
The Mystical Ethics of the New Atheists (Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, etc) - dwwoelfel
http://www.theobjectivestandard.com/issues/2008-fall/mystical-ethics-new-atheists.asp
======
fmota
I knew it was going to come down to (fucking) Ayn Rand, when the author
started discussing the primacy of senses.

Anyway, I think the author makes a bit of a straw man argument when saying
that Dawkins' "moral Zeitgeist" doesn't determine a rational, consistent basis
for morality. I don't believe that Dawkins was trying to show that.

I believe that Dawkins was trying to show that both religious and irreligious
folks derive their morals from the same place for the most part: the moral
Zeitgeist. This is a counter to the argument that religion is necessary for
morality, because morality for most people is drawn from the Zeitgeist either
way.

I haven't read Dawkins, so I may be wrong in my assertions of what Dawkins
intended, but it feels like the author covertly (or accidentally) tried to
shift the focus away from countering the "religion is necessary for morals"
argument, onto a different topic (that of defining rational morals).

~~~
anthonyb
Yep, the article is completely missing the point. My favorite bit:

"Those who maintain that being moral consists in being altruistic have no
alternative but to base that belief on some form of mysticism"

It's like they haven't heard of the iterated prisoner's dilemma or something.

~~~
jhickner
Illustrations like the prisoner's dilemma help convey how an entire group can
benefit from certain behaviors, but they're less useful when making decisions
as a lone, rational actor with access to many different groups and no reason
to keep iterating.

And even if such illustrations were more helpful, they wouldn't rise to the
same level as an imperative moral code. Why not just view them as a challenge
to be overcome?

~~~
AngryParsley
_Why not just view them as a challenge to be overcome?_

Because I usually feel bad when I harm others, and I usually feel good when I
help others. Altruism seems to be built into most human brains, and it would
take a lot of conditioning to overcome. Most importantly, I think eliminating
altruism would lead to a world where average quality of life was lower.

(Of course, these altruistic tendencies are what cause me to care about
average quality of life.)

~~~
jamesbritt
"Because I usually feel bad when I harm others, and I usually feel good when I
help others."

I do, to, but I also feel that often it's because it has been drilled into me.

------
wanderr
I could not get past this section: / Did these killers— and the millions of
people in the Middle East who celebrated their actions— ack an innate
conscience? Or did their innate consciences house different contents than
those of Americans who reacted with horror to what they did?/

The argument these and other atheists are making is that religion is, by
design, overriding any innate sense of morality we might have built in. Or as
Steven Weinberg put it: /With or without religion, you would have good people
doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do
evil things, that takes religion/

------
msg
For the Tl;dr ers out there, here's the short version. And no, I don't agree
that the Objectivists get off so easy...

The atheists claim to be able to explain ethics, but they provide no ultimate
foundation for ethics. Instead they point to intuition, evolution, game theory
and community standards. However they are confusing descriptive talk for
normative talk.

Where the atheists criticize religion, they presuppose an ultimate foundation
for ethics. That is, they can only criticize religious atrocities from the
ground that religion provided for them.

However, the idea that we ought to do what we want to do magically fills in
the holes.

~~~
mike_organon
The article does not describe Objectivism, only refers the reader to look
there for a rational ethics. Objectivism is not "ought to do what we want to
do", that would again be ethics based on feelings, but instead of arriving at
altruism as the New Atheists do, you arrived at something like hedonism. And
that is the point: feelings are not a means of knowledge - everyone will
arrive at something different. Feelings don't help you understand biological
evolution, nor morality.

~~~
msg
I've read Ayn Rand's books, so I feel confident in stating with Wikipedia that
for the Objectivist the moral purpose of the individual life is the pursuit of
happiness or rational self-interest. I don't feel like I overstated the
position.

I don't think there is much space between hedonism and devil may care rugged
individualism. Unless you provide a foundation for ethics, there is no way to
compare my self-interest against your self-interest on the merits.

And in particular the critique of atheists still applies to Objectivists
unless Objectivists provide an ultimate foundation for ethics.

~~~
mike_organon
Hedonism and "devil may care" may be the same thing, but neither are rational
self-interest as described by Objectivism. To answer your question,
Objectivism does provide a rational foundation for ethics (obviously, beyond
the scope here). It defines a very precise set of virtues, which are
objective, based on facts and reason; which will explain why everyone's
rational self-interest can be compared and work compatibly. It's not at all
"what happens to feel good to you". The virtues are principles based on our
nature as human beings, not concrete actions like worshiping idols.

I won't go into detail, but basically the foundation is: humans need to
respect reality, use reason, and not be dependent on others but be productive
to survive. This is how we each survive, and thrive. The standard of morality
is life, ones own human life. Sacrificing your values is working against your
own life. According to these principles, faith, mysticism, and using force
against other people are all bad for your own life.

The point of the article is that altruism asks for sacrifice. Is there a
rational basis for accepting it as a moral code? It's always been founded on
religion throughout history. All the New Atheists do is say instead that
altruism (or utilitarianism) feels right to them. This is not reason. Why does
it feel right? And what about people for whom it doesn't feel right?

I like a lot of what the four horsemen have written and said in defense of
science and atheism, and how they debunk religion and some of its more
monstrous ethics. But, when they try to provide a positive ethics, they only
offer what feels right.

~~~
msg
I don't think I'm asking exactly the right question, but what makes life good,
in the sense of our nature as human beings? I'm trying to understand what you
take as the origin of ethics, or the final arbiter of good and evil.

~~~
mike_organon
That's a fine question, but Rand gives a better answer than I can (if you
follow the links).

"The Objectivist ethics holds man's life as the standard of value—and his own
life as the ethical purpose of every individual man." Ayn Rand

<http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/standard_of_value.html>

"There are, in essence, three schools of thought on the nature of the good:
the intrinsic, the subjective, and the objective." Ayn Rand

<http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/good--the.html>

You ask about good. Good implies value by some valuer. Saying that life is the
standard of good is essentially as much as the question can be broken down
(Rand gives a lot more detail than I can here). That's not the same
proposition as saying "my feelings" are the standard of good, because feelings
are based on something, so those need to be explored and reasoned about. You
can't reason once you've denied reason or chosen death.

------
etherael
The initial premise is somewhat absurd. If the current scientific origin of
the universe theories are wrong it does not follow that the genesis myths of
religions a-z are any more probable merely because of this wrongness. Setting
out thus to debunk a scientific theory explaining origins does not at the same
time validate biblical genesis.

In the same sense attempting to attack the foundations of an irreligious
framework for morality does not thus cause the facts to shift to supporting
the position that religion is the source of morality. One does not need to go
far in abrahamic religious dogma to find moral law which is abhorrent to
modern ethical standards and immediately disqualifies such religions as a
candidate for an actual source of modern morality.

The article attempts goes through various contortions to reduce all the
candidate sources of morality to "altruism guided by intuition". I've not had
much connection with Hitchens' or Dennet's works so I can't comment there, but
if you look at Sam Harris' latest presentation from TED on ethics he pretty
much directly holds up philosophical utilitarianism. Dawkins also mounts a
case of modern ethical behaviour in "The God Delusion" as a simple case of a
set of behaviour which confers evolutionary advantages upon the adopting
group, with much supporting evidence for this, there is nothing "mysteriously
shifting" about this position.

~~~
mike_organon
I think you misunderstood the point of the article. It's not trying to support
religion as the source of morality, quite the opposite. Instead, it's showing
that the morality these New Atheists present is no more grounded in reason
than religion is - they ground it in feelings. The alternative is Objectivism
which bases morality on facts and reason.

I agree that Harris presents utilitarianism, though he oddly avoids the word.
That it is a variation of altruism, where each individual sacrifices himself
to the group. Harris does not give a rational justification for this, just
assumes everyone will _feel_ it's correct. Feelings are not reason, so you
have to ask where such feelings come from.

------
AmaroqWolf
I find it sad that almost every commenter here so far has not only defended
the New Atheists, but they've also defended intuition and innate-conscience
based morality.

You're doing the exact same thing the author of the article accused the New
Atheists of. Stop defending emotion based morality and start arguing for
rational, reality-based morality.

I'm still studying Objectivism myself, but as far as I know, Ayn Rand has
already based morality in reality. The article stating this at the end doesn't
seem to be intended as a baseless assumption. It's basically saying "Here's a
reality-based morality. For its validation, see Rand's works." I'd listen to
it and actually try to understand where Rand was coming from before attacking
her. I see idiotic attacks on her philosophy every day, and not a single one
of the attackers understands or has even tried to understand it.

If you think there's an alternative to Rational Egoism, base that alternative
on facts, not on personal feelings or the whims of large groups of people.

Again, stop arguing for emotion based morality, and start basing morality on
facts.

~~~
mike_organon
Well said. I find this philosophy similar to science, in that as a fan of
science, I find it exciting when new evidence or theory comes up to correct or
expand an old theory. I'm following this thread for that reason.

------
dasht
I voted up this link (after it appeared on the front page) but precisely
because I think it is such ridiculous hooey that it is worth commenting on.
It's errors are abundant so I'll choose just one which, taken as paradigm, can
be used to discover several others:

The author of the article quotes Hitchens as saying (I've added _emphasis_ ):
"[C]onscience is innate," and `[e]verybody but the psychopath' has the
`feeling' that this is so. This `innate conscience' is what makes murder and
theft `abhorrent to humans _without any further explanation_ '; it is what
gives children an `innate sense of fairness'; and it is what informs each of
us of our `duty to others.'"

Now, Hitchens is perfectly comprehensible there and there is ample objective
empirical evidence to back him up. The author has made a fine enough
paraphrase of one of Hitchens' main points. The author of the article
immediately goes on to err very badly:

Let's pick apart his next few sentences:

"The notion of an `innate conscience' is, of course, not original to Hitchens;
the history of philosophy is replete with appeals to a `moral sense' or `moral
intuition' or `moral law within.'"

Pardon me but _philosophy has nothing to do with it_. Such philosophers as the
author refers to are trying to _explain_ the fact that, by in large, we know
right from wrong. As Hitchens asserted, we know things about morality and we
know that we know these things "without need for further explanation". The
author of the article ignores those words and proceeds to assume, behind
Hitchens' simple statement, an implicit explanation. Once he does so, he is no
longer arguing against Hitchens, he is arguing against a straw-man.

To borrow an example from a writer I like: Suppose you and I are sitting at
the bar of a pub, chatting about sports. One of the patron's very friendly
dogs is sitting outside waiting patiently, tied to a parking meter. A fellow
walks by on the sidewalk and without provocation kicks the dog, hard.

Now, do we need to discuss what in scripture forbids such an act? Do we need
to question whether our Kantian faculty for moral reasoning rings true when it
signals the evil of such an act? Or do we just immediately agree that "That
ain't right" and perhaps step outside to confront the man what done it? Is
_anything_ added to our obvious and gut-level reaction by additional
discussion of where, in principle, that reaction comes from? Or can we just
stipulate that it was in fact wrong to kick the dog and that almost certainly
intervention is called for?

We do not need God in order to decide that kicking the dog was wrong. We do
not need Kant or Descartes. We do not need debate. "Hey, look: that guy just
kicked that dog!" What more do you need? Perhaps the philosopher at the other
end of the bar will say "No, perhaps he kicked the dog to prevent a larger
tragedy." Perhaps the theist next to him will point out the dog's place as
chattel in the divine order of things. Perhaps the evolutionary biologist will
try to stay our intervention by pointing out that we are reacting to
genetically programmed perceptions. Perhaps the Taoist will solemnly observe
that the dog can not experience pleasure unless it also experiences pain. Have
any of these stooges added anything worthy of the moment? No, of course not.
The situation needs no discussion - no explanation. What would happen, in real
life, is that a large number of patrons of the pub would rise to intervene -
_and next to nobody would blame them_. And this would be a moral reaction. We
know right from wrong when we see it laid bare. No further explanation needed.

In order to "argue" with Hitchens, the author posits an "explanation" for this
knowing and then proceeds to tear apart that explanation: a kind of
intellectual onanism.

I do not mean, to answer how the author of the article burbles on, that we
always make right choices or that we always agree about what the right choices
are. Of course we do not. We generally agree (though not universally) in
recognizing extreme cases of sociopathy. We all make moral mistakes, often
tragic. We all are sometimes slow if not entirely unable to recognize our
mistakes. These are separate questions and positing God, Kantian moral
faculties, evolutionary proscriptions, etc. -- these add nothing to the
conversation with the possible partial exception of the evolutionary
psychiatrists who can at least provide some partial post-mortem analysis of
failings, sometimes.

The author continues:

"But although many have appealed to such a sense, none has ever been able to
overcome the fact that it is observationally false that humans possess an
innate sense of right and wrong: Many people, and not just psychopaths, make
horrifically bad choices that ruin their own lives, the lives of others, or
both."

How this contradicts Hitchens is a truth to be found only in the authors' own
imagination. Yes, tragedy happens. And yes, not everything is clear cut,
especially in the heat of a decision-making moment.

"And not all of these people know that their actions are morally wrong. On the
contrary, many believe that their actions are morally justified."

None of which contradicts anything Hitchens' said. The author seems to have
assumed that Hitchens was talking about, to sling jargon around, an infallible
moral faculty present in all but psychopaths. Had Hitchens ever, anywhere,
argued for such a thing the author would have a point. Hitchens didn't. The
author doesn't.

~~~
dwwoelfel
Automatic judgments like the one you described should be analyzed. An action
(or inaction) isn't moral because lots of people automatically think it is
true.

Suppose that pub was in Saudi Arabia, and instead of a kicking a dog, the man
outside is gay and kisses his partner.

"Now, do [the Mutaween (moral police)] need to discuss what in scripture
forbids such an act? Do [they] need to question whether [their] Kantian
faculty for moral reasoning rings true when it signals the evil of such an
act? Or do [they] just immediately agree that "That ain't right" and perhaps
step outside to [arrest] the man what done it? Is anything added to [their]
obvious and gut-level reaction by additional discussion of where, in
principle, that reaction comes from? Or can [they] just stipulate that it was
in fact wrong to [kiss the man] and that almost certainly [imprisonment and
stoning] is called for?"

You claim that "we know right from wrong when we see it laid bare."

The Mutaween don't. Neither did Nazi German soldiers, slave owners, kamikaze
pilots, Islamic fundamentalists, and countless other examples throughout
history.

You have to think about your automatic moral judgments, and make certain that
those judgments are based in reality. If you don't, you'll merely adopt the
moral standards of those around you. Ultimately, those moral standards are
decided by philosophy.

~~~
dasht
The judgment made to arrest two men for kissing is hardly automatic. Indeed,
it's oxymoronic to suggest so. Examine how that judgment is arrived at:

First, there is a background of a lot of _theistic_ teaching regarding
elaborate _theories_ of morality. Second, there are elaborate machinations of
the state and the clerics that make it possible to even conceive of arresting
the men. You and I, I hope you agree, would find the arrest immoral even while
those performing it would insist on its high morality. The difference is that
you and I have to agree on little other than what we see happening to reach
our shared conclusion, while the defenders of the arrest rely on an elaborate
analytics of morality.

That's actually one of Hitchens' main themes: that the elaborate analytics or
morality, most especially the analytics given forth by all of the worlds
theologies, don't create morality but rather often the opposite.

Do the Mutaween know right from wrong? Or the the other groups that you
mention? I don't think that there is one answer that applies to the whole
group just as there is no one answer that applies to all atheists. Some see
it. Some don't.

As Hitchens might put it, I can not seriously entertain here, among civilized
people, that such an arrest is moral. And I observe that such an arrest is a
byproduct of the actions of a theology that claims for itself a unique and
privileged understanding of morality.

As a (half-gruesome) thought experiment, consider presenting to a pre-verbal
child of any culture the image of two men kissing, and the image of dog abuse.
Which do you think will more consistently upset the child?

~~~
AmaroqWolf
I can counter your argument by saying simply: A homophobe would only have to
see the same thing you do (the men kissing), and would draw a completely
different conclusion than you do without the aid of religion. That's why you
can't rely on emotional or intuition-based morality. The same situation can
cause different emotions in different people.

When you're born, both your conscious and subconscious minds are blank slates.
When you choose values and accept premises, those go into your subconscious
since your conscious can't hold everything you know at once.

Emotions are the result of lightning-quick value-judgments performed by your
subconscious mind. The subconscious is like a computer that your conscious
programs, and your emotions are a constant printout.

Because of this, your emotional reactions to various situations depend on the
values you've accepted and the premises you hold.

When you and someone else agree that it is wrong to arrest a gay man for
kissing someone, based on your emotional reactions, it's because you both
share western values such as individual rights and the separation between
church and state. This allows you both to -feel- that the arrest is immoral.
But someone who deeply disvalues homosexuality or deeply values a religion
that is intolerant to homosexuality will -feel- -instantly- that the act of
two men kissing is vile and the arrest is just and righteous, or at least
preferable to allowing the men to kiss any longer.

THIS is why morality has to be based on facts. Why it must be grounded in
reality. A person's wrong premises can easily make them -feel- that an evil
act is righteous. Morality must be objectively defined and validated in order
to stand up to peoples' whims.

Instead of trusting morality to a person's feelings and intuitions, you should
examine the nature of reality and of human beings and determine, based on the
way we are, what we should do.

I already linked this in another comment, but I'll link it here too. It's an
essay Ayn Rand wrote that does just that. It examines the facts that give rise
to man's need of a moral code, and then justifies, based on reality and man's
nature, the proper moral code for man to practice. (Rational Egoism.)
[http://www.aynrand.org/site/PageServer?pagename=ari_ayn_rand...](http://www.aynrand.org/site/PageServer?pagename=ari_ayn_rand_the_objectivist_ethics)

If you don't agree with this essay, at least you can take from it an example
of how to justify a moral code firmly grounded in reality, instead of in
someone's -feelings- of right and wrong. Even if such feelings did default to
a correct moral code, they would still be unreliable due to how easily they
can be overridden.

Having an objectively defined moral code will not only allow you to be
-certain- that you are doing the right thing, but you'll have intellectual
ammo to back up your code when it is attacked. "I feel this is right" is
insufficient to defend any moral code, even if it is the right moral code.

------
klodolph
I find the arguments presented poorly constructed and unsound. Examples:

"These and similar statements show that Hitchens equates morality with
altruism" (does not follow from given quotes, furthermore this is a setup for
a straw man argument)

"... it is observationally false that humans possess an innate sense of right
and wrong: Many people, and not just psychopaths, make horrifically bad
choices that ruin their own lives, the lives of others, or both." (this
argument is unsound; the author states that since some people make bad choices
sometimes, then humans must not know right from wrong innately. It's like
saying "It's observationally false that humans possess eyesight: many people,
and not just the blind, fail to see the mayonnaise when they go to the
refrigerator even when it's right in the door.")

"Ironically, the claim to innate knowledge—the claim to “just knowing”
something—is precisely what Hitchens and the other New Atheists condemn when
they condemn faith." (Other than the author's misuse of the term "irony", I
have not heard the "new atheists" put forth such an argument and the author
does not put forth a citation or quote to support this claim. As I see it,
rather than condemning innate knowledge, the "new atheists" condemn what they
see as baseless claims of fact.)

"Hitchens subscribes to the idea that man is mentally and thus morally
hampered by innate irrationality." A slight bit later, "If man cannot choose
his actions, then he cannot have a guide to choosing his actions." So the
author takes a quote from Hitchens where Hitchens says humans are "only partly
rational" (Hitchen's words as quoted by the author) and then concludes that
Hitchens thinks that man "cannot choose his actions" (I know that the phrase
appeared after the word "if", but you can parse the full three paragraphs or
so yourself).

I stopped reading the article at this point due to the high density of
illogical statements. Stylistically, I find it in poor taste to capitalize
"new atheists", but there's no accounting for taste.

------
jrockway
I like this site. They dress up their publication to look like a scientific
journal, and then write like they're in the middle of a 4chan thread.

Actually, 4chan is nicer because everyone there knows they're dumb. Nobody has
let these folks know yet.

------
r0s
Hark! The sound of some blogger loudly boasting he discovered the classic
Existential Dilemma. And thousands of years of philosophical thought cry out
in the darkness.

------
mynameishere
_Why do these alleged men of reason join men of faith in appealing to
mysticism as a basis for morality? The reason is simple: The morality they
seek to defend, altruism, cannot be grounded in reason or reality._

Best to skim things like this. It takes him a long time to get to the thesis
statement which can only induce eye-rolling.

<http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/altruism-biological/>

------
applicative
Give up on Rand, she is a philistine. Try David Gauthier (amazon link:
<http://tinyurl.com/moralsbyagreement> ) if you want a serious theory that
might speak to you, if she does. Plenty of game theory to amuse, on your way
to serious reflection!

I wonder about the plan of 'basing morality on reality'. In a way it can't be
rejected of course, but it is a formula that is very easy to misread. There
was a traditional distinction between 'practical' and 'theoretical' philosophy
-- the origin of the familiar opposition practice/theory, but quite different.
The associated epistemologies are very different.

Consider, to take a trivial illustration that doesn't reach so high as the
ethical: my (practical) knowledge the I am typing something to Hacker News,
and your (theoretical) knowledge of the same thing, if you are watching. Is my
knowledge an effect of the 'reality' that I am typing something to Hacker
News. Is it so to speak 'reality based', as yours certainly is?

Plenty of knowledge of reality, e.g. the layout of the keyboard, what has
actually appeared on screen, etc. comes in, of course. But I am making this
'reality', I am making the thing that is cold external reality for you. The
assymetry between your knowledge and mine in this case has parallels at the
higher levels. Maybe Randism is true of Martians, for example. But even so
that wouldn't be how the Martians know it. They wouldn't have 'reality based'
knowledge of it. We would, if we could come to this knowledge by studying
them.

Similarly, justice and mutual recognition belong to human life but we don't
know this the way Martians would. There needn't be anything mystical in this.

------
zacharyvoase
My biggest gripe with this article is that the ‘solution’ is introduced in the
second-to-last paragraph. I’m a big fan of Ayn Rand, and I think the ‘New
Atheists’ probably do have a lot to learn from Objectivism, since it seems a
lot more internally consistent—nevertheless, in articles like these it should
occupy more than just a footnote.

~~~
AmaroqWolf
I think the majority of this article was just intended to show that the "New
Atheists" don't have any better justification for their moralities than the
religious people do, and that morality must be justified with reason, not from
feelings.

The footnote was meant to recommend the reader to a source of moral guidance
that is actually justified rationally and grounded in reality. (Objectivism.)

~~~
mbrock
"There is, scientifically, a most profound break between the living and the
non-living. Now life may be the spirit; the animals may be the forms of spirit
and matter, in which matter predominates; man may be the highest form, the
crown and final goal of the universe, the form of spirit and matter in which
the spirit predominates and triumphs. (If there’s any value in “feelings” and
“hunches”—God! how I feel that this is true!)" — Ayn Rand.

I don't think she seems that rational; adjectives like dogmatic, idealistic,
romantic, manichean seem more apt. It is admirable to try and ground ethics in
reality, but I think Rand claims much, much more than she accomplished. I
can't put together her dogged insistence on a benevolent universe, the grand
exaltedness of capitalists and individualists, the nonexistence of instincts,
the objective life-affirming value of cigarettes, etc, etc — with the idea of
sober, honest reasoning. Yet these features are actually what I like the best
about Rand. I think her attitude shows someone who could have been a good poet
of individualism — like a more austere and condemning Whitman — if she hadn't
gotten tangled up in the business of philosophy.

(Richard Rorty's "Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity" to me shines brightly
with a kind of humble yet very discerning rationality, almost saintly honesty
— yet he and Rand are completely, utterly at odds philosophically.)

~~~
AmaroqWolf
I've actually never come across that quote of Rand's before. It must be in a
book of hers I haven't read. It's a terrible quote to try to justify
Objectivist ethics with.

The best validation of her ethics I know of is an essay entitled The
Objectivist Ethics, in her book, The Virtue of Selfishness. The first several
pages are dedicated to establishing why man needs ethics, and the rest of the
essay to explaining Objectivist ethics and why it benefits human life.

Ooh, I think we're in luck. A quick google search shows that you can read the
essay here. I just glanced over it, but it appears to be the same essay as in
VoS.
[http://www.aynrand.org/site/PageServer?pagename=ari_ayn_rand...](http://www.aynrand.org/site/PageServer?pagename=ari_ayn_rand_the_objectivist_ethics)

------
ErrantX
This is a strong issue for me so I will attempt to be restrained.

 _In the wake of the religiously motivated atrocities of 9/11, Sam Harris,
Daniel Dennett, Richard Dawkins, and Christopher Hitchens have penned best-
selling books_

This wasn't a good start; I feel it is something of an invocation of a
parallel to Godwin's law.

The middle bit spends a lot of time debunking the idea of innate morals. I
happen to agree there; Hitchens is, I think, wrong in some respects (I only
read him once; so there is almost certainly a subtle message as well). But the
conclusions drawn are rather inane and, really, fall foul of the same mistakes
the writer highlights.

I skipped to the end at that point to see the conclusion was "Ayn Rand" -
that's a lot of words just to get to that point...

~~~
dk
A person is not a conclusion. The article ends by advocating Ayn Rand's ideas
and works, clearly. Whatever one's views might be of her doesn't invalidate
everything that precedes.

~~~
ErrantX
Indeed. It was the whole point of the article, really though. The writer took
each of the "new atheists", listed their theories and pointed out where it
doesn't sync with the writers views.

But there were also no solutions (something the writer calls dawkins et al on
a few times) to the fundamental questions - until the end when Ayn Rand is
presented as the answer (and I mean her works in the possessive)

~~~
dk
The article argues every step for a reality-based ethics. And the author has
one in mind, not surprisingly. Advocacy is not a crime and arguments are not
invalidated by conclusions.

Responding in the form "I agree that..." or "I disagree that..." could start
an interesting discussion.

~~~
ErrantX
> Advocacy is not a crime and arguments are not invalidated by conclusions

Of course; I just wish that the writer had _mentioned_ this at the top so I
could have given the arguments context. I've read Rand and personally don't
find her useful so all that reading led to... nothing insightful (for me
anyway) :)

There was a lot of use of "The fact is" - this is just bad rhetoric. I didn't
feel these sections were well enough argued/presented to constitute a solution
to the questions posed earlier in the piece.

Ultimately I just felt the conclusion was poor - the article posed a lot of
questions and never really addressed them, except to say read Ayn Rand.

------
roundsquare
Wow... full of logical errors...

 _Among the countless counterexamples one could cite against any claim to an
“innate conscience” is the fact that the 9/11 hijackers regarded their
murderous actions not as abhorrent, but as sublime._

Poor logic here. Hitchens would claim that it was their religion that
perverted their innate sense of right and wrong. To search for such a sense, I
can only imagine you would need to look at very young children and even then
it would be hard to discount the cultural/upbringing factor.

 _The claim to “innate knowledge,” like the claim to knowledge through faith,
is a form of mysticism, the claim to a non-rational, non-sensory means of
knowledge._

Not if its been observed enough. You don't need to be able to explain
something down to the quantum mechanical level to assert it exists.

 _How can religious belief be wrong if the “innate consciences” of billions of
people tell them that it is right?_

What? Historically, most religions were spread by a small number of
individuals. How is this innate? (Someone correct me if I'm wrong on the
history).

 _If man’s ethical ideas were innate, if his biology predisposed him to
irrationality, if he had no choice about whether to commit evil, then the
entire field of morality—which presupposes that man does choose his
actions—would not only be pointless_

No one is claiming there is no choice, merely that our moral decision making
procedure is imperfect and/or very flawed.

 _Why does an “ethical realist,” who claims to believe that ethical truths are
waiting in reality to be discovered, insist that ethics must be grounded
“intuitively,” via “irreducible leaps,” rather than rationally_

In part, this might be because introspection is, in some ways, inherently self
limiting. There is nothing logically incoherent about saying that "this is far
as I can break things down."

The whole discussion of how senses are needed to even write a book is silly.
You can't take someone's argument to an extreme and then point out how silly
it is. The claim isn't (or shouldn't be) that "senses are useless" but that
"our senses are not perfect receptors of the outside world."

Overall, the large problem is that the author is looking for a perfect answer
to questions when the thought process behind it is still in its infancy.

------
w00pla
The thing I hate most in the world is pseudo-intellectual atheists that just
_know_ that they are right.

Many religions teach you that the goal is not to be a douche. Most college
pseudo-intellectual atheists/internet atheists are douches.

I am/was an agnostic. At this point I am willing believe the exact opposite of
Dawkins and his fellow atheist zealots - since I know that they are assholes.

They (like the Khrushchev of old) just replaced religion with their own
zealotous dogma.

~~~
Dellort
Why not just have no stance and simply be nonreligious? Belief of any kind
grounded on no evidence at all has always been a grave mistake.

~~~
catzaa
Why? Human beings have many lies that they belieeve are true, and we are not
poorer for it.

(E.g. Unconditional love, true love, etc...).

~~~
Dellort
Because it is dangerous. People act according to their beliefs regardless of
them being grounded in real evidence or not. I would say we _are_ poorer for
it as we have seen people fly planes into buildings or have tried to eradicate
an entire race as a result of their beliefs.

~~~
w00pla
How many people have been killed because of the campaign of atheism and
"scientific materialism" as happened in many countries (e.g. Albania, USSR,
etc...).

You do not understand the problem. The problem is not beliefs or ideology, but
zealotory (the insane belief that your way is the one true way and that you
are better/smarter/more enlightened than anyone else).

That is pretty much an apt description for New Atheism. It is just a different
form of zealotery.

~~~
Dellort
How do we separate insane beliefs from sane ones? This distinction might be
clear to you now, but what will you do when you let yourself be guided by
unfounded belief? Do you think you will be able to see insane belief for what
it really is before it is too late? You avoid having to make that mistake by
abandoning belief.

~~~
w00pla
Why are New Atheists so obsessed with other people's personal beliefs? I have
explained to you the problem of zealotry and the imposition of your beliefs on
others (which is clearly wrong in most moral frameworks).

Yet New Atheists do not see this as wrong. Some have even argued that parents
should be prevented from "indoctrinating" (i.e. teaching children religion and
their moral framework).

