Do you know the section on the problem of 'deep internal vindication' in Gibbard's Thinking How To Live? He suggests there's a kind of problem of trust for anti-realists, which is that even though each of our particular moral intuitions morally self-affirms ('My intuition that killing babies is bad implies that it's good to follow the intuition that killing babies is bad') our moral intuitions don't morally affirm the faculty of moral intuition as such -- that is, we don't have a 'following your faculty of moral intuition is good' intuition. He thinks to get this kind of moral affirmation of the faculty of moral intuition we'd need to be able to tell a story about the evolutionary and/or social forces that shaped this faculty that makes these forces themselves morally compelling, and that this is impossible. Gibbard thinks this has to just stay an unscratched itch, but I'm not so sure.
I don't know that section, but sounds interesting. I do think that part of what snags for many people about anti-realism is the sense in which it says that you should "follow your preferences," which isn't itself very abstractly compelling -- e.g., you don't care very viscerally about "getting what you happen to care about" so described, you care about e.g. your mother. The stuff about "living from the inside"/"looking out of your own eyes" in Seeing more whole (https://joecarlsmith.com/2023/02/17/seeing-more-whole#5-7-living-from-the-inside) is partly meant to help with this problem.
I am not a Christian; this is all going to sound like I am. But I don’t think this is a fair characterisation of all Christian thought, really— there have been strands of Christianity that would have been very sympathetic to the anti-benevolence of the universe.
The whole concept of fallenness revolves around this. The idea that progress isn’t inevitable and isn’t necessarily good, the idea that a completely material world is indeed very grim and brutal? And this is important, because there are times I’ve felt Christian writing has been able to confront that grimness in a way humanistic writing often doesn’t.
I wouldn’t defend very many of CS Lewis’s arguments, but the ones he made around the popular conception of evolution orbit this: the idea that evolution means things getting better for the man on the street forever, when of course it does not actually do that at all. In today’s world it’s kind of weird to read a Christian writer saying “humanism is bad because it makes people think the world will work out benignly forever”— but then they weren’t all writing in today’s world.
I would say that it is a critical error to extol humanism for being able to confront this in a way that religion never has. The idea that human ingenuity will save us is very widespread and internalised; maybe more than the idea that God would? And many Christians would have rejected that automatically, because they would think we are sinful fallen creatures who will mess up in the ways that are outlined here.
What matters is maybe the belief that the material world must be saved, and that this is a default assumption? No matter anyone’s other beliefs, it’s vital they stop believing in that. And that’s a critical distinction because it makes it easier to find those who took issue with it, which I think is essential given what a giant threat it is.
If I were honest I am not sure that humanist hope of any kind is much different from the kind of faith I’m describing here? It’s all a radical and fundamental break from what we’ve seen before, in the end; it’s all an attempt to ward off despair and find a way to keep reasoning and working against the unreasonable. But I think I’m only honest with myself about that now that I’ve engaged with those who worried and who believed
All I have to say is: greetings, fellow bicam! You know full well as I do this world is a safety world, without supermen, superbacteria, or (as in "Thou Art Godshatter") human behavior consistent with the theory of evolution.
Do you know the section on the problem of 'deep internal vindication' in Gibbard's Thinking How To Live? He suggests there's a kind of problem of trust for anti-realists, which is that even though each of our particular moral intuitions morally self-affirms ('My intuition that killing babies is bad implies that it's good to follow the intuition that killing babies is bad') our moral intuitions don't morally affirm the faculty of moral intuition as such -- that is, we don't have a 'following your faculty of moral intuition is good' intuition. He thinks to get this kind of moral affirmation of the faculty of moral intuition we'd need to be able to tell a story about the evolutionary and/or social forces that shaped this faculty that makes these forces themselves morally compelling, and that this is impossible. Gibbard thinks this has to just stay an unscratched itch, but I'm not so sure.
I don't know that section, but sounds interesting. I do think that part of what snags for many people about anti-realism is the sense in which it says that you should "follow your preferences," which isn't itself very abstractly compelling -- e.g., you don't care very viscerally about "getting what you happen to care about" so described, you care about e.g. your mother. The stuff about "living from the inside"/"looking out of your own eyes" in Seeing more whole (https://joecarlsmith.com/2023/02/17/seeing-more-whole#5-7-living-from-the-inside) is partly meant to help with this problem.
By the way you might also find this thread interesting (I've maybe linked it before): https://x.com/peligrietzer/status/1568524939757555712?s=20
You want Karl Bunker‘s They All Have One Breath, aka, what’d happen if a godlike AI actually tried to enforce Morality upon nature and humanity.
https://clarkesworldmagazine.com/bunker_01_19_reprint/
I am not a Christian; this is all going to sound like I am. But I don’t think this is a fair characterisation of all Christian thought, really— there have been strands of Christianity that would have been very sympathetic to the anti-benevolence of the universe.
The whole concept of fallenness revolves around this. The idea that progress isn’t inevitable and isn’t necessarily good, the idea that a completely material world is indeed very grim and brutal? And this is important, because there are times I’ve felt Christian writing has been able to confront that grimness in a way humanistic writing often doesn’t.
I wouldn’t defend very many of CS Lewis’s arguments, but the ones he made around the popular conception of evolution orbit this: the idea that evolution means things getting better for the man on the street forever, when of course it does not actually do that at all. In today’s world it’s kind of weird to read a Christian writer saying “humanism is bad because it makes people think the world will work out benignly forever”— but then they weren’t all writing in today’s world.
I would say that it is a critical error to extol humanism for being able to confront this in a way that religion never has. The idea that human ingenuity will save us is very widespread and internalised; maybe more than the idea that God would? And many Christians would have rejected that automatically, because they would think we are sinful fallen creatures who will mess up in the ways that are outlined here.
What matters is maybe the belief that the material world must be saved, and that this is a default assumption? No matter anyone’s other beliefs, it’s vital they stop believing in that. And that’s a critical distinction because it makes it easier to find those who took issue with it, which I think is essential given what a giant threat it is.
If I were honest I am not sure that humanist hope of any kind is much different from the kind of faith I’m describing here? It’s all a radical and fundamental break from what we’ve seen before, in the end; it’s all an attempt to ward off despair and find a way to keep reasoning and working against the unreasonable. But I think I’m only honest with myself about that now that I’ve engaged with those who worried and who believed
All I have to say is: greetings, fellow bicam! You know full well as I do this world is a safety world, without supermen, superbacteria, or (as in "Thou Art Godshatter") human behavior consistent with the theory of evolution.
And you do not go to church?
Ultimate Reality is a Self with a sick side.
Yudkowsky's public contempt for his parents isn't pleasant.
"It was just after Trump's election. Lots of stuff felt bleak." -- Why display your political sentiments?