct thoughts and ac- (ce.. is irrelevant when tions, for the ranges the beginning point of possibilities (of is events rather thinking and acting) than cultural tradi- among which he can choose. With- tion based on reli- out this common gion. There is no ground people's self-action by the ideas and behaviors organism or its would be random brain and no con- and chaotic, having nothing to delimit fusion of necessary them and nothing to with sufficient refer to.' conditions. Simi- larly, no internal The phenomenologists have also the airplane as much as it does to my per- interpreter that reads neural coding is rebelled against organocentrism and ceiving it."" required for meaning, knowing, perceiv- mechanism as well. Mind-body or inner- The most systematic development of ing, learning, remembering, or any other outer dualism along with consciousness as the psychological event as more than just interaction. These psychological events a receptacle for objects of the world or as biology was advanced by J. R. Kantor." are comprised by the interactional field." a representation of an outer world are all His interbehavioral field psychology is And with no internal interpreter and inter- rejected and replaced with relationships. based on the observation that responding preter for the interpreter, and so on to Consciousness is not something in the and being stimulated are interdependent, infinity, an infinite regress is avoided. person nor do objects occur in conscious- that stimulus objects have any number of And, just as there is no assumption of an ness. As Sartre puts it, "A table is not in meanings (stimulus functions) that are animistic brain power running the organ- consciousness—not even in the capacity coordinated with the response, that stimu- ism from inside, neither is there any of of a representation. A table is in space, lus functions and response functions forces outside the organism that instigate beside the window, etc.."8 Nor does the develop with successive contacts (interac- or cause actions. phenomenologist find convincing the tional history), and that these interactions What about consciousness? Where is

30 FREE INQUIRY it? Well, what is the concrete referent for ization of the potential of the organism to psychological event is a person-object this word? One psychology dictionary sense and the potential of the sensible relationship, and psyche comprises that provides two pages of definitions includ- object to be sensed. That is, sensing is not relationship. As for subjectivity, it need ing critiques of some of the uses and con- in the organism or in the object but is not be treated as one side of a duality. cludes that "Because of stubbornly persis- comprised of the joint relationship of William Stephenson has provided a tent confusions, the term has lost organism and object.16 widely used methodology for studying usefulness and should be replaced in tech- Morton Hunt, in "The `Soul': Modern subjectivity as self-reference that invokes nical discussions."j5 That was written Psychological Interpretations," recognizes no dualism.' The non-dualism is sug- thirty-five years ago, and the situation has, that different levels of organization are gested by the title of one of his papers: on the whole, gotten worse. Does con- important: "An organized group of mole- "Consciousness Out—Subjectivity In."9 sciousness refer to discriminating, per- cules, cells, or persons has a reality over In one bold stroke he eradicated a doctri- ceiving, knowing, thinking, etc. or the and above that of the sum of its mole- naire construct that generations of schol- response to one's self as engaging in those cules, cells, or persons." But he fails to ars have floundered in and replaced it with interactions? If so, we could say that the carry the organization to the world of a concrete event that could be quantified. complex of interactions comprises con- which the organism is a part and reverts But Carley's statement does apply to sciousness much as the phenomenologists back to the soul as sense of self," a those philosophers (and others) who have do. But then why do we need a separate ghostly phenomenon arising from an assumed a dualism: indeed, they "have term? It seems to add nothing. But if con- organization of neurons. But he had tied themselves in knots." sciousness is something other than identi- already lost his way in the prevailing doc- Carley rejects the Cartesian model of fiable concrete interactions, a mysterious trine when he referred to how the chess mind and its psychophysical dualism but something, it is just another name for the player's "mind drew on memory for merely replaces it with a different mecha- Christian soul. A scientific construct such clues" and to the "mind's perceptions, nism that is equally dualistic. He argues as atoms must have a time-space locus feelings, and most important thoughts." that the brain contains two kinds of mem- and be potentially testable. "Soul" and its Here we have a mind as actor or ories, one subjective and "in our head" historical aliases such as "mind," "con- homunculus, on the one hand, acting on and the other objective and "in the outside sciousness," and, in more modern ver- memory on the other or containing reified world." Apparently, the first involves a sions, "information processing," does not perceptions, feelings, and thoughts. Has double world but the second does not. The meet these criteria despite their current nature really divided us into two parts, a mind's images of itself, he argues, are dis- fashionableness. These constructs get mind and a body, with one part operating crepant, and therefore "we are being con- confused with the actual events such as the other? The church fathers have led us tinuously lied to by our heads." He pro- remembering, sensing, and choosing and to believe so, and we have imposed this on poses a brief time lag between the activity get imposed on the events. our data. Yet we never observe a mind or of the brain and its own false interpreta- The four approaches that I have a consciousness. All that we observe or tion of that activity and cites as evidence sketched here might be called "contextual ever can observe are the interactions of that neural activity occurs prior to willing. interactionism." They provide a viewpoint people and their surroundings. It is the But these data can be more readily inter- that insists that the psychological event person that is remembering and the per- preted not as evidence for one or another comprises a larger organization of events son that is perceiving, feeling, and think- brain model of behavior but rather that a than the organism: while the psychologi- ing. We have dehumanized and decontex- biological event is not a psychological cal event includes biological events and tualized people when we attribute their event. Many studies have demonstrated others, it has principles of its own that are interactions to a hypothetical entity or to this non-correspondence of the two different from those of any of the compo- the mechanism of neurons. domains. And despite the enormous nents. This approach can serve as an alter- In the third article, "What Is amount of research that has gone into the native to the religiously derived organo- `Consciousness'?," Adam Carley claims search for psychological events in the centrism of the three authors. And this is that we know mind by studying people brain, not a single psychological principle not a "new conception" but a very old and their brains and from subjective expe- has emerged from it. Everything we know conception, one that predates Christianity. riences. Like Hunt, he confuses the con- about psychological events comes from In the fourth century B.C.E. Aristotle, struct mind with the observed events. studying those events as activities of although working from a biological per- From studying people we learn about peo- organisms with respect to their surround- spective, came to recognize that such ple and from brains we learn brain biol- ings and history of interactions. Many events as sensing, thinking, and imagining ogy. He also claims that "all" great brain studies have shown necessary condi- involved more than just biological func- philosophers "have tied themselves in tions for psychological events, but not one tions and structures. His definition of psy- knots" because of a disparity between has shown sufficient conditions despite che was closely linked to biological people and brains on the one hand and references to hypothetical loci, storage potentials, but when he began the actual subjective experience on the other. But we sites, production sites, processing centers, analysis of such events as sensing he rec- would have to exclude at least Aristotle etc. ognized the integral role of the object. A from this group, for he made no such To give somewhat simplified defini- sensing event, he tells us, is a joint actual- assumptions and had no such problem: the tions, biology is the study of the structure

Fall 1995 31 and function of the organism and its com- produces psychological events but rather 3. Aristotle, De Anima, 412a, pp. 28-29. ponents and psychology the interaction of to construct no assumptions about a mind 4. Noel W. Smith, "Indo-European psychological concepts and the shift to psychophysical dualism," the organism and its surroundings. Thus, and body or a brain's mind and to work Mankind Quarterly, 1989, 30, pp. 119-127. psychology is a more encompassing orga- with actual events. We don't need to give 5. John Dewey and Arthur F. Bentley, Knowing and the Known (Boston: Beacon Press, 1949), pp. nization of events than biology just as the brain the functions of the supernatural 131-132. biology is a more encompassing organiza- soul but should leave it in its biological 6. Arthur Bentley, Behavior, Knowledge, Fact, tion than chemistry. Each includes com- matrix as one factor in a complex of (Bloomington, Ind.: Principia, 1935); Inquiry into Inquiries (Boston: Beacon, 1954); Dewey and ponents of the other but has principles of events that comprise psychological Bentley, Ibid. its own at that level of organization and is events. We don't need a dichotomy of 7. Carl Ratner, "Principles of dialectical psychol- not reducible to a lower level. Psycho- inside and outside. We do need to start ogy," Telos, 9, 1971, pp. 83-109 (p. 83). 8. Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, logical events are not just brain functions with observed events rather than tradi- London: Methuen. or chemical reactions, nor are they ghostly tional constructs about brain powers or 9. Amedeo Giorgi, "Phenomenology and the actions of a transcendental soul or con- those derived from the church fathers, and foundations of psychology," Nebraska Symposium on Motivation, 1975, Vol. 23. (Lincoln: Nebraska: sciousness. They are concrete relation- we need to keep our interpretations con- University of Nebraska Press, 1976) p. 306. ships of organism and surroundings that sistent with the observed events. 10. Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Phenomenology of develop from the time of birth onward that Perception (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1962). comprise meanings, perceptions, know- espite the well-intentioned efforts of 11. Amedeo Giorgi, "Convergences and diver- ings, rememberings, etc. Crick believes DCrick, Carley, and Hunt to find a gences between phenomenological psychology and that only by reducing psychology to biol- solid basis for engaging the theists, they behaviorism," Behaviorism, 3, pp. 200-212. 12. J. R. Kantor, Interbehavioral Psychology: A ogy can we escape religious assumptions. will not be successful unless they can Sample of Scientific Science Construction (Bloom- But such a reductionism has been influ- find a better approach than imposing an ington, Ind.: Principia Press, 1959); The Aim and enced by our cultural heritage from reli- endless stream of hypothetical constructs Progress of Psychology and Other Sciences: A Selection of Papers by J. R. Kantor (Chicago, Ill.: gion, not by scientific observation. and biological reductionism on the Principia Press, 1971). Neither observation or logic supports such events. Frequently we find these con- 13. Noel W. Smith and Lance L. Smith, "Field reductionism. But observation does show structs inferred from the same behaviors theory in science: Its role as a necessary and sufficient condition in psychology," Psychological us organism-object relationships and their they are supposed to explain. We can Recor4 in press. development over time, and that has no study perceiving, thinking, and remem- 14. Field may be defined as a construct involv- connection with any religious heritage or bering as concrete interactions without ing a multiplex of relationships that "substitutes events for things having fixed properties, and sees cultural folklore. resorting to reducing these interactions events as totalities in which parts of the event are to the functions of a biological organ. At what they are qualitatively and quantitatively, only s long as we continue to impose on the same time, biological research as in terms of the rest of the events," Horace B. English and Ava C. English, A Comprehensive Dictionary of Athe brain such homunculean charac- well as behavioral, cultural, and social Psychological and Psychoanalytic Terms: A Guide teristics as knowing, interpreting, per- research that reveals enabling or partici- to Usage (Longmans, Green, 1958). For a compari- ceiving, and choosing when all we ever pating conditions will foster understand- son of field concepts in physics, interbehavioral psychology, and Q methodology see Smith and observe in the brain are such biological ing toward that more encompassing orga- Smith, Note 13. events as electro-chemical impulses, we nization of events comprising 15. English and English (see Note 14), p. 113. remain in the Cartesian fold. The employ- psychological behavior. In that direction 16. Aristotle, De Anima, 418a, 6-426a,26; Clarence Shute, The Psychology of Aristotle ment of scientific sounding terms and is a scientific alternative to old concep- (Columbia University Press, 1941); John Randall, computer analogies gives us no real tions of a soul running the body and its Aristotle (Columbia University Press, 1960; Noel W. understanding of concrete psychological related new conceptions of neurons run- Smith, "Aristotle's dynamic approach to sensing," Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences, events—in fact, it conceals the funda- ning the body. 1971, 7, pp. 375-377; Noel W. Smith, "The ancient mental erroneous assumptions. We must Alternatives to organocentrism and background to Greek psychology," Psychological start with scientific questions such as psychophysical dualism have been Recor4 24, pp. 309-324; Noel W. Smith, Greek and Interbehavioral Psychology, rev. ed. (Lanharn, Md.: what role do brain events (as well as around since the time of Aristotle and University Press of America, 1993). social conditions, interactional history, have been redeveloped independently in 17. Is self any different from the interactive media of contact, and setting events) pro- several instances in the present century. meanings of things including our own role in them that we develop during our lifetimes? "Self-refer- vide in facilitating or enabling the Are we ready to consider these alterna- ence," Stephenson called it (see Note 18). To George observed events of remembering, choos- tives or do we prefer to continue operat- Herbert Mead, similarly, it was a matter of reflecting ing, and sensing. When we start with ing under the influences of our religious upon oneself and taking the viewpoint of the other(s). (Mead, "The social self," Journal of unscientific questions such as "how a heritage? Philosophy, Psychology and Scientific Method, physical entity like the brain exerts will 1913, 13, pp. 374-380; Mind, Self, and Society, and experience" we will end with unsci- Notes University of Chicago Press, 1934.) entific answers. 18. William Stephenson, The Study of Behavior: Q-Technique and Its Methodology (Chicago: The solution to the mind-body problem 1. J. R. Kantor, The Scientific Evolution of University of Chicago Press, 1968); "Q-methodol- of Descartes and, before him, the church Psychology, Vol. 1 (Chicago, Ill.: Principia Press, ogy, interbehavioral psychology, and quantum the- fathers, is not to find a new hypothetical 1963). ory," Psychological Record, 1982, 32, pp. 235-248. 2. B. F. Skinner, About Behaviorism (New York: 19. Psychological Record, 1968, 18, pp. 499- brain mechanism that contains, stores, and Knopf, 1974). 501. • 32 FREE INQUIRY who study compatibility have made elegant discoveries that are independent of computational architecture or physical Consciousness, Math, mechanism. Their theorems apply equally to computation done by gears, transistors, and Aristotle neurons, DNA, quantum effects, or some as yet unimagined laws of physics organized in some as yet unimagined way. They apply to anything that manipulates Adam L. Carley information. They would even apply to a spirit world if there were one. It is irra- n "What Is Consciousness?" (Fl, Fall tional to exclude the brain from them.

1994) I thought I was using hyperbole There is no longer even surface plausi- 1 hy

when I said "all" the classical philosophers rap bility to the idea that the brain's function had tied themselves in knots over the mind- tog is other than information processing or Pho

body problem. Surely, one of those great io that the seat of mental activity (including philosophers so revered by our humanities d consciousness) is elsewhere or nowhere. Stu departments must have sometime, some- ts Tens of billions of rapidly firing, com- ho where written something insightful about s plexly interconnected, intercommunicat-

consciousness. Without meaning to, Snap ing neurons aren't there for the hell of it. Contrary to Smith's assertion, many psy- Professor Noel Smith convinces me other- Young

wise. (See his article on p. 29.) Consider ire chological functions have been located Cla

this counter-example, Aristotle: "The psy- 4 and understood. They happen not to cor- che is the first grade of actuality of a nat- respond to our introspective self-image ©199 ural body having life potentiality in it. That because that self-image is false. is, it is the actualization of the organism's actionism"), even by the most brilliant fundamental potentiality of actions" minds of history, have just plain failed. It Bits, Bytes, and Brains [Smith's paraphrase]. was a reasonable thing to try—one would With all due respect to Smith and think we would have "inside" access to alf a century ago, Claude Shannon Aristotle, this is gobbledygook. Even our minds—but it just doesn't work. We H(later to be my thesis supervisor) dis- allowing that it might mean something, it is must move on to something that does covered a group of elegant mathematical untestable. It's not even good pseudo-sci- work: science. It wasn't Aristotle's fault proofs now called "information theory." ence. Absent Aristotle's name, New Age he didn't have access to PET brain scans. What he showed was that information is magazine would be embarrassed to publish But we do. Let's acknowledge the intel- completely fungible: all forms of it are it. It simply can't and doesn't tell us what lectual debt owed Aristotle et al. and then equivalent to all other forms of it. That to do in the lab Monday morning. get into the lab, onto the computers, and means the brain's memory, its input/out- But consciousness, from whatever per- solve this thing. And it shall be solved. put, its internal communications and spective, is a win-win issue for humanists The resistance of literary philosophers to representations, and its genetic blueprint and atheists. Only we carry light enough having their domain coopted is under- can all be measured in bits, even though baggage to follow the trail wherever it standable, but hasn't the mind-body prob- there's not a "0" or "1" in sight. John leads. While the literature-oriented lem been verbalized at enough by now? Hopsfield's brilliant (mathematical) approach Smith brings to the discussion model of neural memory, for example, is, in my view, pre-scientific, it nonethe- Consciousness and Math estimates brain capacity as 1/4 to 1/2 bits less offers humanists valuable historical per synapse (for a total in the terabytes). perspective. discipline has been largely mis- Information theory doesn't tell us what But our humanities colleagues must Osingne from the consciousness discus- consciousness is, but it does keep our feet face a simple fact: their literature-centered sion: mathematics. There are results in on the ground and force us to think in approach to consciousness has gone three information theory and computation the- numbers. It is consciousness theory's thousand years without making any ory that, in my view, essentially preclude ticket to hard science. progress. Deep introspection and special- the mind from being qualitatively differ- ized terminology (e.g. "contextual inter- ent from a computer. Quantum Mechanics For many writers the computer is Can't Save the Soul Inventor and entrepreneur Adam Carley merely an analogy or metaphor for the holds a Ph.D. in Information Science. His brain or a product of our current culture. n the nineteenth century, the distressing article "What Is `Consciousness'?" won They are confusing the computer as a lthing about materialism was that it the 1994 Selma Forkosch Award for the physical entity with computation as a inflicted determinism and predestination year's best article on humanism in FI. mathematical abstract. Mathematicians on us. When quantum mechanics later Fall 1995 33 added randomness to physics, it was seen observer in a quantum experiment just as of us can barely do mental arithmetic at by many as the salvation of our cherished well as a person. all. But, and here is the key point, we do free-willing self-image. Even today Roger manage to get arithmetic done. We do Penrose and others look to (another aspect The Brain Can Understand Itself understand it. We do build gigahertz of) quantum mechanics to escape accept- adding machines. And we don't find arith- ing mind as computation. t seems plausible that intelligence metic the least bit mysterious or meta- The problem with pinning our hopes Iwould exist in a hierarchy. Just as Colin physical. With Turing equivalence, we can on quantum randomness is pseudo- McGinn's cat can't comprehend chess, it deal with things our brains didn't evolve randomness. In computation theory, would seem reasonable that there must be to deal with. pseudo-randomness refers to a type of things (intrinsically) incomprehensible to Another example: an astronomer can algorithm that is deterministic (i.e. not us but accessible to a greater intelligence know there are 1022 stars in the visible uni- random) but can pass essentially any test if one existed. And, so the argument goes, verse even though she has only 10" neu- for randomness. (What can be done in since we've had all this trouble with con- rons to know it with. (We can't perfectly lam° years of computation is another mat- sciousness, maybe it's just beyond our comprehend any number above 7.) Or con- ter). Because of this practical equivalence intellect to understand it. Perhaps no sider this: we are hardwired for a three- between randomness and pseudo-random- amount of intelligence is capable of dimensional world, yet scientists and ness, quantum-mechanical randomness understanding itself. mathematicians routinely deal with four does not bring anything to the computa- This postulate has a comfortable ring dimensions and even much higher dimen- tional party. Even though quantum ran- to it, but it just happens to be false. Alan sions. Black holes, subatomic quarks, domness is trivial to create electronically, Turing in a mathematical tour de force, quantum mechanics, and a menagerie of our most expensive supercomputers don't showed that, beyond a certain minimal modern concepts are beyond, way beyond, bother with it. Quantum randomness will organizational complexity, all computa- anything our brains evolved to handle. Yet not and cannot produce any qualitatively tional devices are equivalent except for by hook or crook we get an intellectual new computational phenomena. speed. That level of complexity is called handle on all these things. We haven't That is not to say there is no random- "Turing equivalence." A cat is below those found (and won't) anything a priori ness in the brain. Neural signals are very limits because it can't store symbolic data excluded from our understanding. noisy by engineering standards. (Thoughts externally. But virtually all man-made It's not that we can't comprehend con- that seem to come out of nowhere proba- computers are Turing equivalent, as are sciousness, it's that we are wired to mis- bly do.) But quantum randomness is not literate people. That is why after millions comprehend it. But we can get around necessary and certainly not the cause or of years of anatomically modern humans that. We can treat our (false) self-image as essence of consciousness. and hundreds of millions of years of ani- a phenomenon, not a fact. While earlier in this century quantum mal brains, something qualitatively differ- Now, Turing equivalence has a loophole randomness seemed to have some analogy ent began happening in the past few mil- that some philosophers would like to fly a to free will, other aspects of quantum lennia and exploded in our own twentieth 747 through. It's called uncomputable mechanics are now being proposed as the century: science. Evolution, including the functions. It has been proved, for example, essence of consciousness itself by some evolution of language and writing, stum- that no (finite) piece of software can look at scientists, notably Roger Penrose. bled into Turing equivalence. I submit that another and always decide whether the lat- Something called "microtubules" in brain Turing equivalence means we can intel- ter will "hang" (loop forever). But, frankly, cells are proposed as the locus for this lectually deal with anything that any other to invoke uncomputability to explain con- effect. The driving thought in "quantum intelligence, no matter how great, could sciousness is absurd. First, the uncom- consciousness" is simple: certain aspects deal with. putable really is uncomputable: It can be of quantum mechanics remain mysteri- With computers all around us it is easy proven that no entity capable of finite ous; consciousness is mysterious; so to illustrate Turing equivalence. An IBM description can compute uncomputable maybe one is the other. Like "Kennedy computer can perfectly emulate an Apple functions. Second, and more important, and Lincoln," there seem to be a lot of computer, and vice-versa. This violates uncomputability is an engineering (as eerie connections between quantum the concept of a hierarchy. An IBM com- opposed to mathematical) red herring. mechanics and consciousness. For in- puter can even emulate an Apple com- Some, and probably all, uncomputable stance, quantum mechanics seems to say puter emulating an IBM computer emulat- functions have a corresponding com- that the presence of a conscious observer ing an Apple computer, and so on. The putable function that gets the same result alters the physical world. execution runs more and more slowly but 99.99999... 9 percent of the time! The study of the brain undoubtedly the range of computability never narrows. This substitution of technical mysteries holds surprises, and the ins and outs of Another example: the human brain cannot is counterproductive. Ther are still only microtubules surely need to be chased write and erase its memory at will like a possibilities. Either our self-image is true down. However, I find this all an elaborate computer, and is thus seriously impaired or it is false. An illusionary (virtual) "self' effort to avoid facing the simple possibil- at certain tasks such as arithmetic. The is impossible for many to accept, but it is ity that our self-image is false. I would brain has the raw computational power to actually very simple and would have been point out that a computer can act as the sum billions of digits a second, yet most easily created by evolution. •

34 FREE INQUIRY Bertrand Russell Remembered

Introduction Timothy J. Madigan

ertrand Russell (1872-1970) was one world." He never once recanted Bof the twentieth century's leading from this forthright position. intellectuals and social reformers. It is There is some irony in altogether fitting that FREE INQUIRY mag- Russell's incessant criticism of azine honor him on the twenty-fifth religion, which can best be seen anniversary of his death, for no other indi- in the following passage from vidual has surpassed him in defending the his Introduction to the book ideal of freedom to inquire. Why I Am Not a Christian He twice served prison sentences (Simon and Schuster, 1957): because of his views, the first time in 1918 The conviction that it is impor- due to his opposition to the First World tant to believe this or that, even War, the second time in 1961 due to his if a free inquiry would not sup- opposition to nuclear weapons. And he port the belief, is one which is common to almost all religions managed, during the nearly fifty-year and which inspires all systems interval between, to upset an endless of state education. The conse- stream of people with his unconventional quence is that the minds of the and controversial opinions. young are stunted and are filled While humanists can admire his contri- with fanatical hostility both to those who have other fanati- butions to the field of philosophy and his cisms and, even more viru- perspectives on marriage and morals, lently, to those who object to all nuclear disarmament, educational reform, fanaticisms. A habit of basing and a host of other social issues, it is convictions upon evidence, and surely his writings on religion that have of giving to them only that degree of certainty which the evidence writings on religion and morality remain a made him a worthy member of the warrants, would, if it became general, clarion call for humanist principles. No humanist pantheon. In the essay "Has cure most of the ills from which this mere basher of religion, he emphasizes the Religion Made Useful Contributions to world is suffering. [pp. vi—vii] positive role that humanism can play. There Civilization?," first published in 1930, he is no better expression of this than the clos- wrote that "My own view on religion is Russell presents us with an ethical ing words of "Why I Am Not a Christian": that of Lucretius. I regard it as a disease paradox. This is a lofty sentiment, but one We ought to stand up and look the world born of fear and as a source of untold mis- can ask where is the evidence to support frankly in the face. We ought to make ery to the human race." Throughout his this hope? Can most of the world's ills be the best we can of the world, and if it is long life, he was a vociferous opponent of cured by such epistemic purity? Or might not so good as we wish, after all it will obscurantism, dogmatism, and supersti- the problems themselves be so deeply set still be better than what others have tion, all of which he felt were advocated that the purpose of religious beliefs is to made of it in all these ages. A good world needs knowledge, kindliness, and by the dominant religious organizations of shield people from their reality? courage; it does not need a regretful the Western world. It is hard to imagine Russell, for all his rejection of humbug hankering after the past or a fettering of another figure of his prominence who and sacerdotal solemnity, was steeped in the free intelligence by the words would write an essay with the bold title the Victorian virtues of hard work and uttered long ago by ignorant men. It "Why I Am Not a Christian." In it, he pro- self-improvement. His high hopes for the needs a fearless outlook and a free intelligence. It needs hope for the future, not claimed: "I say quite deliberately that the future often conflicted with his low esti- looking back all the time toward a past Christian religion, as organized in its mation of humans' willingness to use their that is dead, which we trust will be far churches, has been and still is the princi- critical intelligence. He described himself surpassed by the future that our intell- pal enemy of moral progress in the as "a cheerful pessimist" and never gence can create. wavered in his opposition to faulty rea- Timothy J. Madigan is executive editor of soning and wishful thinking. The following section was guest edited FREE INQUIRY. Russell is a challenging figure, and his by Michael J. Rockier.

Fall 1995 35

definition for "God"—further evidence of his need to search for transcendence. Russell vs. Dewey Dewey writes, "It is this active relation between ideal and actual to which I would on Religion give the name `God"'(p. 51). Furthermore: Use of the words "God" or "divine" to convey the union of actual with ideal may protect man from a sense of isola- Michael J. Rockier tion and consequent despair or defiance. Persons who consider themselves sec- pall'aul Kurtz has identified a phenomenon ular humanists and those who seek to he labels "the transcendental "John Dewey's legacy is a great maintain the skepticism and rationalism temptation." He describes a need by and important one. But one must of Russell are bound to ask: What is the human beings to search for an existence conclude that, while Bertrand point? Why struggle to create appropriate beyond themselves—to seek to transcend Russell belongs on the roll of definitions of God and divine? Russell the natural world for an extra-natural one. great secular humanists, John would simply disown the entire notion. Kurtz recognizes that even the most Dewey must be excluded from it." Dewey's earliest philosophic writings rational of women and men can be affected were strongly influenced by Hegel. The by this transcendental temptation. It is the Russell was never able to tolerate the notion need to reconcile the ideal with the actual hypothesis of this article that, while John of teaching falsehood. He came to the con- reflects Dewey's continuing struggle to Dewey and Bertrand Russell are identified clusion that religion in general and reconcile his own developing philosophy as secular humanists, Dewey, perhaps Christianity in particular had no utility. with the Hegelian idealism that first because of his Vermont upbringing, ulti- Humankind would be better off, he attracted him. mately succumbed to the transcendental believed, if it gave up its belief in the exis- Later in A Common Faith Dewey temptation. Russell did not. tence of a supernatural realm. Russell's best describes ways to make churches mean- There exist, of course, many similari- known book about religion is Why IAm Not ingful institutions. He does not take the ties between Russell and Dewey. Both A Christian. Dewey's most remembered position that churches serve no purpose in men, whose lives overlapped, were giants work on religion is A Common Faith. The a secular world. Rather, he strives to in their time. Their interests and effects two titles suggest a great deal about the per- maintain them and find a legitimate rea- went well beyond philosophy into the spective of these two philosophers with son for continuing church life in America. realms of politics and social policy, where regard to religious orientation. This reflects a nostalgic longing for his both were able to exercise their influence early life in Vermont, which was heavily in significant ways. Both were liberal Dewey's Religious Views influenced by church life. thinkers who sought a more equitable A Common Faith, written when Dewey world society. Both escaped from the nar- n A Common Faith Dewey seeks to was seventy-five years old, continues row confines of Christianity into views Imaintain a religious perspective even Dewey's life-long struggle to maintain a that were broader and more enlightened. though he no longer considers himself a religious orientation even in the face of a However, only Russell was truly able to Christian and even though he is not sure growing understanding that traditional break from his Christian upbringing and about the role of and definition of God. In Christian theism was in error. free himself from religiosity. Dewey this volume Dewey attempts to create a sought to separate religious people from system in which persons can remain reli- Russell on Religion religion—thus creating the kind of gious while giving up organized religion. dichotomy he sought to avoid in other Dewey writes: ewey concludes A Common Faith by realms of philosophic thought. Dwriting: Russell embraced secular humanism at a This possibility is what I had in mind in very early age and never attempted to rec- speaking of the difference between the Ours is the responsibility of conserving, religious and religion. I am not propos- oncile his position with the religious views transmitting, rectifying and expanding ing a religion, but rather the emancipa- the heritage of values we have received of the masses. He rejected all propositions tion of elements and outlooks that may that those who come after us may for which there could be no evidence. be called religious. [Dewey, p. S] receive it more solid and secure, more widely accessible and more generously Michael J. Rockler is a Contributing Dewey thus seeks to save the notion of shared than we have received it. Here Editor of FI and guest editor of "Bertrand being religious even while denying his are all the elements for a religious faith that shall not be confined to sect, class Russell Remembered." He is a professor willingness to be part of any religion. This or race. Such a faith has always been of education at National-Louis University seems inconsistent for one who opposed implicitly the common faith of in Washington, D.C., and chair of the the creation of dichotomies. mankind. It remains to make it explicit Bertrand Russell Society. Dewey also seeks to find an acceptable and militant. [p. 87] 36 FREE INQUIRY Compare this obviously religious pas- lead either to an infinite regress or to asser- effects of religion in this regard relates to sage of Dewey with this statement by tions that are incompatible with current sex. For Russell, religion has transformed Russell from the Introduction to Why IAm constructions of the nature of the universe. the natural sexual instinct into something Not a Christian: Russell also argues that, while argu- base and overregulated. Russell, through- ments for the existence of God are usually out his life, rebelled against traditional There has been a rumour in recent years couched in abstract, intellectual terms, the sexual mores, and he saw the church as an to the effect that I have become less ultimate reason that most people accept a agent for inculcating these repressive atti- opposed to religious orthodoxy than I formerly was. This rumour is totally belief in a deity is because they have been tudes, which only lead to harm. without foundation. I think all the great taught to do so since they were infants. Russell provides a sweeping indict- religions of the world—Buddhism, Furthermore: ment of the uselessness of religion in Hinduism, Christianity, Islam, and opposition to those who would argue that Communism—both untrue and harmful. I think the next most powerful reason is even if it is false, it has a certain value. the wish for safety, a sort of feeling that Russell writes: The question of the truth of a religion is there is a big brother who will look after one thing, but the question of its useful- you. That plays a very profound part in Religion prevents our children from ness is another. I am as firmly con- influencing people's desire to believe in having a rational education; religion vinced that religions do harm as I am God. [p. 20] prevents us from removing the funda- that they are untrue. [p. 9] mental causes of war; religion prevents Russell had a life-long commitment to us from teaching the ethic of scientific Russell's opposition to religion and the cooperation in place of the old fierce women's rights; he stood for Parliament doctrine of sin and punishment. [p. 42] religious perspective remained constant early in his career as women's suffrage throughout the ninety-eight years of his candidate. Russell believed that adequate life. Russell's great contributions to philo- For Russell, religion has no utility, and birth control would play a major role in attempts to maintain some kind of reli- sophic thought, which are still useful and liberating women, since they could relevant today, include his unwavering gious life or religious perspective (as commitment to rationalism and his belief Dewey would have us do) have no point. that skepticism is the most efficacious "Russell embraced secular Falsehood cannot lead to virtue. In this stance that human beings can adopt with humanism at a very early age and context, Russell offers a clear definition of regard to any kind of knowledge. never attempted to reconcile his sin: it is what is disliked by those who In The Prospects of Industrial position with the religious views control education. Civilization (written with Dora Russell in of the masses. He rejected all Russell's book Religion and Science 1923), Russell wrote: propositions for which there could further develops his case against religion. be no evidence." In this volume Russell traces conflicts The governors of the world believe, and between theologians and scientists over have always believed that virtue can choose whether or not to have offspring. several centuries as a way of continuing to only be taught by teaching falsehood, Russell's disgust with churches stemmed, demonstrate the dysfunctional nature of and that any man who knew the truth in part, from the opposition of organized religion. "Science," Russell argues, "has would be wicked. I disbelieve this, religion to birth control. stood for the diminution of suffering, absolutely and entirely. I believe that For Russell, fear was the basis of reli- love of truth is the basis of all real while theology has encouraged man's nat- virtue, and that virtues based upon lies gion. This is partly what he calls "the terror ural savagery." Russell offers a perspec- can only do harm. [p. 252] of the unknown." Humankind has anxieties tive on the development of Kurtz's tran- about death, about defeat, about everything scendental temptations. When we are In Why IAm Not A Christian, Russell in life that is mysterious. "Fear," Russell young, Russell argues, some things we do carefully examines all of the traditional writes, "is the parent of cruelty, and there- are approved by adults and some are dis- arguments for religious belief and system- fore it is no wonder if cruelty and religion couraged. This has the effect of socializ- atically demolishes them. He begins by have gone hand-in-hand." ing the young into acceptable and unac- examining the assertion that there must be Russell concludes his opening essay by ceptable behaviors that are perceived as God because there must be a first cause. writing: being right and wrong. These are attrib- Russell argues that there is no reason to uted to "the voice of God in the heart." posit a first cause because one can believe We want to stand upon our own feet and look fair and square at the world—its But in fact, Russell writes: that the world has always existed. Russell good facts, its bad facts, its beauties and ... conscience is a product of education, says, "The idea that things must have a its ugliness; see the world as it is, and be and can be trained to approve or disap- beginning is really due to the poverty of not afraid of it. Conquer the world by prove, in the great majority of mankind, imagination. Therefore, perhaps, I need intelligence.... [p. 26] as educators may see fit. While, there- not waste any more time upon the argu- fore it is right to wish to liberate ethics Russell regards religion as a disease from external moral rules, this can ment about the first cause." hardly be satisfactorily achieved by Russell argues against using natural law that has been born of fear and that has means of the notion of "conscience." as a proof of God's existence as he does been a source of great misery for against the argument from design. These humankind. One of the most disastrous

Fall 1995 37 In Religion and Science, Russell exam- most important humanist philosopher that guage of religion, and Dewey, who con- ines the question of immortality. He the United States has thus far produced." tributed significantly to America's intel- comes to the conclusion that, given the Kurtz goes on to claim that Dewey's prag- lectual life, must be considered a religious current state of evidence, "belief in matic intelligence made important social and not a secular humanist. immortality can claim no support from applications in two areas: education and Russell, on the other hand, was able to science, and such arguments as are possi- liberalism. shed his Hegelian beginnings and the reli- ble on the subject point to the probable Kurtz is correct in these assertions, but gious precepts of his grandparents, who extinction of personality at death." Russell it is also interesting to note that he raised him; he returned to the freethinking says that persons may regret this situation, describes Dewey as a humanist and not as tradition of his parents. Russell remained but, on the other hand many of the world's a secular humanist. an ardent secular humanist to the end of most evil people are also mortal, and this John Dewey's legacy is a great and his days, promoting rationalism and skep- thought can be a source of comfort. "We important one. But one must conclude ticism while he struggled against religion, are told," Russell writes, "that they would that, while Bertrand Russell belongs on patriotism, and nationalism. improve with time, but I doubt it." the roll of great secular humanists, John Russell makes a strong statement about Dewey must be excluded from it. References the nature of values and the scientific In A Common Faith, Dewey seeks to Dewey, J. (1934). A Common Faith. New Haven: method when he writes: maintain both his Hegelian philosophic Yale University Press. I conclude that while it is true that sci- origins as well as the values of his reli- Russell, B. and D. Russell. (1923 ). The Prospects of ence cannot decide questions of value, gious Vermont upbringing. He tries to find Industrial Civilization. London: George Allen and Unwin Ltd. that is because they cannot be intellectu- a working definition of God and a way to Russell, B. (1935). Religion and Science. London: ally decided at all, and lie outside the maintain a religious perspective in the Oxford University Press. realm of truth and falsehood. Whatever face of all evidence that religion produces Russell, B. (1928). Sceptical Essays. London: knowledge is attainable, must be attained Unwin Paperbacks. by scientific methods; and what science false and irrational doctrines. In the end Russell, B. (1957). Why I Am Not A Christian. cannot discover, mankind cannot know. the language of John Dewey is the lan- London: Unwin Paperbacks.

Throughout his writings and particularly in Why I Am Not a Christian, Russell takes several unequivocal stands. First, he Why I Am Not a Russellian denies all claims to a supernatural being who can be influenced by human actions. Second, he supports rationalism and skep- John M. Novak ticism as intellectual traits that are critical for the advancement of human life. Third, ertrand Russell is certainly an impor- and better this human outlook. This he makes a persuasive case for the effi- Btant humanist. As a philosopher, humanist perspective can be stated this cacy of the scientific method. Finally, social activist, and educator he has been way: Since we cannot isolate ourselves Russell sees no utility for religion. an inspiring figure, willing to take strong from human experiences, how can we get Dewey would probably be in agreement stands and pay the consequences for being more out of them? Russell certainly was with Russell on most of these propositions. a freethinker in a world in which expres- able to savor human experiences and was Where they would disagree is on the issue sive freedom and penetrating thought committed to clearly denouncing that of religious utility. Why argue for the con- were usually only linked rhetorically. I which he felt got in the way of human bet- tinuing of a religious life and a common still turn to his essays for insights, humor, terment. However, in my estimation, he faith unless one believes in the efficacy of incisive comments, food for thought—and succumbs to a subtle transcendental temp- religious activity and faith? The difference am seldom disappointed. However, in tation in his understanding of the human between Russell and Dewey comes about spite of my admiration for Russellian perspective. Quite simply, at some basic in part because of their different back- intellect, prose, and life stance, I find that level, Russell thinks that humans have grounds and intellectual capacities. Russell his humanism does not run deep enough immaculate receptions of knowledge— was able to defy the herd and give up any and his approach to education and society immediate knowledge of atomistic semblance of religion and religious activ- more idiosyncratic than substantive. aspects of reality.' These atomistic per- ity. Dewey was not. Allow me to briefly elaborate. ceptions are thus the foundation for cer- As I see it, a humanist is someone who tain knowledge. This enables Russell and Conclusion realizes we cannot escape the human per- others who hold this view to have a type spective and so tries to savor, understand, of incisive certainty and cut to the bone on he Winter 1992/93 issue of FREE some basic knowledge issues. TINQUIRY was dedicated to John John Novak is professor of education at As appealing as this claim for founda- Dewey in remembrance of the fortieth Brock University in St. Catharines and tional certainty is, there is another point of anniversary of his death. Paul Kurtz wrote editor of Insights, the newsletter of the view. That is, that life is messier and that in that issue that "Dewey is probably the John Dewey Society. human perception does not have this priv- 38 FREE INQUIRY ileged access to knowledge; knowledge certain types of experiences misses the phy does not provide the necessary claims regarding the empirical world are actual human process of knowledge-mak- supplement. always inferential. In actuality, all knowl- ing, and thus diminishes a deeper under- Bertrand Russell supplies a courageous edge is mediated, that is, constructed from standing of the human perspective and, and energetic supplement to a self-cor- some perspective within problematic situ- ultimately, human possibilities. recting humanist perspective. He provides ations. Thus, experience is always occur- In the realms of the social and the edu- some spicy food for thought that is good ring in some context and must be filtered cational, Russell engaged in a variety of in doses, but cannot serve as a steady diet. through some perspective to become progressive projects. In spite of his vigor I'd invite him to my house to occasionally knowledge. and courage, however, I do not see how prepare a meal and help clean out the This constructed view of knowledge this activity in these areas connected with refrigerator, but not to plan my life-long doesn't mean that there isn't a reality "out his work in philosophy.2 As I see it, philosophical menu. there," only that we do not have direct Russell saw philosophy as purer than the knowledge of the "out there." The defensi- activities of everyday life. When engag- Notes ble contracts we make with the "out there" ing in the impurities of life, he tended to 1. This point is made in great detail in Dewey, by and call knowledge are always mediated, follow some personal intuitions and pas- J. E. Tiles (London: Routledge, 1988) and more partial, and from a certain perspective. sions. As powerful as these were, they are recently by Tom Burke in Dewey's New Logic: A This is not "New Age—you make your of limited use to others in trying to con- Reply to Russell (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994). own reality," but rather a fundamental real- struct a principled social and educational 2. I am not alone in my perception of Russell's ization that the knowledge we have is not philosophy. Intuitions and passions need philosophy being irrelevant or at odds with his poli- immediate, immaculate, or immune from to be heavily supplemented to deal with tics. Alan Ryan, author of Bertrand Russell: A Political Life, makes this same point in John Dewey bias. My objection to Russell is that his social and educational complexities. and the High Tide of American Liberalism (New view of the immediate knowledge claim of Russell's rather narrow work in philoso- York: Norton, 1995). •

the narrative of many societies, the quest Bertrand Russell's theme is often religious. Surprisingly, it is almost that in Russell's case, despite Intellectual Odyssey his famed stance as an agnostic. Having lost his religious beliefs, he continued his search elsewhere for certainty and immutable truth. Readers who remember Gladys Garner Leithauser his encounter with geometry at age eleven—he called it "as dazzling as first Bertrand Russell is the great intellec- love"—understand his transfer of the tual adventurer of the century. quest to mathematics, which he once —Ronald Jager termed "stern perfection." The search took Russell through a philosophical ertrand Russell is a major writer, development that Ronald Jager, quoted Bprolific and venturesome. His sev- above, considers an "odyssey." Though enty books and hundreds of essays for Russell never found his answer, he both general readers and specialists are pressed on, and his writings record the sometimes ground-breaking and often innovations and advances the effort pro- controversial. The writings range from duced. In calling Russell "the great intel- highly technical expositions through lectual adventurer of the century," Jager popularizing discussions of science to gives both the man and his methods epic commentaries on social issues and ethi- stature.' The evaluation reminds us this cal problems. Probably few readers have year, the twenty-fifth anniversary of worked their way across the breadth of Russell's death, to focus more con- the canon, but many have become famil- sciously on his journeys to the frontiers of modern thought. Gladys Leithauser, recently retired from iar and impressed enough with Russell's the University of Michigan-Dearborn writings to make his ideas part of our s a young man studying Hegel's sys- where she taught writing and communica- culture. Atem, Russell devised an ambitious tion, is coeditor of The World of Science: What motivated such prodigious pro- plan for his own work: two series of An Anthology for Writers. Her doctoral ductivity? The answer seems to be the books, the first on the philosophy of the dissertation discussed Russell as a man of metaphor that underlay Russell's life: the sciences, moving from the abstractions of letters. great quest. Centuries old and a part of mathematics to the concrete illustrations

Fall 1995 39 of biology; and the second on political prison sentence. Soon his target shifted to ness ... to be the essential lot of man" and and social matters, becoming progres- the left; in 1920 he criticized the Russian that it was in response to the pain of this sively more abstract. The two series were communist regime in The Practice and perception that he wrote "A Free Man's to culminate in an encyclopedic volume, a Theory of Bolshevism. Standing again for Worship." This voice is one of the reasons, Hegelian synthesis of theory and practice. Parliament in 1923 as a Labour candidate, I believe, that "Free Man" has continued Although the series did not work just he lost once more. But, as we know, these to be a favorite, though it is sometimes this way, Russell later remarked that to experiences did not destroy his activist disparaged for its subjectivity and over- some extent he had accomplished his propensities, which continued as opposi- writing. (Russell himself in later years plan. Possibly, he meant that his books tion to the atomic bomb and, in his old declared that he could no longer "think display a purposeful dichotomy. First is age, culminated in leadership in nuclear well of it," coming as it did before he gave the series he considered "primary," works disarmament. up "florid and rhetorical ambitions.") The in which the subject—whether geometry, One way by which Russell consciously voice is that of the modern Everyman who logic, or political analysis—is treated by developed what he called "the truth of deals with great and difficult subjects: the completely intellectual, rational means. vision," which he saw as opposed to the lone person's place in the universe, the Second—yet vital—is the group from his "truth of science," was by letter-writing. human being facing death, the noble qual- complementary effort to base works on His habit of full and thoughtful message- ity of tragic vision. Many readers have emotional perception, to admit feelings sending grew to include an astonishing found the essay a call to courage. and values. number of correspondents. The most This figure of the modern pilgrim The dichotomy results from separation important was Lady Ottoline Morrell, with appears again in the autobiographical of the intellect and the emotions, as in whom he fell fervently in love several novella Russell wrote a bit later, "The Enlightenment thinking, based on years after the bleak discovery that he no Perplexities of John Forstice," and left Russell's conviction that only such dis- longer loved his first wife, Alys. His corre- unpublished for many decades. Here the junction allows a writer to trust the work- spondence with Lady Ottoline enabled voice has become a persona, the lonely ings of the intellect. The presence of the him to explore aspects of his personality scientist Forstice, who saw others through second group testifies to Russell's grow- that he believed were not nourished by the a "mist of abstraction." After his wife's ing interest in "knowledge" other than the austere worlds of mathematics and logic. unexpected death, in an effort to add rational. Again, his attitude reflects an The affaire with her became a central knowledge of the heart to knowledge of eighteenth-century view: reason and pas- event in Russell's life and gave her influ- the head, he journeyed to "many coun- sion make the whole man. ence for a time over the direction of his tries, and spoke with men of many races." Thus the Russell of the early years of creative efforts. In a letter of February At length, he found himself in Italy (often the century emerges as a brilliant but dual- 1914, he credited her influence as liberat- a literary metaphor for the questing spirit), istic and conflicted self. Characteris- ing, saying she had freed "something very where he joined a group called the tically, he approached materials in terms important to me, an imagination, chiefly"; "Amanti del Pensiero." All the members, of rational "principles" or emotional "per- elsewhere, he stressed her role in discus- such as the poet, the novelist, and the plexities," while holding reason to be the sions with him of the materials that philosopher, are dramatic embodiments of governing factor. When as an "apostle of became his highly successful "shilling ideas; when Forstice engaged in conversa- rationality" he feared that he was becom- shocker," The Problems of Philosophy. tion with them, each spoke for an aspect ing a "logic machine," he strove to bal- Among the popular writings express- of the mind. Forstice, like Russell, needed ance his achievements in the realm of ing emotional perceptions, several have to explore all the ways of knowing: the rationality (as evidenced, for example, by achieved extraordinary success. Many logical, the philosophical, the artistic, and his innovations in symbolic logic) with a readers attest that they were attracted first the religious or mystical. In Forstice's corresponding creativity in what he saw as by one of the early "lyrical essays." "A story, the varying approaches to life are the subjective realm of human values. Free Man's Worship" is a frequent exam- mediated by reason and harmonized; in This complementary effort brought ple, as is the rich dualistic essay this way the one-sided, perplexed Forstice him out of the academic world and into "Mysticism and Logic." Others cite recovered himself. Thus the fiction inter- the public forum. A first step was to enter books, among them, The Conquest of connects with Russell's philosophical politics. While such an interest was a fam- Happiness, Marriage and Morals, thinking at the time. ily tradition—his grandfather, Lord John Education and the Social Order, Religion Russell, had been Prime Minister for and Science, and A History of Western ventually, Russell's thematic quest for Queen Victoria—Russell's bid for Philosophy. The list indicates that Russell Ecertainty covered a great range of Parliament in 1907 was especially pro- attracted readers by varying roles—dis- experience. He moved from undergraduate gressive in that he stood as the Women's senter, moral leader or moral iconoclast, days and the hope of finding certain Suffrage candidate. Undeterred by defeat, educator, and prophet. knowledge in mathematics to his seasoned he went on to even more dramatic politi- Each such role emphasizes the voice of conclusion in old age, as stated in Portraits cal activity, speaking and writing for paci- the lone observer, a voice Russell employs from Memory: "Cocksure certainty is the fism and against conscription during with skill. He tells us in the source of much that is worst in our present World War I. The result was a six-month Autobiography that he perceived "loneli- world."2 Between those statements lay the

40 FREE INQUIRY long, intense exploration of philosophy Prize is primarily meant to recognize. can still do for those who study it.."" that resulted in numerous books, his award What is important is that Russell has so Russell readers have as exemplar a of the Order of Merit in 1949, and the extensively addressed his books to a philosopher who, by treating uncertainty public of laymen, and, in doing so, has Nobel Prize for Literature in 1950. For the been so eminently successful in keeping as a challenge, made an odyssey of intel- Prize, Russell's particular citation was "in alive the interest in general philosophy.' lectual adventure and gave freedom of recognition of his varied and significant thought enormous value by his unwaver- writing in which he champions humanitar- To use Russell's own amusing word, the ing dedication to it. ian ideals and freedom of thought." In the Nobel Prize conveyed a kind of "respectability" and placed his writings Presentation Address, Anders Österling, Notes Permanent Secretary of the Swedish more securely in the tradition of British Academy, evaluated Russell's accomplish- letters. 1. Ronald Jager, The Development of Bertrand Reading the evaluation almost a half Russell's Philosophy (London: George Allen and ment in these words: Unwin, 1972), p. 25. The motivation appears in a century later, we are aware of steady number of writings; it is the thesis, for example, of Stefan Andersson's In Quest of Certainty: Bertrand With his superior intellect, Russell has progress in Russell scholarship and ongoing commentary on his life and array of Russell's Search for Certainty in Religion and throughout half a century, been at the Mathematics up to the Principles of Mathematics center of public debate, watchful and ideas. We are heartened to realize that (1903), published in Stockholm, Sweden, 1994. always ready for battle, as active as ever Russell, struggling with the divided self, 2. Portraits from Memory and Other Essays to this very day, having behind him a used his situation to conquer loneliness, (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1956), p. 197. lifetime of writing of most imposing 3. Anders Österling, "Presentation Address," scope. His works in the sciences con- despair, and the disappointment of the delivered at the Nobel Prize Presentation Ceremony, cerned with human knowledge and unrealized quest. He wrote: "To teach how Stockholm, 1950. mathematic logic are epoch-making.... to live without certainty, and yet without 4. History of Western Philosophy and Its Connection with Political and Social Circumstances Yet it is not these achievements in spe- being paralyzed by hesitation, is perhaps from the Earliest Times to the Present Day (New cial branches of science that the Nobel the chief thing that philosophy, in our age, York: Simon and Schuster, 1945), p. xiv.

Russell is my philosophical hero pre- Russell and the Contemplation cisely because he valiantly believed that philosophy was our best weapon against humbug, dogma, totalitarianism, fanati- of Philosophy cism, ignorance, and fear. He encouraged thinkers to hear "whispers from another world"3—whispers only heard through John Shosky rigorous philosophical activity. He asked his readers to approach the world with a erhaps the most insightful comment philosophical methodology that enabled Pabout philosophy was made by "Russell's philosophical method us to expose error and incomplete reason- Aristotle, who said that philosophy begins offers each of us a chance to ing, yet helped to progressively add to the with wonder—an intellectual curiosity escape from our lonely and storehouse of learning that was civiliza- about the nature of the world and trouble-plagued lives, to free our tion's legacy to the future. mankind's place. Skeptics argue that we intellect, to enlarge our vision, to For Russell, philosophy should never can never satisfy the questions generated become one with the universe, claim to be a catalogue of true proposi- by our curiosity, and that it is pointless to and to banish fear and hatred. tions. Philosophers don't "have the truth." try. Some view philosophy as a paradoxi- That is a message of hope Philosophers who dogmatically argue for cal activity, raising questions that defy that equals intellectual their metaphysical systems of thought answers, expanding the horizons of empowerment...." "trivialize" philosophy through a kind of thought only to watch them instantly intellectual "treachery."" Rather, the best retract. extremely valuable, even if the remaining way for philosophers to search for knowl- While he understood the power of the philosophical questions were unanswer- edge is through open-ended, testable, and skeptic's argument, and believed that one able. This value comes in leaving behind revisable proportions based on sense data should not accept a statement without suf- the daily troubles of our individual lives or through inference based on the reported ficient justification,' Russell also believed and looking beyond ourselves into the experiences of others (Russell's famous that the study of philosophy was vastness of time and the universe.' While reliance on "knowledge by acquaintance" Russell rejected theological explanations and "knowledge by description"). This is John Shosky is adjunct professor of phi- for life's purpose and the soul's immortal- not to say that we cannot be misled by losophy in the Department of Philosophy ity, he courageously asked each of us to experience; but like Descartes, Russell and Religion, at The American Uni- dare to think, to dream, to wonder, to care believed that it is possible to isolate start- versity, Washington, D.C., and vice-presi- about each other, to search for the truth, ing points that allow for a more secure dent of the Bertrand Russell Society. and to engage in the quest for knowledge. foundation for our beliefs.

Fall 1995 41 Of course, Russell used logic as a for- should not be constrained by fashion, tra- rejection of those European and American midable weapon against poor thinking. dition, or other forms of narrow-minded- thinkers who only offer skepticism, exis- Logic offered "an inventory of the possible, ness. He would urge students of philoso- tentialism, deconstructionalism, or other a repertory of abstractly tenable hypothe- phy to question everything, but also not to "isms" that cheapen human thought, expe- ses." For instance, the study of logical fear acting upon the best information rience, and concern for others. Russell's form allowed for philosophy to "deal with available. He probably would have philosophical method offers each of us a its problems piecemeal, and obtain, as the endorsed Freddie Ayer's view that philos- chance to escape from our lonely and trou- sciences do, such partial and probably not ophers should not take things at face ble-plagued lives, to free our intellect, to wholly correct results as subsequent inves- value—they should disturb complacency, enlarge our vision, to become one with the tigation can utilize even while it supple- becoming "intellectual trouble-makers."' universe, and to banish fear and hatred. ments and improves them?' Philosophical Finally, Russell would surely argue That is a message of hope that equals intel- problems could be placed under a logical that philosophy should be well-written in lectual empowerment, if we dare to take microscope and dissected until the source an attempt to achieve clarity. It should up the challenge of philosophical contem- of confusion is isolated and eliminated. avoid couching "intellectual rubbish" in plation, if we lean forward to hear "whis- Practiced in this way, philosophy becomes, language only accessible to technicians or pers from another world.."' according to Russell, "the science of the academics. For Russell, good writing and possible," allowing for an incremental clarity are a sign of good faith. Notes approach to knowledge. Just like the sci- When students come to me and ask 1.See "On the Value of Scepticism," Sceptical ences, philosophy will offer hypotheses "How do I do philosophy?," I often rec- Essays (London: Allen and Unwin, 1935) pp. 11-21. that may be false, but in falsifying a propo- ommend Russell to them. I agree with him 2. See "The Value of Philosophy," in The sition philosophy will inch slightly closer that philosophy is best accomplished Problems of Philosophy (London: Home University Library) 1912, pp. 153-161. to the truth. The use of a scientific through an analytical methodology. This is 3.Letter to Ottoline Morrell, March 19, 1914, in approach in philosophy will "ensure a a view that would be rejected by many The Selected Letters of Bertrand Russell Volume 1: progress in method whose importance it schools of philosophy, including the fol- The Private Years (1884-1914), edited by Nicholas Griffin (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1992) would be impossible to exaggerate."5 lowers of Derrida, Rorty, and others in our p. 498. As a result of his use of scientific time. But Russell's methodological 4.A History of Western Philosophy (New York: method and logical form in philosophy, approach is the latest installment of Simon and Schuster, 1945) p. 835. 5."Scientific Method in Philosophy," the 1914 Russell (along with G. E. Moore) became Descartes' empiricist side, which consti- Lecture at Oxford, in Mysticism and Logic (London: the founder of the philosophical analysis tutes a type of philosophy that has been Allen and Unwin, 1917) pp. 84-86. that has characterized Anglo-Austrian- instrumental in sweeping away the 6. The Theory of Knowledge manuscript, written in 1913 and unpublished until it appeared as The American philosophy in this century. absolute power of the monarchists, under- Collected Papers of Bertrand Russell Volume 7, Russell also offered an atomistic basis for cutting the powers of the churches, edited by Elizabeth Ramsden Eames, in collabora- knowledge—the use of logical atoms that humanizing law and society, extending tion with Kenneth Blackwell (London: Allen and Unwin, 1984), p. 21. are the building blocks for our knowledge education to all citizens, reinforcing the 7.A. J. Ayer, "On Making Philosophy Intelligi- of the external world. This "philosophy of dignity of man and democratizing Western ble," Metaphysics and Common Sense (San Fran- logical atomism" explains how experience political systems. The use of scientific cisco: Freeman, Cooper and Company, 1967) p. 18. 8. For further readings by Russell, see My and logic form our understanding of nature method, logic, and artful conjecture has Philosophical Development (London: Allen and and language—a view that Russell consis- been one of the great accomplishments of Unwin, 1959). For introductory readings on Russell, tently held at least from 1903 through Western thought. It requires responsible see A. J. Ayer's Bertrand Russell (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1972) and John G. 1918. As he explored these topics, Russell use and thoughtful application. But Slater's Bertrand Russsell (Bristol: Thoemmes made two famous contributions to philos- empiricism withstands the wholesale Books, 1994). ophy: the theory of descriptions, which revealed the underlying logical form of denoting phrases, and the theory of types, Subscribe to the SOS National Newsletter today! a discovery that language and logic each SOS is an alternative recovery method for those alcoholics or drug addicts who are uncomfortable operate within a hierarchy of classes. with the spiritual content of widely-available 12-step programs. It takes a reasonable, secular approach to recovery and maintains that sobriety is a separate issue from religion or spirituality. SOS Russell was adamant that the analytical credits the individual for achieving and maintaining his or her own sobriety, thus rebuilding self- method not be used to illegitimately or esteem. unnecessarily multiply entities, for artifi- In each quarterly 8-page issue of the SOS National Newsletter, you'll find articles by, for, and cial constructs in philosophy were histori- about recovering alcoholics and addicts; essays about sobriety from a secular perspective; new cally the source of much confusion and research into alcoholism and addiction; and much more. error. He urged the employment of Subscription rates are noted below, and extra donations are always gratefully welcome: "Occam's Razor," the view that entities O lyear: $15 ❑ 2 years: $29.00 D 3 years: $43.00 ❑ Donation $ are not to be multiplied without necessity, MasterCard _ VISA _ Check enclosed which he described as "the supreme meth- # Exp. Sig. odological maxim in philosophizing."6 Send along with name and address to: SOS, Box 5, Buffalo, NY 14215-0005 Russell also believed that philosophers

42 FREE INQUIRY fering. Benevolence, Russell tells us, is in a sense more fundamental than knowledge, Russell and the Happy Life "since it will lead intelligent people to seek knowledge. In order to find out how to benefit those whom they love.' And benevolent people, when reasonably informed, Marvin Kohl produce more happiness than people motivated by other attitudes. ertrand Russell's writings about hap- If we are to significantly improve our Bpiness touch upon almost every lot, we must learn to expand the range of aspect of social and political philosophy. these feelings. We must learn to embrace Here I shall be content to outline the more more of humanity with feelings of empathy important features of his theory. and compassion. Thus Russell writes that 1. The ability to successfully complete the first step in wisdom, as well as in a journey generally requires knowing morality, is to open the windows as wide where one is going. The same is true of as possible. Most people find little diffi- happiness. Russell believes "that in the culty in including their children within advanced industrialized nations a better the compass of their desires. In slightly ideal of private happiness is probably the lesser degree they include their friends, and in time of danger their country... But thing that is most wanted. More important it is not enough to enlarge our sympathies even than political and economic recon- to our own country. If the world is ever to struction is the realization of the things have peace [and happiness] it will be nec- that really make for human happiness."' essary to learn to embrace the whole 2. He rejects mentalist views that when they understand that to be without human race in the same kind of sympathy which we now feel toward our compatri- maintain that happiness solely or most some of the things they want is an indis- ots.... [This] is possible for every one of fundamentally consists in having the right pensable part of happiness,' when they us. Every one of us can enlarge his mind, frame of mind. Psychological factors are discover what they most want out of life," release his imagination, and spread his important but they do not come first. "I and when, by aiming low, they achieve affection and benevolence. And it is those put first," writes Russell, "purely physical reasonable success.' who do this whom ultimately mankind reveres. The East reveres Buddha, the conditions—food and shelter and health. 5. Fear is a great obstacle to the good West reveres Christ. Both taught love as Only when these have been secured is it life. "All fear is bad, and ought to be over- the secret of wisdom.1O worth while to consider psychological come not by fairy tales, but by courage requisites.."' and rational reflection.."" For fear begets Notes 3. Some philosophers have argued that not only stupidity but malevolence. there is such a thing as perfect happiness 1.Bertrand Russell, How to Be Free and Happy If I were to be executed and were (New York: The Rand School of Social Science. that it consists in the satisfaction of all allowed twenty minutes in which to 1924), p. 38. desires, and that it is attainable only in the make a farewell address, what should I 2. Bertrand Russell, "What Is Happiness?," What world to come. Russell rejects these say? It would be brief and simple, and I Is Happiness? edited by Martin Armstrong et al. (New York: H. C. Kinsey, 1939), p. 59. claims. As an agnostic, he does not believe think I should concentrate upon one issue, namely, the importance of elimi- 3. Bertrand Russell, The Conquest of Happiness (New York: Garden City, 1930), p. 29. in the existence of divine providence, nating fear. I do not imagine that heaven, or God. As a meliorist, he believes 4. Ibid., p. 17. mankind can be made perfect; whatever 5. For a fuller discussion of these aspects of that it is often possible to improve one's may be done some defects will survive, Russell's theory, see: Marvin Kohl, "Bertrand life and make it considerably better. The but a great many of the defects which Russell and the Attainability of Happiness," Inter- goal is to have a happier life, and not to adults suffer are due to preventable mis- national Studies in Philosophy 16:3 (1984), pp. takes in their education, and the most 109-111 and "Russell's Happiness Paradox." Russell strive in vain for a kind of perfectionism. important of these mistakes is the incul- 7:1 (1987), PP. 86-88. 4. Happiness depends on a combina- cation of fear.' 6. Bertrand Russell, What I Believe (New York: tion of external and internal causes. It Dutton, 1925), p. 13. 7. Bertrand Russell, "On the Evils Due to Fear," depends upon having and appreciating 6. Benevolence" is the feeling that we in Bertrand Russell et al., If I Could Preach Just reasonable success at satisfying basic care for the good of others and are disposed Once (New York and London: Harper, 1929), p. 219. needs and important desires. Expressed 8. For an analysis of the nature and implications to act in order to protect and enhance their of this concept, see: Marvin Kohl, "Bertrand differently: wise people come to enjoy life welfare. Benevolence is a disposition to Russell's Characterization of Benevolent Love," help others and helping others is what a Russell 12:2 (1992-93), pp. 116-134. 9. What I Believe, op. cit., 21. Marvin Kohl is Fulbright Scholar at the benevolent person would have to do if he or 10.Bertrand Russell, "If We Are to Survive This Centre for Applied Ethics at Hong Kong she had the needed knowledge, power, and Dark Time—" The Basic Writings of Bertrand Baptist University and Professor of Phi- good fortune. At the very least it requires Russell, ed. by Robert E. Egner and Lester E. Dennon, (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1961), pp. losophy at the State University of New that we rejoice if others flourish and 684, 686-687. Reprinted from The New York York College at Fredonia. become distressed if we witness their suf- Magazine, September 3, 1950.

Fall 1995 43 wanting to cut a great figure in the world, but the British had no need of it. When Russell at Century's End Russell said that patriotism was one of his very strongest emotions, he meant it. In late 1956, then, Russell's insistence that we had let ourselves down by lying, Alan Ryan conspiring, and behaving in an underhand fashion at Suez struck a deep chord; when t is with something of a shock that I What Russell traded on, and what I sus- CND was launched at much the same Irealize that it is indeed forty years since pect few North American readers of time, it was on a wave of pride. We might I first scandalized the chaplain of my Russell can readily appreciate—at this somehow set the kind of moral example English public school by invoking point it seems pretty remote to me—was that would lead other nations to behave Russell's arguments against the existence the British sense that we ought to take a better. There was rather little anti- of God during divinity lessons. It was a moral lead. The earlier and later stages of Americanism in CND at that point, and year later, in the autumn of 1956, that I the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament some strikingly reformist attitudes were fell for Russell's politics as distinct from (CND) were very different in this respect. barely inches below the surface. Many the more generalized radicalism of his In the later stages, the prevailing sentiment members felt that it was quite proper to views on sex, religion, and morality. Like was the desire not to be an unsinkable air- shelter under the U.S. nuclear umbrella many other sixteen-year-olds, I woke up craft carrier for the United States Air while unilaterally disarming; non-prolifer- to the existence of politics when the Force. If the U.S.S.R. and the U.S.A. ation was the name of the game, and mas- Anglo-French conspiracy to take back the chose to incinerate one another, that was sive deterrence could be combined with a Suez Canal and topple Colonel Nasser their business; non-consenting third par- policy of sterilizing everywhere outside coincided with the Hungarian uprising ties ought to be left out of it. The neutral- the superpowers' homelands. This was one and the subsequent Russian invasion. If ist view that wanted to save Western reason why everyone was so outraged at you were British, it was a double shame Europe and Britain was not exactly care- the time of the Bay of Pigs crisis in Cuba; that your government was engaged in less of the fate of Russians and Americans; the Soviets were behaving like lunatics in wicked imperialist adventures just when it selfishly, everyone realized that the mutual putting nuclear weapons on the wrong side needed all the moral authority it could incineration of the superpowers was likely of the U.S. radar systems, and the United muster to curb Soviet brutality. to devastate the whole of the northern States was about as bad in parking Thor Then, we were forced to recognize the hemisphere, and less selfishly, everyone missiles in Turkey. Russell's splendid let- wider truth that the Western powers could acknowledged that ordinary Americans ters to Dulles and Khrushchev caught the not have intervened in Hungary without and Russians were the victims of high tone of much British sentiment; we felt, as provoking disaster. I don't feel even now international politics and assorted military small nations do, that superpower conflict that this was a mistaken sentiment; even follies. Nor were neutralists neutral was foolish, but felt as great nations do, though now we know that all the way between the Soviet Union and the U.S.A.; that our opinion counted. through the fifties and sixties the United on the whole we thought that Russia was a What made Russell so attractive was States possessed an enormous superiority much nastier society than the United that he combined in a less than absolutely in nuclear weapons and the means of States but also less likely to blow the coherent fashion several of the things we delivering them and might have been able world apart, and that, too, seems in retro- all wanted to say for ourselves. His 1950s to blackmail the Soviets more aggres- spect to have been right. The more we tract on Common Sense and Nuclear sively than we thought at that time. The know about Admiral Rickover and Warfare and the like were wonderful risk of a failed bluff was too horrible to General Le May, the more surprising our expressions of the despair that any young contemplate even in retrospect. I think we survival seems. Keeping out of the way person might feel at the thought that his dimly knew of Solly Zuckerman's calcu- seemed sensible then, and no less so now. or her elders were busily pursuing poli- lation that in mainland Europe villages In the earlier stages, however, Russell cies likely to turn the world into an ash- were a kiloton apart and major cities a fed what I fear was a British delusion— heap. Yet, his rationalism and his empiri- megaton apart, so that nuclear war was in that we were nicer, more moral, more sen- cism both prevented him from simply any human sense unfightable. sible, less aggressive, more cooperative, writing eloquent lamentations. So did his Why did these elements coalesce? and much else than other peoples, so the desire to make a difference to the future. British ought to take a lead in, for instance, Critics occasionally asked him why he Alan Ryan is professor of politics at signing up for the Rapacki Plan to denu- minded so much about preventing the Princeton University. He is the author of clearize Western Europe. Russell had long world from blowing itself sky-high, and Bertrand Russell: A Life, as well as a fre- before argued, in his assault on the British he rarely went much further than saying quent contributor to periodicals. His most policy in World War I, that the British that people who had no goals beyond recent book is John Dewey and the High ought to have behaved better than anyone those that would be fulfilled in their own Tide of American Liberalism (New York: else, as a matter of pride. Arriviste nations lifetime were dead already. However W. W. Norton, 1995). like Germany might have some excuse for inadequate that may have been philo-

44 FREE INQUIRY sophically, it caught the temper well ist left, and not a figure in British political the utopianism that kept on cropping up enough. But that meant that he was life. The last seven or eight years of his in Russell's reflections on nuclear extinc- always busily rethinking just how a pol- life were not kind to his reputation in tion, which increasingly offered us a icy might be crafted that would keep the Britain. He was generally thought to have choice between the ash heap and heaven peace, avoid tyranny, and leave space for become the captive of his secretary Ralph on earth; it is melioristic, happy to use the kind of liberal democratic reformism Schoenman, and even those who thought governmental machinery where it can that he really adhered to. that it was not unreasonable for him to increase freedom rather than limiting it, In that light, he could sometimes think lend his name to causes whose intellectual utopian in its aspirations for private hap- it a good idea that Britain stayed in follies he would formerly have deplored piness, but not for the public world. NATO, at other times think that leaving winced at the spectacle. It was a view of the world that was out NATO would give Britain more leverage What does the situation look like of fashion for twenty years or so—Mrs. as something like a leader of the non- twenty-five years on? Oddly, what sur- Thatcher's neo-liberal capitalist romanti- aligned group of nations. The steady drift vives best is lib-lab Russell, the Russell cism was just the sort of thing Russell toward an extreme anti-Americanism and whom Asquith would have made a peer if would have mocked, but the various an obsessive concern with imperialism in he had needed the extra votes during the lurches to the left by Trotskyite elements all its guises came later, as did a more House of Lords crisis of 1911. It is a in the Labour Party would have seemed as simple contrast between the virtuous put- rather `British" political style—not built absurd. Russell's radicalism was uninhib- upon ordinary person and his corrupt, around attack ads and character assassi- ited in all intellectual matters, but it was malign, sadistic rulers than the earlier nation, but around a capacity for a wry, also pretty commonsensical in the politi- Russell would have permitted himself. At skeptical, amused demolition of supersti- cal arena. I am sure he would not have that point, Russell became a figure in the tion, narrow-mindedness, and a blinkered found Tony Blair especially inspiring, but American and international anti-imperial- inability to break out of old habits. It isn't I'm sure he would have voted for him. •

admit it, in some respects it is changing more slowly than it used to. And one Onto the Past! shouldn't jump to the conclusion that Russell would find the world more unfa- What the 1990s Mean to Bertrand Russell miliar in 1995 than he did in 1969. To do so would be to ignore the direction of change; to assume, in fact, that all change is "progress" of some form or another— Nicholas Griffin the sort of assumption a postmodernist would blush all over to be caught making. n extreme old age Bertrand Russell was anxieties and the postmodernists now All this is only to make abstractly a point Iapt to describe himself as a relic, the sneer at the modernists' enthusiasm, nei- worth elaborating in concrete detail: that last survivor of the Victorian age. He often ther modernists nor postmodernists seems Russell, on his return for his 123rd birth- told friends he found it hard to adjust after to have questioned or even thought very day, would have found the world in many the Second World War. If we imagine him much about the claim itself. That the respects unnervingly familiar. now miraculously restored to life twenty- world is changing very, very rapidly is It is not that the world has remained five years after his death, it seems only maintained on all sides. Surely, then, unchanged since Russell's death—it has natural to suppose that he would feel even changed a great deal. In doing so, how- more out of place in the world of the "Awakening for his 123rd birthday, ever, it has in many ways become more 1990s than he did in the world of the Russell might well experience like the world at the time of this birth. In 1950s and 1960s. an eerie sense of déjà vu." Britain in the 1990s, for example, the gap The naturalness of this assumption is between the highest paid and the lowest worth a moment's reflection. It depends paid returned to what it had been in the upon the acceptance of one of the great Russell would find the world even more 1880s; around the world the great nine- Victorian shibboleths: that the world is unfamiliar on his 123rd birthday, which teenth-century diseases of poverty (like changing very rapidly and that the rate of he would be celebrating as I write, than he cholera and tuberculosis) have returned; change is increasing. The Victorians found it on his 97th birthday in 1969. in most industrialized countries social accepted this view with mingled anxiety That the world is changing rapidly is conditions slowly decay to the standards and enthusiasm. Though the modernists rather a stupid assumption to make. The that were notorious by the 1870s. Even subsequently sneered at the Victorians' claim is far too general and vague to know the orphanage, the villain of so much whether it is true or not. In some respects Victorian fiction, is set for a return in the Nicholas Griffin is professor of philoso- the world is changing rapidly, in others it United States. While Russell was growing phy at McMaster University and editor of changes hardly at all, and, though it goes up, the orphanage was an important insti- Selected Letters of Bertrand Russell. against the grain of the last 200 years to tution in the social management of the

Fall 1995 45 poor in Britain and one of the most promi- more because of unrestricted child labor, contemporary significance. The loathe- nent products of Victorian charity. It is, of unregulated housing and minimal social some Mr. Bitzer in Hard Times talks as if course, essential for the operation of char- welfare provisions, they kept their spirits he has been reading the speeches of ity that demand for it exceed supply. up with a mawkish religiosity and much Margaret Thatcher's heyday. (Perhaps Equally, it is the genius of the market sys- talk about the innocence of childhood and Thatcher had to read the book in school tem that it finds ways of profiting from the the sanctity of the home. On all counts, and mistook Bitzer for the hero.) Or con- difference. In London, when Russell was today's society is equal to those high stan- sider Martin Chuzzlewit, recently drama- a child, mothers would pay to have dards. We have, on the one side, a barrage tized on PBS, about a family made ridicu- unwanted babies taken off their hands, of self-serving propaganda about competi- lous (not to mention repellent) by greed. ostensibly for adoption. Buyers typically tion from new-right think-tanks; and, on In Russell's youth they might have found it more efficient to dump the babies the other, sentimental drivel of the "family seemed antiquated absurdities, but now in the Thames—corpses were washed up values" movement and religious funda- one reads about families just like the by the score through 1880s. No doubt mentalism. The language, of course, is a Chuzzlewits every week in People maga- entrepreneurs in the United States are little different, but otherwise there is little zine. And while Dickens's fictional family already staking out their market niche in that would strike Russell as new. was eventually redeemed when its patri- the light of proposed government policy. A minor indicator of all this is chang- arch had a change of heart, the families in Human nature being what it is, it is dif- ing attitudes to Dickens. To the young People magazine are redeemed (much less ficult to let the market dispose of people of Russell's generation, Dickens credibly) by gurus, therapists, and reli- unwanted babies without ideological justi- was an old-fashioned author. (Russell was gious conversion. fications at several different levels. To in his thirties before he came to appreciate Awakening for his 123rd birthday, begin with, of course, we have to pretend Dickens.) Oscar Wilde had laughed Russell might well experience an eerie that the market itself is as inevitable as the through the death of Little Nell, and by sense of déjà vu. He might wonder law of gravitation. Much more amusingly, the end of the nineteenth century it was whether he had dreamed all the social the affecting nobility and superior virtue hard to take seriously Dickens's idea that thought of the preceding century. The one of those who benefit from the market has everything could be put right by an indi- important difference he would notice is to be affirmed in a veritable torrent of sen- vidual change of heart. Scrooge's redemp- that, while the social thinkers of his youth timental piety. Quite naturally, while the tion was unbelievable as personal psy- were concerned to repair the mistakes of Victorians were drowning unwanted chology, let alone as social reform. Today the past, contemporary social thinkers babies in the Thames and brutalizing many Dickens has re-emerged as an author of seem mainly concerned to repeat them. • Center for Inquiry—West Opens in Los Angeles With its headquarters in New York completed, the Council for Democratic and Secular Humanism (CODESH) has shifted it focus back to the world at large. On July 7, 1995, an office was opened in Los Angeles, dubbed the Center for Inquiry—West. This Southern California Fritz Stevens, Executive center will provide both CODESH and the Committee for the Director of the Center for Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CSI- Inquiry—West. COP) with a presence in the Western U.S.A. and a better loca- tion for interacting with the entertainment industry and the news media. The new offices will also house the national Secular Organizations for Sobriety (SOS), an alternative to Alcoholics Anonymous run by James Christopher. They will also provide space for the Secular Humanists of Los Angeles (SHOLA). The dedication of the Los Angeles Center was attended by Paul Kurtz, Tom Flynn, Barry Karr, and Joe Nickell from New York; Fritz Stevens and Edythe McGovern of SHOLA; James Christopher of SOS; Gerald Larue; Steve Jim Christopher, Allen; and many others. The Center for Inquiry—West consist Executive Director of only a few rooms in a self-help resource center in Marina of SOS. Del Rey, but, with its full-time staff, it promises to be a great boon to the cause of reason on the West Coast.

—David Noelle

46 FREE INQUIRY Humanism and Medical Ethics

tion of relevant rules of morality. Joseph Fletcher's Situation What Fletcher accomplished was the complete reorientation of ethics away Ethics, Once Again from the concepts of right and wrong, substituting for these the single consider- Richard Taylor ation of what is most likely (even if seldom certain) to advance human well- everal years before he died, Joseph being. This he never defines, correctly so. SFletcher gave me a short autobiogra- It cannot be defined, nor can any rule of phy in typescript, called Memoir of an Ex- morality—even the utilitarian rule of pro- Radical. I read it with fascination, and I moting human well-being—be derived thought what a pity that it would probably from it. be read only by Dr. Fletcher's circle of Fletcher himself, for a long time, and friends. Now I find it published at last, even in his book Situation Ethics had not together with three essays on Fletcher's shaken loose the traditional approach, thought.* One is by Kenneth Vaux, editor advocating as an ethical rule or principle of the book and the other two by Albert R. that one should act always from Christian Jensen and Mary Faith Marshall. There is love. It is thus partly his fault that his also a valuable bibliography of Fletcher's thought is so easily misinterpreted. He writings from 1930 to 1988. The Memoir sometimes let his vast erudition encumber itself takes up about half the book. and obscure what was novel, simple, and The pity now is that Fletcher is no indeed revolutionary in his thinking. It longer here to see this in print, for he was was in his conversation and lectures that Joseph Fletcher (1905-1991) as vain as he was good and warm-hearted. one discovered what he was getting at, He took deep satisfaction in his ideas and and there it appeared in wonderful clarity the beauty of his prose and justifiably so. "What Fletcher accomplished and simplicity. He was among the clearest of thinkers and was the complete reorientation of Therefore it is no fault of situation the best of writers. ethics away from the concepts of ethics that it sometimes—indeed, of It is a disappointment that the three right and wrong, substituting for necessity always—fails as a guide to what accompanying essays do not capture the these the single consideration of is morally right. Nothing can do that. The basic point and importance of situation what is most likely ... to concept is itself inapplicable to any situa- ethics, although Memoir itself does, albeit advance human well-being." tion that is in any way unique. indirectly. The essayists use too much Probably the best way to see this is by fancy terminology and treat Fletcher's problems but a philosophy that replaces considering situations that arise in medi- thought as one among the many ideolo- and thus renders irrelevant all the tradi- cine against the backdrop of the extraordi- gies that modern Protestant thinking has tional approaches to ethics, both philo- nary technological advances in that area. It spawned, reading into it much more than sophical and religious. is here that we see, easily, how all the rules is there. They thus fail to see that situation The traditional approach to ethics, so break down. And it was, significantly, ethics is not just one among many ingrained that we sometimes seem inca- from this area that situation ethics first approaches to the resolution of ethical pable of shaking ourselves loose from it, emerged in Fletcher's thinking. Finding an has been to try to distinguish moral right approach to ethics that gave promise of *Memoir of an Ex-Radical: Reminiscence and from wrong through the application of resolving these situations and rendering Reappraisal, by Joseph Fletcher. Edited by rules or moral principles. This has always them manageable, Fletcher brought into Kenneth Vaux (Westminister: John Knox been the way of Christian ethics, of what- being a way of dealing with all situations. Press, 1993) viii + 104 pp. ever variety, and it is no less the way of His approach is as liberating as it is revo- philosophy. Whether some contemplated lutionary, but the liberation comes at great Richard Taylor is professor emeritus of course of action could be morally right is psychological cost. It requires one to rid philosophy at the University of Rochester everywhere assumed to be the ethical oneself, once and for all, of the traditional and a member of the Academy of issue with respect to that action. And the notions of moral right and wrong, some- Humanism. only way to know this is by the applica- thing most people, even philosophers, find

Fall 1995 47 almost impossible to do. ple believe that in certain very common situation, to promote human well-being. Consider some of the problems that circumstances the termination of a preg- And the course of action suggested by technology has given birth to in medicine. nancy is all right, and indeed the courts such an approach will differ from one sit- What happens to our concept of parent- have consistently declared it a constitu- uation to another, as the factors bearing on hood, for example, and the notions of tional right. human well-being change. obligation that seem inseparable from it, Is this not, on the face of it, strange? This approach is widely viewed with when we read of a woman who gave birth And what does it show? deep suspicion. It is thought to provide an to triplets resulting from in vitro fertiliza- Quite simply, it shows that most good, excuse for ethical compromise, a means tion, the ova for these having been pro- decent, and law-abiding people are situa- of defending actions that moral principle vided by her own daughter? Or what shall tionists, notwithstanding whatever they does not permit. Yet, it should be fairly we say of the woman who offered to might declare to the contrary! obvious to anyone who thinks about it donate the organs of the living unborn that the most time-honored rules of child she was carrying, this child having he traditional approach to ethical morality, such as those forbidding homi- been discovered to be a victim of spina Tproblems through the application of cide, theft, adultery, the inflicting of bifida and thus to have no promise of a moral rules is the product of the Judeo- injury upon one person for the benefit of worthwhile future of its own? News Christian tradition, which originally another, and so on, were all invented to media seize upon situations like these for represented moral obligation, as obedi- promote peace and safety or in other their inherent interest, while clergymen, ence to God's will, as expressed, for words for the advancement of human philosophers, and physicians all render example in biblical texts. Such an well-being—the very thing the situation- their varying verdicts on their moral approach to ethics was accordingly quite ist makes central to his method. These implications. These verdicts are delivered foreign to the ancient Greeks. Plato and rules were then ascribed to a divine with an authoritarian tone of finality but source in order to vest them with author- usually do more harm than good, pre- ity, that is, to provide an incentive to obey cisely because they are arrived at in the "Most good, decent, and law- them. But, if this is so, then human well- traditional way, that is, by the application abiding people are situationists, being is the ultimate basis of morality of pre-existing and thus time-honored notwithstanding whatever they after all, and reason would require that, moral principles. might declare to the contrary!" instead of compromising human benefit We tend to assume that the ethical in order to preserve fidelity to moral prin- problems unique to medicine are the others did, to be sure, speak of principles ciple, it is the rules themselves that result of technical advances—techniques of justice, but these were thought of as should be modified or, indeed, abandoned for fertilizing ova in a dish, for detecting ideals, not as rules for the determination altogether when they militate against our serious fetal effects, for sustaining life in of moral right and wrong. Indeed the ideas well-being. Such an approach does not, to the terminally ill and so on. And of course of moral right and wrong, as we think of be sure, enable one to determine, in a these do create difficult ethical problems. them, were quite unknown to the philoso- given situation, what the "morally right" But the other source of such problems, phers of Antiquity. One finds no hint of course of action might be, but that is no never noticed because rarely questioned, them in Aristotle's ethical writings, for loss. What is gained is vastly more worth- is the custom of trying to resolve an ethi- example. Instead, the Greeks thought of while, namely an appreciation of human cal issue by the application of moral rules ethics as concerned with virtue, and the needs and how best to fulfill them. and principles. If some time-honored virtues were always thought of as quali- To understand the very great difference principle forbids it, then it must be wrong ties of people, not of actions. between these two approaches to ethics, and that is the end of the matter. This, for Today philosophical moralists think of consider the following situations that are example, is the basis for the opposition to moral obligation as adherence to moral fairly typical of those that arise in medicine. the abortion of a fetus. That act, it is cor- rules or principle, even though virtually 1. A comatose patient develops a rectly noted, is the willful taking of an all of them have abandoned the quaint severely swollen testicle. May surgery be innocent human life. Therefore, it is mur- notion that these rules were at some time undertaken in the hope of relieving that der—an inference that certainly follows. past delivered to man by God. They do not condition? And murder, no one doubts, violates a ask themselves whether that is the correct 2. An infant is born so severely brain- moral principle that is as old as civiliza- approach to a problem. They simply pre- damaged as to have a life expectancy of tion. Abortion is, accordingly, wrong, suppose that it is. And when they have hit perhaps two years filled with suffering. whatever the circumstances, and no con- upon a rule that they can agree on, then May healthy vital organs be removed in siderations of convenience or cost can they consider their inquiry completed, order to save another infant who might make it otherwise. often with little regard to the implications thereby enjoy a long and fulfilling life? It is quite impossible to reject this rea- their "solution" might have for human 3. A patient's Parkinson disease can be soning. It is, given certain beliefs and pre- well-being. arrested by the transplant of very young sumptions that are almost universally The one exception to this approach is living brain tissue. May such tissue be held, irrefutable. Yet, in fact most per- the situationist. This moralist asks what taken from an aborted fetus? fectly good, decent, and law-abiding peo- course of action is most likely, in a given To answer "Yes" to any of these ques-

48 FREE INQUIRY tions is to violate some well-established of morality that arose from more com- moral principle. Thus, the first asks "lt can be seen that, until this monplace situations. whether a patient's right to informed con- humanistic approach is Consider the woman who, acting as sent to surgery should be honored, the substituted for the moralistic one surrogate for her own daughter, gave birth second whether it is all right to kill one that we have inherited from a to triplets generated from her daughter's person in order to improve the life of religious tradition, the problems ova and fertilized in vitro by the daugh- another, and the third whether bodily parts of medical ethics are apt to ter's husband's sperm. Whose name of someone deliberately destroyed might become worse." should be entered by the obstetrical hospi- be used for someone else's benefit and tal as the mother of these children? Was perhaps even be sold for that purpose. this woman, as the newspapers had it, It is not hard to see that negative answers with rejoicing—at which point, of course, somehow the mother of her own grand- to all these questions are yielded by the the moralists stepped in with their time- children? And what shall we say of a application of familiar moral principles, honored moral principles, the effect of woman who, exercising her constitutional and even someone who, like myself, has which was to destroy the rejoicing of this right to an abortion, offers the organs of liberated himself from the tyranny of such couple and, of course, restore hopelessness her as yet unaborted fetus for medical principles finds questions like these dis- to whatever child might have benefited. experimentation? Should she be entitled comforting. The defective fetus then turned out to be to reimbursement for this? If, however, one views such situations stillborn, however—and the problem was The impulsive, almost automatic re- as these, not in terms of what is "right" or thereby "solved," presumably in a manner sponse to such questions is to try to think "wrong," but rather, in terms of human satisfactory to all, since no such difficult of what would be "right" or "wrong," to well-being, then every one of these ques- decision then had to be made! But such an draw analogies to familiar situations in tions receives an affirmative answer. outcome can hardly be viewed as satisfac- which the answer has already long been Thus, no surgeon will concern himself tory with respect to the other child, forever established, imagining that the problems about informed consent if he can instead unknown, whose hope for a fulfilling life are thus "resolved." But of course they are address himself confidentially to the was perhaps demolished. more often than not just made worse by needs of that comatose patient, nor need Finally, in terms of our third example: that approach. Thus, with respect to the he worry that an established principle of it has quite recently been discovered that last illustration just offered, someone is medical practice is thus violated. the victims of Parkinson's disease, a mal- sure to ask why an affirmative answer Or consider our far more difficult sec- ady hitherto thought irreversible, might would not justify, by analogy, hiring ond example, involving the killing of one improve through the transplant of young women to become pregnant so that we human being for the benefit of another. brain tissue. And such tissue exists in might buy up their aborted fetuses, or This surely flies in the face of a moral abundance in the thousands of fetuses going a step farther, buy up their full-term principle, and the moralist is thus apt to quite routinely and legally aborted. Yet infants just in order to dismantle them for feel the negative answer to the question such use of fetal tissue has aroused a their parts. But that approach is the road forced upon him. No one, he is likely to storm of protest simply on moral not to moral enlightenment, but to dark- say, no matter how pitiful his condition grounds. No one, I think, could be so ness. We shall not shed light on such prob- may be, may be sacrificed just to enhance intellectually obtuse as to suggest that lems until we abandon the moralistic another's life, however promising. And of human well-being would be advanced by approach, which is at bottom, the ap- course in general that is true, just out of the sheer discarding of such precious tis- proach of religion, in favor of the human- considerations of human well-being alone. sue in case it should turn out that a dread- istic one, which asks simply what course But when an infant's condition is hopeless, ful disease could be alleviated by putting of action is most likely to promote total and its expected brief life promises to be it to use. But to the traditional moralists human well-being. filled with suffering that will carry over to what counts is what is morally permissi- One final comment: it is widely be- the parents and others, and when, more- ble as determined by principle rather lieved that the approach of situation ethics over, the life of another might be made than what might be beneficial to this per- is simplistic, or, worse, that it provides long and fulfilling by the procedure here son or that. convenient and easy answers. The very contemplated, then we are dealing with a opposite is true. Situation ethics is fright- situation unlike anything for which the ust from what little has been said it can fully difficult because it requires one to rule of morality was intended. Jbe seen that, until this humanistic ap- actually think, instead of rendering moral Precisely this situation did arise proach is substituted for the moralistic judgments resting on time-honored princi- recently when a couple in California one that we have inherited from a reli- ples, something that even unthinking and learned that the child they were expecting gious tradition, the problems of medical unreflective people find fairly easy to do. was thus afflicted. They were advised that ethics are apt to become worse. This fol- It is accordingly, the moralistic approach some other child could he made whole and lows from the fact that medical technol- which rests upon little more than the given the promise of a fulfilling life ogy is today constantly creating unprece- mindless application of rules, that is through such a sacrifice on their part. This dented situations to which it is not merely easy—and, in the long run, dreadfully news to some extent replaced their despair idle, but pernicious to try applying rules destructive.

Fall 1995 49 ought to be factored into the moral formula. Tampering with nature's norm God and the Patent Office could even undermine genetic diversity with disastrous consequences for the environment. Clearly, there is no dearth of reasons to reconsider gene patentability with- Richard J. Goss out resorting to the supernatural. Nor can ethical issues of medical We the undersigned religious leaders, importance be ignored. Our friends in the oppose the patenting of human and ani- religious sector admit that "gene splicing mal life forms. We are disturbed by the United States Patent Office's recent techniques ... offer exciting possibilities decision to patent human body parts for the curing of disease," but are dis- and several genetically engineered ani- turbed that "indiscriminate use of these mals. We believe that humans and ani- techniques represents a very real threat to mals are creations of God, and as such the dignity and integrity of human life." should not be patented as human inventions. Excuse me, but aren't these advocates of moral absolutism asking for a double o read a press release issued on May standard? I'll bet if someone discovered a 18, 1995, at the National Press Club in gene for religiosity, they would be in Washington, D.C. Representatives of all favor of splicing it into every single major religious denominations have now human ovum. officially staked their claim to the human We are in the middle of a scientific rev- genome, the sum total of all genes that olution of major proportions, a revolution define what we are. Not satisfied with that offers the promise of healing the sick possession of our souls alone, these self- and correcting horrible congenital defects. appointed caretakers of humankind now Yet these self-righteous preachers lecture want to own our heredity as well. us about human dignity! Since when is it Why? Because scientists have had the dignified for "intelligent" people to audacity to try to patent human genes, cul- believe in supernatural deities? Who says tured cell lines, and the genetically engi- superstition promotes integrity? The "Representatives of all major neered animals they have created. The church has a long and shameful tradition religious denominations have now clergy perceive this to be an intrusion on of leading the fight against scientific officially staked their claim to the their territory. advances, from lightning rods to anesthe- human genome, the sum By what authority do these "titular sia. Isn't it time we abandoned these anti- total of all genes that define leaders of more than 80 religious faiths" scientific medieval attitudes? what we are." claim ownership of our genetic birthright? Patent law is confusing enough without Because we are creations of God, it is muddying the waters with ecclesiastic immaterial souls, and such other spiritual said, and no mere human can hold a patent pollution. Patentability is generally on what God hath created. baggage as they purvey from their pulpits. agreed to depend on three conditions: Isn't it interesting how these clergy- Let them continue to make their livings by novelty, nonobviousness, and usefulness. conning their gullible congregations with persons justify their actions. They say in Natural products have traditionally been effect that God already holds a patent on false promises of life eternal, at least for ruled out except insofar as their purifica- disembodied spirits. But when they lay tion or unpredictable reactions may have the people and animals he invented. That Great Patent Office in the Sky apparently claim to our material bodies, too, then qualified them for patents (e.g., vitamins, they trespass at their peril. takes precedence over the U.S. Patent hormones, pharmaceuticals). Isolated Office! And these theologians presumably One wonders why these so-called DNA sequences have been patented, as in guardians of moral values support their hold the patent on God himself, the deity the case of the one encoding for erythro- argument solely on the basis of biblical they and their predecessors invented in the poietin, a hormone that stimulates red genesis, itself a dubious concept at best. first place. blood cell production. Microorganisms What about the ethics of animal rights? may be patented following their modifica- Well, it is about time their proprietary Scientifically produced transgenic ani- tion from nature's original. Certain plant rights were called into question. Perhaps it mals might conceivably experience suf- strains have also been protected by will force them to reexamine their rationale. Let them retain possession of our fering as a result of certain combinations patents, but few animals. Exceptions to of heritable traits. What if biological mon- the latter have included polyploid oysters Richard J. Goss is in the Division of strosities were created (e.g., part human, and the so-called oncomouse, a transgenic Biology and Medicine at Brown part chimpanzee)? Potentially adverse variety genetically engineered to carry the University. economic effects on small farmers also oncogene so indispensable to modern can-

50 FREE INQUIRY cer research. Clearly, there are well- enterprise without a clear understanding of DNA sequences, especially those with established criteria for determining what who has the right to sell what to whom. medical applications. Discovery of such qualifies for a patent, but their interpreta- Patents are intended to enable a person sequences, however, fails to pass the nov- tion undergoes constant modification as or a company to protect its investment. elty test, no matter how original the tech- technology progresses. Patent law was About this there is little dispute. niques are that elaborated them in the first originally written with mechanical inven- Differences of opinion arise, however, in place. Such techniques themselves may be tions in mind. However, as science deciding what is or is not patentable. protected by patents, but the gene itself, changed, the old terminology has had to Certain ubiquitous things are exempt being a natural product unmodified by adapt to electronics, chemistry, and, now, because they are in the public domain. It science, should probably remain in the to life itself. would be futile to patent air or water, for public domain. Patent law is based ultimately on the example, if only because such patent Ironically, therefore, the pleas ad- concept of proprietary rights, i.e., the priv- rights could not be enforced. Nor can vanced by spokespersons for religion may ilege of ownership. Hardly anything is as immaterial things be patented, in part not be so wrong after all. The reasons for fundamental to all living things as the because they may be hypothetical and/or their conclusions, however, look pretty exclusive access to whatever may be essen- indefinable, such as love, infinity, truth, silly. It is difficult enough to decide issues tial to survival. After all, individual organ- and God. The theories of evolution, rela- of patentability on grounds of legality, pri- isms by definition are motivated by self- tivity, and heliocentrism are likewise not ority, and human ingenuity without com- interest. Many animals protect their subject to patent. plicating matters with religious notions. territories by tooth and claw, just as plants It is highly debatable whether or not To inject God into the equation opens up a vie with each other for a place in the sun. human genes should be patentable. As the can of worms that would be dangerous for Monogamous animals "possess" their Human Genome Project approaches its the Patent Office to resort to as an excuse mates. A dog will defend its right to a bone. goal of mapping all of our genes, there for denying protection to otherwise legiti- There could be no human commercial will continue to be temptations to patent mate inventions. • Defending Church/State Separation Saturday, November 4, 1995 — 9:00 AM-5:00 PM Queen Mary, Windsor Salon - Long Beach, California After 30-plus years of progress, the separation of church and state faces unprecedented challenges. Join us for a day-long examination of: • Recent Supreme Court decisions • Is public school prayer inevitable? • Executive and Congressional initiatives • Can public schools teach about religion while respecting diversity? • Religious symbols on public property • Prospects for vouchers • Tracking the Religious Right • Battling Creationism

Speakers: Thomas Flynn, senior editor of FREE INQUIRY and Director of Inquiry Media Productions; Edward Tabash, attorney-at-law; Edythe McGovern, founding member and treasurer, Secular Humanists of Los Angeles; Fritz Stevens, executive director, Center for Inquiry-West; Julie Schollenberger, co-founder and co-director, Institute for the Study of the Religious Right; Terri Mandell, publisher, The Opposable Thumb.

❑ YES, I/we will attend "Defending Church/State Separation" November 4, 1995 ❑ Registration for person(s) at $35.00 each (includes Luncheon) $ ❑ Check or Money Order Total $ ❑ VISA ['MasterCard # Exp. Sig. Name (s) Address Daytime Phone City State Zip Sleeping rooms on the Queen Mary are available at special rates of $98 / Haborview, $88 / Landview, $78 / inside (no-view). Call 1-800-437-2934 and mention FREE INQUIRY magazine to receive these rates. Make checks payable to: CODESH and return to: PO Box 664, Amherst, NY 14226-0664. Or call 1-800-458-1366.

Fall 1995 51 Secular humanists will welcome and benefit from Dennett's penetrating Reviews insights into the explanatory power of evolution by means of natural selection, particularly as they support naturalism and rule out supernaturalism. However, The Acid Test of Evolution one may argue that the dangerous fact of human evolution cuts even deeper than H. James Birx Dennett's book suggests. Religious beliefs and practices have evolved from Darwin's Dangerous Idea: Evolution tory mechanisms, especially in population prehistoric times to our modern civiliza- and the Meanings of Life, by Daniel C. genetics, continues to strengthen the fact tion. And unfortunately, the conflict Dennett (New York: Simon & Schuster, of evolution despite ongoing attacks from between science and religion continues. 1995) 587 pp., $30.00 cloth. religious fundamentalists. Actually, it is increasing. Yet, Dennett At the end of this century, philosopher writes: "This world is sacred" (p. 520). n the middle of the last century, the rig- Daniel C. Dennett seriously considers the Really? It must be remembered that there Iorous writings of naturalist Charles far-reaching implications of evolution for is no evolution without extinction, and Darwin established the theory of evolution understanding and appreciating the evolution does not guarantee the ongoing in terms of science and reason. The resul- human animal. He argues that nothing success of our species or any specific reli- tant materialist framework devastated all escapes the acid test of natural selection, a gion. This world is valuable to human traditional ideas and beliefs about the mechanism that pervades the organic beings, indeed, but to maintain that reality alleged special place our species occupies world from the origin of life on Earth to is sacred is not to be a tough-minded evo- in this dynamic universe. The growth of human consciousness and social behavior. lutionist or unabashed materialist. empirical evidence from biochemistry to His extension of Darwinism even chal- A clear and honest analysis of the paleontology and advancement in explana- lenges the views of Roger Penrose and beliefs in God, free will, personal immor- Stephen Jay Gould. Briefly, the fact of tality, and a divine destiny for our species H. James Birx is the author of Interpreting evolution strikes right at home: our within an atheistic and evolutionary Evolution (Prometheus Books, 1991) and species with consciousness and language framework would be a further contribu- executive director for the Alliance of is the bipedal ape or third chimpanzee. tion to the philosophical literature. Secular Humanist Societies. There is nothing miraculous about the ori- Dennett's book is a launching pad for gin or nature of humankind. such a needed work. •

ments within the context of his times, with Quite a Life great respect for Russell's adamantine courage but not glossing over his failures and internal contradictions. The "passion- John R. Lenz ate skeptic," as Alan Wood called him in his 1957 memoir, emerges strongly here. Bertrand Russell: A Life, by Caroline an early prophet of pacifism, tolerance, Moorehead admires what Russell called Moorehead (New York: Viking, 1994) free love, divorce, birth control, inter- the "combination of passion and pes- 596 pp., $30.00 cloth. nationalism, the scientific outlook, secu- simism": "Russell never denied that the lar humanism, modern empirical philos- world was a horrible place and the uni- e was perhaps the last public sage," ophy, digital computing, feminism, etc. verse unjust. The secret, he said, was to writes Caroline Moorehead in He has been called the greatest logician face the fact and not brush it aside." Bertrand Russell: A Life, an engaging, since Aristotle and one of the two most Russell's contribution, she writes, was to well-modulated portrait of the epic life important Englishmen of the twentieth show "that the unbeliever and the sceptic and private emotions of Bertrand Russell century. Admittedly, both of these dis- can live without fear." In Russell's words: (1872-1970). tinctions once meant more than they now "Religion is based primarily upon fear Admiration for "Bertie" sometimes do—a change Russell lived to see and and is a source of untold misery to the verges on hagiography, heralding him as helped to bring about, for he straddled human race." "If we must die, let us die several ages. Having lived through half sober, not drunk with pleasant lies." And: John Lenz is Acting Chair of the Depart- of the reign of Queen Victoria, he died, "Happiness is none the less true happiness ment of Classics at Drew University and raging against the nuclear threat and the because it must come to an end, nor do president of the Bertrand Russell Society, Vietnam War, during the presidency of thought and love lose their value because Inc. Richard Nixon. they are not everlasting." Moorehead narrates Russell's achieve- Yet a lament of personal sadness per- 52 FREE INQUIRY vades Russell's private life. Four mar- father's litany of "reason, progress, Taken all in all, the prophecies, a read- riages and the less Platonic aspects of his unselfishness, a wide historical perspec- ing suggests, remain relevant, Russell's self-professed "longing for love" taint tive, expansiveness, generosity, enlight- voice is loud and clear. It is refreshing to him in the eyes of feminists, despite his ened self-interest." read a condemnation of "earnestness work for women's rights. Many also feel We have here an original and fresh without truth, which the Yankees expect," that Russell's searchlight-focus on the account of this "fallen angel with or that "America is essentially a country human intellect makes him a tragic figure Mephistolian wit." Remarkably, Moore- of pious peasants" in which universities of another age. Moorehead writes evenly head has managed to elicit new sources suffer from "theological persecution" (he and without censure. She points out that and reminiscences about non-trivial knew well the fragility of academic free- Russell had a personal aversion to homo- aspects of Russell's early life. She pre- dom). Russell, above all, was an old- sexuality. The "free love" preached with sents a sensitive and, for the first time, a school Liberal, a modern-day Voltaire "thees" and "thous" by Russell and his woman's perspective on the man. Her fighting to the death for individual liberty. first wife, Alys, is now quaintly Late book forms, together with the Selected He opposed orthodoxies of either the left Victorian. The high-minded philosopher Letters edited by Nicholas Griffin, an or the right and thumbed his nose at appears comical in his failed attempts to important addition to the previous bio- respectable positions that command conciliate the mystical religiosity of his graphical works by Alan Wood and assent just because they are respectable. lover, Ottoline Morrell. Ultimately, his Ronald W. Clark and one well worth read- He gave people the courage to think for daughter, Katherine, confessed to having ing by anyone interested in modern phi- themselves and the optimism that this is been sickened to rebellion from her losophy, freethought, or social activism. mankind's only hope. •

Responding to the question, "If God Crossing the Bleak Threshold Exists Why Is He Hiding?," the pope ultimately falls to reproving Messori:

Thomas W. Flynn Your questions would only be legitimate if man, with his created intellect and Crossing the Threshold of Hope, by His within the limits of his own subjectivity, tough questions posed by a layman. could overcome the entire distance that Holiness John Paul II, edited by For secular humanists, Crossing the separates creation from the Creator, the Vittorio Messori, translated from the Threshold of Hope offers a rare glimpse contingent and not necessary being Italian by Jenny McPhee and Martha into the psyche of the influential former from the Necessary Being ("she who is McPhee (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, bishop of Krakow. But Threshold is not a not," according to the well-known 1994) ix + 229 pp., indexed. $20.00 words Christ addressed to Saint periscope as much as it is an eager icon. It Catherine of Siena, from "He who is") . cloth. shows us the pope as he would prefer to . [p. 38] be viewed. n 1993, Catholic journalist Vittorio JP2 stoutly defends his conservative That the pope chose, out of the whole cor- IMessori submitted a list of questions stance on issues like contraception, abor- pus of Christian literature, that sublimely for Pope John Paul II (hereafter JP2) to tion, and authority in the church. Yet he sexist image to embellish his rebuke answer in a television interview. The writes fondly of his work during the exemplifies the tension that runs through- interview was shelved, but months later Second Vatican Council (1962-1965) and out the text. Try as he may to unfurl the came word that Messori's questions had dreams that through a "new evangeliza- banners of joy, JP2 simply cannot pull it not been forgotten. Unable to resist them, tion," the "good news" of the post-Vatican off. the pope had written out thoughtful II church will inspire millions, especially Each of Threshold's short chapters pre- replies, underlining passages he consid- the young, to "cross the threshold of sents a paraphrase of one of Messori's ered especially important. The whole, in hope." In one of far-too-many italicized original questions, followed by the pope's the pope's own hand, was delivered to passages, he shouts at the reader that reply. To his credit, while Messori always Messori in April of 1994, hurriedly edited, "good is greater than all that is evil in the addresses the pope with deference, he and rushed into print. The English transla- world." poses hard questions: "If God Exists Why tion spent months on U.S. best-seller lists. Yet the pope's struggles to play the Is He Hiding?" "Why Does God Tolerate Amid today's mania for user-friendly cheerful shepherd usually fall flat. A sur- Suffering?"; "Why So Many Religions?"; "spiritual" titles, it was a perfect vehicle: prisingly open meditation on the difficulty "Is Only Rome Right?" a brief volume in which Time's 1994 Man of believing in God amid the pain and ruin JP2 may be erudite, but he is unwilling of the Year presented pastoral responses to of contemporary life collapses into wistful to acknowledge the lessons of 150 years regret: If only medieval theologian of scholarly inquiry into Christian origins. Thomas W. Flynn is senior editor of FREE Thomas Aquinas and his philosophically "Christ is absolutely original and INQUIRY. flimsy "five ways" to prove the existence absolutely unique," he writes—flying in of God might get more respect! the face of the fact, long admitted even by

Fall 1995 53 theologians, that the very concept of The New Covenant [Christianity] has its system fell by itself." Yet he twice enter- Christ is rooted in earlier traditions. His roots in the Old [Judaism]. The time tains the notion that his shooting by when the people of the Old Covenant would-be assassin Ali Agca was claim that the Nicene Creed (325 c.E.) will be able to see themselves as part of Mehmet contains nothing not present in the doc- the New is, naturally, a question to be an omen of things to come. After all, it trines of St. Paul is ludicrous. After an ini- left to the Holy Spirit. [pp. 99-100] occurred "precisely on May 13, 1981, the tially promising tussle with the problem anniversary of the first apparition of of evil, the pope retreats to the tired ortho- At other places JP2 describes Fátima," when Mary is said to have proph- dox formula that God's supreme gesture Columbus's voyage to America as an esied the conversion of Russia! of "solidarity with man in his suffering" "evangelization" without a nod toward JP2 opens and closes his book with the —the death of Jesus justifies all the pain native Americans and the travails brought words he spoke at his coronation, the words and injustice humans have endured to them. His two-page chapter on spoken by angels to Mary (Luke 1:30) and through the ages. "Women," a brief denunciation of femi- Joseph (Matthew 1:20): `Be not afraid!" Confronting the diversity of world reli- nism bookended by Marian devotions, is We are to cross the threshold of hope, he gions, JP2 briefly trumpets his ecumeni- by far the shortest in the book. In the exhorts—but doing so is at base an act of cal credentials—then settles into the seri- obligatory (but rather restrained) chapter surrender: "It is very important to cross the ous work of explaining what is wrong on "The Defense of Every Life," he reiter- threshold of hope, not to stop before it, but with each of the world religions. Because ates his condemnation of both abortion to let oneself be led" [p. 223-224]. Buddhism idealizes renunciation of the and birth control. But he insists, contrary In Vittorio Messori's questions John world, it suffers from an "almost exclu- to critics, that his goal is not to pepper the Paul II clearly saw an opportunity to pol- sively negative soteriology," or doctrine landscape with numberless children. "The ish the way he would be viewed within his of salvation. Islam "completely reduces rate of population growth needs to be own church, among non-Catholics, and Divine Revelation" (p. 92). And Judaism? taken into consideration," he thunders. ultimately by history. He may have suc- Despite deep feelings about the Holocaust The solution, of course, is rhythm, as ceeded, though probably not in the way he and countless dialogues with Jewish lead- "taught by the Church's family counseling meant. Crossing the Threshold of Hope ers, JP2 is no more able than Pat programs." God will provide. reveals the pope to us—not so much by Robertson to resist the ancient dream of The pope stops short of saying that God what he proclaims, as by what he involun- converting the Jews: toppled the Berlin Wall: "Communism as a tarily discloses.

hearing. More important is the fact that, Psychoanalysis Takes Its Lumps within the bounds of an article, the inordi- nately prolix and convoluted Grünbaum Michael Ruse has to get on with the job, and thus shows himself capable of saying clearly in a few Validation in the Clinical Theory of Expectedly, the orthodox did not much words what normally takes many to corn- Psychoanalysis, by Adolf Grünbaum care for it. plexify and obscure. (Madison, Conn.: International Uni- Grünbaum's latest book, Validation in Among the reprinted essays is an excel- versities Press, Inc., 1993) xxii + 417 the Clinical Theory of Psychoanalysis, lent account (from the earlier book) of pp., $50.00 cloth. continues his critical analysis of much that Grünbaum's troubles with the hermeneuti- has been done in the name of Freud, by the cal interpretation of Freud's work. This A dolf Grünbaum is justly well known master himself as well as by his followers should be the end of that particular s one of America's leading philoso- and critics. This is not made particularly approach, as the devastating critique in the phers of science. His reputation was made apparent on the outer shell of the book (in next essay of Karl Popper's attack on psy- as the author of seminal studies on space fact, Validation in the Clinical Theory of choanalytic theory should be of that and time, but for over a decade now he has Psychoanalysis is not truly a book as such, appraisal. I defer to no one in my respect been investigating the philosophical but more a collection of mostly previously for Popper, but I have never been able to underpinnings of Freudian psychoanalytic published articles). Accordingly, it has the understand why it is that people take seri- theory. His The Foundations of Psycho- weaknesses and deficiencies one might ously his silly—and, let us be frank, spite- analysis: A Philosophical Critique was a expect: repetition, particularly from the ful—comments on Freud. To his credit, devastating exposé of the sloppy thinking earlier book; and a rather tiresome list of although no one sees Freud's faults surrounding Freud's work and of the pre- disagreements and squabbles with critics, through clearer glasses than Grünbaum, he tensions of those who would claim it to be major and minor. Truly, one is not that is not about to have psychoanalytic theory a well-established scientific theory. interested, and wishes one could get on trashed for the wrong reasons. with the main discussion. Readers of this journal will particularly Michael Ruse is a professor of philosophy However, balancing these faults are appreciate Grünbaum's essay on at the University of Guelph. virtues, namely that Grünbaum does have "Psychoanalysis and Theism." Although some new things to say that are worth Grünbaum finds faults in Freud's position, 54 FREE INQUIRY it is nothing compared to what he finds in ing to accept such a claim on faith in the chant comments on Freud's theory of those of his critics! One paragraph is absence of evidence, it is impossible to dreams. Normally, I would be hesitant to worth quoting in its entirety. do so, even with the best of intentions, since one can believe only a statement recommend a collection of essays as one's first line of reasoning. All too At least in our current state of biological whose content one comprehends. evolution, our species may well be lim- Otherwise, what is it that is being often, it represents a publisher using ran- ited by intrinsic intellectual horizons of believed? It would seem clear that dom bits and pieces, trained to cash in some sort, much as theoretical physics, assent, even on faith, requires prior on the success of a major integrated for example, defies comprehension by understanding, if the assent is to be significant at all. But, if so, why do even piece of scholarship. But there are dogs. Yet, whatever the extent of human exceptions, and for reasons given above inadequacy, the demand for creedal the most highly intelligent among the assent to an admittedly unintelligible faithful nevertheless affirm assent? [p. I think this volume is one. If you want to declarative sentence seems to bespeak 298] encounter one of today's toughest criti- an altogether misplaced sense of intel- cal thinkers about psychoanalytic theory, lectual humility. For, even if one is will- And so we move finally to some tren- start here. •

trustworthy. John George, a professor at Sayings of the Skeptics the University of Central Oklahoma, coauthored They Never Said It: A Book of Fake Quotes, Misquotes, and Misleading James A. Haught Attributions. Wilcox, founder of the Wilcox Collection of Contemporary Be Reasonable: Selected Quotations for Mohandas Gandhi, Young India, 1927. Political Movements, is an expert on poli- Inquiring Minds, by Laird Wilcox and • "Religious bondage shackles and tical thought. Together, they also have John George (Buffalo: Prometheus debilitates the mind, and unfits it for every written Nazis, Communists, Klansmen, Books, 1994) 375 pp., $32.95 cloth. noble purpose."—James Madison, letter and Others on the Fringe: Political to William Bradford, Jr., 1774. Extremism in America. ost of my heroes—Thomas But Be Reasonable is more than a com- In a preface to the quote compilation, MJefferson, Albert Einstein, Socrates, pendium of agnosticism. It covers many Wilcox says the two authors share "a cer- Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Edison, Clara other topics vital to people who care about tain disdain for rigid ideological formula- Barton, Voltaire, Clarence Darrow, intellectual freedom and personal rights. tions, for mindless causes and crusades, Sigmund Freud, etc.—doubted the invisi- It's sort of a treasury for non-conformists. and for fanatics and true believers, as well ble gods, devils, heavens, and hells of reli- Under civil liberties, it offers nuggets as for those who would oppress them." gion. This excellent book of quotes by like these: Therefore, he says, they "tended to pick two experienced researchers documents • "Nothing can be more abhorrent to viewpoints that were disquieting, skepti- skepticism among the great. Examples: democracy than to imprison a person or cal, sometimes cynical, but always • "The idea of a Being who interferes keep him in prison because he is unpopu- thought-provoking." They succeeded. with the sequence of events in the world is lar. This is really the test of civiliza- As a newspaper editor, I try to steal absolutely impossible."—Einstein, 1931. tion."—Winston Churchill, letter, 1943. only the choicest gems of wisdom. I've • "On the dogmas of religion, as distin- • "Can any of you seriously say the Bill already begun looting Be Reasonable. • guished from moral principles, all man- of Rights could get through Congress kind, from the beginning of this world to today? It wouldn't even get out of com- this day, have been quarreling, fighting, mittee."—F. Lee Bailey, Newsweek, April MOVING? Make sure burning and torturing one another, for 17, 1967. abstractions unintelligible to themselves Under government, it includes: FREE INQUIRY follows you! and to all others, and absolutely beyond • "Politics, n. A strife of interests mas- Name the comprehension of the human querading as a contest of principles."— Subscriber # mind."—Jefferson, 1816. Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary. • "The most heinous and the most cruel • "Of the tyrant, spies and informers New address crimes of which history has record have are his principal instruments. War is his City been committed under the cover of reli- favorite occupation, for the sake of State Zip gion or equally noble motives."— engrossing the attention of the people, and Old address making himself necessary to have as their leader."—Aristotle (384-322 B.C.E.), City James A. Naught is editor of the Charleston (West Virginia) Gazette and Politics. State Zip Some quotation books are sloppy, author of four books, including Holy Mail to: Horrors. filled with poorly attributed or incorrect FREE INQUIRY statements. But this collection should be Box 664, Amherst, NY 14226

Fall 1995 55 affecting the referent" (p. 8). The significance of the distinction Arguing for God between the two kinds of properties becomes clear when in the first part of his book Gale analyzes the atheological argu- Michael Martin ments purporting to show that the concept of a theistic God is inconsistent. His gen- On the Nature and Existence of God, by evil to show the improbability of his exis- eral position seems to be that, although Richard M. Gale (Cambridge: Cam- tence" (p. 1), he does not, as he himself many of these arguments force theists to bridge University Press, 1993) vii + 422 admits, fully answer this question. give up the soft-core properties associated pp., $19.95 paper. What then is Gale's partial answer? A with God and thus to redesign the concept fair statement of it is to be found in the of God, they do not compel them to give sing the sophisticated tools of logical Epilogue: up the hard-core properties that constitute analysis, contemporary theistic phi- the concept. For example, on most tradi- U Since I completely eschewed inductive losophers such as William Alston, Alvin arguments, no definite conclusion can tional accounts God is supposed to be a Plantinga, and Richard Swinburne have be drawn regarding the rationality of perfect being. However, Gale shows that attempted in recent years not only to faith. Only the hypothetical conclusion this leads to inconsistencies and para- defend theistic faith against atheistic can be drawn that if the only available doxes. Gale suggests that theists should attacks, but to provide new rationales for arguments were the epistemological and "bite the bullet and take back the require- pragmatic arguments examined before, theism. Because of this recent resurgence faith would lack any rational justifica- ment" (p. 29) that God has every perfec- of interest in the philosophy of religion tion. Such an outcome would be wel- tion to an unlimited degree. Giving up this there is a need, according to Richard Gale, comed by a wide range of Kierke- requirement, he says, would not affect the for "a return visit from Hume's Philo" (p. gaardian types who completely hard-core property of being eminently 2)—the skeptical protagonist of Hume's eschewed any attempt to give an "objec- worthy of worship and obedience. tive" justification of faith. I resonate to Dialogues on Natural Religion. However, their view of faith as subjective passion Gale's criticisms in the second part of although this skepticism "imbues" his that outstrips our reason. [p. 387] the book against ontological, cosmologi- book, Gale does not intend it to be entirely cal, religious experience, and pragmatic negative. Rather his criticisms will pro- In the Introduction Gale argues that arguments for the existence of God are vide "a more adequate concept of God— since the theologians' concept of God is a sophisticated, detailed, and devastating. a God that will provide a worthy object of theoretical and metaphysical reconstruc- Consider his criticism of Plantinga's ver- worship and obedience, even if the case tion of the ordinary anthropomorphic and sion of the ontological argument. Defin- for believing it is shaky" (p. 3). scriptural one, "there is considerable ing unsurpassable greatness as the prop- Although readers will not find a room for conceptual maneuvering" (p. 4). erty being maximally excellent defense of the rationality of either theism Indeed, he says that we can redesign the (essentially omnipotent, omniscient, or atheism, they will be treated to brilliant concept in the light of atheological argu- omnibenevolent) and necessary, Plantinga criticisms of recent noninductive arguments. Obviously not every redesign of has argued: ments for the existence of God that purport the concept of God will be acceptable. G. There is a possible world w in which to make it acceptable to theists and Some changes will be so radical that we the property of having unsurpassable immune from deductive atheological argu- will no longer be talking about God. The greatness is instantiated. ments. Although Gale never says so, his problem, as he sees it, is how to redesign work can be seen as an attempt to clear the the concept of God in the light of atheistic It follows that unsurpassable greatness is way for faith.' Dividing the volume into arguments without changing the referent. instantiated in every logically possible two parts (atheological arguments and the- Gale suggests that at the present time world including the actual world. Since ological arguments), Gale addresses the some defining properties of God are "hard God is a being with unsurpassable great- question "of whether there is rational jus- core"; that is, "we would not allow a use ness, God exists in the actual world. tification for belief that God, as conceived of 'God' to be co-referring with ours if Plantinga maintains that although (G) is by traditional Western theism, exists" (p. these properties were not at least partially not rationally established, it is not con- 1). Since, however, he ignores "inductive constitutive of the sense of the name" (p. trary to reason. Thus, he concluded that, arguments based on design, beauty, and 7). As examples of hard-core properties he although his argument does not establish lawlike regularity and simplicity for the cites being supremely great and being the truth of theism, it does establish its existence of God as well as those based on eminently worthy of worship and obedi- rational acceptability. ence. On the other hand, "soft core" prop- Gale's brilliant strategy is to argue that Michael Martin is professor of philoso- erties such as being absolutely simple, other statements that are more in accord phy at Boston University and author of being unrestrictedly omnipotent, and with our modal intuitions—our immediate Atheism: A Philosophical Justification admitting of no distinction between perceptions about what is either possible (Temple University Press). essence and existence "have come and or impossible or necessary—than (G) are gone as part of the sense of 'God' without logically incompatible with (G), for

56 FREE INQUIRY example: atheological attack. Philosophy Department at Plantinga's (E): There is a possible world in which Moreover, at times one wonders if university, Notre Dame. Everyone polled the property of morally unjustified evil Gale fully grasps the extent of the modifi- thought (E) was false. Not to be outdone, is instantiated. cation that is required. For example, Gale Gale conducted his own modal intuition seems to suppose that temporalizing the poll at the Philosophy Department at the Since God is all good and all powerful in concept of God so that God cannot know University of Pittsburgh. Everyone he every world, there could not be a world what decisions he will make is something consulted maintained that (E) was true! with unjustified moral evil. This argument that theists can easily live with. However, Gale suggests that a way out of the should not be confused with the tradi- things are not so simple. If God cannot deadlock is to poll ordinary people about tional argument from evil. There the athe- know what decisions he will make in the their modal intuitions. Indeed, he says that ologian must argue that the actual world future, he cannot know anything about the he actually did this and that each ordinary has unjustified evil. In Gale's argument, future. Recall that God always has the person for example, a janitor, a mainte- since God exists in all possible worlds, it option of intervening and performing a nance man, a barmaid—had modal intu- is enough to show that at least one possi- miracle. So he cannot know whether any itions that matched his own. He seems to ble world has such evil. event that is in accord with natural law assume that in view of this evidence his What can one say about Gale's posi- will in fact occur since he cannot know readers will be justified in accepting that tion?' His criticisms of theistic arguments whether he will intervene and prevent it his modal intuition is correct. are excellent. Moreover, they complement from occurring. Similarly, he cannot Polling ordinary people may be a solu- rather than repeat the ones I gave in know whether any human action will tion to the problem, but surely Gale is Atheism: A Philosophical Justification.' occur since he cannot know whether he naïve to suppose that his readers will have There is, however, a major difference will prevent it. much confidence in the results of his poll between Gale's position and mine in that But there is more. Given any nondeon- of ordinary people. We know that the out- earlier volume. I defended atheism and tological moral theory—that is, any the- come of polls is often a function of what criticized various attempts to found reli- ory that takes future consequences of an questions are asked, who asks them, and gious belief on faith. Gale seems to see action into account in determining its how they are asked. We are given no infor- nothing wrong with belief in God even if morality—it is difficult to see how God mation about the way in which Gale's poll the case for God's existence is shaky. could know whether his past decisions are of ordinary people was conducted. Polling Indeed he seems to be in sympathy with moral. Since he cannot know anything is a tricky business that should only be such a view despite the grave problems about the future he cannot know whether conducted by those who know what they with basing religious belief on faith, many his past decisions are moral. Since he can- are doing. Philosophers who want to con- of which I outlined in my book. not know anything about the future he duct polls to test modal intuitions should Gale's thesis that atheological argu- cannot know whether his past actions are either get proper training or expert help. ments force theists to redesign their con- morally correct for their correctness will cept of God but not to reject belief in God depend (at least in part) on what will hap- Notes is also open to question. His argument pen. (Only if a pure deontological theory 1. This interpretation is confirmed by his reply to depends in large part on the distinction is correct—seemingly an unlikely possi- Paul Helm's "Gale on God," Religious Studies, 29, between hard-core and soft-core proper- bility—would this criticism not hold.) 1993, pp. 245-255. See Gale "A Reply to Paul ties. Atheological arguments, according to Given these problems would religious Helm," Religious Studies, 29, 1993 p. 257. 2. For further criticisms of Gale's position see Gale, affect only soft-core properties. So believers still think God is supremely Helm's, op. cit. and Gale's reply in Gale, op. cit., pp. one can save the concept of God while great and worthy of worship (whatever 257-263. avoiding the atheological arguments. exactly these terms might mean)? This is 3. See Michael Martin, Atheism: A Philosophical Justification (Temple University Press, 1990), Chap. Unfortunately, the meaning of the hard- surely not obvious. 10. core properties that Gale relies on is In closing let me comment briefly on unclear and, consequently, the claim that an aspect of Gale's methodology. His cri- changes in soft-core properties do not tique of Plantinga's Ontological Argu- affect hard-core ones is unjustified. I am ment turns on the acceptance of the modal PROGRAM not at all sure what being eminently wor- intuition that (E) is true. The question thy of worship means or what being arises of how modal intuitions are to be OFFERED supremely great entails—the two hard- objectively confirmed. This is a problem If you are a college student or core properties mentioned by Gale. Given that is seldom addressed and yet is of fun- faculty member and would like the unclarity of these notions one wonders damental importance in areas such as the to arrange a debate on your cam- how one tells if a change in soft-core philosophy of religion that rely on modal pus about the existence of God properties does or does not adversely concepts. We know that modal intuitions between Dr. Gordon Stein and a affect supreme greatness or being worthy differ from person to person and seem in theist, please write to Dr. Stein of worship. Yet Gale appeals again and part to be a function of one's background at P.O. Box 972, Amherst, NY again to these notions to justify modifica- beliefs. For example, according to Gale, 14226. Dr. Stein's expenses are tion of the concept of God in the face of Philip Quinn conducted a poll in the paid from a grant. Fall 1995 57 Books in Brief

The Engine of Reason, the Seat of the about heresies and heretics exist that fails In a reference book, it is quite impor- Soul: A Philosophical Journey into the to include the number one heresy and the tant that the user be directed to further Brain by Paul M. Churchland (Cam- number one heretic? Yes, and it is the case information. Usually, this is done by a bridge, Mass.: The MIT Press, 1995) with Crimes of Perception. George tries good bibliography, but here again, this 329 pp., cloth $29.95. A non-technical hard, but misses the mark because of a book fails to come through. No authors' witty exploration of the latest findings on poor conception of what heresy is. He first names or publishers are given, and how the biological brain really works. The defines heresy as the arrangement of the items is very user- book contains a figure of a "normal unfriendly. No references are given in the human brain, alive, conscious, and think- a crime of perception—an act of seeing articles themselves, and in fact it is often ing furiously," which, Churchland writes, something that, according to some cus- impossible to tell where the author got his todian of reality, is not truly there. information. Many of the entries are too is a magnetic resonance image of the Heresy, therefore, is always relative to short to really be able to understand where brain "of my wife and colleague, Patricia an orthodoxy.... In the commonly used Churchland, and it is very dear to me." narrower sense of the term, heretics are in history the heretic or his/her heresy fits. This book is an excellent follow-up to the Christians who differ from orthodoxy interviews with Pat Churchland and with respect to basic points of doctrine, —Gordon Stein in particular the nature of God ... and Daniel Dennett in this issue of FREE the nature of Christ.... But there are INQUIRY. It includes a discussion on the also Jewish heretics, pagan heretics, sci- Flights of Fancy, Leaps of Faith: Churchlands' and Dennett's differing entific heretics, social and political Children's Myths in Contemporary points of view regarding the role that lan- heretics, sexual and psychological America, by Cindy Dell Clark (Chicago: heretics. guage plays in developing conscious ani- University of Chicago Press, 1995) 165 mals, as well as an amusing anecdote pp., cloth $17.95. Clark, an adjunct fac- about the two men's participation in the George confines himself largely (but not ulty member in the Marketing Department 1993 Turing Test Competition. "Although exclusively) to Christian, Jewish, and at DePaul University, is better known for none of the judges mistook a machine for occult heretics. It is therefore incredible studying contemporary American children a human," Churchland writes, "five of that he has totally neglected atheism as a using the tools of ethnology. She inter- them mistakenly identified one of the heresy (it was the major heresy in the eyes viewed numerous young children and their human foils as a machine!" of Christians for a long period, although parents to probe the Santa Claus, Easter exactly who were the atheists did vary). Bunny, and Tooth Fairy myths in child cul- —Timothy J. Madigan Also neglected is Benedict (Baruch) ture. No secular humanist, Clark assumes Spinoza, long regarded as the major that coming to believe in God is a neces- Blind Faith: Confronting Contemporary heretic of the last 400 years. sary and healthy step in child develop- Religion, by Chester Dolan (Buffalo: The problem lies in George's neglect in ment. Her methodology is breezy and Prometheus Books, 1995) 357 pp., cloth following his own definitions. George informal; often it is unclear how her con- $27.95. Dolan, past president of the New does have an entry on "pantheism" and an clusions follow from her interview data. York Society for General Semantics, entry on Giordano Bruno, which shows Still, humanist parents unsure how to han- packs a lot of information into his book. that he is aware that differing views of the dle the "Santa question" should ponder He starts with basics like explaining universe from the Christian one are a form Clark's argument that belief in fantasy fig- morality, science, and philosophy while of heresy. He also has a poor entry on ures is an important precursor to the later showing where religion gets it wrong. He "blasphemy" and another even worse one development of religious faith. "Mothers then takes on mythology, symbolism, and on "infidel," which are two terms that commented that it is important for children other things related to religions and their would cover the atheist position. to be able to accept nonlogical truths, sight formation. A book full of good informa- The entries that are present consist of a unseen," she reports approvingly. "This tion to answer the religionists the next page or two of commentary about various capacity is felt necessary for religious time they are at your door. people (Aleister Crowley, John Dee), faith, for gaining access to transcendent movements (the Hussites, Arianism, the reality" (p. 107). For humanist parents, the —Scott Lohman Doukhobors), and ideas (the Inquisition, message of Clark's book is one the author astrology, polytheism) that have been con- did not intend: To raise children without Crimes of Perception: An Encyclopedia sidered heretical. Many of the topics are religion, it might help to raise them with- of Heresies and Heretics, by Leonard rather obscure, so we welcome some out Santa, the Easter Bunny, and the Tooth George (New York: Paragon House, description, however brief. Others are bet- Fairy, too. 1995) 358 pp., cloth $29.95. Can a book ter covered elsewhere. -Tom Flynn

58 FREE INQUIRY Viewpoint Church/State Separation in Germany For Now This Wall Stays Up

Edmund D. Cohen

n a period when church/state separa- the crucifix in Elina's classroom. The them in Germany. These critics point out Ition in the United States is being Selers took all three of of their children the folkloric connotation that Catholic eroded, it is heartening to read of a land- out of school in protest, relenting only paraphernalia has in Bavaria. Crucifixes mark church and state case in another when the authorities threatened to prose- are widely displayed in a purely decora- country where the highest court acts on cute them for truancy. Their legal com- tive way there. It seems that Catholic con- principle and hands down an unpopular plaint challenging the crucifix was servatives in Germany hold the crucifixes decision. On August 10, 1995, the decided against them in the Bavarian state to be vitally important, even while criti- German Federal Constitutional Court courts in 1991. They appealed to the cizing their antagonists for taking a made public its ruling striking down a Federal Constitutional Court. strong stand on such a trivial issue. Still provision of the Bavarian State The Federal Constitutional Court held others compared the ruling of the Educational Code that called for the dis- that "the introduction of a cross or crucifix Constitutional Court to the forcible play of a crucifix in every public school into the classrooms of a compulsory-atten- replacement of the crucifixes with pic- classroom. In a country written off by dance nonparochial school violates Article tures of Hitler during the Third Reich.' American Christian fundamentalist mis- 4 Section 1 of the Basic Law."` The court The chief editor of Die Welt, a leading sionaries as hopelessly post-Christian, went on to explain that the essence of the national right-leaning newspaper, was this decision caused a furor. violation consists of forcing an individual hastily fired for writing an editorial prais- In 1987, six-year-old Elina Seler was to have contact with the devotional para- ing the court's decision. A member of the enrolled by her parents for her first day of phernalia of another religion, and implied Bavarian State Parliament from the Green school in Schwandorf, northern Bavaria. that all the crucifixes in public school Party' explained, "The cross is the raw The Selers are adherents of Rudolf classrooms in Bavaria would have to be nerve." Steiner's spiritualistic philosophy, "Anthro- taken down. The decision also spoke of The resemblance of all this to com- posophy," and Elina had not been raised on protection of minorities. monplace political posturing in the United Catholic lore as Bavarian children nor- The decision prompted a torrent of States is remarkable, considering how dif- mally are. Mr. Seler described Elina's first extravagant rhetoric—a veritable field day ferent the backgrounds of the two coun- day of school this way: "My daughter was for political posturing—on the part of tries are. In the more remote history of forced to look up at an eighty centimeter conservative political leaders. They Germany, nobles struggled against the high naked, blood encrusted dead man that seemed unable to understand how the cru- power and wealth of the Roman church— hung right in her face." cifix could signify something banefully during the Reformation and at many other Having never become desensitized to different to some people than it signifies times.' After World War II, the desire to the gory imagery of the Crucifixion, little to them. Chancellor Helmut Kohl—also reconstitute normal life led to a larger role Elina was terrified. Mr. Seler complained chairman of the ruling Christian for the churches than their actual impor- about the crucifix, as twenty or so other Democratic Party—described the decision tance and influence would have justified. Bavarian parents have done every year. as "incomprehensible." According to him, In former West Germany, the Roman Instead of issuing the usual flat refusal, the decision calls upon society to dispense Catholic church and the "Evangelical" the school offered to substitute a plain, with a symbol standing for all the positive (i.e., Lutheran) Protestant church were Protestant-style cross with no corpus for "values of our western civilization." officially established, and depended on Others complained that for dissidents church tax collected on their behalf by the Edmund D. Cohen is the author of The and freethinkers to resort to the courts to government from each individual church Mind of the Bible-Believer (Prometheus force the crucifixes to be taken down member. Each established church controls Books). amounts to failure by them to appreciate considerable expenditure of public and reciprocate the tolerance accorded money, as well as the teaching of certain

Fall 1995 59 subjects in the universities and in some something similar in the early thirties! then there is no rule of law in Germany. If cases public schools. With the collapse of the Honnecker the constitutional court rehears the case The strong institutional position of the regime, leadership opportunities of every and climbs down from its decree, then its two established churches is not indica- kind opened up to East Germans who had lack of independence and vulnerability to tive of their actual influence, which is been sidelined in the churches. That open- political pressure will be painfully obvious. less than in the United States. The ing abruptly curtailed church participation A constitutional amendment to neutralize Protestant church in Germany is much in the five new German states. With the decree would be a frivolous distraction like stateside "mainline" liberal Protes- finances far more straitened than in for- from serious public business. Such an tantism in its views. As in the American mer West Germany, few enroll to pay amendment clearly could not attract the Catholic church, a wide chasm separates church tax. necessary two-thirds majority in the two the views of the German Catholic hierar- So, why is it that "the cross is the raw chambers of the German parliament. chy from those of the laity.' There is nerve"? That could well be because the At best, the protagonists in the crucifix nothing comparable to stateside economic uncertainty of the German controversy are in a dilemma of their own Protestant fundamentalism in Germany churches parallels a larger economic making. They may have set the stage for a (although special doctrine sects such as uncertainty. More so than in the United constitutional crisis in the coming Jehovah's Witnesses and Christian States, Germans are anxious because they months. The controversy will play out, Science have footholds). The real situa- know that they can no longer afford their and it will be the old story of views that tion is one of passive rather than active accustomed high standard of living cannot stand up to scrutiny coming under support for the established churches by because of foreign competition, and taxes that very scrutiny. the German public. skyrocketing to combat deficits, and they Until reunification, West Germans realize that their indispensable cutting- Notes enrolled in the church of their forebears as edge status in industry and technology is a matter of course. The high costs of 1. "Freedom of faith, of conscience, and free- slipping away from them. The Christian dom of creed, religious or ideological (weltan- reunification caused taxes in Germany to Democrats in particular have a narrower schaulich), shall be inviolable." skyrocket. The pocket money that could parliamentary majority than before the 2. This claim is not as frivolous as it may first be saved by disenrolling from one's appear. In 1942, the Nazi Party ordered that the cru- 1994 national election, and an unclear cifixes in Bavarian classrooms either by taken down church and avoiding the payroll deduction vision of the future. So, they mutter about or displayed only underneath the mandatory Hitler for church tax—the equivalent of thirty or the decline of "western values." portraits. This met with widespread grass-roots resis- forty U.S. dollars per month for most peo- tance, and various Catholic school teachers ignored Perhaps the ingredient of the crucifix threats from party officials. There was a flurry of ple—now makes a noticeable difference controversy most uncharacteristic of Catholic resignations from the Nazi Party and boy- in an average family's budget. Disenroll- Germans is the widespread talk of dis- cotts of local Party functions were staged in protest. ments, which held steady at about More teachers and administrators engaged in this obedience to the Federal Constitutional resistance than the Nazis could see their way clear to 200,000 per year in former West Germany Court's decision—the brewing of a kind send to Dachau. The Nazi Party backed down. The prior to reunification, are expected to of "massive resistance." The most impor- behavior of these ordinary Catholic laymen was in reach 600,000 for 1995. The church hier- sharp contrast to the well-documented craven com- tant of the German leaders expressing plicity of the Catholic hierarchy with the Hitler archies are worried about the resulting such a view is Edmund Stoiber, the regime. erosion in their revenues.' Premier of the Bavarian State Parliament, 3. A liberal, environmentalist party with signifi- The condition of the churches in what cant strength at all levels in German politics. the counterpart of a governor in the 4. The term culture war—Kulturkampf— had been Communist East Germany is a United States. He has declared his inten- bandied about so freely by right-wing commentators special and in some ways sad case. To tion to order removal of the crucifixes in the United States refers to Otto von Bismarck's attack on the autonomy of the Catholic church in belong to a church there under the old only in those instances where there is a Prussia. He wrested control of the schools from it, regime caused one to be regarded as "lost complaint. A family like the Selers would and imposed his own rules on its operation and ele- to socialism" and ineligible for any posi- now get its grievance redressed in vation of the clergy. He deposed some Catholic bish- ops and jailed others at the height of the controversy. tion of trust or responsibility. So, for many Bavaria—after the damage has been Many reference books contain face-saving refer- of the most thoughtful and responsible done. ences to the church's eventual victory in the "culture people unwilling to go along with the At this juncture, it appears that this con- war." But the Catholic church never recovered its former power in Prussia, even though the state rules Communist regime and not allowed to troversy cannot go in any direction that governing its operation were lifted. leave the country, the churches were the would be good for the rule of law in 5. A public opinion poll in 1994 showed that 87 only available avenue of expression. It was Germany. The opportunity simply to obey percent of German Catholics favor abolition of the requirement of priestly celibacy, and 60 percent ordinary East German people in 1989 who the decree and make the best of it has regard the reign of Pope John Paul II as a destructive brought about that bright, shining, redeem- already been missed; to do so would have one. Der Spiegel, December 12, 1994, (50), p. 81 ff. ing moment in German history when pro- been an appropriate generous gesture to the Anti-abortion views are, however, more preva- lent in Germany than in the United States. A com- testers poured out of the churches of sizeable Muslim minority and the symbol- promise national abortion law attempting to resolve Leipzig, and—at great personal risk— ically important Jewish remnant. If the differences of the two former German nations on brought down a totalitarian regime with Stoiber's plan is carried out and there fol- the subject was enacted recently. The law contains the sheer moral force of their protest. ambiguities that make its practical effect unclear. lows no reciprocal exercise of power to 6. See Der Spiegel, March 6, 1995, (10), p. 76 Would that their grandparents had done enforce the constitutional court's decree, ff. •

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Summer 1995, Vol. 15, No. 3-Interview with with the Dead: William James and Mrs. Piper (Part Steve Allen and Paul MacCready; Moral Edu- Peter Ustinov; Humanism in the 21st Century; I); The Jehovah's Witnesses and the Watchtower cation; Eupraxophy: The Need to Build Secular Remembering World War II; Is There a Need for Society; An Interview with Sir Hermann Bondi; Humanist Centers; Religion in the Public Schools. Fantasy? The Jesus Phenomenon in Korea; Humanism in Fall 1989, Vol. 9, no. 4-In Defense of Liber- Spring 1995, Vol. 15, no. 2-The Many Faces of Nigeria; Sexual Archetypes in Transition; Mary tarianism; Humanism and Socialism; Militant Feminism; Secularism and Enlightenment in Wollstonecraft and Women's Rights. Atheism; The Pseudo-Problem of Creation in Islamic Countries; Poland Today; The Bicen- Winter 1991/92, Vol. 12, no. 1-The Hospice Physical Cosmology. tennial of The Age of Reason. 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Spring 1988, Vol. 8, no. 2-The First Easter; Is Fall 1993 Vol. 13, no 4-More on the `Incredible Spring 1991, Vol. 11, no. 2-The Unitarian Religiosity Pathological? Israel's Orthodox Jews; Discovery of Noah's Ark'; Should Secular Universalist Association; Upholding the Wall of The Alabama Textbook Case; The Resurrection Humanists Celebrate the Rites of Passage? The Separation; Scientific Humanism and Religion; Debate. Causes of Homosexuality; Jane Addams. Christianity: The Cultural Chameleon; Tolerance Winter 1987/88, Vol. 8, no. 1-Voices of Dissent Summer 1993, Vol. 13, no. 3-Is Religion a Form of Homosexuality; Was Karl Marx a Social within the Catholic Church; Eupraxophy; The of Insanity? Viruses of the Mind, 'The Incredible Scientist? Why I Am Not a Mormon. Humanist Identity; God and the Holocaust; Discovery of Noah's Ark'-An Archaeological Winter 1990/91 Vol. 11, no. 1-The Bertrand Psychic Astronomy. Quest? Islamic Intolerance. Russell Case, Europe 92: Secularization and Fall 1987, Vol. 7 no. 4-Fundamentalist Christian Spring 1993, Vol. 13 no. 2-Does Humanism Religion in Conflict; The Irish Republic; The Schools; Peter Popoff's Broken Window. Encourage Human Chauvinism? On Bio- Vatican's Pact with Italy; Religion and Summer 1987, Vol. 7, no. 3-Japan and Biblical diversity-An Exclusive Interview with E. O. Secularization Under Perestroika in the USSR; Religion: Was the Universe Created? Science- Wilson; Is the U.S.A. a Christian Nation? Homo- Levi Fragell on Humanism in Norway (interview); Fantasy Religious Cults; The Relativity of Biblical sexuality: Right or Wrong? Who Was John the Why I Am Not a Fundamentalist; The Natural Ethics; The Case Against Reincarnation (Part 4); Baptist? Confucius: The First `Teacher' of History of Altruism. Personal Paths to Humanism. Humanism? Fall 1990, Vol. 10, no. 4-Fulfilling Feminist Spring 1987, Vol. 7 no. 2-Personal Paths to Winter 1992/93, Vol. 13, no. 1-Does the Big Ideals; Freedom and Censorship Today; Neutrality Humanism; Psychology of the Bible-Believer; Bang Prove the Existence of God? Remembering Between Religion and Irreligion; Why I Am Not a Biblical Arguments for Slavery; The Case Against John Dewey: America's Leading Humanist Philos- Presbyterian; The Fundamentalist Absolute and Reincarnation (Part 3). opher; Toward a New Enlightenment: A Response Secularization in the Middle East. Winter 1986/87, Vol. 7, no. 1-The New to Postmodernist Critiques of Humanism; Human- Summer 1990, Vol. 10, no. 3-Dying Without Inquisition in the Schools; Naturalistic Humanism; ism's Thorn: The Case of the Bright Believers; The Religion; Why I Am Not a Methodist; The God and Morality Anti-Abortion and Religion; A Satanic Scare. Dangerous Folklore of Satanism; Thomas Positive Humanist Statement on Sexual Morality; Fall 1992, Vol. 12, no. 4-Secular Humanism and Aquinas's Complete Guide to Heaven and Hell; Unbelief in The Netherlands; Dated Humanism; `Traditional Family Values'; In Defense of Secular Moral Repression m the United States. Belief and Unbelief in Mexico; The Case Against Humanism; Why 1 Am Not a Muslim; 'Star Trek': Spring 1990, Vol. 10, no. 2-Rethinking the War Reincarnation (Part 2). Humanism of the Future. on Drugs; An African-American Humanist Fall 1986, Vol. 6, no. 4-New Secular Humanist Summer 1992 Vol. 12, no. 3-Will Secularism Declaration; How Much Influence Can Humanism Centers; The Case Against Reincarnation (Part 1); Survive? The Israeli Law of Return; Mormon Have on Blacks? The American Judiciary as a Protestantism, Catholicism, and Unbelief in Plural Marriage; Communicating with the Dead: Secular Priesthood; Are Humanists Optimists? Present-Day France; More on Faith-Healing. William James and Mrs. Piper (Part 2); Was Reflections on the Democratic Revolutions of Our Summer 1986, Vol. 6, no. 3-The Shocking Truth Emmanuel Kant a Humanist? Time. About Faith-Healing; Belief and Unbelief World- Spring 1992, Vol. 12, no. 2-Communicating Winter 1989/90, Vol. 10 no. 1-Interviews with wide. Spring 1986, Vol. 6, no. 2-Faith-Healing- Science vs. Religion in Future Constitutional Sidney Hook at Eighty; The Religion and Biblical Miracle or Fraud? The Effect of Intelligence on Conflicts; Armageddon and Biblical Apocalyptic; Criticism Research Project; Boswell Confronts U.S. Religious Faith. Is the U. S. Humanist Movement in a State of Hume; Humanism and Politics. Winter 1985/86, Vol. 6, no. 1-Is Secular Collapse? Summer 1982, Vol. 2, no. 3-A Symposium on Humanism a Religion? An interview with Adolf Spring 1984, Vol. 4, no. 2-Christian Science Science the Bible and Darwin Ethics and Religion; Grünbaum; Homer Duncan's Crusade Against Practitioners and Legal Protection for Children; Science and Religion. Secular Humanism; Should a Humanist Celebrate Biblical Views of Sex; A Naturalistic Basis for Spring 1982, Vol. 2, no. 2-Interview with Isaac Christmas? Morality; Humanist Self-Portraits. Asimov on Science and the Bible; Humanism as Fall 1985, Vol. 5, no. 4-lwvo Forms of Winter 1983/84, Vol. 4, no. 1-Interview with an American Heritage; The Nativity Legends; Humanistic Psychology, Philosophy of Science B. F. Skinner; Was George Orwell a Humanist? Norman Podhoretz's Neo Puritanism. and Psychoanalysis; The Death Knell of Psycho- Population Control vs. Freedom in China; Winter 1981/82 Vol. 2, no. 1-The Importance of analysis; New Testament Scholarship and Chris- Academic Freedom at Liberty Baptist College; Critical Discussion; Freedom and Civilization; tian Belief; The Winter Solstice and the Origins of Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon; Who Humanism: The Conscience of Humanity; Secu- Christmas. Really Killed Goliath? Humanism in Norway. larism in Islam; Humanism in the 1980s; The Summer 1985, Vol. 5. no. 3-Finding Common Fall 1983, Vol. 3, no. 4-The Future of Effect of Education on Religious Faith. Ground Between Believers and Unbelievers; Inter- Humanism; Humanist Self-Portraits; Interview Fall 1981,Vol. 1 no. 4-Secular Humanists- view with Sidney Hook on China Marxism and with Paul MacCready; A Personal Humanist Threat or Menace? Financing of the Repressive Human Freedom, Evangelical Agnosticism; The Manifesto; The Enduring Humanist Legacy of Right; Communism and American Intellectuals; Legacy of Voltaire (Part 2). Greece; On the Sesquintennial of Robert Ingersoll; The Future of Religion; Resurrection Fictions. Spring 1985, Vol. 5. no. 2-Update on the Shroud The Historicity of Jesus. Summer 1981, Vol. 1, no. 3-Sex Education; The of Turin; The Vatican's View of Sex; An interview Summer 1983, Vol. 3, no. 3-Religion in New Book-Burners; New Evidence on the Shroud with E. 0. Wilson; Parapsychology; The Legacy of American Politics; Bibliography for Biblical of Turin; Agnosticism; Science and Religion; Voltaire (Part I); The Origins of Christianity. Study. Secular Humanism in Israel. Winter 1984/85 Vol. 5. no. 1-Are American Spring 1983, Vol. 3, no. 2-The Founding Fathers Spring 1981, Vol. 1, no. 2-The Secular Educational Reforms Doomed? The Apocalyp- and Religious Liberty; The Murder of Hypatia of Humanist Declaration; New England Puritans and ticism of the Jehovah s Witnesses; Animal Rights Alexandria; Hannah Arendt; Was Karl Marx a the Moral Majority; On the Way to Mecca; The Re-evaluated; Elmina Slenker. Humanist? Blasphemy Laws, Does God Exist? Prophets of Fall 1984, Vol. 4, no. 4-Humanists vs.Christians Winter 1982/83, Vol. 3, no. 1-Academic the Procrustean Collective; The Madrid Con- in Milledgeville; Suppression and Censorship in Freedom Under Assault in California; Interview ference Natural Aristocracy. the Seventh-Day Adventist Church; Keeping the with Corliss Lamont; Was Jesus a Magician? Winter 1980/81, Vol. 1, no. 1-Secular Humanist Secrets of the Dead Sea Scrolls; Health Super- Astronomy and the Star of Bethlehem; The Declaration; The Creation/Evolution Controversy; stition; Humanism in Africa and Illusion. Strange Case of Paul Feyerabend. Moral Education; Morality Without Religion; The Summer 1984, Vol 4. no. 3-School Prayer; Fall 1982, Vol. 2, no. 4-An Interview with Road to Freedom.

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Return to: FREE INQUIRY, Box 664, Amherst, NY 14226-0664 Use Visa or MC and call toll-free 800-458-1366. Fax charges to: 716-636-1733. (Letters, coned. from p. 4) For the sake of accuracy and for the eral individualism is yesterday's battlecry record, I do wish, however, to take up one and their main priority is to disentangle The Nostalgic Trip of the few intelligent points that were made their own brand of materialism from the in the responses concerning the charge of confining structure of Marxist materialist I take strong objection to the patronizing relativism. It is by now a standard practice theories. tone and the simplistic content of the two for the opponents of poststructuralism to Of great importance to the monumental responses to my article on nomadic subjec- construct its critique of classical, essential- misunderstandings that characterize the tivity, "Feminism and Modernity" (FI, istic notions of subjectivity as being rela- exchanges between contemporary Con- Spring 1995). Neither Barry Smith nor tivist. The charge of relativism has usually tinental and analytic philosophies is the Ellen R. Klein show any sign of under- been made against feminists by die-hard role played by psychoanalytic theory of standing the terminology or the historical. champions of European rationality, such as language and subjectivity. Under the terms of reference of Continental philoso- Ernst Gellner and many other militant impulse of structuralism and subsequent phy, let alone of poststructuralism. masculinists, among whom Barry Smith schools, psychoanalysis has evolved into a Knowing the corporatist hostility that ana- and Ellen R. Klein strike somewhat theory of the constitution of the subject and lytic philosophers always make a point of pathetic figures. Poststructuralist feminist has played an important role in redefining displaying toward all that is other than their theory is criticized because its radical reap- the politics as well as ethics of intersubjec- canonical ways of thinking, I cannot say praisal of epistemological and political val- tivity. Psychoanalysis is innovative in that that I am surprised by yet another show of ues allegedly provokes a real "crisis" of it historicizes and therefore politicizes the their intolerance. I do wonder, however, values. internal process of subject formation. what these fundamentalist and contemptu- This criticism rests on a simplistic According to poststructuralist psycho- ous styles of thought can possibly have in reading of poststructuralist philosophy, analysis, language is what one is made of: common with humanistic ideals. Having and the simplifications have a lot to do it is an ontological site that defies rational successfully cooperated for years with with the corporatist hostility that analytic let alone individual control. Thus, to sug- individuals of the Dutch school of Human- philosophy manifests toward Continental gest that it is a "tool" of either communica- istic Studies, I must say that I am shocked schools of thought, as I mentioned above. tion (one is reminded of Habermas' dream by the tone and style of their American Poststructuralism is about the deconstruc- of an "ideal speech situation"), or of actual counterparts. All I can say is, in a country tion of essentialized notions of the sub- control over one's environment is a human- as deeply divided along class and race as ject—which historically have tended to istic form of arrogance that does not help the United States, if this is the only level of make subjectivity coincide with conscious either the moral plan of bringing humanity public discussion intellectuals can come up rationality. In the eyes of the opposition, together, nor the task of the social theorist with, they are in deep trouble! this critique results in a collapse into sub- who is supposed to account for processes The recurrence of facile attacks against jectivism, which in turn is defined as a of signification. Psychoanalysis also feminist scholarship and the "pink fluffy retreat into extreme relativism. This smashes any illusion of atomized individu- ghettos" of women's studies and the quick sequence of argumentative steps reveal ality by embedding the subject in the thick dismissal of anything remotely critical of beyond any possible doubt these philoso- materiality of a symbolic system of which rationalism is reminiscent of the on-going phers' attachment to the liberal bourgeois language is the most available source. This campaign against radical epistemologies notions of the individual and of the dual- allows for subtler analyses of the interac- and affirmative action, which right-wing istic opposition self/other that it entails. In tion between self and society and among organizations have been staging in this this view, the individual can only be con- different selves than liberal, ego-based psy- country for years. Once again, I think this ceived as either part of a global entity— chology. Thus, to say that Smith and Klein kind of argument lacks rigor and respect. family, state, nation, humanity, the cos- utterly mis-construct the poststructuralist As a professor of Women's Studies I do mos—or, on the contrary, as splintered off case is a compassionate understatement. take offense at people who take such lib- and atomized. No subtler articulation or In a paper that I consider of the great- erties with feminist scholars and with our in-between positions or shifting locations est relevance, though it deals with cultural field of inquiry. Their allegations of seems to be possible. This simplistic posi- rather than cognitive or moral relativism, incompetence reflect merely their igno- tion posits language as an instrument of Clifford Geertz2 stresses the polemical rance of our work and intellectual tradi- communication and banks on human and political use to which the "anti-relations; their arrogant retreat into seven- affectivity—especially the qualities of tivism" campaign is put. In an argument teenth-century ideals of rational thought identification and empathy—as the only that is analogous to the case feminists signifies little more than the utter irrele- possible cognitive and moral bridges have made for strategic essentialism, vance of their thought to today's realities. between the various atomized particles. Geertz calls for active anti-antirelativism. Their refusal to take into account the This philosophical tradition is obvi- He argues that a double negative does not lessons of modern history, as well as the ously at the antipodes of poststructuralist amount to an affirmative. Thus, to be historicity of concepts such as rationality philosophy: liberal individualism has little opposed to anti-relativism does not make and progress, is a form of ivory-tower aca- in common with the materialist theories of one a relativist. What this critical position demic privilege of which I remain deeply subjectivity proposed by Continental makes possible is rather the deconstruc- critical. philosophers. For them, the critique of lib- tion of authoritarian modes of thinking

Fall 1995 63 that attempt to pass themselves off as uni- in the spirit of polemic, but because I am and vision. versalistic. Geertz states that the fear of convinced that these ways of thinking are relativism is unfounded, because: "It far more cogent and useful than their crit- Notes serves these days largely as a spectre to ics suggest. It also translates my confi- scare us away from certain ways of think- dence in the scholarly as well as human 1.Ernst Gellner, Postmodernism, Reason, and ing and towards others. And, as the ways and ethical quality of feminist work: as Religion (New York: Routledge, 1992). My interac- of thinking away from which we are being argued in my essay, feminist experiences tion with Gellner is forthcoming in the Acts of the Erasmianum Symposium on Postmodernism and driven seem to me to be more cogent than have been elaborated in such a way as to Relativism, Amsterdam, 1995. those toward which we are being probe able to produce ideas that have a more 2. Clifford Geertz: "Anti Anti-Relativism," American Anthropologist 86/2, June 1984, pp. pelled (. ..), I would like to do something general range of application than ever 263-278. about this."' before. Contemporary feminist theory has 3. Idem, p. 263. In keeping with such wisdom, my reac- a universalistic reach, if not a universalis- tion to the anti-relativism charge is to go tic aspiration, as such—no matter what its Rosi Braidotti, Professor ahead and explore what are the ways of nostalgic critics may want to suggest—it Dept. of Women's Studies thinking that the anti-relativists are trying is not only a form of anti-antirelativism, Utrecht University to scare us away from. I have done so not but downright non-relativistic in structure Utrecht, The Netherlands

CODESH presents "A B aptist/Humanist Dialogue" Friday — Saturday, October 6—October 7, 1995 at the University of Richmond, Richmond, Virginia Historically Baptists have been defenders of religious tolerance and church-state separation. In recent years fundamentalist conservatives have seized control of scores of Baptist institutions, and steered a course toward inerrantism, often intolerance. Join us for a stimulating encounter as leading figures from the Baptist Church and from secular humanism discuss such topics of mutual concern as: academic freedom, separation of church and state, the role of scripture, religious orthodoxy and intellectual integrity, and Baptist traditions and American individualism. Participants include leading liberal Baptist thinkers and some of America's best-known advocates of secular humanism. Participants: Paul Kurtz, professor emeritus of philosophy; Vern Bullough, professor of history, California State University at Northridge; Robert Alley, professor emeritus of humanities, University of Richmond; Gerald Larue, professor emeritus of biblical archaeology, University of Southern California; Joe Edward Barnhart, professor of philosophy, North Texas State University; Norm Allen, executive director, African-Americans for Humanism; Timothy Madigan, executive editor, FREE INQUIRY magazine; Thomas Flynn, senior editor, FREE INQUIRY magazine; George Smith, president, Signature Books; Lois Porter, founder, Washington Area Secular Humanists; Dan O. Via, professor emeritus of New Testament Studies, Duke University; Margaret Via, chaplain emeritus, Duke University; Elizabeth Barnes, professor of theology, Southern Baptist Seminary; Bernard Cochran, professor of religion, Meredith College; Paul Simmons, former professor of Christian ethics, Southern Baptist Theological School; E. Glenn Hinson, professor of history, Baptist Theological Seminary at Richmond; Stan Hasty, executive director, The Baptist Alliance; George Shriver, professor of history, University of South Georgia; Langdon Gilkey, visiting professor of religion, University of Virginia (invited); David Burhans, chaplain, University of Richmond; Frank Eakin, chairman, Department of Religion, University of Richmond; R. Joseph Hoffmann, Head of Research, School of Theology, Westminster College, Oxford; Bernard Farr, Director of Academic Programs and Research, Westminster College.

O YES, I/we will attend the BAPTIST/HUMANIST DIALOGUE October 6-7, 1995 O Registration for person(s) at $59 each O Friday Dinner for person(s) at $20 each $ D Check or Money Order Total $ Sleeping rooms have been reserved at the Hyatt Hotel, 6624 W. Broad St., for a special rate of $70. Call 1(804) 285-1234 and mention "University of Richmond Conference" to receive this rate. Please make your room reservation before September 15th.

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64 FREE INQUIRY

noted that the Bible records 7O,OOO Israelites died of a plague as punishment In the Name of God for King David's insistence on holding a census. (AP)

Debts Come to the Archbishop A Moving Violation Hindu Temple Bombed Palermo, Sicily—Prosecutors have Logan, Utah Joseph M. Hansen has been Jammu, India—A bomb hidden in a motor sought the indictment of a powerful bound over for trial on a charge that he scooter exploded near a Hindu temple in Sicilian archbishop on fraud charges. assaulted a police officer following a traf- Jammu, a northern town often targeted by Salvatore Cassisa was accused of extort- fic stop and subsequent prayer. Two Logan Kashmiri separatists. At least 35 people ing kickbacks for restoration work at the officers said they stopped Hansen for turn- were injured. The blast, which set the cathedral in Monreale, a town of 24,OO0 ing left without signaling. Officer Jeff scooter on fire and threw it high up into just outside of Palermo. Cassisa, 72, was Curtis said that when asked for his dri- the air, occurred as Hindus gathered out- also charged with defrauding the ver's license, Hansen became agitated and side the temple to prepare for a pilgrim- European Union, by taking money ear- asked Curtis if he could pray about it first. age. Since late 1989, Muslim militants marked for vineyards on church land. The He said he needed guidance on whether to have been fighting for the independence ANSA news agency said Palermo prose- comply. Curtis said he gave him permis- of Jammu-Kashmir, the only Muslim cutors were investigating Cassisa for mob sion, and Hansen dropped to his knees. majority state in mostly Hindu India. links. (AP) Hansen then asked Curtis if he wanted to (United News of India) join him in prayer, but Curtis declined in Cast Your Bread Upon the Water order to direct traffic around Hansen. What Would Muhammad Say? Officer Bryan Low said Hansen prayed for Buenos Aires—Argentine court officials "power to overcome two enemies who Cairo, Egypt— A 13-year-old girl was confiscated an unemployed man's furni- were trying to take away his constitutional repeatedly beaten and then died of suffo- ture and a pizza oven he was using to sup- rights." When Hansen was asked to move, cation after the leader of a small, funda- port his three young children after he he leaped to his feet swinging his arms and mentalist sect ordered her punished for could not meet payments on a Bible. screaming "police brutality," Curtis said. uncovering her face in public. "I gave Hector Arce said he tried to return the The officers wrestled him to the ground orders to flog her because I was fighting Bible three times. He lost his public ser- and handcuffed him. (AP) the devils insider her," said Mohamed vice job last year soon after being per- Aqil, the self-proclaimed "prince" of the suaded to buy the expensively bound Ancestors Group. The girl was confined to Bible by a door-to-door salesman. Faith `Healer'? her home for nearly a month while her (Reuter) mother and Aqil's wife repeatedly lashed Tokyo An arrested faith healer has con- her with a plastic hose and bit her. In the Computer Confession fessed to beating six people to death with a end, they suffocated her, police said. Al- drumstick in exorcism rites she held in her Arab newspaper quoted her mother as Bonn, Germany—Are you a Roman house. But Sachiko Eto, 47, denied she saying she did not feel guilty about her Catholic nervous about confessing your intended to kill the victims, police in the daughter's death because it was the result sins to a priest? A German computer jock northern prefecture of Fukushima said. Eto of "the teachings of the group's leader may have the answer: Bare your soul to a was quoted as saying the beatings were and his wife." The group, which adheres computer with a new program called designed to exorcise evil spirits. (AP) to the strict interpretation of Islamic "Online with Jesus." Just like a priest, the tenets as outlined by the Wahabi sect in computer takes sinners step-by-step Suffer the Little Children Saudi Arabia, claims its practices are in through preliminary prayers, questions line with those used during the lifetime of them on their misdeeds, and deals out Greenville, S.C.---Results of a four-month the Prophet Muhammad. (AP) their penance. Harmut Landwehr, the pro- investigation into a church where children gram's creator, is quick to deny he has any were tied to chairs and pounded on the back Stop Making Census dark plans to make priests redundant or to drive out "demon devils" will be turned challenge their right to hear confessions. over to the state Department of Social Tel Aviv, Israel—Israel's first census in 12 "I see it more as a preparation and a Services. No criminal charges will be filed years may wind up more of an educated means for personal soul searching," he against the Grace and Truth Fellowship guess if hundreds of thousands of ultra- said. "All this might seem blasphemous, Church, though the findings raise "serious Orthodox Jews refuse to be counted. but it's not. Through my program, concerns," prosecutor Joe Watson said. Moshe Gafni, a lawmaker from the reli- Christians who would normally never set Parental consent to the children's treatment gious Torah Jewry Party, said Jewish tra- foot in church can look into their souls." made the case difficult to prosecute. (AP) dition forbids the counting of Jews and (Reuters)

Fall 1995 65 The Academy of Humanism The Academy of Humanism was established to recognize distinguished humanists and to disseminate humanistic ideals and beliefs. The members of the academy, listed below, (1) are devoted to free inquiry in all fields of human endeavor, (2) are committed to a scientific outlook and the use of the scientific method in acquiring knowledge, and (3) uphold humanist ethical values and principles. The academy's goals include furthering respect for human rights, freedom, and the dignity of the individual; tolerance of various viewpoints and willingness to compromise; commitment to social justice; a universalistic perspective that tran- scends national, ethnic, religious, sexual, and racial barriers; and belief in a free and open pluralistic and democratic society. Humanist Laureates: Pieter Admiraal, medical doctor, The Netherlands; Steve Allen, author, humorist; Shulamit Aloni, Education Minister, Israel; Ruben Ardila, professor of psychology, Universidad de Colombia; Kurt Baier, professor of philosophy, Univ. of Pittsburgh; R. Nita Barrow, ambassador to the United Nations from Barbados; Sir Isaiah Berlin, professor of philosophy, Oxford Univ.; Sir Hermann Bondi, Fellow of the Royal Society, Past Master of Churchill College, London; Bonnie Bullough, professor of nursing, Univ. of Southern California; Yelena Bonner, human rights defender, Commonwealth of Independent States; Mario Bunge, professor of philosophy of science, McGill Univ.; Jean-Pierre Changeux, Collège de France and Institut Pasteur; Patricia Smith Churchland, professor of philosophy, Univ. of California at San Diego; Arthur C. Clarke, novelist, Sri Lanka; Bernard Crick, professor of politics, Univ. of London; Francis Crick, Nobel Laureate in Physiology, Salk Inst.; Richard Dawkins, New College Fellow, Oxford University; José Delgado, chairperson of the Dept. of Neuropsychiatry, Univ. of Madrid; Paul Edwards, professor of philosophy, Brooklyn College; Luc Ferry, professor of philosophy, Sorbonne and Univ. of Caen; Sir Raymond Firth, professor emeritus of anthropology, Univ. of London; Betty Friedan, author and founder of the National Organization for Women (NOW); Yves Galifret, professor of physiology at the Sorbonne and director of l'Union Rationaliste; John Galtung, professor of sociology, Univ. of Oslo; Stephen Jay Gould, Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard; Adolf Grünbaum, professor of philosophy, Univ. of Pittsburgh; Murray Gell-Mann, Nobel Laureate in physics, California Institute of Technology; Jurgen Habermas, professor of philosophy, University of Frankfurt, Germany; Herbert Hauptman, Nobel Laureate and professor of biophysical science, SUNY at Buffalo; Donald Johanson, Inst. of Human Origins; Sergei Kapitza, physicist, Insitute of Physics and Technology; George Klein, cancer researcher, Sweden; Gyorgy Konrad, novelist, Hungary; Thelma Lavine, Clarence J. Robinson Professor of Philosophy, George Mason Univ.; Jolé Lombardi, organizer of the New Univ. for the Third Age; Jose Leite Lopes, director, Centro Brasileiro de Pesquisas Fisicas; Paul MacCready, Chairman, AeroVironment, Inc.; Adam Michnik, historian and writer, Poland; Conor Cruise O'Brien, author, Ireland; Indumati Parikh, president, Radical Humanist Association of India; John Passmore, professor of philosophy, Australian National Univ.; Octavio Paz, Nobel Laureate in Literature, Mexico; Wardell Baxter Pomeroy, psychotherapist and author; W. V. Quine, professor of philosophy, Harvard; Marcel Roche, permanent delegate to UNESC0 from Venezuela; Max Rood, professor of law and former Minister of Justice in Holland; Richard Rorty, professor of philosophy, University of Virginia; Carl Sagan, astronomer, Cornell; Leopold Sedar Senghor, former president, Senegal; J. J. C. Smart, professor of philosophy, University of Adelaide, Australia; Wole Soyinka, Nobel Laureate in Literature, Nigeria; Svetozar Stojanovic, professor of philosophy, Univ. of Belgrade; Thomas Szasz, professor of psychiatry, SUNY Medical School; V. M. Tarkunde, chairman, Indian Radical Humanist Association; Richard Taylor, professor of philosophy, Union College; Rob Tielman, copresident, International Humanist and Ethical Union; Alberto Hidalgo Tuúón, president of the Sociedad Asturiana de Filosofía, 0viedo, Spain; Peter Ustinov, actor and director; Simone Veil, former president, European Parliament, France; Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., novelist; Mourad Wahba, professor of education, University of Ain Shams, Cairo; G. A. Wells, professor of German, Univ. of London; Edward O. Wilson, professor of entomology, Harvard. Deceased: George O. Abell, Isaac Asimov, Sir Alfred J. Ayer, Brand Blanshard, Milovan Djilas, Joseph Fletcher, Sidney Hook, Lawrence Kohlberg, Franco Lombardi, André Lwoff, Ernest Nagel, George Olincy, Chaim Perelman, Sir Karl Popper, Andrei Sakharov, Lady Barbara Wooton. Secretariat: Vern Bullough, professor of history, California State Univ., Northridge; Antony Flew, professor emeritus of philosophy, Reading Univ.; Paul Kurtz, professor emeritus of philosophy, SUNY at Buffalo editor of FREE INQUIRY; Gerald Larue, professor emeritus of archaeology and biblical studies, Univ. of Southern California at Los Angeles; Jean-Claude Pecker, professor of astrophysics, Collège de France, Académie des Sciences. President: Paul Kurtz.

9/95

9/95 YES, I wish to become an Associate Member of CODESH Become a CODESH Associate Member today. Associate Members will receive (exclusively) the redesigned, expanded Secular Humanist Bulletin (which incorporates the CODESH Chronicle), and a 10 percent discount on registration fees for conferences and seminars, audiotapes and videotapes, and a select list of books. Enclosed are my dues for: ❑Annual single membership, $18 ❑Annual family membership, $29 ❑Two-year single membership, $33 ❑Two-year family membership, $49 ❑Three-year single membership, $45 ❑Three-year family membership, $72

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Council for Democratic and Secular Inquiry Media Productions Thomas Flynn, Executive Director Humanism (CODESH, Inc.) Produces radio and television programs presenting skeptical and sec- Paul Kurtz, Chairman ular humanist viewpoints on a variety of topics. Timothy J. Madigan, President Matt Cherry, Executive Director Institute for Inquiry Vern Bullough, Dean The Council for Democratic and Secular Humanism (CODESH) is a Offers courses in humanism and skepticism; sponsors an annual not-for-profit, tax-exempt educational organization dedicated to fos- summer session and periodic workshops. tering the growth of the traditions of democracy and secular humanism and the principles of free inquiry in contemporary society. In International Secretariat for Growth addition to publishing FREE INQUIRY magazine, CODESH sponsors many organizations and activities. It is also open to Associate and Development Membership. Members receive the Secular Humanist Bulletin. Matt Cherry, Executive Director Works closely with individuals and groups in various parts of the world, especially in developing countries, and assists them in spread- The Academy of Humanism ing the humanist point of view. Timothy J. Madigan, Executive Director Robert G. Ingersoll Memorial Committee The Academy of Humanism was established to recognize distin- Roger Greeley, Honorary Chairman guished humanists and to disseminate humanistic ideals and beliefs. Dedicated to running the Robert G. Ingersoll birthplace museum in Dresden, N.Y., and to keeping his memory alive. African Americans for Humanism James Madison Memorial Committee Norm Allen, Jr., Executive Director Robert Alley, Chairman Brings the ideals of humanism to the African-American community. Keeps alive James Madison's commitment to the First Amendment and to liberty of thought and conscience. Committee for the Scientific Examination of Secular Organizations for Sobriety (SOS) Religion (CSER) James Christopher, Executive Director Gerald A. Larue, President A secular alternative to Alcoholics Anonymous with more than 1,000 Examines the claims of Eastern and Western religions and of well- local groups throughout North America. Publishes a newsletter avail- established and newer sects and denominations in the light of scien- able by subscription. tific inquiry. The committee is interdisciplinary, including specialists Society of Humanist Philosophers in biblical scholarship, archaeology, linguistics, anthropology, the Timothy J. Madigan, Executive Director social sciences, and philosophy who represent differing secular and religious traditions. Promotes and defends the study of humanist philosophy.

Alliance of Secular Humanist Societies (ASHS) H. James Birx, Executive Director The Alliance of Secular Humanist Societies is a network created for mutual support among local and/or regional societies of secular humanists. If you are interested in starting or joining a group in your area, please contact P0 664, Amherst, NY 14226-0664, (716) 636-7571, FAX (716) 636-1733. ARIZONA: Arizona Secular Humanists PO Box 3738, Scottsdale, AZ 85271 (602) 230-5328 / CALIFORNIA: Secular Humanists of the East Bay, PO Box 5313, Berkeley, CA 94705 (415) 486-0553; Secular Humanists of Los Angeles, P0 Box 661496, Los Angeles, CA 90066 (310) 305-8135; Atheists and Other Freethinkers, PO Box 15182, Sacramento, CA 95851-0182 (916) 920-7834; San Diego Association of Secular Humanists, PO 927365 San Diego, CA 92122 (619) 272-7719; Humanist Community of San Francisco, PO Box 31172 San Francisco, CA 94131 (415) 342-0910; Secular Humanists of Marin County, PO Box 6022, San Rafael, CA 94903 (415) 892-5243; Santa Barbara Humanist Society, PO Box 30804. Santa Barbara, CA 93130 (805) 682-6606; Siskiyou Humanists, PO Box 223 Weed, CA 96091 (916) 938-2938 / CONNECTICUT: Northeast Atheist Association, PO Box 63, Simsbury, Cr 06070 / FLORIDA: Secular Humanists of South Florida, 3067 Harwood E., Deerfield Beach, FL 33442 (305) 428-7861; Atheists of Florida, Inc., PO Box 530102, Miami, FL 33153-0102 (305) 936-0210; Humanists of The Palm Beaches, 860 Lakeside Dr., N. Palm Beach, FL 33408 (407) 626-6556; Freethinkers, Inc., PO Box 724, Winter Park, FL 32790 (407) 628-2729 / HAWAII: Hawaii Rationalists, 508 Pepeekeo PI., Honolulu, HI 96822 (808) 235-0206 / ILLINOIS: Peoria Secular Humanists, PO Box 994, Normal, IL 61761 (309) 452-8907; Free Inquiry Network, PO Box 3696, Oak Park, IL 60303 (708) 386-9100 / KENTUCKY: Louisville Assoc. of Secular Humanists, P0 Box 91453, Louisville, KY 40291 (502) 491-6693 / LOUISIANA: New Orleans Secular Humanists, 180 Willow Dr., Gretna, LA 70053 (504) 366-7498; New Orleans, LA 70122 (504) 283-2830; Shreveport Humanists, 9476 Boxwood Dr., Shreveport, LA 71118-4003 (318) 687-8175 / MARYLAND: Baltimore Secular Humanists, PO Box 24115, Baltimore, MD 21227 (410) 467-3225 / MICHIGAN: Secular Humanists of Detroit, P. O. Box 432191, Pontiac, MI 48343-2191 (313) 962-1777 / MINNESOTA: Minnesota Atheists, PO Box 6261 Minneapolis, MN 55406 (612) 484- 9277; University of Minnesota Atheists and Unbelievers, 300 Washington Ave. SE, Minneapolis, MN 55455 (612) 731-1543 / MISSOURI: Kansas City Eupraxophy Center, PO Box 240401, Kansas City, MO 64124 (816) 241-9162; Rationalist Society of St. Louis, PO Box 2931, St. Louis, MO 63130 (314) 772-5131 / NEW HAMPSHIRE: Secular Humanists of Merrimack Valley, PO Box 368, Londonderry, NH 03053 (603) 434-4195 / NEW JERSEY: New Jersey Humanist Network, PO Box 51, Washington, NJ 07882 (908) 689-2813 / NEW YORK: Western New York Secular Humanists, PO Box 664, Amherst, NY 14226 (716) 636-7571; Capital District Humanist Society, PO Box 2148, Scotia, NY 12302 (518) 381-6239; Secular Humanist Society of New York, PO Box 7661, New York, NY 10150 (212) 861-6003 / NEVADA: Secular Humanist Society of Las Vegas, 240 N. Jones Blvd, Suite 106, Las Vegas, NV 89107 (702) 594-1125 / OHIO: Free Inquirers of Northeast 0hio, PO Box 2637, Akron, OH 44309-2137 (216) 869-2025; Free Inquiry Group, Inc., PO Box 8128 Cincinnati, OH 45208 (513) 557-3836 / OREGON: Corvallis Secular Society, 126 N.W. 21st St., Corvallis, OR 97330 (503) 754-2557 / PENNSYLVANIA: Pittsburgh Secular Humanists, 405 Nike Dr., Pittsburgh, PA 15235 (412) 823-3629 / SOUTH CAROLINA: Secular Humanists of the Low Country, PO Box 32256, Charleston, SC 29417 (803) 577-0637, Secular Humanists of Greenville, Suite 168, Box 3000, Taylors, SC 29687 (803) 244-3708 / TEXAS: Agnostic and Atheist Student Group, M.S., 4237 Philosophy, Texas A & M Univ., College Station, TX 77843; Secular Humanist Association of San Antonio, PO Box 160881, San Antonio, TX 78280 (512) 696-8537; WASHINGTON, DC: Washington Area Secular Humanists, PO Box 15319, Washington, DC 20003 (202) 298-0921 / WISCONSIN: Milwaukee Freethought Society, 1908 E. Edgewood, Shorewood, WI 53211 (414) 964-5271. The Affirmations of Humanism: A Statement of Principles

• We are committed to the application of reason and science to the understanding of the universe and to the solving of human problems. • We deplore efforts to denigrate human intelligence, to seek to explain the world in supernatural terms, and to look outside nature for salvation. • We believe that scientific discovery and technology can contribute to the betterment of human life. • We believe in an open and pluralistic society and that democracy is the best guarantee of protecting human rights from authoritarian elites and repressive majorities. • We are committed to the principle of the separation of church and state. • We cultivate the arts of negotiation and compromise as a means of resolving differences and achieving mutual understanding. • We are concerned with securing justice and fairness in society and with eliminating discrimination and intolerance. • We believe in supporting the disadvantaged and the handicapped so that they will be able to help themselves. • We attempt to transcend divisive parochial loyalties based on race, religion, gender, nationality, creed, class, sexual orientation, or ethnicity, and strive to work together for the common good of humanity. • We want to protect and enhance the earth, to preserve it for future generations, and to avoid inflicting needless suffering on other species. • We believe in enjoying life here and now and in developing our creative talents to their fullest. • We believe in the cultivation of moral excellence. • We respect the right to privacy. Mature adults should be allowed to fulfill their aspirations, to express their sexual preferences, to exercise reproductive freedom, to have access to comprehensive and informed health-care, and to die with dignity. • We believe in the common moral decencies: altruism, integrity, honesty, truthfulness, responsibility. Humanist ethics is amenable to critical, rational guidance. There are normative standards that we discover together. Moral principles are tested by their consequences. • We are deeply concerned with the moral education of our children. We want to nourish reason and compassion. • We are engaged by the arts no less than by the sciences. • We are citizens of the universe and are excited by discoveries still to be made in the cosmos. • We are skeptical of untested claims to knowledge, and we are open to novel ideas and seek new departures in our thinking. • We affirm humanism as a realistic alternative to theologies of despair and ideologies of violence and as a source of rich personal significance and genuine satisfaction in the ser- vice to others.

• We believe in optimism rather than pessimism, hope rather than despair, learning in the place of dogma, truth instead of ignorance, joy rather than guilt or sin, tolerance in the place of fear, love instead of hatred, compassion over selfishness, beauty instead of ugliness, and reason rather than blind faith or irrationality. • We believe in the fullest realization of the best and noblest that we are capable of as human beings.

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