Friday, February 22, 2013

Breaking the Law of Non-Contradiction



Although I bear little respect for theologians, I’ve become terribly annoyed by the insistence of analytic philosophers lately. My annoyance stems from their arrogance, an arrogance that was once the realm of those whom they seek now to overthrow, theologians. To ad-lib from the Law of Non-Contradiction before I break it, let’s say that two wrongs do not make a right.

Analytic philosophers and logicians love the Law of Non-Contradiction (the LNC), maybe because they think Aristotle was so great. Or maybe they think it tells us something about the world, the Problem of Substance be damned. I’m not sure. I certainly don’t think Aristotle’s contributions to moral philosophy in particular were contributions at all and his formulation of physics certainly impeded progress in that field of study (seeing how he didn’t bother to test any of his hypotheses). Sorry, I'm already getting off track…What is this law analytic philosophers and logicians love? As blogger Bill Pratt puts it (via Leibniz via Aristotle), “There are at least three ways to state it:
  1. A thing cannot both be A and not-A at the same time and in the same context.
  2. A thing cannot both exist and not exist at the same time and in the same context.
  3. A statement cannot both be true and not true at the same time and in the same context.” [Note: I exchanged his original word ‘sense’ for the more suitable word in this context, ‘context.’]
Bill Pratt goes on to say that he is amazed that people still try to deny this law. Never underestimate people, Bill; I am amazed how often analytic philosophers ignore underdetermination and other flaws in analytic and scientific reasoning. But I think that in part, my problem with The LNC stems from not liking being told what to do. So, if you tell me The LNC is a law, I’m going to find a way to refute it because, well, I can, at least some of the time. (And because I think Aristotle sucks.) What that means, kids, is that The LNC isn’t a law at all. Oooo, I can just feel the intense hatred of some analytic philosopher reading this right now…

My problem with the LNC comes via its linguistic analysis. Bill Pratt attempts to score one for his team by pointing out that you cannot negate the law without using the law itself to defeat it. He writes: “If you have any doubts about this fundamental law of rationality, try and deny it, but then write out your denial in a sentence – ‘The law of non-contradiction is false’ – and ask whether your statement is both true and false at the same time and in the same sense. If the law of non-contradiction is false, then your statement of denial must be both true and false.  But if your denial is false, then the law of non-contradiction is true! By denying the law of non-contradiction, you have just affirmed it.  The more you try to deny the law, the more you will affirm it.’

Typical; someone convinced they are right playing word games to prove their point. Pratt wants to put words in your mouth by claiming your denial of the law can only be structurally sentenced as ‘The law of non-contradiction is false.’ No, Bill, linguistically, all I have to do to deny the law is assert ‘A thing can be both A and not-A at the same time.’ (I do have to prove it, though.) Pratt continues to say that if you try to say the law is both true and false, the falseness of the statement makes the statement true, and if you say the law is true it’s both true and false and..that…doesn’t make much sense. Let us not forget that this word play just a mind-game, a paradox of language that is completely dependent upon what each word in the statement means. Aristotle engaged in this same word-play, insisting that a statement must have only one meaning if we’re to understand each other and gives the example of the word ‘man’ meaning ‘two-legged animal.’ Only, we do not have to consent to Aristotle’s definition and still understand what he means when he uses the word ‘man,’ though his definition may be more narrow than our own. I’d like to remark here that by way of his argument, Aristotle has proved the law to himself and only himself; the LNC doesn’t hold in the presence of two or more people.

By the way, Pratt suspiciously fails to point out that in order to prove the law, he has to use the law to prove itself. I’m not sure how he forgot such a minor detail.

To further illustrate the LNC is a contrivance of language, let me use this example: Pi is 3.14. Okay, so what are we saying here, that Pi is 3.14 (A)? Well, that can’t be since Pi and 3.14 are two different things, at least to my eyes. So, to say Pi is 3.14 would violate the LNC. Oh, or are we saying that Pi (A) is 3.14 (not-A)? Well, it can’t be A is not-A because that would violate the LNC, too! The way I see it, if Pi is 3.14, then two things are both A and not-A at the same time in the same context being that their meanings are synonymous. If we say Pi (A) is 3.14 (not-A), we’ve still refuted the LNC. If – in a desperate attempt to save the LNC – you’re thinking that ‘Pi’ is the written expression of 3.14 and ‘3.14’ is the numerical expression of Pi and this means the synonymous symbols make for two different contexts, I would strongly disagree; we’ve already agreed their meanings are synonymous and therefore the context is preserved. In fact, you can do this with almost any ‘is’ statement. This enigmatic vortex of the philosophy of language is academically referred to as a SNAFU.

I’m not the first to deny the LNC. The ancient Greek philosopher Heraclitus, Graham Priest and ‘inconsistency-tolerant’ logicians have also challenged the validity of the law, although in a manner unlike I have done here. And I’m not saying the LNC can always be refuted; in instances that are self-evident truths, of course you can’t refute the LNC. That is, when you see blue, of course you’re seeing blue. But ask a color-blind person what they see and you’ll get a different answer. Thus the LAW of Non-Contradiction isn’t a law at all. If it is, well, you know that old saying: Some laws were meant to be broken.

Tuesday, February 19, 2013

What I Don't Like About Being an Atheist



I’m not much of a follower. Not being a follower only explains a small part of why I think gods and the religions based on them are a bunch of hooey, though. To me, the idea of the existence of gods simply doesn’t make philosophical sense. Now, if you want to compartmentalize me as an atheist – because compartmentalizing is what we humans do – you’ve categorized me with a group of people I don’t have much in common with. That is to say, scientific atheists (those who believe reality can be explained in scientific terms, thus, there is no need for religion to explain reality) comprise most of the population of atheists, at least in the Western Industrialized world. [Full disclosure: I have no citation for such a statement and I am arguing from anecdotal evidence.]

While I believe scientific explanations give us a more accurate picture of reality and as such leaves less room for religious explanations, I feel that scientific explanations are not sufficient enough to completely absolve us of the possibility of the existence of God or gods. Philosophy alone is sufficient enough to conclude gods do not exist but you won’t catch too many atheists using philosophical arguments to deny, say, Creationism. Instead of saying Creationism is false because they have reasonably concluded there are no gods, atheists typically use the scientific explanation of Evolution to counter the idea of Creationism. This tactic has had limited success; for every victory for Evolution like the one in Kansas 2005, like a venereal disease Creationism keeps coming back because its proponents core beliefs haven’t been properly challenged.

What is worse is that in pressing creationists on their explanation of life instead of their explanation of God, scientific atheists are as militant as any theist ever was. Having once been the object of scorn, these atheists apparently feel there still isn’t enough vitriol in the world. Worse than that, is that in giving their side of the argument, scientific atheists often commit as many logical fallacies (e.g. ad hominid attacks, straw man, etc.) as theists do. It appears as though scientific atheists want a reality based upon scientific explanations, logic, and reason but often couldn’t tell you what the scientific method is much less act with logic or reason in their everyday lives. Personally, I bear little respect for hypocrites.

I’m not going say I’ve never been a hypocrite but I do try to act with reason and logic in my life. I also do not commit ad hominid attacks in the course of a debate (unless you’re a Scientologist). Instead, when dealing with people I try to be patient and understanding. I also try to be humble, though that is difficult given how smart and handsome I am. So while I may be an atheist, what I have in common with other atheists is often superficial.

I told you I wasn’t a follower.

Monday, February 11, 2013

The Basics of Pi-ism

[Ed.'s note: People think I'm making fun of religion through Pi-ism; Pi-ism is charged with being a parody religion. But is it a parody religion or is it a meta-religion? You be the judge.]



The Least You Need to Know About The Religion Based on Pi (As detailed in the book “The New Adventures of Pi.”)

  • God chose philosopher and atheist Theory Parker to become His latest prophet because God feels that theist prophets are not adequately conveying God’s messages.
  • To demonstrate God’s powers (and sense of humor) God used Her divine powers on Theory Parker to keep him from actually believing in the existence of a god.
  • God’s existence appears to be contingent upon a question God has. The universe we live in is part of an equation God has devised to answer this question. Our universe was created to calculate the irrational number Pi to a finite number.
  • All living things are variables in this calculation of Pi. Pi can only be solved by its variables acting in a particular manner, thus the need for The Suggestions, aphorisms God invites us to contemplate if we want to better ourselves as a variable.
  • The Suggestions are: 1-Be Good, Be Happy 2-The Best Things in Life are not Things 3-Learn From Your Mistakes and .14-What You Will is the World.
  • Due to Pi’s irrational nature, all things are possible, even the idea that God exists and does not exist at the same time. All religions are derivatives of Pi-ism with the exception of Scientology, which God specifically calls “retarded.”
  • Dreams are sometimes glimpses of ourselves in other universes. These glimpses of our other lives are meant to be a learning tool.
  • There is no free will as far as Pi-ism is concerned (meaning, there is no such thing as you having a free will). This is meant to be an encouraging idea and not the terrible idea everyone seems to think it is.
  • Most importantly, God abhors violence and interference in the lives of others.
These are the most basic tenets of Pi and it associated religion, Pi-ism. Want to know more? Pick up “The New Adventures of Pi” on Amazon.com or Lulu.com today!

Thursday, February 7, 2013

Adam and Evil


“I’d rather laugh with the sinners than die with the saints; the sinners are much more fun…” Billy Joel

For two thousand years, a great deal of fanfare has surrounded the idea that people need to be ‘saved’ by accepting Jesus Christ as their savior because we are all sinners. The idea of sin goes back to the very first chapter of the Bible in the Book of Genesis, in which the first man and woman, Adam and Eve, perpetrate what is known as The Fall. Certainly, such a notion is a primary reason why some theists go to great lengths to justify a belief in their singular God and His son. Only, a critical analysis of this particular creation myth reveals a god that, if actually existent, is a god of questionable morality and perhaps even malicious.
In the book of Genesis, after God has made the Earth and heavens, He decides to make man in the likeness of Himself (and other unnamed gods) for no reason that is made even remotely obvious to the casual reader. Then, because this man, Adam, is lonely, God makes animals for the man to have dominion over. Next, He makes a woman for Adam, presumably because having sex with sheep is inappropriate. God places the both of them in the beautiful garden of Eden where they may live happily ever after, but not without a dire warning: Do not eat from the Tree of Knowledge. If they do, God warns, they will die.
Most of us are familiar with what happens next. A serpent comes to Eve, telling her one lie and one truth. If Eve eats fruit from the Tree of Knowledge, not only will she not die—a lie—but she will come to have knowledge of good and evil as the gods do—the truth. After eating the fruit (presumably a bad apple), she then gives her husband fruit from the tree and he eats it too. They now know the difference between good and evil, which seems to come as a surprise to the typically described omniscient God the next time He comes around.
Incredulous, God punishes Adam and Eve. For starters, they’re going to die—and the serpent who instigated the entire affair, who gets off relatively easy by comparison. In addition, not only are Adam and Eve going to die, but God tells Eve she is going to bear tremendous pain during childbirth and subjugates her to her husband, while Adam is sentenced to the backbreaking task of having to grow their own food. Finally, they are cast out from the Garden of Eden least they try next to eat from the Tree of Life and live forever.
It appears Adam and Eve sinned; they disobeyed God, and from this a reader is to extrapolate a lesson: If you disobey God, the consequences will be undesirable, to say the least. However, a philosophical question arises as to whether or not Adam and Eve acted with ill intentions towards God and whether or not they should be punished for what they did.
I think it is fair to point out that it is perfectly clear that Adam and Eve had no knowledge of what was good and what was bad prior to eating the forbidden fruit. God may have told them that eating the fruit from this particular tree would result in their death, but they had absolutely no cause to believe that either death, disobeying God, or prancing around the Garden unclothed were bad things until after they ate the fruit.
With that in mind I think it equally fair to say that it is God then that explicitly bears the responsibility for creating the circumstances that would cause Adam and Eve to “fall.” What reason did God have for putting the Tree of Knowledge in the Garden of Eden? Why did He create a serpent that would be so beguiling as to fool Eve? If He was testing Adam and Eve, He must have known they would fail this test given that God is (or described as being later on in the Bible) all-knowing. Of course, if God had chosen not to know the future regarding this matter, God is either irresponsible or worse, a sadist. For the theist who wishes to take this creation account seriously, the absence of any analysis is required to think that God might not be evil. But we mustn’t judge too quickly.
We learn by reading further into the Book of Genesis that thanks to Adam and Eve’s disobedience, every subsequent human being suffers consequences. Because of the first man and woman, everyone is now born with a stain upon their soul as punishment for Adam and Eve’s insubordination. Certain monotheists call this “Original Sin,” something from which they think everyone is in need of being “saved” from. But what God does to Adam and Eve is akin to my requiring you to rob a bank with me, not tell you the details of the plan, then have you die during the heist so that I can get away unscathed. Best of all, your ancestors take the rap! Again, we must ask the compelling question as to why God would set the events of mankind into motion in such a manner. If we take into account that the Judeo-Christian god is described as being as omni-benevolent as He is omniscient (though we cannot figure out why from the Genesis account, other than to have faith that what the Creator creates is good), why did The Fall turn out to be anything but good? Couldn’t an all-powerful God have prevented this mess?
We, as human beings, must require that we know God’s plan in order to determine whether or not His punishment from the onset of our supposed history is just. Yet, if God is silent, if His ultimate plan is a matter of speculation, we might speculate many things—and that includes discovering who the Wizard of Oz really is. Given the account of man’s creation in Genesis, somewhere, somehow, one or more of God’s three, traditionally ascribed, major attributes—omnipotence, omniscience, and omni-benevolence—has failed to make either who God is or the story of Genesis (or both) credible.
God’s supposed goodness suffers the greatest damage in Genesis. After all, a child doesn’t know the meaning of a punishment until they are actually punished, so it seems odd to me that God would choose to punish his creation (and his creation’s creations) so severely. If God’s reasoning was to think that it would surely teach humans to never disobey Him again, He positively failed on that account.
It is this failure to be kind to his creations that casts doubt upon his other attributes, most notably His capacity to see the future. If God knew, or even could have logical deduced what the outcome of The Garden of Eden scenario might have been, He should have refrained from creating Adam and Eve. [That is, if humans hold God to any recognizable moral standard. Heck, even God’s own standards.] If God did not know what the outcome of events would be, then He is not omniscient.
Unfortunately, the best theistic defense is to characterize God as a perfect entity and this, they argue, by definition must include omniscience. Thus, if what the theist says about God’s omniscience in relation to His perfection is true, then God had to have known what was going to happen. If that’s true, we must return once again question God’s supposed benevolence. “Ah,” the theist will continue, “Keep in mind that God is perfect. God cannot not be benevolent.” But this would make God amoral since a being can only be moral if able to make choices. Even if God could choose evil but never did, we still couldn’t be certain that he could commit evil if He’s never made that choice. God must have free will then, hence, no one can be positively certain that God was without some evil intent in the creation of mankind. The theistic defenses of God’s qualities that allude to perfection drown in a circular sea of reasoning as quickly as any other characteristic ascribed to God.
            Given the contrivances in the story of Genesis, one should find it difficult to entertain tradition monotheistic descriptions of God seriously. God cannot be perfect because omniscience/amorality prevents this from being the case (a theistically “moral” person would argue, anyway). Nor can God be omniscient without casting suspicion on His “benevolent” motives. We might, for a second, consider that God is indeed supremely powerful given that the logic necessary to make the attributes of God mesh with the story of Genesis is as impossible as a square circle. But if God can only do what is logically possible then God’s attributes are reduced to contradictions, though perhaps we should have seen that coming. On the other hand, we humans are not omniscient and we’re not perfect. Maybe that’s a good thing.

References

God. The Holy Bible . 1000th. Hippo: Synod Press, 393.
Krueger, Douglas E. What Is Atheism?. 3rd. Amherst, NY: Prometheus, 1998.
Plato. The Trial and Death of Socrates. 1st. New York, NY: Dover Press, 1992.
Smith, George H. Atheism: The Case Against God. 1st. Amherst, NY: Prometheus, 1979.

Monday, February 4, 2013

The Case Against Unalianable Human Rights



Pro-life advocates, death penalty opponents, and opponents of euthanasia typically share a moral absolutist position in common; namely, that human beings are endowed with unalienable, intrinsic human rights. However, a critical analysis reveals that the concept of such human rights is flawed and hence, neither unalienable nor intrinsic. In order to demonstrate this, we will first address a definitional issue. Second, we will look at the history of human rights to see whether or not there is any indication that human rights are unalienable or inherent. Then, we will address some counter arguments to the thesis presented herein. Upon this examination, it will be shown that the concept of unalienable human rights has no legitimacy
            First we must ask, what are human rights? The United Nations attempted to answer this question in 1948, declaring, “All human beings are born free and equal” (“The Universal Declaration of Human Rights”). Adding to this declaration, the United Nations listed twenty-nine articles in defense of negative rights—liberties not to be interfered with—such as the right to privacy, to associate with whom one chooses, and to change one’s beliefs, without obstruction or retribution by another person or institution. To clarify human rights even further, The Boston Review’s Jeremy Waldron wrote of these rights as unalienable; “It means rights that may not be given away by those who have them, and therefore…reasonable people would [not] have found it prudent, in certain circumstances, to alienate these rights” (Waldron). Thus, it is reasonable to conclude from these definitions that human rights are simultaneously intrinsic; they are not meant to be dependent upon instituted legalities or cultural relativism. Human rights are also typically regarded as applying to individuals and are practiced within the confines of an individual’s right to choose their own actions.
            Semantics are, unsurprisingly, a challenge to any declaration of human rights. What is meant by “human being”? The definition of “human being” is as notoriously missing from the United Nation’s declaration of rights as the definition of “men” was from the Declaration of Independence. [That is to say, non-white Anglo-Saxon men were not regarded as men in 1776.] Is a human being an autonomous being capable of choice? Is it a mass of living human cells? The fact is, many animals are capable of making choices and can operate as independently as any human. Does that make such animals human? Nor can we regard living cells as human beings. If that were the case—as far as being human relates to having rights—stem cell research, organ removal, and male masturbation would all have to be criminalized. Nothing in any definition of “human being” offered here or otherwise, suggests that human rights are unalienable or intrinsic. If the definition of “human being” presumed human rights, then there would be little need for the phrase, “human rights.” It shall be noted, though, that a failure to define what a human being is does not necessarily preclude rights. However, this does send us looking for another way to validate unalienable human rights.
            At this juncture, we might ask where human rights come from. Human rights are generally assumed by its advocates to be inherent in one’s being human and, as Thomas Jefferson wrote, self-evident. As we’ve already seen, any appeal for rights upon the definition of “human being” is superfluous. We might also wonder, if human rights are self-evident, why human rights as a concept didn’t appear in the Western world in writing until the 17th and 18th century. While the Declaration of Independence (1776) and the French Declarations of the Rights of Man (1789) served as the basis for many modern human rights documents, one might be reminded that the rights declared in these documents, “When originally translated into policy, excluded women, people of color, and members of certain social, religious, economic, and political groups” (Shiman 6). If human rights are indeed self-evident, why were so many people excluded from exercising them? If human rights are self-evident, why was the French Revolution of 1789-1799 followed by the Reign of Terror in which 20,000 “enemies of the Revolution” were executed via the guillotine? Certainly we risk an oversimplification of each of these situations, but situations like these do nothing to advance the concept of human rights.
            Again, the absence of an idea doesn’t necessarily preclude its existence. In the case of human rights though, it is reasonable to assume (given its timeline in Western philosophy) that human rights as a concept evolved in response to the social, economic, and political inequities that arrived with or were exacerbated by the Industrial Revolution. Egalitarian societies have no concept of human rights because such inequities do not exist. Asian cultures that place the welfare of the community before the welfare of individuals likewise have no developed sense of human rights. Jack Donnelly, professor of International Studies at Denver, wrote in response to this observation, “Human rights ultimately rest on a social decision to act as though such ‘things’ existed…Like all social practices, human rights come with justifications” (Donnelly 20-21). There appears a strong indication that human rights are culturally relative. Human rights, it seems, is the advent of cultures that prize individuality and one’s freedom of expression.
            There are any number of objections a human rights proponent may now make, but for the sake of brevity, we will assess a few of the most commonly raised defenses.
            Proponents of human rights sometimes claim that human needs dictate human rights. The obvious question arises then as to what constitutes a need. Postulated by renowned psychologist Abraham Maslow, there exists a hierarchy of needs. Fundamentally, humans need physiological needs met first in order to survive, with safety needs and social needs met in that descending order of importance. With respect to human rights, based upon Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, the best we can say is that human beings may have a right to air, water, food, and shelter. According to Maslow, “If these fundamental needs are not satisfied then one will surely be motivated to satisfy them. Higher needs such as social needs and esteem are not recognized until one satisfies the needs basic to existence” (Maslow). If this view is correct, any rights beyond physiological needs require justification. This is perhaps why The United Nation’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights states in several of its articles that rights shall not be arbitrarily suspended. In other words, there may be conditions in which human rights are suspended and if that is so, human rights are not unalienable.
            Another common defense of human rights is for its proponents to claim that those opposed to human rights have other interests at heart. Interestingly, the countries that abstained from voting on the United Nations’ universal declaration in 1948 were among the greatest human rights abusers during that era. [Those countries included the Soviet Union, South Africa, and Saudi Arabia.] It would be outlandish to deny that governments would sometimes obstruct the rights of its citizens, whatever those rights may be. But this is not wholeheartedly the case. If we may appeal to cultural relativism again, it may be that certain cultures have no knowledge of human rights because they have no need for such a concept. In order for the idea of unalienable human rights to hold, it must be shown that participants within a culture are incorrect to place their community’s needs ahead of the needs of individuals; it must be shown that the needs of one outweigh the needs of many. The idea that individual rights trump collective rights is hardly unassailable: it arguably leads to selfishness, greed, and crime.
Thus, individual rights can create as many problems as it helps solve. If we quantify how much good proclaiming human rights does, we are consequentialists. If we are consequentialists, the needs of the many can at least sometimes outweigh the needs of the few. Thus, human rights once again cannot be unalienable, not as they apply to individuals. [Of course, we should be wary of any possible tyrannical effect mob rule could have. It seems reasonable that there should be some formulation of human rights in any system of democratic government.]
            Third, even though human rights as they are currently conceived is a secular concept, it is not uncommon to hear the argument that human beings are imbued with rights by a divine creator. Naturally, this begs the question, which god? In order to conclude that some divine authority has imparted rights upon human beings, it would need to be shown that a god or gods existed. If history is any indication, arguing for the existence of God has been fraught with difficulty. Trying to establish God’s relationship to human beings has been even more difficult than that.
            The concept of human rights most of all suffers from the is-ought problem. That human beings have unalienable rights is not the case. Even so, we should think a case can be made for what ought to be regarding human rights if we are all concerned about bringing value to individual lives. However, the definitions of “human beings” and “rights” need to be resolved first, or they’ll forever be contentious. We would also need to formulate human rights that do not interfere with cultural practices if we are at all of the opinion that every culture has inherent worth. [We should venture to say that this is usually the way Westerners think even though such thinking does not coincide with the current concept of human rights.] Circumstances permitting, it seems permissible (sometimes even necessary) to conceptualize human rights. There is no need to postulate that such rights are unalienable, though. The desire for rights alone should be sufficient.

REFERENCES

Donnelly, Jack. Universal Human Rights in Theory and Practice. 2nd. Cornell: Cornell University Press, 2003.

Maslow, Abraham. “Maslow Hierarchy of Needs.” Abraham Maslow: Father of Modern Management. 2005 Abraham-Maslow.com 15 February, 2009

Shiman, David. Teaching Human Rights. 2nd. Denver: University of Denver, 1999.

"The Universal Declaration of Human Rights." The Universal Declaration of Human Rights. 2008. The United Nations. 10 Feb 2009 .

Waldron , Jeremy. "Inalienable Rights." Boston Review. May 1999. 15 Feb 2009 .

Theory Parker (c) 2009