Clhdca 0 7GE The Proceedings of the South Place Ethical Society Vol. 114 No. 4 £1.50 April 2009
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El unn uuaJunJ1aJwnJ1nJauaJnlJnanuaJnJaJwn1nJaJu1auaauauLEP dr2PLEEPLP E Cicero Denounces Catiline: Fresco by Cesare Maccari (1840-1919) Marcus Tullius Cicero on De Senectute (see article by Chris Bratcher on page 3)
SPES's CONWAY HALL SUNDAY CONCERTS TO CONTINUE Since the departure of the London Chamber Music Society in April 2008, the Ethical Society has been arranging the Sunday Concerts itself. Simon Callaghan has been commissioned to engage the musicians. Although the concerts still require a hefty subsidy from the Society's funds, the GC decided on I April 2009 to financially support the 2009/10 season. Members' support is of course most welcome as well. Contact Giles Enders on 020 7242 8034/1 NB
VIEWPOINTS THROUGH A GLASS DARKLY ON OLD AGE, FROM CICERO AND THE ANCIENTS Chris Bratcher3
PASCAL'S WAGER: IS IT PHIWSOPHY? Robert Schwarz9
THE CRUCIFIXION: THE SADO-MASOCHISTIC HEART OF CHRISTIANITY Barbara SmokerII
WHY RATIONALISM ISN'T WHAT YOU THINK IT IS Bob ChurchillIS
VIEWPOINT: Jon and Adele Wainwright 23
ETHICAL SOCIETY EVENTS 24 SOUTH PLACE ETHICAL SOCIETY Conway Hall Humanist Centre 25 Red Lion Square, London WC IR 4RL. Tel: 020 7242 8031/4 Fax: 020 7242 8036 Website: www.ethicalsoc.org.uk email: [email protected] Chairman: Giles Enders Hon. Rep.: Don Liversedge Vice-chairman: Terry Mullins Treasurer: John Edwards Registrar: Donald Rooum Editor, Ethical Record: Norman Bacrac SPES Staff Executive Officer: Emma J. Stanford Tel: 020 7242 8031/4 Finance Officer: . Linda Alia Tel: 020 7242 8031/4 Lettings Officer: Carina Dvorak Tel: 020 7242 8032 LibrarianIProgramme Co ordinator: Jennifer Jeynes MSc. Tel:020 7242 8037 Lettings Assistant: Marie Aubrechtova Caretakers: Eva Aubrechtova (i/c): Tel: 020 7242 8033 together with: Shaip Bullaku, Angelo Edrozo, Nikola Ivanovski. Alfredo Olivio, Rogerio Retuerna, David Wright Maintenance Operative: Zia Harneed New Members The Society is pleased to welcome to membership Dr Alexander Melnikoff of Holborn; Dr Jerry Jones of London SWI9
Donors Dr Jerry Jones of London SWI9, who has generously donated £50; Mr A Landau of Linlithgow, Nr Edinburgh, who has donated a cache of humanist books. SUCCESS OF BIG EVENTS AT CONWAY HALL There has been a spate of very successful 'big events' filling the main Conway Hall recently. These have been put on by the Ethical Society in conjunction either with the British Humanist Association or with the year-old Centre for Inquiry London. The two joint BHAISPES events were lectures entitled Can British science rise to the challenge of the 21st century? by Sir David King on I I February and A Darwinian perspective on religions: past, present and future by Prof Dan Dennett on 19 March. They were each chaired by Richard Dawkins and 'played' to full houses.
The two joint CF1L/SPES events held so far were Weird science, with Richard Wiseman, Chris French, Stephen Law (CFIL Provost) and Ben Goldacre on 17 January and God in the lab with Emma Cohen, Mike Jackson, Justin Barrett and Miguel Farias on 21 March. The third joint CFIL/SPES event will be on Science and religion with Jack Cohen, Simon Singh, Stephen Law and Baroness Mary Warnock on Saturday 25 April, from I lam to 4pm, to which everyone who can should attend.
SOUTH PLACE ETHICAL SOCIETY Reg. Charity No. 251396 Founded in 1793, the Society is a progressive movement whose aims are: the study and dissemination of ethical principles based on humanism, the cultivation of a rational and humane way of life, and the advancement of research and education in relevant fields. We invite to membership those who reject supernatural creeds and are in sympathy with our aims. At Conway Hall the programme includes Sunday lectures, discussions, evening courses and the renowned South Place Sunday Concerts of chamber music. The Society maintains a Humanist Reference Library. The Society's journal. Ethical Record, is issued monthly. Memorial meetings may be arranged. The annual subscription is 1 8 (£12 if a full-time student, unwaged or over 65).
2 Ethical Record, April 2009 VIEWPOINTS THROUGH A GLASS DARKLY ON OLD AGE, FROM CICERO AND THE ANCIENTS Chris Bratcher Lecture to the Ethical Society, 29 March 2009
I recognise that I've recently crossed the Rubicon into what I consider to be Old Age to join most of you recumbent on its far bank. A great mass of Baby boomers are not far behind, and like wildebeests, they'll be nervously questing for an easy descent into those uncertain waters, and an easier clamber up and onto a pension- light scrubland on the Far Side. So tips for survival in a country that has long been mapped out by cartoonists and dramatists, and observed in our parents, yet is not really known to us until we discover it for ourselves, are valuable. Should one have SPES — literally in Latin, hope —or something nearer to despair coated with wry regret at lost powers and opportunities?
Today's talk will look at a Classical — indeed, what has become a classic - view of the prospect. Quite the most famous work of the period was De Senectute, (Of Old Age) by Marcus Tullius Cicero. It runs to about 35 pages in Latin, and 45 in English. He wrote the first draft just before Julius Caesar was assassinated, and completed it shortly afterwards at a critical point in his life; shortly before he ignored all his sage advice, and went completely off the rails, to his death! The first part of the talk is as much about him as the work, as his life is its best commentary. Cicero's Fame Michael Grant, the Penguin translator of many of his works, simply says that "the influence of Cicero upon the history of European literature and thought greatly exceeds that of any other prose writer in any language". The earliest Italian printers in the 15th century produced over 200 editions of his works. His speeches were the template for rhetoric and advocacy throughout Europe; he coined the word `moralis' - our 'moral', and his thoughts on the subject were used by all sides in the Reformation. Tully (as English men of letters used to refer to him) was 'moral instruction' and 'civics' throughout most of the last millennium, until the subject went out of fashion, and familiarity with Latin authors ceased.
Here are a couple of quotes showing the effect of his work De Officiis (On Duties) on humanists. It was also written in 44BCE. Hume said "I desire to take my catalogue of virtues from it", and Voltaire said that "No one will ever write anything more wise, more true, or more useful. From now on, those whose ambition is to give men instruction, to provide them with precepts, will be charlatans if they want to rise above you, or all will be your imitators." That is perhaps a shade over the top, but this work in particular exemplified what SPES thought it should be about in our grand-parents' time; the promotion of the virtues and benefits of honesty ,based on common 'humanitas', as a counter to the seemingly perennial problem of spivvery in public and business dealings. The present government and set of M.P.s clearly did not have his writings inculcated at an impressionable age.
Ethical Record, April 2009 3 Cicero's Life Up To De Senectute Cicero, like myself, was in his 62nd year when he wrote the piece. He had made his name as an advocate and prosecutor of corruption in office; so much so that, although not a member of a patrician family, he came to represent their interest, and got elected consul, when he crushed a conspiracy by the losing candidate to oust his successor by force. Alas, he went too far in securing the senate's agreement to putting the conspirators to death without appeal, and, in the face of popular reaction, he was briefly exiled, then rehabilitated as a model governor of Sicily for a couple of years. On his return, he continued to fitfully back Pompey and the Ancien Regime against Julius Caesar, and to bang on 'off message' about the concentration of power that rode rough-shod over ancient checks and balances. Identified with the wrong side in what was a civil war, and losing his influence with Caesar, he increasingly retreated to his country estates: he promptly divorced his wife in 46BC, and married his 17 year old ward (which lasted a year — a lesson, surely); his beloved daughter died in February the next year, and his son was off studying philosophy in Athens.
You could say, the decks were cleared, but what to do with the rest of his life? Well, he set himself to re- read a lot of Greek philosophy. He and Pompey had years earlier studied at the Stoic school in Rhodes run by Posidonius, who with his predecessor, Panaetius, had introduced Roman society to a form of Stoicism. "If a man lives", Cicero had declared, "who would belittle the study of philosophy, I quite fail to see what in the world he would see fit to praise." Twenty years earlier, he had written (Pro Archia,16) " .. even if the great practical benefits (of reading) were not apparent, even if the object of these studies were pleasure only, even so, you must agree that no other mental activity is so worthy of a humanus !Microns [a civilized human being]. All other pursuits depend on particular times or ages or places, but these studies are as stimulating for young people as they are a source of pleasure for the old: they grace success, and they provide comfort and refuge in adversity .. in the night watches, in our travels, on our holidays in the country, they give us companionship." "Could 1have kept alive", Cicero remarked, "if I had not lived with my books?"
He started to write, like he did everything else, furiously. "The amount I write", he said, "is beyond belief, because I work through the night as well, because I cannot sleep". It is "the only way I can get away from my misery". A not uncommon reaction to the failure of hopes, and the loss of loved ones and a place in the limelight, particularly in view of Cicero's driven nature; but you would not guess at it, or the _tumultuous events of the Ides of March that year, from De Senectute.
De Senectute The work is addressed to his contemporary and regular correspondent. Atticus (commemorated today as a newspaper column). It purports to be a dialogue between a Socratic figure, the recently deceased, revered, 84 year old statesman of the old school. Cato the Elder, and two young men with a walk on part: 35 year old Scipio (who in real life was to raze Carthage in the third Punic war four years later) and one of his friends. The device enables Cicero both to recount a large number
4 Ethical Record, April 2009 of anecdotes of Cato and other notable Romans and Greeks who triumphed in or - enjoyed a fine old age, and to give the impression that we are finding out the score from the horse's mouth.
The young men ask how it is that Cato does not find old age wearisome, and how it can be made endurable. His reply constitutes the work. He says that, objectively, old age comes and passes no quicker than any other period of life; it is natural, it has its own season and harvest "like the ripeness that comes to the fruits of the trees and the earth", and there is no point in kicking against it. We mistake the failings of individuals for inherent characteristics of old age; the determinant is one's character. To be churlish about any period of life will make it tiresome, and it's your own fault if you find it so. He thinks there are four reasons why old age is regarded as a pain: it takes us away from active work; it weakens the body; it deprives us of physical pleasures; and because we face death.
Cato claims that there are occupations for the old — simply not ones requiring youth and strength. Great doings are the product of thought, character & judgement, which he thinks increases with age. Application preserves soundness of mind and memory: "old people remember what interests them". He has taken up Greek; Socrates was a late-comer to the lyre. As to infirmity: "However infirm a man has become, if he is imparting to others a liberal education, he cannot fail to be accounted happy." "Age has to be fought against"; by keeping fit with moderate exercise and consumption of food & drink and so forth, but even more by exercise' of the mind, and by demanding due respect. "Age will only be respected if it fights for itself, maintains its own rights, avoids dependence .. for as long as life lasts." Cato regards the slackening off of the passions as a blessing. "Age has no banquets, no cups filled again and again. So - it also avoids drunkenness, indigestion, and sleepless nights!" One can still enjoy oneself, in moderation: he mentions that their ancestors invented the right word for a meal with friends: 'convivium', a 'living together'; it's not about getting wrecked. Here, and in his dismissal of infirmity, Cicero is at his most plainly Stoic.
A Very Paradise Cato then waxes lyrical on the joys of farming. He had already mentioned that his ordinary neighbours continue in old age to be always out in the fields — even if they will not see the yield of their labours; a key point to accept. The pleasures of growing things, in his view, come closest of all to a life of wisdom; they are banked in the earth itself, and its fruitfulness is their interest, in more senses than one. "For nowhere else in the world can an old man better find sunshine for his warmth, or shade and running water to keep himself cool and well". It is the vision that sends retirees off to end their days in Tuscany, or Kent for the Darling Buds of May. Viniculture is the recreation and delight of Cato's old age, and his description of the cycle of the vine, and a cultivator's life, is, to my mind, the highpoint of the work, and is, in large measure, the reason for its enduring appeal. It is also based on knowledge: most of Cato's own work De Agricultura (De Re Rustica) survives; Cicero translated Xenophon's book On Estate Management.
Ethical Record, April 2009 5 Cato says that respect is the crowning glory of old age. He insists that this benefit, like any other, has to have its foundations laid in earlier life; as he describes it, it is a very aristocratic expectation, fitted to his own station in his society. It is the retention of due deference and authority. When he criticises the faults of old age, he singles out miserliness ("how absurd to think you want more funds for your journey when its nearly over"); clearly he knew nothing of destitution.
Poth, Where Is Thy Sting? Tie.argues that, as after death, I shan't suffer, or (if there is a future life) I may even be happy, there is nothing to fear: without such a conviction we can have no peace of mind, which is the key to handling Old Age. The old have had the long life that many of their juniors will not, and have the benefit of being able to harvest it, and to prepare for death. It is timely, and above all, once more, natural. Cicero's argument throughout is not original —which he never claimed to be, nor would have regarded it a virtue. He is assembling Stoic commonplaces in words that were, to borrow those of Alexander Pope, 'ne'er so well expressed'; none more so than the following, in the aftermath of the school shootings in Germany: "the death of a young person reminds me of a flame extinguished by a deluge; but the death of the old is like a fire sinking and going out of its own accord. In the same way as apples, when green, can only be plucked by force, but after ripening to maturity fall off by themselves, so death comes to the young with violence, but to old people when the time is ripe."
Cato ends with some ruminations about the prospects of an afterlife. He has read Pythagoras and Plato, and believes that the soul is immortal. "True", he says, "certain insignificant philosophers (by whom he meant the Epicureans) hold that I shall feel nothing after my death. If so, then I need not fear that after their own deaths they will be able to mock my conviction!" We can do it for them. (Cicero's views on religion are quoted in David Holohan's excellent piece on D'Holbach in the March ER.)
The Story Continued Cicero did not take his own advice. Things had been promising: he had still been corresponding cordially enough on the surface with Caesar, and the previous December (45BCE) he had even entertained him at his country estate. Now Caesar was dead. Cicero rejoiced, expecting the restoration of the Republic and no doubt a further career at the heart of things with his confreres, Brutus and Cassius. But Mark Anthony had outmanoeuvred the conspirators. True to form, Cicero arranged a posting out of harm's way in Syria, but his ship was driven back to Italy by storms. Back home, he could not reconcile himself to the regime, or to being put out to grass, pleasant and appropriate as he makes it out to be. In his examples of old men at the height of their powers, he had implied that he (and the senatorial class) should have a place in the sun with influence. He wasn't going to take the situation lying down.
Come the autumn, he had written the largest of fourteen intemperate and, frankly, vainglorious, tracts, couched as speeches, some delivered to the senate, some circulated, amounting to a virtual prosecution —the so-called 'philippics' -
6 Ethical Record, April 2009 against Mark Anthony. lese majeste' went too far. A year later, once the latter had secured power by alliance with Octavian (Augustus), he ordered Cicero, and many other 'prescribed' opponents, killed. Cicero vacillated, and too late decided to have his slaves hotfoot him abroad. Plutarch describes his end, hacked to death in the litter in which he was being transported to a port: "he looked steadfastly at his slayers, his head all squalid and unkempt, and his face wasted with anxiety, so that most of those who stood by covered their faces .." Not quite the end envisaged by De Senectute !
A Life Beyond High Office The first point I want to stress is that thc status of the work has placed it on a pedestal from which it is all too easily dislodged. It is not guidance for Everyman, but instruction by and for an elite, Cicero's intended (and only available) audience. So, does it make sense for such people today, looking to a life beyond high office? Some politicians have come close to the Ciceronian ideal: Denis Healey and Jim Prior spring to mind. Both appear to have eased themselves into lengthy retirements on their farms, and have retained (or recovered) respect and some role as counsellors. But the idea that the landed gentry might live both in the corridors of power and on their estates is preserved only in the life-style of non-executive company directors. As to who have coped better or worse with political old age, one has to agree with Cato that it is a matter of individual temperament, with Ted Heath and Margaret Thatcher the most conspicuous failures, and a revived Kenneth Clarke proof that repeated death in the Tory party has no sting.
Preaching To The Unconverted Classes The book has had its own life. Having fallen into the hands of schoolmasters, it has, ironically, become the purely educational tract that it makes itself out to be. As Helen Small, author of The Long Life (Oxford 2007), which was the stimulus (thank you, Jay) for this talk, says, Cicero's is essentially a robust view, and one that emphasises moral causality: live well (particularly, virtuously) and read the classics, young man, and you will age well. No wonder schoolmasters liked it, especially elderly ones. You can just hear them, and sometimes us: "us oldies know, and therefore should have it, best - and how about some respect. I want you to construe pp 5/7". De Senectute lacks any refcrence to taking pleasure in the flourishing and independent achievements of others younger than oneself, particularly pupils or family. Cicero/Cato clearly takes an interest in protégés; but only, I feel, as instruments to be fashioned into a form of verification and perpetuation of what he stands for.
Montaigne commented 'he gives one an appetite for growing old', I don't believe him. The work attempts to reconcile us to old age by showing it has its own bounty, and therefore can even be idyllic. Perhaps it can be, if you have leisure, health and wealth. Cicero's Stoic teachers had softened their predecessors' hair- shirt contention that virtue was self-sufficient, for precisely these reasons. But Cicero, a typical lawyer in over-egging a case, also seems to argue in places that there is nothing about age per se to be reconciled to. That is simply implausible: it is as if Alzheimer's was a consequence of too few cold baths, and not a degenerative disease, and incontinence a result of incontinent living. Ethical Record, April 2009 7 'GoodbyeTo All That' A core difficulty with Cato's prescription is that it proposes both engagement and disengagement, without clarification. Mixing the two, whilst keeping them apart in separate lives, makes for a strange cocktail. 'Goodbye to all that' may be the ideal attitude to engagements, and diminishing desires of the flesh, or whatever else you can no longer do, but interests and, particularly, concerns are just as organic as our bodies, and more enduring. The real problem, it seems to me, is that, irrespective of whether our aspirations (never mind appetites) moderate or change, the desire to have them realised is just as strong as at any other period in our life, only for them to be liable to be frustrated by ailments, loss of focus, energy and drive, or rendered impossible by the shortage of quality time left to us. This can be so even if we tailor our projects to our apparent condition. The problem of old age is that our projects (and happiness in general) are vulnerable as never before (as Aristotle recognised). You take up the lyre only to be afflicted with arthritis. Maybe the day and the joumey, not its goal, should be its own reward; but Cicero doesn't consider this, other than accidentally in his encomium on farming, that he doesn't do himself. What About Death? Nowadays, death is all too often untimely and unnatural because it comes too late. It is only possible to conceive of death routinely occurring when the time is ripe, when you, or your family, have a knife to cut you off before ignoble rot sets in. The approach of death is made no more agreeable by having a long past, or time to prepare for it. It only becomes so as your present condition becomes insufferable. In arguing that old age is not inherently so, Cicero should logically be arguing for longevity without end.
As Small says, "It is difficult to shake off the sense that De Senectute has to work very hard to resist the tide not only of popular prejudice [against the old] but of common intuition". It is what the old, and particularly Cicero, want to hear, and not how it is; it is an attempt, like Stoicism in general, to achieve "a triumph of mind over circumstance". She quotes Simon Blackburn (Ethics: a very short introduction (2003)) "there is a standard objection to stoicism .. that we don't really believe it 'in our hearts'. SimoneDe Beauvoir Simone de Beauvoir's riposte to Cicero, in her work La VietHesse (1970), was "we harden in some places and rot in others. We never ripen." She thought that we cannot truly become reconciled to old age, for "there is an insoluble contradiction between the inward feeling that guarantees our unchanging quality and the objective certainty of our transformation. All we can do is waver from one to the other, never managing to hold them both firmly together." (p290) This gap is something new in our lives. The transformation that the elderly suffer includes others' perception of them, and de Beauvoir regarded that perception by `outsiders' as an undeniable objective reality. The fundamental error in stoicism, as she saw it, is that it claims we can be independent of the world, whereas in fact (as Siam11,and the later Sartre, puts it) our life is conducted in dialectical relation with it. De Beauvoir was not only resigned to growing old, but to being put down, particularly 8 Ethical Record, April 2009 as a woman, as old and therefore of lesser account. (I was not convinced that childless women are particularly crippled in this regard.)
What to do? There is, she claims, "only one solution if old age is not to be an absurd parody of our former life, and that is to go on pursuing ends that give our existence a meaning — devotion to individuals, groups or causes, social, political, intellectual or creative work" ... "even when all illusions have vanished and one's zeal for life has died away"(p5401I). We should do so, even if it involves the cardinal sin for existentialists, living to some extent in "bad faith", or denial of our condition. So, in fact, she espouses a position not too far from Cicero's stoicism, shorn of its upbeat attitude; because in an aside, she says her solution is only for the privileged few; i.e., the Ciceronian elite with the means to pursue it. Which is where I part company. We can all find satisfaction, if not meaning, in the most modest of endeavours, like making the attenders' tea, even if, as in earlier life, we have precious little influence or prospect of success on a grand stage. I commend to you the Myth of Sisyphus, as told by Albert Camus. Sisyphus must keep pushing his rock up a hill for it to only roll down. He is aware of how absurd his travail is, and the whole extent of his wretched condition, but that makes him superior to his fate. That, I think, is the key to Old Age (if you can't get your rocks off!). Donald Rooum remarked that anarchists seem to flourish better than most (if they get beyond the violent direct action stage!). Camus concluded that we must imagine Sisyphus happy. I got that fashioning, giving and exchanging views on this talk.
PASCAL'S WAGER: IS IT PHILOSOPHY? Robert Schwarz
If you wager that God exists and he does, you gain all. If you wager that he does and he does not, you lose nothing. Wager then, without hesitation, that he does exist. Blaise Pascal For many generations the existence or non-existence of God has been the subject of profound philosophical interest. Thomas Aquinas' attempt to use reason to establish what faith alone had supposedly established already; the effort of the mystics to draw on intuition and the 'inner voice' to reach a definitive conclusion which would trump all other epistemological devices; the approach of the pragmatists to link their inquest to utility, - all these modes are equally 'entitled' to ask the question: but is it philosophy? That is to say, does the approach meet the criteria of deriving knowledge the 'philosophical' way, which is more rigorous in arriving at a foundation of belief if it is an intellectual concept rather than the answer to an emotional need or thinly disguised wishful thinking.
One of the most challenging endeavours to advance a 'God friendly' theory is undoubtedly the so-called wager approach of Blaise Pascal (1623-1662) and the American pragmatist William James (1842-1910). The mathematician and metaphysician Blaise Pascal and William James, the author of the updated paradigm of the wager approach, have attracted the approval of psychologists — James was himself a pioneer of modern psychology — as well as some philosophers. The latter group is likely to admit that the wager approach to God's existence is philosophically suspect
Ethical Record, April 2009 9 because, as the sceptic W.K. Clifford wrote, 'Belief is desecrated when given to unproved and unquestioned statements for the solace and private pleasure of the believer.' (W.K. Clifford, The Will to Believe and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy. P.8). Let us see what the wager theory claims, in order to decide whether Clifford's point is applieable. Pascal and James were persuaded that Aquinas' arguments in favour of God's existence reached by reason were unsuccessful, a position held by many other thinkers following the thirteenth century, and that therefore reason is not affronted if one chooses between existence and non-existence by way of a wager: namely that an affirmative answer (God exists) is no more a deviation from philosophical principles than a negative answer (God does not exist).
Neither flies in the face of reason. However the positive answer has the advantage that it is more welcome on emotional grounds, at least for most human beings. Under such circumstances the ' wager supporters' would say, it is philosophically quite proper to resort to the 'happiness factor'. Since human nature is such that God's presence in the universe gives most people more satisfaction than his absence, why should they not be free to opt for a 'yes' instead of a `no' answer? In other words, since human reason is obviously impotent to prove or disprove God, and since the empirical approach is also of no help, what is wrong with resorting to the happiness criterion?
On a personal note, I find fault with Pascal and James. We can leave Pascal out of it because that 17th century thinker was actually more of a mystic siding with theology than a modem philosopher like James, who was more 'neutral' than partisan. Let my reaction therefore be addressed primarily to James. I concede that James makes sense when he tells us that it will do no harm to believe in God, and that it may give comfort and immeasurable satisfaction.
The force of James' point is that where the evidence is indecisive, our 'vital and moral interests' may be resorted to. Put differently, he tells us that philosophical integrity is not abused if we choose on emotional grounds; but only in the absence of rational evidence. Although I am generally cordial to Williams James' thought, I find it difficult to accept his point of view in this controversy. It seems to stand on wobbly legs. It is clearly true that where reason is not honoured philosophy is likewise not honoured, especially its epistemological branch. But it is also true, in my opinion, that the utility of a belief has nothing to do with its truth or falseness; and that Clifford's strict rule cannot be ignored. James, let us remember, was a psychologist as well as a philosopher. The emotional factor was never far from his mind. His stance on the question of God's reality, however, seems to me too much like wishful thinking, which I believe is to be avoided at all cost, as we have learned from our philosophical ancestor, Socrates.
Let us return to Pascal and sum up the wager idea (see above). Does this not sound like a gambler's mindset in the world of shady business, or worse, politics? Arguing from a need for God to the existence of God is questionable. James' words sound more suitable: 'The heart has reason which the head knows not.' These words may be valid enough but I think that philosophically they take us not a step further in our search for the truth.
10 Ethical Record, April 2009 THE CRUCIFIXION: THE SADO-MASOCIIISTIC HEART OF CHRISTIANITY Barbara Smoker Lecture to the Ethical Society, 5 April, 2009
LIKEChristmas, Easter is pagan in origin; and its movable date is even based on the older lunar calendar. Children enjoy the surviving ancient pagan customs, such as Easter eggs — which, of course, originally symbolised fertility.
Though Christmas has become the most popular (and expensive) festival in the Christian calendar, it is Easter that is both theologically and traditionally by far the more important, for it commemorates the victorious resurrection of the divine Jesus, following his willing propitiative sacrifice on the cross, said to have been required for the reconciliation of God and sinful humanity, so as to open up Heaven to believers. The week preceding Easter, culminating in the oppressive observance of Good Friday, is therefore known as Holy Week.
Vicarious Atonement The qualifying test for entry to Heaven is not, strictly speaking, leading a decent life but being baptised and "accepting Christ as Saviour". Other gods who had taken human form date back to the ancient Egyptians. Human redemption through the god-man's suffering is called "vicarious atonement" — the word "vicarious" deriving from vicar: that is, one who stands in for another, as Christ is supposed to stand in for us. It is meant to assuage God's anger against us, though punishing one person — especially an innocent person — in place of others is hardly what we would count as justice. In fact, it undermines the whole civilised notion of justice. (In the religious Middle Ages, however, it was acceptable for high-born boys who were too important to be punished for their own misdemeanours to employ whipping-boys!)
Even if, as we are told, there is to be compensating justice in the world to come, God remains unjust in this, the only world we know. And not only vis-a-vis the sacrificial victim; the whole human race is subject to the chances of disease, disability, and disaster.
Nonetheless, the whole theological raison d'etre of Christianity is the vicarious atonement of Jesus, to offset the guilt of the first man's disobeying his creator — that is, of Original Sin. Though it is difficult to imagine anything more unjust than inherited guilt, let alone eternal punishment for it, orthodox theologians maintain that Original Sin persists to stain the soul of every newborn baby until the stain is removed by Christian baptism. The modern survival of more attenuated forms of Christianity is down to belonging, rather than believing, though it may retain the comforting hope of a blissful after-life, with family and friends reunited — but not usually fear of damnation. Debaptism Certificates Even baptism is no longer a sine qua non for salvation except among the more rigorous sects. In the past few weeks there has been a surge of atheistic debaptisms, Ethical Record, April 2009 I I and I am proud to note that the National Secular Society's promotion of debaptism certificates, based on my wording of a decade ago, has made sensational news and comment in the international media.
The Atonement theory derives from the ancient annual custom of animal sacrifice, which was a modification of prehistoric human sacrifice. As sanctioned by the bible story of Abraham, the sacrificial animal was a substitute for the favorite son — though God "the Father" apparently stuck to the previous tradition. Fortunately, the majority of Christians do not honour him by following his bloodthirsty example. If, in Old Testament times, the head of a Jewish family neglected to slit the throat of a Passover lamb "without blemish" and to smear its blood on the portal of his house, Jehovah was sure to punish him by the death of his eldest son.
The Sacrificial Lamb To the early Christians, Jesus was the infinite sacrificial lamb: Agnus Dei, "who taketh away the sins of the world". For, said Christian theologians, "without the shedding of blood there is no Redemption". Don't ask me why! An omnipotent god, by definition, must be able to do without blood sacrifice. What good does it do? The only possible need for it is to appease a sadistic and unreasonable tyrant - - who, perversely, is said to be "perfect".
In the first few centuries of the Christian era, depictions of the crucifixion were less sadistic — more triumphant — than they became in the later Middle Ages, when the emblematic royal crown worn by the crucified Christ was transformed into the biblical crown of thorns. This burgeoning emphasis on the agony suffered by the Saviour is a form of pornography, which stimulates heightened religious emotion — an extension of sexual emotion, especially in highly-sexed young people. It is the main reason why some of them, wallowing in sado-masochistic fantasy, choose Jesus as their soul-mate and pledge themselves to lifelong celibacy as priests or nuns. Indeed, a nun will often refer to herself as a Bride of Christ.
Those who have seen the video of the Ecstasy of St Teresa will recall the odious blood dripping from the crucifix. A similar exemplar from our own time is her namesake Mother Teresa of Calcutta, who unknowingly revealed her sexuality in youthful descriptions of her religious visions. As her hormones aged, these naturally diminished in intensity — and I think this decline is what is really meant by the phrase "the dark night of the soul", said to be suffered by many Christian saints.
It was in the year 1224 that Francis of Assisi, though no longer in the first flush of youth, was said to exhibit, while in an ecstacy of prayer, the wounds of the crucified Christ in his own body, so starting a craze for manifesting the stigmata, as it is called — now recognised medically as a symptom of hysteria. Certain reiterated phrases in Christian brain-washing — such as "He died for me" and "By His stripes are we healed" — carry this strong emotive charge, which is deliberately triggered by hymn-writers, in both their lyrics and musical cadences, so that any relevant analytic questions are swept away in a flow of feeling. 12 Ethical Record, April 2009 Having carried out a little research into popular hymms of the 19th and 20th centuries, I am able to quote the words of a sado-masochistic verse from the Methodist Hymnbook, as follows.
There is a fountain filled with blood Drawn from Emanuel's veins — And sinners plunged beneath that flood Lose all their guilty stains. (Presumably emerging horribly blood-stained instead!)
Even more reprehensible, from the same collection, is a hymn that is actually designated a hymn for children. Here is one of its verses.
He died that we might be forgiven — He died to make us good — That we might go at last to Heaven, Saved by His Precious Blood. Apart from its emotional seductiveness, its string of non-sequiturs is intrinsically anti-educational.
As for the hymns that I remember from my own Catholic childhood, some of those in English from the Westminster Hymnal were remarkably similar in their sado-masochistic sentiment to the Methodist ones quoted. Hem is a verse from one of them — which, I am now rather embarrassed to say, was my favourite hymn as a convent school-girl.
Blood of my Saviour Bathe me in thy tide. Wash me ye waters Gushing from His side. (At least with this one the blood gets washed off in the end.) Needless to say, I was unaware in those days of its Freudian sexual implications. Only in maturity did I recognise that the religious feeling was identical to sexual arousal. How many believers who do recognise it will admit it?
Simply being bom human is clearly what makes us all miserable sinners bound for Hell, at least until baptism has washed away our Original Sin. But apparently any subsequent personal wrong-doing, being a sin (however venial) against the majesty of the godhead, somehow adds to the suffering of the incarnate god-self (or son?) in his earthly death throes. Contemplating this martyrdom often activates in susceptible believers a wellspring of sado-masochistic emotion (even in the so-called "happy-clappy" churches), together with irrational ideology and varying degrees of mental instability.
Let us expunge the toxic religiosity, simply enjoying the (far less unhealthy!) hot cross buns and Easter eggs.
The views expressed in this Journal are not necessarily those of the Society.
Ethical Record, April 2009 13 Voltaire Lecture - a joint BHA/SPES event Kenan Malik on THE GUILT OF SCIENCE? Race, Science and Darwin Chair: Polly Toynbee 6.30pm, Thursday 23 April 2009, Conway Hall, Red Lion Square, London WC IR 4RL £5 (BHA or SPES), £7 others. Tickets online from www.humanism.orgiuk by debit/credit card or by cheque to British Humanist Association marked FOR VOLTAIRE LECTURE with your name and a return address, to I Gower Street, London, WC I E
SCIENCE AND RELIGION organised by Centre for Inquiry Londonand The Ethical Society SATURDAY, 25 APRIL 2009 • 10.30am-4pm. A day explorina the relationship between science and religion with Simon Singh, Mary Warnock, Jack Cohen, Stephen Law 11-12am JACK COHEN Why I believe in evolution - or in Omphalos! The evidence for evolution converges from at least three directons: from the fossils, from the DNA sequences, and from contemporary examples. 'Creationism', or 'Intelligent Design' are out because they don't explain, they haven't the authority, and Grand Canyon/Flood ideas are simply absurd. 12-1pm SIMON SINGH Big Bang — the gospel according to Monsignor Georges Lemaitre Simon will talk about the Big Bang model and how science develops its theories. He will also explain how the concept of the Big Bang was initially developed by George Lemaitre, who successfully combined his careers as a cosmologist and a priest.
1pm to 2pm Lunch Break. Sandwiches are available for purchase 2-3pm STEPHEN LAW Empirical evidence against the God hypothesis Stephen will look at what appears to be powerful empirical evidence against the existence of the Judeo-Christian God, and at how the faithful respond to that evidence. 3-4pm BARONESS MARY WARNOCK Religion as humanism Baroness Maty Warnock is one of Britain's leading public figures. She is perhaps best known for her recently expressed views on assisted suicide, and her role in the production of the Warnock report.
£10 (£5 for students and members of SPES, GLHA, BHANew , Humanist subscribers andSkeptic subscribers) for each event. Send a cheque payable toCentre for Inquiry London to: Executive Director Suresh Lalvani, Centre for Inquiry London, at 25 Red Lion Square, London WC IR 4RL. Alternatively pay by PAYPAL. Use the "Support CFI London" link at www.cfilondon.org For further info call: 020 7242 8037/4/I.
14 Ethical Record, April 2009 WHY RATIONALISM ISN'T WHAT YOU THINK IT IS Bob Churchill Lecture to the Ethical Society 23 November 2008 Bob Churchill studied philosophy at the University of Warwick and Queens University, Canada. Having worked in communications, media production and systems development, he is now Membership and Web Manager at the British Humanist Association.
Worldview rationalism 'Rationalism' used to mean the axiomatic system-building of philosophers like Spinoza and Descartes. Reason took precedence over all experience. But in its broadest form, 'rationalism' today refers only to the view that reason is central to the growth of knowledge in some way. Far from being opposed to empirical input it is intearated with scientific understanding. This is a newer meaning of 'rationalism' but we may still call it 'traditional rationalism' because it is the rationalism that is part of the humanist tradition; it is the rationalism espoused by the Rationalist Association and by most scientists (at least implicitly in their work). We might also call it 'worldview rationalism'.
It's not what you think it is nor does it not work how you think it works. Allow me to stress that I am very much a worldview rationalist. I value truth, reason, and empirical input. However, even if your rationalism is largely unformulated and —as far as you're concemed — uncontroversial, I want to make you realise that it is controversial.And not —boringly —because I think there is any value in alternatives like faith or relativism. I do not. But these flaws I allege —probably present in your own rationalism —are allowed to perpetuate because too little rational criticism has been leveled by rationalists at their own way of thinking. These flaws loiter together under a banner which we may call 'positivism'. '
Critical Rationalism I will be outlining Critical Rationalism, which attempts to overcome these alleged positivist errors to form a more robust rationalism. Critical Rationalists agree with other worldview rationalists that the use of reason, that being responsive to empirical observation, that rejecting foundational authoritarianism, and that something like a checked and balanced open-mindedness are essential to anything bearing the name 'rationalism'. But in addition most rationalists tend to believe a few other things on top of all this, things which they think or assume follow from this basic approach. We'll now look at these alleged flaws in tum.
'Good reasons' In Positivist Rationalism Rationalists tend to think that the more evidence we accrue for some theory, the more certain that theory becomes. Or we may say the probability of or support for the theory goes up, or that corroborating data we collect goes some way, by some means, to more greatlyjustify the assertion of the theory. (This sounds uncontroversial.) Hence most rationalists say things along the lines that 'what you think is interesting, but why you think it is just as (if not more) important.' This extends to such an extent that we will sometimes say it is better to have 'good reasons' for a theory which later tums out to be false, than to have bad reasons for a theory which merely by accident tums out to be true... And yet at the same time we rationalists say that truth is the ultimate value and goal of scientific inquiries!
Ethical Record, April 2009 15 So what's going on hem? How are 'good reasons' sometimes able to supplant even the goal of truth?
Of course, we no longer imagine that our 'good masons' ever constitute final, or conclusive, or certain warrant of truth. Nevertheless we say that our good reasons — while not sufficient to certify truth — may still be good, insufficient masons to 'support' a theory. Imagine for a moment that some pious apostate said, 'Just like you rationalists, I don't believe in God. But you know, I do believe it's possible to get closer to God. Ahhhh.' Nonsense? Yes. But just as this pious apostate rejects God but still thinks he can 'get closer' to God, so traditional rationalists reject certainty, and yet we still think we can 'get closer' to certainty. We still think that deductive inferences, and convivial observations, in some way get us closer to certainty, or 'raise the probability' of a theory being true. Is there really such a way to get closer to a non-existent state of certainty? Induction In Positivist Rationalism Induction is supposed to take place as follows: I see one white swan, two white swans, a thousand white swans, and from this mounting evidence I can 'induct' that 'All swans are white' ... And yet, as David Hume pointed out,Ihave seen only some swans, not all swans, so the universal statement is considerably stronger than my experience actually implies. And besides, it all means nothing anyway the first time a single black swan comes along.
So what if we try to formalise an inductive inference? We'll take as our premisses, 'This swan is white', 'That swan is white', 'The other swan is white'. What next? There simply is no logical nue for deriving 'All swans are white'. If there was such a rule, then it would apply in situations where all the premisses were true but the conclusion was false (exactly as in this case). In logician's terms there is an excess content in the concluding theoretical statement over and above that which is contained in the observation statements. It's not just that particular observations completely fail to conclusively justify a generalised or a universal statement. It is that there is no inductive logic at all.
Note, this is not the same as saying that we don't learn from the world in any sense. Obviously some specific events doprompt more general, unifying thoughts. But our ability to generate theories in response to experience involves guessing which types of properties/events might even begin to have a legitimate correlation. If the bus arrives as soon as I'm waiting at the stop three days in a row, I don't then induce that it will always do so. I might become convinced that all swans are white if I see enough exclusively white swans, but not only is this theory fallible, and not only is the theory not objectively probabilistically supported by my observations, but the very creating of this theory itself depends on underlying schemas of interpretation, sometimes innate cognitive assumptions. It cannot depend on the non-existent logic of induction.
It would be a strange world indeed if induction really did work, a Pavlovian world, populated by universal truths which came into existence upon mere repetition of some state of affairs. In many circumstances we know very well (and should be pleased) that would-be induction is invalid. IfIsaid 'Socrates is a man', and 'Boethius is a man', and 'Hume is a man', therefore 'All philosophers are men' , this generalisation from particulars would very clearly be invalid. The conclusion says
16 Ethical Record, April 2009 more than it can. Induction is by its nature ampliative and therefore by definition it is invalid.
According to Flume, for whom knowledge must be positively justified by experience in some way, the Problem of Induction means that nothing counts as empirical knowledge. 'White swan' inferences, tomorrow's sunrise, even the existence of other minds, all go strictly beyond the evidence and therefore beyond the bounds of justified knowledge. There is nothing like a 'partially justified inductive inference', because there is no inductive logic.
Subjectivism In Traditional Rationalism By subjectivism I do not mean the commonplace that we all come from different perspectives and cultures or that the problems we approach and even the results we obtain are tainted by expectations and so on. I do accept such fallibilities and I reject the post-modemist idea that they are fatal to rationalism, but these are if you like psychological, situational problems, results of our being agents in the world, and problems of subjectivity. The kind of subjectivism I want to discuss is epistemological. The following is a quote from Barbara Smoker's, Hutnanism, which I think is a neat little introduction in general, by the way, and which rightly regards problems of subjectivity as non-fatal to either rationalism or truth. However, I'm quoting here Smoker's definition of truth, which does taint the concept with a subjectivist tendency. 'What I mean by 'true' is the ordinary meaning of the word — that is, factually true, to the best of our knowledge.'
There is on the one hand the relationship between the statement and the world, namely whether the statement picks out or corresponds to something in the world. And then there is the relationship between me and the sentence or the theory, namely the kind of status that I as a subject afford the theory, including how much evidence I think I have for it. Confusing these two quite different relationships is subjectivism. (It's one of those things which, once you recognise it, is everywhere.)
Justificationism This same error ingrains a further mistake: that of thinking that obtaining justifications is the hallmark of rationality. Calling this an error may sound strange to you, because of course you think that having justifying reasons for a position is in some sense bound up with confirming the truth of the position, and that a rational person should hold only to those positions which she can 'justify'. But that is a mistake called ' justificationism', a term coined by W. W. Bartley. It's a mistake made not only by traditional rationalists but by most people. In fact a theory can be true in the total absence of any justification for advocating it, and a theory can be false despite millions of observations which corroborate it, or despite the most convincing abstract argument in favour of it.
Why hunt for justification, when (as we will see) we can sift true from false directly? Moreover, if — as I have begun to show by exposing induction — justification is unobtainable anyway, then it is clearly a mistake to go after it. But is justification really unobtainable? If induction is bankrupt, you may ask then what of deductive logic?
Deduction In Positivist Rationalism I said before that supposed inductive arguments are ampliative; they contain more in
Ethical Record, April 2009 17 their conclusion than is warranted on the premisses. lf, on the other hand, I assumed as my premiss that 'All philosophers are men' then I could validly, deductively infer (by the rule of Universal Elimination) that Socrates is a man, and Boethius is a man and so on. (I could also validly infer that Simone de Beauvoir is a man and Mary Midgley is a man.)
The point of this is to introduce a flipside of the ampliative problem of induction; which is that — for a positivistic rationalist — there is also a problem with deduction, and it is the problem of content diminution. Deduction is valid precisely because the content of the conclusions of a valid argument is less than — or at most equal to — the content of its premisses. Valid deductive arguments can only make explicit what was already implicit. If they do more than this then they are not valid. This is exceedingly clear in the case of our valid deduction from 'All philosophers are men' to the conclusion that any particular philosopher is a man because the particular philosopher was literally contained within the set described in the premiss.
In other words, in a valid, deductive argument, you must assume, at least implicitly, exactly what you want to prove. This is an insight we owe to John Stuart Mill (1843). As he put it, this kind of valid deductive argument is a petitio principii — begging the question. This is not to say there's anything actually wrong with the argument. To say a particular valid deductive argument 'begs the question' is a compliment — it means it's at least valid! Valid deductive argument alWays begs the question.
This does not mean that I, nor Critical Rationalists at large, think that applications of logic and reason are all futile. The very best logical argument you can give in suppon of some position, any position, is futile, but we will be considering another use of argument.
Critical Rationalism: Conjecture And Refutation Critical Rationalism (CR) may be counter-intuitive to most worldview rationalists. But of course counter-intuitiveness alone says nothing about truth. CR is not in opposition to every aspect of traditional rationalism, but only to the positivistic, justificationist aspects. CR is more difficult to live by and more awkward to handle and to explain than holding a vague traditional rationalism. Its merit is simply that it finds answers to the very real errors of positivistic rationalism and is itself still rationalism.
You shouldn't by now be too surprised to hear that I'm not going to argue for CR in any substantive sense. But I will explain what it proposes while at the same time arguing against some criticisms of CR. I will spell out some of the attractive consequences of the proposal.
In Socrates we have an example of a philosophy of non-justification; Socrates — a rationalist — said the only thing he knew was that he knew nothing. A Critical Rationalist doesn't think that we know nothing, but the Socratic Method — of launching destmctive assaults with the weaponry of questions alone — comes closest to CR in perhaps all the two and a half millennia since Socrates deployed it. Most of philosophy and metaphysics in between has been a detour, great thinkers trying to 'know' (in a meaning of 'knowledge' that cannot be sustained) what even Socrates knew they could not know.
18 Ethical Record, April 2009 Knowledge As 'Justified, True Belief' But this somewhat unsatisfying ancient frieze is only the very beginning for Karl Popper. Socrates knowing only that he knew nothing else, is a formulation that depends on holding a definition of 'knowledge' which is something like 'justified, true belief'. Popper explained how knowledge progresses without justification and recognised that far from the usual philosophical definition of 'justified, true belief', all knowledge must actually be unjustified, uncertifiable as true, as well as often being unbelief.
Under CR all knowledge is conjectural. The Critical Rationalist does emphatically not say 'conjectural' in the tone that a Creationist might say 'evolution is just a theory'. What we have learned from the long history of the failures of positivistic empiricism and intellectualism, from the analysis of the purported logic of induction and the reductive logic of deduction, is this: that putting our theories on pedestals. preserving our theories behind walls of reason in a castle guarded by masses of empirical data, is of no value, cannot 'confirm' the theory, is no guarantor of truth, and cannot render the theory any less exposed to the very next observation. What science does at its best, and how it really works, is to let theories stand naked. No castle walls, no high . pedestals (these remnants of intellectual authoritarianism and foundationalism). Knowledge needs no foundations. Truth is independent of any reason you can give for it. Instead we can encourage the evolution of scientific knowledge in a way which we must never do with human beings —we can drag our theories to the rocks, exposed, tested to the limits, and wait for them to die. Those which survive our severest tests, are the fittest.
Many people will know this much of Popper already —that he said that in science, we should focus on falsifying theories rather than trying_to prove or justify them. What may be news is the extent to which those attempts to prove or justify theoretical knowledge are not merely de-prioritised but wholly rejected. A point which is often not understood even by many calling themselves Popperians is that for Popper, right from Logik der Forschung (1934), the only preferences which can be objectively upheld, between coherent theories, are between false theories and theories not yet falsified. CR is the extension of scientific falsification ism to cover all knowledge.
Popper's Solution Of The Problem Of Induction Popper's proposal for scientific methodology is this: There are intellectual problem situations, that is, situations which contain open questions. We — as a thinking, problem-solving, scientific species —creatively generate theories which attempt to solve the problems and account for any existing, pertinent empirical observations. These theories are not magically inducted from the observations, they are creatively generated, and no favour is bestowed upon them merely for being compatible with the evidence. Being compatible with the pertinent phenomena, obviously when you think about it, is just a minimal requirement for a theory in a given problem situation. Being compatible with whatever plethora of empirical evidence we have available does no more to 'recommend' a theory than to recommend that it cannot yet be discarded.
In this way Popper declared that he had 'solved the Problem of Induction'. Knowledge is not what we can magically induct or derive from the world and add further support to, rather it is what we can invent to match the standing observation statements, and we do not then add support to these theories by conducting organised experiments; we simply bash them until they fall apart (or remain standing).
Ethical Record, April 2009 19 However, even in everyday life, our brains do often rapidly attempt several draft theories in an attempt to solve some problem or theorise over some phenomena in need of explanation. The first several drafts may be rejected out of hand, as you realise — perhaps only half-consciously — that your theory does not in fact fit some accepted data, or an extended consequence is contradictory, or some internal part of the theory is in fact ambiguous or meaningless. This is the first winnowing out of failure from amonot a varied population of conjectures performed by an intellectual, internal Darwinism.
By the time we utter a theory — again whether in normal life situations or in full scientific practice — we hope that we have selected a theory (or a few theories) from amongst the range of logically possible contenders which is at least coherent, and which cannot be immediately rebutted. We can then work together with others, or apply extended conscious criticism ourselves, to further explore the logical structure of the standing theories. We may want to see if we can find some deeper point of logical tension which may result in our giving up on a theory, or we may want to develop a test which will further discriminate between our contenders by knocking one of them out of the arena. This opens up another important part of Popper's scientific method — the criterion of demarcation between science and non-science. Critical Rationalism: Logical Asymmetry In normal language rationalists often like to think of scientific theories as having earned their place in science. For Popper, earning that place is relatively easy. A theory does not have to be well-supported in order to enter the domain of science. Even if support were possible, what sense would it make to say that a theory could only enter the scientific arena once it had gained such support? This would amount, on the positivistic account, to having 'done' some science 'on' the theory before it was even allowed into the arena of science, which would make it a contradictory criterion. No, on the Popperian account, all a theory needs to be accepted into the scientific arena is that it be possible, in principle, to falsify it. (Obviously, a theory which happens to be true will never in practice be objectively falsified.) Theories to be classified scientific must have empirical content, there is a set of potentially obtainable empirical reports which would contradict some consequent/prediction of the theory. We let theories into science not because they are already cogent, but because they are merely coherent and empirical in character.
Logic — and reasoning in general — thereby play multiple and crucial roles in the CR schema. We need logic first to hone our often very scrappy theories into tighter, more testable wholes. We need logic again to derive the consequences of a theory — including the empirical predictions it makes if it's a scientific theory — and then to transmit the falsity of a negated consequent (a failed prediction) back onto the theory from whence it came and so rule it out.
Did I not dismiss deductive logic, earlier? No, I said that deductive arguments beg the question of their conclusions and therefore cannot offer them logical support. But, when we derive empirical consequences from a theory, no one is under the illusion that we are conferring support or in some way 'establishing' the predictions — it's a scientific prediction not a mystical prophecy! In deriving predictions we are merely making the theory impinge on the world; then we can test those predictions, and they may well fail. In this role, deductive logic is under no obligation to do more than it can do.
20 Ethical Record, April 2009 The Asymmetry Between Verification And Falsification At this point there is a common objection, along these lines: 'If your prediction is contradicted by some observation, then you take the positive action of rejecting (or at least modifying) the theory which made the prediction. So you seem to be taking the failed prediction as 'evidence' and 'support' for the idea that the theory is false.'
This is a subtle but important criticism. Not because it succeeds. But because it prompts us to highlight the fundamental asymmetry between verification and falsification, or between positive arguments and negative arguments; it is an asymmetry which lies at the very heart of hearts of rationalism.
We said earlier that valid deductive arguments are question-begging, and we gave the example 'All philosophers are men' from which we could derive 'Socrates is a man'. or indeed 'Simone de Beauvoir is a man'. But what if I add a new observation statement into the mix, namely that 'Simone de Beauvoir is not a man'? We now have two contradicting statements about Simone, and we are allowed to negate —by the rule of Reductio ad Absurdum — one of the premisses that this contradiction was derived from. We may choose to reject the theory 'All philosophers are men'.
What's the point? Taken all together my premisses still 'beg the question', but this Reductio argument contains a substantive piece of information — that all these premisses cannot sit together at ease. We have not. here, 'assumed exactly what we want to prove'. This time, we have assumed precisely the opposite. The objection before was that if we're not allowed to support a hypothesis with an observation statement then why are we allowed to reject a hypothesis based on the negation of an observation statement? Or, if there is no real confirmation, how can tifere be real refutation? Well consider adding the observation statement 'Julian Baginni is a man' to the above theory. Does it make sense to say that this observation 'supports' the theory 'All philosophers are men'? It matches what the theory predicts. sure, but so what? It is corroboration only, not confirmation. Refutation is informative in a way that corroboration cannot be.
Another objection: `If nothing is ultimately certain, then your refutations aren't certain ether.' Quite so. There is nottiing certain about either a purported refutation nor a purported corroboration. Both are ultimately provisional. But, despite the impossibility of certifying them so. provisional refutations and provisional corroborations will sometimes be actual. And an observation statement that does actually contradict a theory's prediction does actually refute the theory. Whereas an observation that does actually tally up with what the theory predicted merely corroborates the theory. it cannot support it. There is no rule which can allow us to transmit the apparent truth of an observation statement back to the theory. There is no equivalent of Reductio ad Absurdum , or of Modus Tollendo Tollens(another rule for the transmission of falsity) for corroboration. Why not? Because otherwise you could assert 'If I am the King then the sun will rise': and the continued rising of the sun would 'support' your theory. Fortunately, mere corroboration is a world away, . from confirmation, the latter being neither obtainable, nor — as we have just seen — in fact desirable.
As well as explaining a little bit about how CR's method of conjectures and refutations works, I hope too that this shows — far from being antithetical to reason —
Ethical Record, April 2009 21 how very deeply rooted in logic and reason CR is. It is the only approach to knowledge which can shake off the asymmetry between truth and falsehood at the heart of logic, by eschewing all attempts at establishing theories. The World Through Critical Rationalist Spectacles What else makes more sense through CR spectacles than it does under the positivistic and justificationist form of rationalism that we're used to?
Democracy. Popper's 'conjectures-and-refutations' approach to knowledge was also extended to public policy and democracy. We shouldn't be trying to elect the right politicians. That, he said, is quite impossible! Whatever they say they will do — whatever 'good reasons' you have to vote one way or another — are beside the point. All that matters is that we can proscribe what they can do, and ultimately get rid of them.
The human. Popper was a humanist. And under CR significant emphasis is placed on the human contribution to scientific progress. The scientist is not the slave of her observations, bound to 'induct' well-supported theories from sense data. She is creative and free. The world knocks theories down, but it is we who keep putting new ones up, not merely discovering but ingeniously inventing the knowledge which we can then test and improve upon. We are freed to create knowledge, as well as to boldly assert our claims without dangling them in the jewellery of cautions and qualifiers (Terhaps...', 'In my view...', conjecture...'). After all, there is no need to hedge around the fact that what we say right now is conjectural, if everything is conjectural. But by the same token, there is actually a humility, and a kind of intellectual egalitarianism, introduced by CR. Rather than being in despair that there are no authorising means of support for a theory, we can instead rejoice that a proposal from anywhere might simply be a true theory.
Objectivity. Under CR, the theories we create are objective. What we mean by this is not that we know they are true or some such corrupt meaning of `objective' (that would be a subjectivist mistake, again). What we mean is that theories are independent (abstract) objects, and that there is more to our theories — more to our knowledge — than we ourselves may hold. In mathematics it can take centuries, millennia even, for any human to explore the logical consequences of some set of axioms — but in some important sense the consequences were already there, hiding in the objective content of the axioms. A tactical board game may have become un-winnable before anyone even spots that all is lost. Likewise, there are objective consequences of, and relations between, items of objective knowledge which no one needs to be aware of for them to be true. It's this sense in which knowledge can be `unbelief'. Our theories are not inextricably ours and — most importantly — their eventual failure, should it come, is not our failure. This is one of the great, but often overlooked, humanising elements of Popper's philosophy. It's not just that we should criticise knowledge and that criticism is the only way to learn, it's that criticism doesn't have to be personal. As all wise people know, criticism need not be pre-configured by churlishness. and Popper's philosophy really makes sense of this.
Logical negativism. Under CR we at last escape the contortions placed on us by 'proof' and 'establishment' and 'authority'. Three distinct approaches to knowledge all share the previously hidden, colossal assumption of justificationism, and in this sense all
22 Ethical Record, April 2009 three stand closer to each other than they do to CR. The first member of this unholy trinity is fideism. Under I-deistic systems all knowledge-claims are meant to be traceable back to faith-commitments of some kind (not always religious). The fideist argues that since reasoning rests on premisses, some kind of commitment to ultimate assumptions is required to 'ground' all knowledge, terminating a skeptical regress.
The second form of justificationism is post-modernism. The post-modernist is a 'disappointed justificationise; he wanted to be able to 'ground' all his knowledge, and still holds that such grounding is necessary, but (rightly) he knows he can't, and so (wrongly) he gives up, and repudiates all claims to knowledge.
Thc third member of the trinity is traditional, positivistic rationalism. The positivistic rationalist, just like the fideist and the post-modernist, thinks that knowledge neMs to be grounded and can be established or certified or proven, or that otherwise it doesn't count. The positivistic rationalist can see the manifest failure of theology, but his own attempts at axiomatic system building, piling 'positive evidence' on top of 'positive evidence' keep landing him back down to earth with a bump. He can see too the failure of relativism, but he can't justify himself against it — if only he knew he didn't have to justify his knowledge claims! He can't quite see how these other folks make their mistake, or what the mistake is; because it's his own mistake of justificationism. If only he could see that the mistake was going after positive evidence at all!
CR allows the rationalist to escape this recurrent beating.
VIEWPOINT The SPES Programme As new members of SPES, we second Tom Rubens's praise of the Sunday lecture programme (Viewpoints, Ethical Record March 2009). We've already enjoyed several events this year, including James Hider's and David Holohan's talks, and are looking forward to more. The Conway Hall is also, of course, a venue for a wide range of events, and while attending the Thomas Paine Society lecture yesterday, we were intrigued by the larger meeting going on in the main hall. This turned out to be the Faculty of Astrology! In what way, precisely, does this contribute toward South Place Ethical Society's aim of "the cultivation of a rational and humane way of life"? * Jon and Adele Wainwright - London SE5 *SPES has a long tradition of allowing free speech to the irrational (but civilized) to help fund the rational. { Ed.} THE HUMANIST REFERENCE LIBRARY The Humanist Reference Library is open for members and researchers on Mondays from I2noon-4pm and on Tuesdays to Fridays from 2 - 6pm. Please let the Librarian, Jennifer Jeynes, know of your intention to visit. The Library has an extensive collection of new and historic freethought material.
Tel: 020 7242 8037/4/1. Email: [email protected]
Ethical Record, April 2009 23 PROGRAMME OF EVENTS AT THE ETHICAL SOCIETY The Library, Conway Hall, 25 Red Lion Square, Holborn, WC IR 4RL. Tel: 020 7242 8037/8034 Registered Charity No. 251396 Website: www.ethicalsoc.org.uk email: [email protected] For programme updates, email: speseventsgyahoo.co.uk. No charge unless stated. APRIL 2009 Thursday 9 1900 BOOK CLUB: MUTUAL AID by Peter Kropotkin • Facilitator: Donald Rooum Sunday 12 EASTER BREAK. No meeting Sunday 19 1100 BRITISH VALUES: Reality versus Rhetoric. Graham Bell 1515 HAROLD BLACKHAM MEMORIAL MEETING —reminiscences by those who knew this important figure in establishing Humanism. All welcome — refreshments
Voltaire Lecture - a joint BHA/SPES event Kenan Malik on THE GUILT OF SCIENCE? Race, Science and Darwin Chair: Polly Toynbee 6.30pm, Thursday 23 April 2009, Conway Hall, Red Lion Square, London WC IR 4RL £5 (BHA or SPES), £7 others. Tickets online from www.hurnanism.orguk by debit/credit card or by cheque to British Humanist Association marked FOR VOLTAIRE LECTURE with your name and a return address, to I Gower Street, London, WC I E 6HD.
Saturday 25 JOINT CFIL/SPES EVENT: 1100- SCIENCE AND RELIGION with Jack Cohen, Simon Singh, Stephen Law and 1600 Baroness Mary Warnock. Admission £10 (£5 for students and Members of SPES, GLHA, BHA, New Humanist subscibers and Skeptic subscribers) Book at www.cfilondon.org or pay at door. Sunday 26 1100 CAN ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE BE USED TO PRACTICE MEDICINE? Craig Lucas, PhD, Artificial Intelligence researcher 1500 Video, followed by discussion MAY Sunday 3 1100 IN DEFENCE OF AGNOSTICISM. Ike Ascher, History lecturer Sunday 10 1100 TWO MILLENNIA OF RELIGIOUS LIFE ALONG THE SILK ROAD Mao Ming, Circle of Inner Asian Art, SOAS (illustrated lecture) 1500 ETHICAL DILEMMA - Do people have a right to have children? Ed McArthur SPES's CONWAY HALL SUNDAY CONCERTS 6.30pm Tickets £7; under 18 £3 April 12 No Concert April 19 Alba Quartet: Britten, Mozart, Shostakovich, Schumann April 26 Royal College of Music and the The Naides Ensemble: Debussy, Poulenc, Henriette Renid and Ravel Full details on: www.conwayhallstindayconcerts.org.uk
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