Repression, Confession and Human Sexuality
The deep disagreements between the Critical Theory of the Frankfurt School and Foucault can be summarized in the question: Freud or Nietzsche? The German Critical Theorists thought that the scientific analytics of both Marx and Freud could liberate us from the dual domination of ideology and repression. Being the Nietzschean that he was, Foucault’s response to all such hopes was a pointed “tu quoque”: the Marxist and Freudian disciplines merely replace one form of domination with another of their own making. Thus, while Habermas frames his own social theory in terms of a collective (Kohlbergian) moral development over which we gradually acquire greater control through discursive enlightenment, Foucault sees social history in terms of an unguided, almost Darwinian reconfiguration of (rather than liberation from) power relations. It is for this reason that Habermas dismisses all such Nietzscheans as “young conservatives”.
With this in mind, Foucault’s The History of Sexuality, Volume 1 (its original title was the far more Nietzschean The Will to Knowledge) should be read as a searing indictment of the Freudian theory of sexual repression. This theory (which has clearly infected common parlance) holds that the ruling class exercises its power over how we speak about, participate in and otherwise express our “natural” sexuality. By these lights, our endless preaching (Foucault’s word, not mine) about how we are the victims of sexual repression is actually a form of political rebellion against that ruling class.
Foucault is rightly suspicious of this narrative for various reasons. First of all, there is little evidence that the “Victorian” repression of sexuality correlates with any decline in talk about sex over the last three to four hundred years. Second, this narrative is itself an instance of the very sex-talk that has actually multiplied and diversified throughout the time period in question. In other words, the political and intellectual authorities of the Victorian era did not repress sex-talk, but instead transformed the rules that regulated such talk.
Before outlining Foucault’s genealogy of the theory of repression, let us articulate the flaw which any Nietzschean sees at the heart of this theory. Power is no more the exclusive trait of the ruling class than weather is the exclusive trait of thunderstorms. The theory of repression assumes that by resisting the rules imposed upon us from the ruling class, we are, by very definition, freeing ourselves from power. Not true, says Nietzsche. Rather, the scientific investigation, systematization and normalization of human behavior actually produced a far more intrusive and all-encompassing form of power over us. To be more precise, the gathering of such scientific knowledge about people required the deployment of power over them, and the deployment of power over people required a scientific knowledge of them. This power is especially prominent in the practice of confession.
In the 17th century, Priests began requiring their parishioners to confess not only their violations of behavioral norms surrounding sex (something that Mormons are fairly comfortable with), but to also articulate their inner thoughts, passions, dreams and fantasies on the subject (something which goes well beyond what Mormons are comfortable with). In this way, the sin of adultery was transformed from an illicit activity that violated marital relations and inter-personal alliances, into a violation of our natures by participating in illicit pleasure.
During the 18th and 19th centuries, two phenomena transformed this practice of confession. On the one hand, the rising bourgeoisie as well as the declining aristocracy used sexual morality as a means to the purification of their bloodlines from the corrosive bloodlines of the worker/peasant masses. In this way, a socially regulated sexual morality became a form of collective self-empowerment for these ruling classes rather than an expression of external domination. (I think chastity as a form of self-empowerment resonates quite well with many LDS teachings.) The various eugenics movements of the latter 19th century were the most salient expressions of this morality.
On the other hand, the rise of nation-states correlated with a bureaucratic interest in and control over the birth rates of the population. More soldiers meant more power for the absolute monarchs and more workers meant higher production for the bourgeoisie. Experts were thus deployed with the explicit purpose of examining, normalizing and optimizing the sexual practices of the nation as it related to education, health, economic productivity, fertility, etc. These experts thus became the secular priests to whom people were expected to give a full and intimate confession, just as they had previously given to their ecclesiastical leaders. While such secular confessions find their fullest and most obvious expression within Freudian psycho-analysis, such confessions remain to this day a routine practice within the standard medical examination.
Note also, that whereas the earlier forms of confession were concerned with the avoidance of impurities and illicit behaviors, these modern experts were much more concerned with an affirmative and invasive exhortation to a “healthy” sex-life, as they defined the term. Such a “healthy” sex-life entailed several types of discursive practices that hardly amounted to a blanket of “repressive” secrecy. Instead, it amounted to a very specific set of rules regarding how much one talks about sex, to whom and under what conditions. Indeed, and this is the main point, so wide-spread and multifaceted are the forces that now require confession from us, that we have been trained to see such confessions as liberating and “for our own good”:
“The obligation to confess is now relayed through so many different points, is so deeply ingrained in us, that we no longer perceive it as the effect of a power that constrains us; on the contrary, it seems to us that truth, lodged in our most secret nature, ‘demands’ only to surface; that if it fails to do so, this is because a constraint holds it in place, the violence of a power weighs it down, and it can finally be articulated only at the price of a kind of liberation…
“One has to be completely taken in by this internal ruse of confession in order to attribute a fundamental role to censorship, to taboos regarding speaking and thinking; one has to have an inverted image of power in order to believe that all these voices which have spoken so long in our civilization repeating the formidable injunction to tell what one is and what one does, what one recollects and what one has forgotten, what one is thinking and what one thinks he is not thinking-are speaking to us of freedom.” (Pg. 60)
A more contemporary way of framing this claim would be to say that Foucault completely rejects the modern ritual of “coming out” as gay to one’s friends and family. This is a practice of domination which has historically derived from the psycho-analytic patients’ confessions to the secular authority figure of the doctor, which in turn had derived from the penitent Christians’ confessions to their ecclesiastical authorities.
Foucault’s objection to homosexuals’ “coming out” runs deeper still in that he completely rejects the existence of “sexuality” as a natural object that lies within us waiting to be “discovered” at some age. People have sex, not sexualities. To ask a person to define themselves in terms of their sexual desires and habits makes no more sense than asking them to define themselves in terms of their sleep or eating habits. Indeed, Foucault compares such efforts to describe a person’s life – every feeling, urge, communication and interaction – in terms of their sexuality to similar efforts to understand a person in terms of their astrological sign.
Historically speaking, then, the practice of confession was mixed with the science of sex to produce the artificial construct “sexuality.” By this, he specifically means that there are no homosexual (or heterosexual) people, only those who enjoy homosexual (or heterosexual) behaviors more than others. (It is worth noting that the political left tends to relish in the contingently constructed nature of genders while denying it to sexualities, while Mormons the exact mirror image of this.) When a person inwardly seeks their own sexuality that is supposed to lie deeply hidden within themselves, they are subjecting him or herself to the authority of those people and discursive practices that require such a confession. Whether the person who accepts such a confession is a priest, medical doctor, parent or friend, similar relations of power are always at play. Such a submission to authority, according to Foucault, can only produce an illusion of cathartic liberation, an illusion which has been carefully instilled within us by ecclesiastical and secular authorities.
“Sexuality must not be thought of as a kind of natural given which power tries to hold in check, or as an obscure domain which knowledge tries gradually to uncover. It is the name that can be given to a historical construct: not a furtive reality that is difficult to grasp, but a great surface network in which the stimulation of bodies, the intensification of pleasures, the incitement to discourse, the formation of special knowledges, the strengthening of controls and resistances, are linked to one another, in accordance with a few major strategies of knowledge and power.” (Pg. 105-6)
Where do Mormons stand with regard to all of this? With regards to practices of confession, they are clearly not the sexual libertines that Foucault would prefer them to be. Thus, they will never follow him in rejecting all forms of confession regarding one’s own sexual behavior. That said, they also reject the overly intrusive forms of confession, both religious and (to a lesser extent) scientific, which led to the creation of “sexuality” as a concept. Their not being complicit in such practices gives them a critical distance which other religious traditions lack.
Foucault’s dismissal of “repression” as a modern attempt by scientific experts at replacing the rule of church authorities (among others) dovetails nicely with the LDS ambivalence to intellectuals. Those who actively resist the traditional authority of the church by accusing it – in the name of science – of sexually repressing its members are clearly identified within Foucault’s model as the threats that they are. While repression-talk pretends to uncover an authentic individual that is quite at odds with LDS teaching, it is actually a newly invented means of actively re-shaping people into a scientific imagine that the experts can themselves understand and control.
Finally, his rejection of homosexuality as a natural category will probably be the claim that TBM’s will likely find most appealing. (The scientific consensus on this matter, however, is still a matter of debate.) To be clear, Foucault would unequivocally disapprove of the LDS condemnation of his own, consistently homosexual behavior. On this, the church and Foucault will never agree. That said, they do stand united against the claim that some people have, regardless of whether they actually “know it (yet),” an inner homosexuality that ought to find an authentic, outward expression. Such an idea was a scientific invention of the 19th century and is more a reflection of how we talk about sex in our modern society than it is of anything we might be tempted to call “human nature.”
I confess I’m more with Foucault here although I’m not sure I trust his reading of Nietzsche (just like I don’t trust Heidegger’s or Derrida’s although all three readings are productive in interesting ways)
I had a friend back in college who thought I’d love Foucault precisely for readings similar to yours. I confess that while there are elements I like, overall I don’t like Foucault in the least. (Especially then) I think the issue is that while I’m very sympathetic to Foucault’s pointing out these master narratives as as away of control, I’m very skeptical about his answers.
BTW – could you put an extra return between your paragraphs? It’d make it easier to read.
Comment by Clark — February 16, 2016 @ 3:24 pm
Done. Sometimes wordpress just goofs things up.
Regarding Nietzsche, I don’t think I’ve ever met two people who read him the same.
Regarding Foucault, I don’t think he is really trying to advance any answers. His arguments are not THAT certain things are constructed, but HOW they are constructed. Thus, I think he is trying to give us the information to responsibly and collectively transform the way we live through a (I hope) cautious kind of experimentation. I certainly prefer this to the wholesale, ideological revolutions.
Comment by Jeff G — February 16, 2016 @ 4:50 pm
I was very glad to see that same sex marriage law in the United States is not predicated on any sexuality status. I think the elites and professions have lost just as much power as religious authorities since Foucault.
I have never been asked about my sex life by physicians or other professionals they way Foucault describes. The control that is left is mainly in the courts and schools but business has much the upper hand and continually pushes against expertise as a threat to its economic power. The military by becoming all voluntary lost a big part of its control over these types of processes and the movement to home schooling is slowly eroding control on the school front also.
Repression is now pretty much a war of all against all with pretty fluid choosing of sides.
Comment by Martin James — February 16, 2016 @ 7:24 pm
I get asked about my sexual behavior EVERY doctors visit.
There is still an immense amount of power exercised by psychiatrists, and hence social services, school counseling, sexual education within schools, anything having to do with marriage benefits, pedophilia (including sex offenses and all that entails), single parent homes, teen pregnancies, maternity leave, and on and on.
If anything it is far worse than in Foucault’s time, and it is for that reason that it has become invisible to us.
Comment by Jeff G — February 16, 2016 @ 8:18 pm
Jeff, you need to make more money. :)
Comment by Martin James — February 16, 2016 @ 8:43 pm
I’m not a Fruedian, but think where modern society would be without secular sexual authorities advising a sexually liberated populace. When the taboos of past generations are torn down, they must at least be replaced by other taboos or cultural controls, expectations or laws. Whether the new taboos (or lack thereof) are more or less effective than the old taboos is a matter of debate. But if a modern society inevitably liberates itself sexually, (and I think it IS inevitable) that society must recreate some kind of authority and taboo influencing the people. People are not to be trusted sexually, sans taboos.
Comment by Nate — February 17, 2016 @ 1:51 am
.
Just look at the “consent” movements on campus and even several laws recently passed (“no means no” and even “yes means yes” type laws where explicit verbal and possibly written consent must be gained at every stage of intimacy or you run the risk of committing rape, with no due process allowed in how the campus tribunals are carried out).
One college even suggested students in committed, sexually active relationships fill out “consent contracts” and then take pictures of themselves with the contracts.
Where else has society had people signing a contract that allowed for sexual access and took pictures of the event? Oh, yeah – marriage.
Society may want to liberate itself, but it seems to always fall back on the old ways, just in new guises.
Comment by Ivan Wolfe — February 17, 2016 @ 7:17 am
The idea of consent has always been ambiguous, right from its centrality to social contract theories. What counts as consent and who is capable of consent have always been disputed in both politics and sex.
Comment by Jeff G — February 17, 2016 @ 8:43 am
Jeff famous readers of Nietzsche typically read him in idiosyncratic ways. They’re really more about appropriating parts. The danger is always in how much emphasis they give to the Will to Power texts while scholars tend to be suspicious of those due to the editing of his sister. That said among more general Nietzsche scholars in the history of philosophy field I think there’s a fair bit of consensus on how to read him. He’s not nearly as interesting when read conservatively in that way. So often reading the misreadings is more interesting.
Regarding doctors and sexual history, I can honestly say I’ve never been asked except in one trip to the emergency room.
Regarding the broader points, a lot of this is all about the pseudo-science of psychoanalysis. There’s a reason it’s fallen completely out of favor among scientists. (Although it’s still got a few breaths left in therapy and in English departments who are more interesting in literary criticism which honestly is what it mainly is)
Comment by Clark — February 17, 2016 @ 10:10 am
“Regarding doctors and sexual history, I can honestly say I’ve never been asked except in one trip to the emergency room.”
Interesting. I would expect it to be the opposite.
“There’s a reason it’s fallen completely out of favor among scientists.”
Regardless of what scientists think (their increasing positivism does little to assuage Foucault’s worries here), the idea of repression is very well ingrained within the cultural politics. To the extent that “sexual identity” is a legitimate category within people’s minds, the legacy of Freudian repression lives on.
Comment by Jeff G — February 17, 2016 @ 10:55 am
I think that Foucault would definitely see quasi-existentialist appeals to “authenticity” as dovetailing with the theory of repression. In both cases, we are defining our inner natures to and in terms that are predetermined by others.
Personally, I think think that such appeals to authenticity and repression are quite native to the gospel, so long as it is the prophets rather than psychologists would get to define what that inner nature consists of, namely a spirit child of God within an extended heavenly family.
Comment by Jeff G — February 17, 2016 @ 11:34 am
Yes, Jeff you are pro-repression if the right people are doing the repressing. I think the strongest case you have on the cultural politics side is the opposition to Joseph Smith’s polygamy and apparent charisma.
The moral prudery of the left is astounding and boy do they hate it when I call them that.
Zizek seems to be your guy in terms of most vigorously denouncing the idea of authenticity as repressive. He particularly calls out the appeals to love and acting out of conscience as more repressive than just being told what to do by force.
Comment by Martin James — February 17, 2016 @ 11:42 am
“you are pro-repression if the right people are doing the repressing”
… and as long as they are not doing it by violent force. Big caveat.
I never got into Zizek. I have a hard time getting past his overly-bombastic style.
Comment by Jeff G — February 17, 2016 @ 12:09 pm
I think the issue of sexual repression is most closely tied with the groups contending for power and status in society.
I think you are underestimating how contested these issues are within the elites and society at large. This is why US politics are so fun this year. The repression is cracking within the elites.
There is a tension between men and women, between intellectuals and the money elite, and between the classes. (Hence, my joke about you needing to make more money so people didn’t ask you about your sex life.)
Hillary Clinton is a good stand in for these tensions. In what ways does she repress her husband, despite her apparent tolerance of his extra-marital relations?
One of the main ways is that she want sex to be an insignificant part of marriage with the more significant part being social status derived from position. She doesn’t want men in the marriage choice to be constrained by any trade-off between sexual attractiveness and power. She wants to downgrade sexual power relative to other forms of power. Bill’s repression seems to be that his sex could only be used to show his power rather than to acquire more power. Almost none of his sexual relationships seem to have been with those with more power than him. This seems to me a form of repression. I think this is the way that the consent functions in elite colleges. Male physical and sexual power is repressed so that elite females determine how it can be used with them. They don’t want it completely repressed across society just subject to their consent.
The economic elites also have an interesting position. They want to allow enough sexual liberation to harness the sexual urge to promote status purchases, but not have free love so free that there is no reason to purchase anything because you are so satisfied and unrepressed that there is no reason to purchase goods beyond the bare essentials.
This is why there is such a taboo against showing ugly poor people getting a lot of satisfying sex. No one is as repressed as obese people. The elites never want us to see average as a source of satisfaction.
The paradigmatic example of this to me were the Abu Ghraib photos. Nothing ticks off the system quite like those with less status enjoying the exercise of power. A similar example is the contest over the power of the police to exercise power over lower status people. That is reserved for the top.
But, the game appears to be up in that there is no longer a consensus on who gets power and who determines the taboos. We see it within the USA in politics and we see it internationally in war. No one is in charge and so we fight.
Comment by Martin James — February 17, 2016 @ 12:10 pm
” I have a hard time getting past his overly-bombastic style.”
See repression.
Comment by Martin James — February 17, 2016 @ 12:11 pm
Just to expand a bit, there is a difference between the repression of psychologists and that of religious leaders in that the latter are able to legitimize their attempts at repression (whether you believe them or not is a different story).
The experts claim to legitimize what they are doing in terms of liberating people, which is exactly why Habermas objects to Foucault’s attack on this claim. The experts might also justify their efforts in terms of individual choice of the patients and supposed gains in utility, but this drains all the moral force that the political left wants to derive from ideas such repression and false consciousness. They want to transform liberal society as a whole, not help individuals within it.
Comment by Jeff G — February 17, 2016 @ 12:16 pm
Jeff, I’m not sure science is facing “increasing positivism.” If anything I think the last 40 years has shown a move away from the naive positivism of the first half of the century. When the most discussed topic in physics the last 30 years was a string theory without a single testable prediction it’s hard to say positivism is dominating science. Too many scientists proudly are ignorant of philosophy of science yet many major trends in philosophy of science have still made their way into the culture. (Theory ladenness being an obvious one coming from Quine, Kuhn and others)
I think science is justly skeptical of Foucault styled power analysis such as is popular in certain cross discipline disciplines like gender studies or race studies. Often for the same reasons they’re skeptical of psychoanalytic theories. It’s just too easy to impose a particular theme on phenomena. Effectively under the guise of finding power relations they impose power relations. To adopt perhaps a more Derridean critique, Foucault ends up following the very power structures his critiques paint as a critique.
Martin, an interesting critique of contemporary modernism’s focus on authenticity as the higher good actually comes from N. T. Wright who reads a certain virtue ethics into Paul. His After You Believe is quite good. (I coincidentally am reading it right now) To my perhaps biased eyes he adopts a type of virtue ethics that’s quite pragmatic.
Regarding Zizek I confess I’ve just never been able to get into him. Like Jeff, I find the hyperbolic style quite off putting.
Comment by Clark — February 17, 2016 @ 12:20 pm
I meant positivism in the sense of being value-neutral and instrumental in nature, not in the sense of logical positivism. (Like I told Martin, I don’t really care what’s going on in STEM. They are no more relevant to society or religion than the Wright brothers.) In the former sense, the human sciences have become unabashedly positivistic, especially as funding shifts from the public to the private sector. This is self-consciously the case within sociology departments that actively minimize all theory, critical or otherwise.
Comment by Jeff G — February 17, 2016 @ 12:32 pm
This is where I see you as being in such a battle with the left, you believe in repression(submission to authority) and false consciousness(not recognizing status as child of God) and the left is battling for those same tools. I’m not unsympathetic to that line of thought but I see it as more of first step where once one let’s go of false consciousness through prayer and conscience, then agency shows the path through wisdom and knowledge to obedience to the (external) law.
You see the test between authorities as more important with the enlightenment on the wrong side. I see who can see the most light as being the key issue with the enlightenment figures seeing only a portion of the light (freedom) but not the whole picture.
I’m trying to convince you that all the folkways of liberty are an important part of seeing what agency is. I think there is considerable evidence that church leaders support a basically anglophone understanding that the tradition of liberty that is very consistent with the Scottish enlightenment is a good thing.
Comment by Martin James — February 17, 2016 @ 12:32 pm
Jeff and Clark,
I have hesitated to bring up Zizek because of this style, but once you start talking about sex and repression you need to understand bombast. The LDS culture is almost completely at see in terms of understanding the full range of sexual stances to the world. LDS artfully uses repression to channel sex into a small number of options. Most of us, can’t even understand people for whom sex is not primarily about marriage and children.
Comment by Martin James — February 17, 2016 @ 12:40 pm
“They are no more relevant to society or religion than the Wright brothers.”
“Is” is as important to “ought” as “ought” is to “is”. Nothing has been more important to religion and society than lowered transportation costs.
Comment by Martin James — February 17, 2016 @ 12:42 pm
Jeff and Clark,
Just guessing by the reaction to Zizek that you don’t spend a lot of time listening to hip hop. Aren’t they the real street preachers and voice of authority in US culture today? Isn’t it taboo to oppose them?
Comment by Martin James — February 17, 2016 @ 12:45 pm
“Nothing has been more important to religion and society than lowered transportation costs.”
That’s why I granted them the same status as the Wright brothers. They definitely open up possibilities, but they are in no position whatsoever to tell us whether or not to pursue any such possibility.
The restored LDS conceptions of freedom and truth do share some overlap with that of the Scottish Enlightenment. No doubt. Nevertheless, there is at least as much overlap with that of a sort of premodern mentality. There are three basic models of truth and freedom at play here (all parties see a tight relationship between the two concepts):
1) Premodern/Authoritarian: A freedom from moral pollution.
2) Modern/Liberal: A freedom from social interference.
3) Postmodern/Socialist: A freedom from asymmetrical domination.
In my opinion, since the restoration Mormonism has mostly straddled the divide between 1 and 2 in that it wants 1 to operate within a larger context of 2. Nevertheless, if one of these must go in order to save the other, it sides with 1. By equating LDS doctrine solely with 2, you not only misrepresent the pre-restoration scriptures, but you also elide this very existential choice thus allowing for people (such as my former self) to unhesitatingly follow the enlightenment truth out of the church.
Things could be worse, though. Lots of blogs seem most committed to 3, which is basically the rejection of any and all shepherds.
Comment by Jeff G — February 17, 2016 @ 1:01 pm
That helps. I keep seeing your 1 as sliding into 3 via authority but what I’m arguing for is for 3 to give us a enough room in 2 to have the mystical rather than authority elements of 1.
In this version you wouldn’t follow “truth” out of the church because your liberty folkways included prayer.
What would bring us together is that authority protects our agency while commanding us to pray. What I don’t see in historical examples of authority is this support for individual choice and knowledge through prayer. I’m with you that the individuals don’t get to constrain authority but I want to keep the concept that authorities that don’t zealously guard individual agency are not real authorities. I don’t see enough difference historical authorities and satan’s plan to keep us all free from moral pollution.
Comment by Martin James — February 17, 2016 @ 1:30 pm
I think your non-violence comment about real authority is consistent with my desire for zealous protection of agency.
Comment by Martin James — February 17, 2016 @ 1:38 pm
I think 3 is fully compatible with 1, so long as it gives up on abolishing ALL forms of asymmetric domination… which just is a rejection of 3, really. That’s why 3-thinking can be very useful.
3, however, is chalk full of mystical thinking. It is only 2 that totally rejects such supernaturalism. If, however, we want to avoid a civil war of competition between such experiences, then 1 is necessary.
The three sets also see communication in different terms:
1) Communication as directives.
2) Communication as reference/correspondence.
3) Communication as expression.
These three produce very different models of revelation. Only 2 thinks that all revelation ought to be fully and logically consistent. 1 uses differential authority to structure communication. 3 is pretty torn between anything goes and a logic of emancipation, the latter being a precondition for the former.
Comment by Jeff G — February 17, 2016 @ 1:49 pm
It is likely that I am quibbling over how much asymmetry there can be before it becomes domination of agency. It is your theoretical argument about authority via historical examples, rather than any defense of the actual church authorities where we differ. I am basically arguing that our tradition of authority as exemplified by actual authorities doesn’t seem like the authority your arguments justify. I admit that this might be my making cultural background of our leaders do all the work for me in an historically contingent way. But it may not be to the extent those cultural practices were providential the way the Elder Cook talk at Stanford seemed to once again reference in our tradition.
Comment by Martin James — February 17, 2016 @ 1:50 pm
I like your summary here. I think life is the civil war of taking a stand about a correspondence theory of good and evil. To me this fits in well, with the fact that these civil wars breakout when the moral community has lost its way dividing the community. I’m trying to argue for “come along, come along” mormonism.
3. Let us govern by kindness and never by force,
All cheering and bright, like the sun in its course;
Obedience will spring from each heart with a bound,
And brotherhood flourish the wide world around.
I just can’t get 1. to be understandable with so much of the mormon scriptures and ways of talking about eternal truth and laws before heaven was created and knowledge talk.
Comment by Martin James — February 17, 2016 @ 2:03 pm
“how much asymmetry there can be before it becomes domination of agency”
I’m not sure that there is any hard and fast answer to this question. Indeed, different people will seek answers to the question in different ways. 2 wants a timeless distinction that just is true for all times and places. 1 will ask the proper authority for an answer, a strategy which looks very suspicious to the others. 3 avoids the question altogether by dismissing all asymmetry as domination and false-agency (a sure recipe for endless criticism and complaining).
Comment by Jeff G — February 17, 2016 @ 2:05 pm
“I just can’t get 1. to be understandable with so much of the mormon scriptures and ways of talking about eternal truth and laws before heaven was created and knowledge talk.”
To think this you are forced to sideline the entire Bible, it being unquestionably 1 in nature.
Comment by Jeff G — February 17, 2016 @ 2:07 pm
To be sure, in the current environment, church leaders do not come out and advocate 1 in stark terms. Once one knows what to look for, however, one will find them everywhere. The teachings of any of the more “iron roddy” apostles are quite clearly structured according to 1.
Comment by Jeff G — February 17, 2016 @ 2:11 pm
Jeff (18) I tend to see a big divide between Instrumentalism (ala Dewey – although popularized in physics by anti-philosophers like Feynman) and anything akin to positivism. Is this use of the term in Feyerabend? I confess I’m not familiar with it. (Not a critique – honestly want to know since I’ve encountered a few others using it differently from logical positivists or 19th century positivists like Mach) I tend towards realism not instrumentalism but I guess I’m still confused in all this.
Regarding value lateness, I’m not sure science is moving to positivism in that sense either. The soft sciences in particular are criticized for too much value and bias in them. (See for instance Michael Shermer’s recent op ed at Scientific American) Now one might argue the soft sciences self-describe as positivist but they certainly don’t act like it. But that’s a whole other debate. (I’d say sociology in particular has appropriated too much Foucault rather than Newton but again, a different discussion)
Martin (19) losing the sense of terms and topic here. When we are talking freedom or agency in what sense are we talking about it? The way say Lehi talks about it seems quite different from how contemporary free will debates talk about it which are quite different from how Foucault inspired sociology or gender/race studies talks about it. I think there might be a bit of equivocating going around. (Not a criticism – just a plea to get our terms clarified)
Martin (20) Not sure what you mean. If you mean sex as recreation outside of marriage I think most of us can understand it but think it’s empty and decaying. I mean most of us have had lots of non-member or inactive friends and relatives. It’s true that by limiting most expressions of sex for marriage we are channeling int. I’m not sure it’s best described as repression. Of course that may also highlight the problematic nature of the term. (When is repression repression? — a tricky issue I think Foucault disciples often play misleadingly with especially in certain contexts)
Martin (22) Honestly have no idea what you mean about hip hop and authority.
Jeff (23) I think science does more than open up possibilities. I think it closes down possibilities as well. (Witness the problem of young earth creationism among many issues)
To your points about freedom I’m not sure I’d agree with any of the ways you define them, although there is an element of truth to each emphasis you give the varying eras. Not sure of where you put socialism either. The marxists are the epitome of modernism I think.
Comment by Clark — February 17, 2016 @ 4:04 pm
Clark,
By agency, I’m talking about choosing generally and freely choosing about good and evil in particular. I don’t think anyone says or knows anything of value about agency other than how it feels: we feel like we choose and some choices feel more constrained than others.
The experience of consciousness and the experience of choice are unexplained in science and philosophy.
If sex as recreation is empty and decaying (and I’m not arguing that it isn’t) but it does leave us wanting an explanation of why is it so valued and practiced? I think Jeff is right that to be asked about one’s sexual practice or identity feels repressive. But the culture is oddly silent about sex also, it is bad manners to talk about it in public for mormons. Does this taboo operate to heighten the value of sex by taboo or does it mess people up because they have no experience of what sex means to other people?
My comment in 22 is that it should be obvious to everyone by now that any hope of moral agreement in the broader culture is hopeless. How can people who use the term sin and god be in moral community with people who don’t use those terms. I think a lot of the discussion of competing elites is obsolete because of the sheer moral diversity we are exposed to. We pretty much just call each other crazy now.
No one is more of an elite than Jay Z and the appeal of bombast is a big part of it. Is Putin in our elite? Pope Francis? El Chapo? Dr. Phil?
I would argue that these people know a lot more about repression and confession than the philosophers.
Comment by Martin James — February 17, 2016 @ 4:41 pm
I roughly have in mind Horkheimer’s use of the term:
http://www.scribd.com/mobile/doc/81896818/Horkheimer-Traditional-and-Critical-Theory-1937
Habermas and Adorno also used it in their debates against Popper:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positivism_dispute
I also agree that postmodernism and socialism are not the same thing, especially in any ahistorical sense. There has, however, come to be a large overlap between the two in our own time.
Comment by Jeff G — February 17, 2016 @ 4:45 pm
I think they’re explained but certainly not satisfactorily. But perhaps you’d have to unpack what you mean.
I certainly agree that moral agreement with broad culture is pointless although I do think we should pay attention to the moral critiques they make – even if often we’ll disagree with them.
As for why sex is so valued, well there is a rather strong biological imperative at work.
Comment by Clark — February 17, 2016 @ 8:38 pm
Jeff I think that second link gets at my problem with the term “positivism.” It gets thrown around a bit too quickly, especially by people like Popper. Typically all nuance is lost. (As an aside this is why I no longer use the term postmodern either)
Comment by Clark — February 17, 2016 @ 8:39 pm
In summary, positivism as I was using it is any science that strives or pretends to be non-political in its aims. That’s basically what it means among social theorists.
Comment by Jeff G — February 17, 2016 @ 9:04 pm
Clark,
Why then should a biological imperative be empty and decaying? We don’t think breathing is empty and decaying or even eating. Why is sex different? Wouldn’t more sex mean more happiness?
I think it is obvious that we don’t understand the biology of choice. What happens when at the molecular level when we make a choice and what determines what choices are available to us.
Similar with consciousness. Philosophers assumptions about animal consciousness are particularly unsupportable. What tests do we have for the choices animals make.
Comment by Martin James — February 17, 2016 @ 9:53 pm
Here is a quote from a philosopher that expresses what I’m talking about.
IN A 1992 issue of The Times Literary Supplement, the philosopher Jerry Fodor famously complained that: “Nobody has the slightest idea how anything material could be conscious. Nobody even knows what it would be like to have the slightest idea about how anything material could be conscious.” In 2011, despite two decades of explosive advances in brain research and cognitive science, Fodor’s assessment still rings true.
Comment by Martin James — February 17, 2016 @ 10:07 pm
I wouldn’t put too much stock in what Fodor says. Between his semantic internalism and his confused attack on Darwinism, he has his fair share of detractors.
Comment by Jeff G — February 17, 2016 @ 10:47 pm
“Jeff (23) I think science does more than open up possibilities. I think it closes down possibilities as well. (Witness the problem of young earth creationism among many issues)”
I am not at all convinced that they have any kind of moral authority to close down possibilities like that for anybody. What gives them the right to tell me that I can’t in good conscience believe in a young earth?
Comment by Jeff G — February 18, 2016 @ 10:19 am
My point in quoting him is just that no one has come forward to say they know how consciousness is created. Everyone with a theory on consciousness has detractors.
Here is another favorite quote on it.
.is impossible to specify what [consciousness] is, what it does, or why it evolved. Nothing worth reading has been written on it.”
? Stuart Sutherland
For the most part, science hasn’t forced philosophers out of moral authority, they have retreated from the field. No one really claims moral authority directly, they just point to other forms of consensus. It’s a bit of shell game.
Comment by Martin James — February 18, 2016 @ 10:48 am
Jeff (34) I suspect that all depends upon what you mean by politics. I don’t think anyone looking at the string theory debates would say it’s not political. However I do think they strive not to be political. Kind of a lot that needs unpacked there.
Martin (35) biological imperatives can be empty because we are not merely animals. When we act merely as animals we feel empty because we need much more.
Jeff (40) while Fodor definitely has issues I think there’s wide consensus on that quote. The two main positions are eliminative or a quasi-substance dualism where some material just as proto-consciousness as a property. It just “is.”
Comment by Clark — February 18, 2016 @ 11:54 am
Quite frankily, I think the whole science/philosophy of consciousness is almost completely a non-issue. What difference could any of those positions make in how I ought to run my own life?
Comment by Jeff G — February 18, 2016 @ 1:26 pm
Jeff G,
For me, the physical basis of how we apprehend God and good and evil through consciousness tells us a lot about good and evil. Since you don’t believe good and evil are external this is not an issue for you, but for me it makes me think I have no idea what you are talking about and no way to verify if we mean the same thing about anything intangible. This is basically old fashioned realism where ideas are real. Without some way that abstract ideas are real, it is hard to see how our brains think with them or understand them.
For you ought is words (via authority) but you think that you can understand words without a physical theory of meaning. I don’t think we can.
the connection of “ought” to “is” is how the brain understands what “ought” means. I think you are confusing ought with the words of a person, so when you say “ought” I don’t know what you mean.
Comment by Martin James — February 18, 2016 @ 1:48 pm
Jeff (44) if all you care about is the pragmatic concern of immediate events to you not much. One might say the same about the mathematics of classical physics too. Some people even make that claim about calculus.
Martin (45) It’s not clear to me that when we talk about understanding that we need inject debates about consciousness into it. At least not if we’re talking either hermeneutics or epistemology. Could you clarify why consciousness matters in those sorts of arguments?
Comment by Clark — February 18, 2016 @ 2:00 pm
Or alternatively it could explain that you have no choice in the matter including your opinion that you think it is a non-issue. By thinking that how you ought to run your life has an influence on how you run your life, you are taking one side of the issue already.
Comment by Martin James — February 18, 2016 @ 2:11 pm
Hermeneutics and epistemology rely on abstract words in a way that is problematic for me. I don’t think we can reason about those issues without physical theory of consciousness and meaning. Semantics is everything for me and I think it is physical. Almost no one else takes this seriously which is a big part of the reason why we have made no progress. We will get there though as we see exactly how our brains work. For example, take something like monotheism. For us to understand each other, something must be the same in both of our brains. What is it?
Comment by Martin James — February 18, 2016 @ 2:17 pm
For lack of a better term, there is a “pattern’ that corresponds to every feeling, idea, and experience.
Comment by Martin James — February 18, 2016 @ 2:19 pm
Clark,
“One might say the same about the mathematics of classical physics too. Some people even make that claim about calculus.”
That is exactly what I do say about them.
Martin,
“For me, the physical basis of how we apprehend God and good and evil through consciousness tells us a lot about good and evil.”
What? You just followed Galileo in making scientists (the ones who specialize in describing the physical world) into prophets.
“This is basically old fashioned realism where ideas are real. Without some way that abstract ideas are real, it is hard to see how our brains think with them or understand them.”
If you think Fodor’s LoT type internal realism is the only kind of realism out there, then you are sadly mistaken. Inasmuch as there is a current consensus, it is an externalist account of meaning. (Of course it was 10 years ago that I took all the graduate seminars on the subject, so this may have changed.)
“you think that you can understand words without a physical theory of meaning”
And you think you can understand a physical theory without words.
“the connection of “ought” to “is” is how the brain understands what “ought” means.”
I’m not even close to following. Once we are talking about meaning, we are already presupposing how something “ought” to be understood. Also, brains don’t understand anything; people who use words do.
Comment by Jeff G — February 18, 2016 @ 2:19 pm
People are things.
Comment by Martin James — February 18, 2016 @ 2:20 pm
Of course Galileo was a prophet. He told us about the moons of Jupiter and we have sent things there. The fact that you don’t find any moral significance in it doesn’t make him less of a prophets. Other prophets tell us about the past, the future or what good and evil is. That is why prophecy is different from law-giving. Why else do we call them seers? They see external things.
Comment by Martin James — February 18, 2016 @ 2:23 pm
People are subjects, not objects. This means that no amount of physics will ever do the job.
The primary difference between Newton and Einstein was in the meaning of words that were presupposed in each theory. The idea that physics is independent of or prior to language is utterly false.
Comment by Jeff G — February 18, 2016 @ 2:23 pm
“Of course Galileo was a prophet.”
You completely lost me here. Anybody who thinks this is drinking some serious Kool-aid.
Edit: If he was indeed a prophet, it was for the Pythagorean religion of his father, not that of Christ. It was because of these religious convictions that he rejected Kepler’s elliptical orbits and the very existence of comets. It was this Pythagorean religion that insisted the reality was fundamentally mathematical in nature and contributed to his fabricating “empirical” data without bothering to actually do the experiment.
Comment by Jeff G — February 18, 2016 @ 2:27 pm
People without words are still subjects because they are a particular type of object. Show me a word that doesn’t exist physically. “False” is just a pattern in your brain.
Comment by Martin James — February 18, 2016 @ 2:30 pm
“People without words are still subjects because they are a particular type of object.”
So what? Words are necessary to seeing things as objects or subjects, not necessary to being seen as one rather than the other.
Comment by Jeff G — February 18, 2016 @ 2:33 pm
Prophecy is the gift of prediction. He predicted moons and he was right, therefore he is a prophet of moon existence.
I don’t experience my “subjectness” as speaker, I express a part of my experience as a subject as a speaker.
I find it interesting that you used a physical analogy for crazy talk. But without a theory of reference we are all equally kool-aid drinkers.
Comment by Martin James — February 18, 2016 @ 2:35 pm
I don’t use words to determine what is a subject or an object. What words do you use to determine if something is a subject or an object?
Comment by Martin James — February 18, 2016 @ 2:36 pm
Your words don’t mean anything to me. Does that mean I am no longer a subject?
Comment by Martin James — February 18, 2016 @ 2:38 pm
Whatever a subject is.
Comment by Martin James — February 18, 2016 @ 2:38 pm
“I don’t use words to determine what is a subject or an object. What words do you use to determine if something is a subject or an object?”
How about the words “subject” and “object”? Our mental categories are all shaped by our linguistic environment. Galileo’s “discovery” itself consisted in a radical transformation of language. I strongly recommend Paul Feyerabend’s take on Galileo.
Comment by Jeff G — February 18, 2016 @ 2:38 pm
“Our mental categories are all shaped by our linguistic environment.”
But take this seriously. What do they shape? brains! And the only categories that can exist for us are the ones that our brain “patterns” can correspond to a type of experience. Try creating a mental category for someone with a different type of brain. It doesn’t work. This has tremendous moral implications. Dementia, autism, addiction, coma, hallucination, etc. All of these depend on theories of consciousness to assess moral implications. To say consciousness doesn’t matter is to say, we can never get better at understanding how these conditions relate to morality.
Comment by Martin James — February 18, 2016 @ 2:45 pm
Here is a link to his “Against Method“. Go to the analytical index which is basically a summary of the book. He dedicates several chapters to a close reading of the rhetorical strategies that Galileo was forced to employ in order to make his point.
Comment by Jeff G — February 18, 2016 @ 2:49 pm
Martin,
You are conflating causation with meaning. Of course words have causal effects on our brains. But what does this have to do with normative categories like meaning, goodness and truth?
The brain is not the same as the mind; the body is not the same as the person; and vibrations in the air or scribbles on a paper are not meaningful words.
“All of these depend on theories of consciousness to assess moral implications.”
Says who? Why in the world should we grant cognitive neuroscientists this huge amount of moral authority? Moral communities have always gotten along just fine without anything could be called “science” let alone cognitive science.
Comment by Jeff G — February 18, 2016 @ 2:53 pm
I think you think I care about reason and science for themselves or in a particular way. What I care about is my experience as a subject and ways I can alter my experience. Repentance is a way but so is looking through a telescope.
Comment by Martin James — February 18, 2016 @ 2:57 pm
“Moral communities have always gotten along just fine without anything could be called “science” let alone cognitive science.”
Moral communities have pretty much always sucked. That is why we need the atonement.
Comment by Martin James — February 18, 2016 @ 2:59 pm
“That is why we need the atonement.”
Right. What we do not need is cognitive science.
Comment by Jeff G — February 18, 2016 @ 3:01 pm
“The brain is not the same as the mind; the body is not the same as the person; and vibrations in the air or scribbles on a paper are not meaningful words.”
I don’t know what you mean by “mind” but my mind is one thing my brain does.
Comment by Martin James — February 18, 2016 @ 3:02 pm
But we do need someone to decide when the prophet has dementia and it hasn’t been God.
Comment by Martin James — February 18, 2016 @ 3:03 pm
“I don’t know what you mean by “mind” but my mind is one thing my brain does.”
Other than having read this in functionalist literature, how do you defend this assertion? Does our mind not survive the death of our bodies?
“But we do need someone to decide when the prophet has dementia and it hasn’t been God.”
So you think neuroscientists are authorized to tell us when we should ignore prophets!?!
Comment by Jeff G — February 18, 2016 @ 3:06 pm
“Does our mind not survive the death of our bodies?”
No because I don’t think the concept mind is the same as soul or intelligence which survives the death of the body. Clearly, the mind is affected by drugs and drugs don’t affect dead brains.
“Other than having read this in functionalist literature, how do you defend this assertion?”
The effect of drugs.
Comment by Martin James — February 18, 2016 @ 3:28 pm
So you think neuroscientists are authorized to tell us when we should ignore prophets!?!
I’m quite certain they already do play a role in limiting our access to prophets when they are demented.
Comment by Martin James — February 18, 2016 @ 3:31 pm
After all, who certifies they are dead?
Comment by Martin James — February 18, 2016 @ 3:32 pm
Everybody agrees that the body is connected to the mind somehow. Thus, everybody agrees that drugs and fire have an effect on our minds.
To say that must mean that the mind is (nothing more than) what the brain (and only the brain) does is an extraordinary leap in logic. I see little support for such an assertion.
Indeed, since the mind is itself a non-empirical “object”, I don’t see what empirical evidence could possibly be marshaled in support of this claim. This is especially ironic given your stated contempt for philosophy of mind.
Comment by Jeff G — February 18, 2016 @ 3:57 pm
“I’m quite certain they already do play a role in limiting our access to prophets when they are demented.”
There is a huge difference between scientists telling us when to listen to the prophet, and the apostles telling us when to listen to a prophet after having consulted scientists.
The difference (as is painfully clear in these Foucault posts) is the one has the scientists telling us when to listen to church leaders while the other has the church leaders telling us when to listen to scientists.
Comment by Jeff G — February 18, 2016 @ 4:03 pm
For the sake of nuance and accuracy, I should admit that your materialistic metaphysics is indeed coherent in and of itself. There are, however, equally coherent alternatives that materialistic scientists tend not to tolerate and it is this intolerance that I am attacking most.
The book that I have VERY slowly been putting together deals with this point. Basically, I posit three different metaphysics:
1: A pre-modern, mind first ontology where god’s mind created the material world and organic systems (organisms, languages, etc.) flow from there. (There is, within this view, a tight link between authority and mind-first authorship.)
2: A modern, matter first ontology where matter evolves into organic system, some of which, in turn, create minds. Most analytic philosopher and STEM accept something like this.
3: A rather romantic, organismic ontology where language, spirit or some such thing produces minds which then construe parts of the world in terms of mindless matter.
All three metaphysics are perfectly capable of covering all appearances, it’s just a question of deciding whether matter, mind or organic systems are most fundamental and basic.
You seem very strongly committed to 2 – as I once was. The problem is that 1) there are alternatives, 2) it is a new coming exception rather than the rule, and 3) I don’t think it matches the gospel very well at all.
My main point is that there are alternatives and it is your dogmatic allegiance to 2 (am I wrong about this?) that I am attacking.
Comment by Jeff G — February 18, 2016 @ 4:37 pm
Jeff (76) while I’d probably quibble with that taxonomy there’s something to it. I think though (3) fits Mormon thought better than (1) depending upon what you mean by it. After all (3) was held by Pratt and his influential cosmology. The problem with (1), depending again upon what one means by it, is reconciling it with a divine regress such as most interpretations of the King Follet Discourse take. (The way out it to distinguish between this world and ontology in general – but that then isn’t really an ontology then)
The problem with (2) is that it problematizes the relationship between minds and spirits. Of course as ontology some Mormons buy this (Blake Ostler’s emergence theory effectively fits here) I think it has problems just on philosophical grounds even ignoring religious grounds.
I’d add a (4) which is just there are mind like properties or substances just exist. (Which is my view)
Comment by Clark — February 19, 2016 @ 10:20 am
You might be right. Obviously (1) is strongly suited to creatio ex nihilo, which Mormon rejects. There is the temptation to think that a rejection of this pure reading of (1) automatically entails (2). I see Martin as falling for this bogus dichotomy, which I totally reject. It is very difficult to nail down a purified version of 3 since it has never really gone mainstream in any sense that we could all recognize. I think the German notion of Spirit gets pretty close. So does the unconsciousness aimed at by the hermeneutics of suspicion. There is also the Schopenhauerian “will”. The list could go on and on.
Mormonism is pretty vague about its metaphysical commitments, and I love that! It seems to want to claim that all of these these are co-eternal, thus implying that no one is more fundamental than the others. This, in my opinion, lends itself quite well to the pluralism that I advocate.
Comment by Jeff G — February 19, 2016 @ 10:30 am
First, thanks for the summary and second I’d like to show both how I am trying to take your alternatives seriously and that because you are not seeing why I am not dogmatically allied with 2, you may be missing the point of my comments and benefiting from ways it might help your project.
Towards that end, here are some points to consider to help you see where I’m coming from and that I’m here to help you. :)
1. I’m commenting from within the LDS tradition and not as a scientist. My view is that science has ignored morals and consciousness, not that they are correct about them.
2. What you are seeing as me being committed to 2 is just that I want to take experience seriously and that all our theories of materialism and dualism are inadequate to our experience.
3. One of the ways that our theory of mind is problematic, is that we assume we know what it means to be a mind (or in your terminology what gets to count as a subject.)
4. Stated logically, I think I am saying that you making assumptions from outside 1, 2 and 3 in how you classify minds within 1, 2 and 3. Whenever I try to raise the issue of what counts as a mind it appears to you that I am arguing from within number 2’s conception of what a mind is, but is seems to me that I am just trying to point out that you are excluding certain entities and cases that can’t be excluded if you are going to say that all of these explain all of the appearances.
5. I have no problem with you saying number 1 is a way to think about a certain subset of things or even as a way to think about the past. But it concerns me greatly from within the LDS tradition when it comes across as “this is how mormon morality works” when it threatens parts of the mormon tradition that I find essential.
6. The examples come from Mormon folk traditions of liberty, agency and metaphysics. Can you see that if you are trying to make 1. explain the particularities of moron metaphysics and political folkways that there is much work to do?
7. This is related to my concerns about anachronism or that we can move ideas of mind and morality, so easy across time. Again whenever this concern is expressed, The response tends to be that my concern only exists because I’m coming from framework 2. rather than that our experience in any of 1, 2 and 3 still must address what we experience here and now. You have something of an out, in that you can argue that here and now would look different without our enculturation in 2, but I think you are using that too easily to rule out too many concerns. In other words, I think you are oversimplifying so much that we can’t tell what 1 really means. Typically, this is done by minimizing the significance of everything other than morals and subjects.
8. There is a very big difference between saying positivism and scientism shouldn’t determine morals and says that who has authority is unrelated to who can overcome death, turn loaves into fishes and make correct predictions about the literal gathering of Israel.
9. Again, I think you can say that metaphysics 1 is an option but to say it is an option for Mormons means you have to take a lot of literal descriptions and practices of mormons seriously in their full positive detail.
10. The area where my case for eternal, external truth is weak is that I have no very good explanation for why historical prophets weren’t that good at being consistent with some kind of external truth. My out is just that men don’t have full knowledge and God reveals more things over time and that seems very mormon to me.
11. On the other hand, the approach of assuming that historical prophets were obviously in accord with God is that we have no basis for determining who was a good and bad prophet or even a real prophet and false prophet. You seem much too willing to assume culture forms of authority outside of religious forms are a good thing or at least examples of morality consistent with God’s plan. I am much more wanting to align those forms of authority with Mormon and religious concerns about the inherent corruptibility of all men.
12. In order for me to understand what you mean by a pre-modern mind ontology in a way that is a viable option for us today I believe I need to see how it produces an epistemology of mind that includes new forms that may come into being. There are numerous examples that I think are important and in front of us all the time. When does a developing human have a mind and when is it a moral person? Is your answer just that it is a mind when a moral authority says it is a mind and if they don’t know of don’t say then we have no way of knowing the answer? Again, this is not dogmatic adherence to 2. I am not science science knows when there is a mind. I am saying that science is making the question real and pressing for us in ways that it was not before.
13. Please try to interpret what I’m saying in the way that is least likely to be interpreted as a matter first ontology at least not in any way that science understands it. I may for example, be a mind first monist that takes the experience of being as the primitive but that this experience includes reflexive properties. That in Descartes terms we may be both existing as the subject and as the demon controlling our thoughts.
Comment by Martin James — February 19, 2016 @ 11:14 am
“The problem with (2) is that it problematizes the relationship between minds and spirits.”
Number (2) isn’t the only thing doing. Why do we have prohibitions about alcohol and drugs? One cannot exist today as a moral person without recognizing that body, mind and spirit are connected.
Comment by Martin James — February 19, 2016 @ 11:31 am
1-4: Who cares “what it means” to be a mind? Once we look at how people use the word and the concept, what more is there to look for?
5-7: Again, my position is pluralistic and organic. Yours is analytic and systematic. Your objection work more against your position than my own since it is you who are unable to accommodate all those parts of the gospel that do not fit neatly into (2)… and this is an awful lot!
8-9: No clue what you mean.
10-11: It’s worse than that for you. Not only are you unable to measure how close prophets are to this external standard, you have no reason to believe that this external standard exists at all! After all, we both agree that God is external to all of us (thus my position definitely does allow us to judge prophet based on what God says), but you want to throw parsimony to the wind and add a standard that is external even to God. Why?
12. The idea that such question admit of a determinate answer most definitely is a dogmatic allegiance to 2. See Quine’s Two Dogmas of Empiricism, a massively influential paper that was central to his ontological relativism. You keep wanting there to be some “given” that we can appeal to in these matters such that we can sideline all moral authorities. But who has the authority to give the “right” interpretation of this “given”? Science has not pressed questions that weren’t there before (does X have a soul?). Rather, they are simply butting their heads up against the limits of their own methodologies by asking the exact same question in scientific terms. When they aren’t able to deliver the goods any better than those who came before, they make it sound like there is some deep mystery.
13. You misunderstand the point of 2. It’s not about matter is everything, although this is definitely the direction towards which it tends. It’s that moral authority/authorship must be totally sidelined. 2 is based in the idea that truth and morality exist independent of EVERYBODY such making (supposedly) neutral, empirical investigation absolutely central to our pursuit of truth. (This dogmatic allegiance to empirical investigation definitely tends toward, while not necessitating materialism.) When you hold out for something which is the determinate and timeless truth and is external to everybody, even to God, this is the epitome of 2.
Again, I don’t really care about metaphysics as such (hence my total disregard for many of your questions). Rather, I am concerned about the very practical rules which any such metaphysics suggests, structures or even entails.
Comment by Jeff G — February 19, 2016 @ 12:03 pm
Sigh.
“but you want to throw parsimony to the wind and add a standard that is external even to God. Why?”
Because God teaches principles.
You seem to have ridden a hobbyhorse back into the church. I’m glad but please burn it before anyone else rides it around in the church.
To me you are just saying you don’t care what the book says, just who authored it. When I try to read it, it is just Blah, Blah, Blah and of no consequence.
I can’t answer because I don’t know what counts as a person.
Comment by Martin James — February 19, 2016 @ 12:30 pm
I don’t understand your objection. Why is the idea that we shouldn’t replace our worship of a Heavenly Father with a worship of timeless principles that are independent of Him so threatening?
“I don’t know what counts as a person.”
Only somebody truly lost in the depth of analytic thinking could ever think this.
Comment by Jeff G — February 19, 2016 @ 12:36 pm
Only somebody so unconcerned with things could fail to see that whether a child or a dog or a homo sapien in a coma that is brain dead is a person are vital moral questions. Heck the supreme court split 5-4 on whether a corporation is a person.
You want to have it both ways. You want to pose as a pragmatist while putting all kinds of faith and importance on words like “analytic”. You can’t have it both ways. The main thing that pragmatism taught is that we can’t trust words or philosophers or logic. Whatever those are.
Comment by Martin James — February 19, 2016 @ 12:47 pm
Because it undermines what it means to worship. Without principles we can’t make any sense of “worship”. It is meaningless.
Comment by Martin James — February 19, 2016 @ 12:52 pm
“Only somebody so unconcerned with things could fail to see that whether a child or a dog or a homo sapien in a coma that is brain dead is a person are vital moral questions.”
I agree, but what you want is to give this moral authority to scientists rather than judges, the linguistic community or prophets. This is exactly what Foucault and (in a different way) myself object to. No amount of careful observation and calculation will ever entail the “thou shalt” that you’re trying to endow science with.
Comment by Jeff G — February 19, 2016 @ 12:52 pm
“Without principles we can’t make any sense of “worship”. It is meaningless.”
Well that’s a strong assertion. But can it be defended?
Comment by Jeff G — February 19, 2016 @ 12:53 pm
I don’t understand the ways you aren’t skeptical about your own theory. I don’t think you know what you are taking as a given or at least you don’t like to talk about it.
Comment by Martin James — February 19, 2016 @ 12:58 pm
Well that’s a strong assertion. But can it be defended?
With what could it be defended other than saying I don’t know what you are talking about so please show me how you are determining what your words mean, which takes us back to semantics and how minds acquire words. Since you won’t comment on specific cases that matter to me (what is the difference between “the gathering of israel” and “the literal gathering of israel.”) I want to know what work is being done by the word literal and you don’t think it matters. This makes an article of faith meaningless to me in important ways.
Comment by Martin James — February 19, 2016 @ 1:04 pm
“takes us back to semantics and how minds acquire words.”
I am utterly baffled why you think this matters. The world has always gotten along just fine without such theories and I see no reason why anybody providing such would change things all that much. After all, your very comments presuppose an ability on my part to understand you. Finally, I fail to see how my providing a theory of meaning justifies your assertion that principles are necessary for worship of any kind.
Comment by Jeff G — February 19, 2016 @ 1:13 pm
“The world has always gotten along just fine without such theories and I see no reason why anybody providing such would change things all that much.”
Religiously the world has not gotten along fine. Almost all of human history and civilizations were not fine at all. The fact that you think they have is exactly why I think your approach will turn mormonism into just another wicked civilization.
Comment by Martin James — February 19, 2016 @ 1:44 pm
I’m going to try something new. I’m going to assume that you left the church and that you are doing a thought experiment on returning. This will allow me to not be so threatened and enjoy your work more. i hope you do make a book out of it.
Comment by Martin James — February 19, 2016 @ 1:51 pm
“Religiously the world has not gotten along fine. Almost all of human history and civilizations were not fine at all. The fact that you think they have is exactly why I think your approach will turn mormonism into just another wicked civilization.”
I assumed that you were just joking all the previous times that you had attributed this absurdity to me. What I (clearly) meant was that people have communicated with and understood each other pretty well without a theory of communication and understanding. More importantly (you’ve repeatedly dodged this part) you have given no reason to think that such a theory would help anything at all. Can you provide such a reason?
Comment by Jeff G — February 19, 2016 @ 2:07 pm
According to your overly morally laden idea of “communication” such a theory would pretty much usher in the 1,000 years of peace. Surely you can see how that’s absurd? Surely you don’t actually believe this, but how else am I to understand your questionable attempt to explain the world’s ills in terms of our lack of a good theory of communication?
Comment by Jeff G — February 19, 2016 @ 2:10 pm
Nothing is more absurd to me than that we have notions about morality in our head while we treat each other the way we do. Even on our good days we are merely publicans treating only our friends well. Of course I am serious that men are evil and that the small gains we have made in morality have been from expanding the scope of our communication. You own theory of moral change is based on communication is it not? That certain groups have dominated the means of educational communication changing our moral framework.
On this score I am very much in camp 2. That is that the only reason you don’t see historical moral language as being as absurd as historical language about the elements is that you see moral language is inherently social in a way that can’t get that wrong. You have made persons the measure of all things and that the issue is “communication” rather than correspondence. The issue for me is whether your concept of morality corresponds to knowledge of good and evil. Nothing is more absurd to me than the idea that conscience and the light of Christ is the recognition of authority and not the recognition of good and evil. That just is Satan’s plan pure and simple.
Comment by Martin James — February 19, 2016 @ 4:19 pm
1) You still haven’t said how a theory of communication will make people moral, especially since we already have so many that haven’t made much a difference. Even if you could (and I’m sure you can’t), I still don’t see why my theory stands or falls on such a theory.
2) If you want something other than thinking and feeling beings to be the measure of all things, knock yourself out, but Heavenly Father and His children are plenty good enough for me. I guess your wanting more matches well with a worship of abstract principles.
3) Where does it ever say “purely and simply” that Satan’s plan had anything to do with authority?
Comment by Jeff G — February 19, 2016 @ 4:38 pm
Fair enough, except for the worship part. I don’t think that knowing good from evil means that you worship good and evil. Knowing good from evil does mean worshiping God by acting on the difference between the two.
I’m probably some kind of a Gnostic mormon heretic but who can tell what mormons are these days.
Comment by Martin James — February 19, 2016 @ 5:22 pm
Clark,
I think the early, German Marx was actually pretty close to the romantic, idealist conception I describe above. The later, British Marx most definitely was not.
Martin,
If you strive to know X so that you can better obey X, in what sense are you not worshiping X?
Comment by Jeff G — February 19, 2016 @ 6:25 pm
I think of it more like the tax code.
Comment by Martin James — February 19, 2016 @ 6:48 pm
I don’t buy it. You think the principles are responsible for all existence, and exist within everything, you see knowledge and obedience to them as pretty much the very purpose of life. This is no tax code.
Comment by Jeff G — February 19, 2016 @ 7:07 pm
Jeff,
There is still something I don’t understand about how LDS tradition fits into your 3 categories. I’ve shared this piece by Elder Cook before but I’m going to try again because it puts into words the heart of my concern.
He says” Latter-day Saint doctrine is unique and unequivocal about the role of intelligence and the importance of education and knowledge. In section 93 of our Doctrine and Covenants we are taught that:
Truth is independent—it “is knowledge of things as they are, and as they were, and as they are to come” (D&C 93:24).
“The glory of God is intelligence, or, in other words, light and truth” (D&C 93:36).
Exercising our agency, our right and power to choose, to find light and truth is essential”
I can’t figure out using metaphysics 1 what it means for truth to be “independent” and I can’t figure out what is unique about LDS doctrine if it has to fit into the same metaphysics as your 1, 2, and 3. The way I’m understanding it now that I feel is too tight for a STEM version of 2 is that truth is independent of authority but we have spiritual gifts from God that allow us to access this truth.
In your scheme what is the unique part of this LDS doctrine of independence. He also says unequivocal about this doctrine which also confuses me if it depends on subtle characterization of metaphysics.
I’m not looking for you to convince me just an explanation of how to understand those ideas from a metaphysics of 1, 2 or 3.
Comment by Martin James — February 22, 2016 @ 12:24 pm
I don’t think I understand what you’re saying.
I also don’t think either of us understands section 93 to hang too much weight on it. In particular, we are told (verse 30) that truth in independent with a limited sphere and it, some sense, acts. This to me sounds very close to everything I’ve said.
There are, however, other parts (verse 24) to do not seem to fit with what I’ve said. Furthermore, I’m not sure how 24 and 30 fit with each other.
My view is that if this highly metaphysical/mystical passage is the best somebody can bring against me, I can’t be doing all that bad.
Comment by Jeff G — February 22, 2016 @ 2:23 pm
“My view is that if this highly metaphysical/mystical passage is the best somebody can bring against me, I can’t be doing all that bad.”
You keep wanting to see it as a critique and I’m just trying to see how you explain a certain thing from your own perspective. I’m wanting to hear what you make of the uniqueness of the LDS approach. Authority and a doctrine of authority isn’t unique so that doesn’t seem like the answer. What is it?
I’m not trying to get you to accept what my theory of what is unique, I’m trying to get you to describe ho wyou understand it because i may be seeing the consequences of your approach incorrectly. The uniqueness that the Apostle is describing to me are epistemological – about knowledge and intelligence – but also central to what it means to have an LDS perspective on truth. You see it differently and still very much LDS and I’m just looking to see how it looks from your view. So far it seems like you are saying, from your view those metaphysical things aren’t that critical but can you go any further and analyze what they would mean if you took them seriously as best you can?
Comment by Martin James — February 22, 2016 @ 4:35 pm
“Authority and a doctrine of authority isn’t unique”
Of course it’s not. My whole argument is that the vast majority of cultures have adopted an authoritarian approach, thus making a modern, non-authoritarian approach an anomaly that stands in need of justification rather than the other way around. What is unique about each of these individual authoritarian communities is their individual authority figures. I don’t know why you wouldn’t be able to guess this?
Also, I do not see why I am under an obligation provide a reading of every single passage that you can throw at me. I’ve never seen anybody give a fully coherent explanation of section 93 – largely because we don’t even know what question that revelation is supposed to be addressing.
That said, I do not see how this passage really refutes any “theory of truth”, be it correspondence, coherence or pragmatic. One way of harmonizing verses 24 and 30 (something I’ve never seen anybody even attempt) would be to say that each person, within the limited sphere in which they act, is under an obligation to interpret their present, past and future in a righteous manner. I’m sure other readings are possible but, given my own pluralistic understanding of the issue, this does not bother me.
Indeed, part of the complexity of these passages is that we are seeking a “true” understanding of the passage, which is conditioned by our understanding of truth that is (supposedly) based in our understanding of the passage in question. This self-referential circle in which we seek the *true* meaning of *truth* is exactly what I want to explode. Here is the performative contradiction laid bare: we must assume that we know truth criteria in order to evaluate a proposed set of truth criteria. Consequently, we must at the same time pretend to both know and not know what truth is in order to understand verses 24 and 30.
Comment by Jeff G — February 23, 2016 @ 9:45 am
Jeff,
Thanks for trying but still must not be communicating that well. I’m not mainly talking about section 93, I’m talking about how an Apostle sees LDS doctrine as unique by not being about any particular authority figure but around a doctrine of independent truth.
In simplest terms, I’m not refuting any theory of truth. I’m just saying that a recent, Apostolic description of unique doctrine that seems to be unique because it is not authoritarian in the same way that many of the cultures have thought of it.
Again I’m not trying to refute your analysis, I’m just trying to see how it doesn’t fit with many parts of LDS doctrine and culture.
For example, a heretic could be right and still opposed to a particular religious tradition. That is what I’m trying to say, that if you are right then a lot of mormonism is wrong and/or irrelevant.
Why is the word light used so often with truth? Because we are a culture of enlightenment.
Comment by Martin James — February 23, 2016 @ 10:26 am
Perhaps I cannot tell if you are trying to argue/refute me or not is because you yourself have not decided if you are or not. Your last comment is filled with counter-assertions and (supposed) counter examples. I don’t mind such things, so long as they don’t pretend to be something other than what they actually are.
The mistake which seems firmly embedded in all your questions is that you want to harmonize and systematize the contents of what all church leaders say as if they themselves were offering neutral descriptions of their own actions. Their not, nor should they be. I have no interest in harmonizing such statements, seeing it as a dangerous fools errands that leads many people out of the church and we would do well to abandon.
My approach, by contrast, is that followed by anthropologists and sociologists: we look at what people actually do, not what they say they are doing – as if this is what they were trying to do in the first place. People’s speech acts are themselves treated as purpose-oriented actions, not privileged theoretical explanations of other behavior. Thus, the fact that many church leaders use modern language does not bother me at all, since it does not imply that they are even attempting to give a timeless, accurate, neutral (in a word, “objective”) description a la modern academics.
I might also point out that you’re still acting as if all pre-modern scripture either simply did not exist or can be crammed into your modern model better than my pre-modern model. Both of these options are really bad ones.
Comment by Jeff G — February 23, 2016 @ 10:50 am
To be clear, I am not trying to dismiss the statements of church leaders as false. I am not trying to say “church leaders say this, but they’re wrong.” Rather, I am saying that if you look at the deep harmony in their actions, their statements will make a lot more sense. This deeper unity in their actions significantly reduces the dissonance that we might otherwise (mis)perceive within their statements.
Comment by Jeff G — February 23, 2016 @ 11:22 am
Ok, then they are absolutely signaling that they are enlightenment types rather than post modern types. He as at Stanford talking about Shakespeare and William Wilberforce, than is as enlightenment as it gets. He was paying homage to the institutions you think are opposing. Anthropologically, this doesn’t see like your people.
What I’m saying is that I can’t do what he is saying to do, under method 1. He speaks of a moral compass for light and truth.
I think it is obvious that our prophets don’t want to seem counter to the values of inquiry separate from authority.
Those are not the actions someone would take whose purpose was to oppose the enlightenment with respect to authority.
So, here is my question again. How would you explain to an anthropologist.
I’m giving you the benefit of the doubt but anthropologically it seems to me that you are trying to destroy LDS values and traditions.
Comment by Martin James — February 23, 2016 @ 1:06 pm
Method 1 IS the wolf in sheeps clothing.
Comment by Martin James — February 23, 2016 @ 1:08 pm
Only conscience outside of methods 1, 2 and 3 can verify whether I am right or not.
Comment by Martin James — February 23, 2016 @ 1:10 pm
I still have no clue what you’re getting at.
From what I can tell, apparently there this one talk given by some general authority to a different audience that totally refutes what I’m saying. The whole point of my position is that instruction differ according to audience and context. It is for this reason that we could totally forget anything Elder McConkie said about the priesthood ban prior to 1978.
“..it seems to me that you are trying to destroy LDS values and traditions”
Unless you are going to actually provide support for assertions such as these (preferably in the form of a clearly articulated argument), I don’t really care how things “seem” to you.
I’ve written several dozen posts and provided so many sources that both explain and defend my position, so if you really do “just want to understand” you can go read those. If you want to actually present a counter-argument, let’s hear it. Otherwise it just seems like the movie Big:
Comment by Jeff G — February 23, 2016 @ 1:33 pm
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHF_hYi-5vI
Comment by Jeff G — February 23, 2016 @ 1:35 pm
Finally, we understand each other!
You ask for this “If you want to actually present a counter-argument, let’s hear it.” while undermining the possibility of presenting an argument because you say arguments are from another system that is not yours.
But kids can’t be fooled and the chicks dig them because they have a good conscience.
I really, really don’t get it!!!!!
Comment by Martin James — February 23, 2016 @ 1:39 pm
Your theory doesn’t do anything fun.
Comment by Martin James — February 23, 2016 @ 1:40 pm
You really think that anthropological and sociological interpretive models leave no room for counter-argument?
All I’m asking is for you to provide reasoned support for your frequent assertions that are based in shared premises. This isn’t asking much.
Unsupported assertions that entirely beg the question are not good enough; neither is asking me to do all the thinking and arguing for you.
Comment by Jeff G — February 23, 2016 @ 1:54 pm
I agree with you that authority is important and that elements of an authority culture are important. But I also think that a culture of of communication as correspondence and freedom as freedom from interference are important in LDS tradition. So, I’m trying to find out how much compatibility you see between the two.
One typical form of my argument is as follows.
Mormon authorities use certain words and recommend certain practices that appear to be from a culture of communication as correspondence and freedom as freedom from interference. I give specific examples as my argument of the form, without culture 2, these words used by prophets don’t make any sense, they seem redundant or superfluous and you can’t do anything with them outside of culture 2.
Giving those specific examples would seem to put the burden of proof on you to describe how those words “do something” in culture 1.
I think it is a shared premise that the words of an authority should be explicable and that if a word is used often or in key arguments then they have a particular purpose.
As I have frequently said, these words: independent, literal, eternal, light, unique, etc. together with practices like, study it out in your own mind, education, seek ye in the best books, agency, confirmation, etc. seem much more at home in a correspondence to external truth context. I don’t think that is an argument that relies on an assumption of external truth, but it does rely on particular words having a particular purpose. I can’t make those words have a particular use with the authority distinctions you are making. Can you make those words have a particular use while still making the distinctions you want to make?
If they were only words I want to use i would assume that I just didn’t “get it”. But they are not just my words.
Comment by Martin James — February 23, 2016 @ 3:25 pm
I don’t think I am begging the question because I am presuming you are right about culture 1, and then with that presumption trying to understand certain words from within culture 1 and they don’t seem to do anything which seems like a problem even within culture 1.
Comment by Martin James — February 23, 2016 @ 3:28 pm
You are still stripping a bunch of words from their respective contexts and assuming that your interpretation of these isolated words is the right one to the exclusion of all others. An analysis of what a word means striped from all contexts of actual usage is utterly uninteresting to me.
The reason why I focus on section 93 so much is because it’s the closest you’ve ever come to actually providing a specific example and even then it wasn’t very persuasive.
Your only other example was when a general authority spoke at a school in the language of the school. But nobody is surprised by that.
Comment by Jeff G — February 23, 2016 @ 6:37 pm
By those rules, I can’t make any of the words mean anything. I really, truly can’t. It is like listening to a language you don’t understand and trying to guess what someone meant by it.
I’m not trying to persuade YOU, I’m trying to figure out what the heck it would mean for me to be persuaded by you.
Comment by Martin James — February 23, 2016 @ 6:55 pm
The only thing I can tell from your explanations now is that you don’t think there is much moral implication of the non-human environment.
Comment by Martin James — February 23, 2016 @ 6:59 pm
You have talked me out of your church.
Comment by Martin James — February 23, 2016 @ 7:00 pm
“By those rules, I can’t make any of the words mean anything.”
Really? All or nothing, huh? All I’m saying is that we do not get to simply assume that the same noise means the exact same thing across all contexts without actually looking at how those noises are used within those contexts.
“you don’t think there is much moral implication of the non-human environment.”
I think there is ZERO moral implication from the natural, non-social world. I see zero evidence to the contrary. This natural world simply does not speak for itself, contrary to what Galileo claimed.
I recently read the claim: “Truth is that which ought not be contradicted.” I fully agree, while at the same time asking “Contradicted by whom?” Pre-, pro- and post-moderns answer this question VERY differently.
Comment by Jeff G — February 23, 2016 @ 7:07 pm
“You have talked me out of your church.”
And in the same breath you have totally abandoned the church of the Bible and BoM. Again, you STILL haven’t addressed the ways in which the vast majority of scripture contradict the modern model.
Comment by Jeff G — February 23, 2016 @ 7:08 pm
“True is that which does not tolerate contradiction.”
That’s the real quote. From Reinhart Koselleck’s Critique and Crisis.
Comment by Jeff G — February 23, 2016 @ 8:53 pm
Green tea contains the second highest catechin level, approximately 125 mg catechins per serving (or ~25% dry
weight of fresh tea leaves). These are the foods that are rich inChetna,the healing
and nurturing influence of nature. 500 grams water to cups grams
of butter equals how many cups
Comment by 500 grams water to cups — February 23, 2016 @ 9:48 pm
“Again, you STILL haven’t addressed the ways in which the vast majority of scripture contradict the modern model.”
I told I don’t think everything fits into the modern model. I’m not arguing for the modern model, I’m arguing against an exclusively non-modern model.
One of the things I think you lose by ignoring all non-personal aspects to morality is the role of beauty in morality. There is an aesthetic to the moral sense that doesn’t come from other persons.
Comment by Martin James — February 23, 2016 @ 10:24 pm
“I’m not arguing for the modern model, I’m arguing against an exclusively non-modern model.”
Wait, are you trying to say that between us you’re the pluralist and I’m the one that’s trying to close down options!?! Again, this assertion is in desperate need of support.
“There is an aesthetic to the moral sense that doesn’t come from other persons.”
Again, another unsupported assertion. If anything, the scriptures see the beauty in nature as a sure sign that a person was involved. I would also strongly recommend Pierre Bourdieu’s Distinction as a compelling counter-argument.
What I don’t understand is you view of the fact/value distinction. My view is that facts just are value-laden descriptions accepted within a linguistic community. You clearly disagree with this, but you also seem to deny the existence of this “is/ought” gap that has typically lain at the heart of the English speaking enlightenment tradition. In other words you seem to want to assert all 3 of the following:
1) Morality is external to all subjective agents.
2) Morality is, at least partially, built into the natural world.
3) Morality is non-empirical.
I see little hope for harmonizing all 3 assertions.
Comment by Jeff G — February 24, 2016 @ 8:51 am
I think you see little hope because you see the issues primarily retrospectively and less open to new understandings of person and “external” and are a “believer” in logic and reason.
I think they are harmonized through experience.
I am skeptical of the external/internal distinction but not the self/other experience distinction.
I am skeptical of the natural/non-natural distinction.
I am extremely skeptical of language as compared to other forms of experience.
I think number 3 is where our worldview differs the most in ways that make it hard for us to understand each other.
You want to make empirical based on shared, public experience and I want to use an older form, that just makes the distinction between experience and logic, including private experience.
I think it is coherent to this
1. Morality exists in a timeless way independent of whether any agent is experiencing it.
2. I want to call the natural world the total of our experience.
3. Morality is empirical in that it is a matter of experience but logic.
The analogy would be that morality is just a particular type of vision or seeing. One person can have that experience of morality through a moral sense.
Nothing is more clear to me than that chemicals are as important for morality as other speakers. That is why the word of wisdom is wise.
You don’t really have anything to say about the effect of drugs on moral minds and so I don’t think your theory is inclusive enough. I am a “stuff” pluralist.
Comment by Martin James — February 24, 2016 @ 9:40 am
Again, not totally sure what a lot of those things mean.
Perhaps the biggest issue that I see is that you think there exists some perception of the world that exists outside of linguistic influence. You think that we can just “look at” the world differently without involving any corresponding change in the linguistic categories by which we actively organize experience. This, to me, is a massive shortcoming.
Virtually all the human sciences and philosophy agree that experience itself is social in nature – contrary to the Cartesian attempt to ground truth in the “clear and distinct ideas” of isolated individuals. Indeed, the gospel seems to confirm this when we all have to be taught “how to recognize” the promptings of the spirit.
Comment by Jeff G — February 24, 2016 @ 10:06 am
“You think that we can just “look at” the world differently without involving any corresponding change in the linguistic categories by which we actively organize experience. This, to me, is a massive shortcoming.”
I guess that is because I like to do stuff that doesn’t involve words. Aren’t most of the best experiences not expressable in words? I’m not saying that there aren’t linguistic and social influences, or even that those effects are greater in the moral area. I’m just saying tha the non-linguistic, non-social experience exist and are important.
As for clear and distinct ideas, I’m not that much of a cartesian. I feel, therefore I am.
Tell me more about these “how to recognize” the promptings of the spirit lessons.
Comment by Martin James — February 24, 2016 @ 12:17 pm
“Again, not totally sure what a lot of those things mean.”
Of course not because with just words, we have no way to determine meaning.
Comment by Martin James — February 24, 2016 @ 12:18 pm
“Of course not because with just words, we have no way to determine meaning.”
Whoever said otherwise?
On the one hand, you want to say that the natural world provides (at least some) moral content totally totally independent of the norms that willing agents bring to it.
On the other hand, you claim that there ARE linguistic and social influences.
In order to reconcile these two, you merely assert – again, without any support – that “non-linguistic, non-social experience[s] exist and are important.”
From what outside, non-linguistic perspective are you, a fully socialized and linguistic creature, able to make this judgement?
There is a massive difference between not being able to express an experience in words/grammar (every person experiences this) and insisting that that experience is totally unstructured by words/grammar (no person ever experiences this).
Comment by Jeff G — February 24, 2016 @ 12:42 pm
I surprised that you accuse me, the self-avowed semantic externalist, of thinking that the outside world is irrelevant. What makes this especially ironic is your own (apparent) allegiance to semantic internalism a la Fodor.
Comment by Jeff G — February 24, 2016 @ 2:01 pm
You keep using totally independent not me. I am happy to admit that my notion of non-linguistic, non social are linguistic and social if you will talk about the things that I’m talking about like drugs. My experience of the moral depends on my experience with chemicals. If you admit that a persons moral perception changes with ingesting drugs then I am happy to talk about the ways it is also conditioned by linguistic and social things. But you don’t like to talk about drugs.
Comment by Martin James — February 24, 2016 @ 2:05 pm
I only quoted Fodor that none of us understand it. I don’t by Fodors own theories. You avow semantic externalism but I don’t see it in action.
Comment by Martin James — February 24, 2016 @ 2:07 pm
What’s there to say about drugs? You accuse me of dodging that issue when I simply do not see what issue needs to be addressed.
You can change an individual’s perceptions until the cows come home… this doesn’t make anything more or less moral.
Also, my pinning internalism on you had much more to do with your own obsession with brain processes and how meaning must reside between the ears…. But now you’re upset because I’m (allegedly) not granting the existence of meaning out in the nature world.
Indeed, I have no clue what putting externalism “in action” would even mean since its not a code of conduct. Meaning comes by triangulating 1) an individuals actions with 2) social and inter-subjective rules of interpretation within 3) a shared, observable environment. Without any of these three ingredients, meaning fails. Thus, brains are quite incidental. Where you keep going wrong is in thinking that we can ever side-step the inter-subjective rules of interpretation.
The standard thought experiment is Wittgenstein’s beetle in a box: Each person has a box, the contents of which nobody else can ever see. When each person is asked what is in their box, they each respond, “beetle”. In this situation there is no way that any person could ever know if they meant the same thing by “beetle” as any other person. Indeed, they can’t even know for sure that they each mean “nobody else can know”, etc.
This point generalizes to other equally private objects such as brain states and sensations! Since, until recently, we never saw a brain function and since we never will experience another person’s sensations, the only way in which these words have ever had any meaning at all is because they actually refer to something else, something publicly observable which lends itself to inter-subjective regulated. Thus, externalism.
Comment by Jeff G — February 24, 2016 @ 3:13 pm
The major rub seems to be that you think meaning, both moral and semantic, is a relationship between each individual and the objective, non-social world. Thus any introduction of “inter-subjectivity” of culture is a parochial step away from both 1) the free and utterly self-legislating individual and 2) the universal and utterly timelessness of all truth and morality.
Thus, when I say that social interactions are non-negotiable to the nature of semantics and morality, you feel morally threatened. Nevertheless, there is no way for you to object to or enforce any such moral system without some type of social interaction! If you really think that such things are important and binding independent of social interactions, then you shouldn’t have to argue for or against them.
Comment by Jeff G — February 24, 2016 @ 3:29 pm
I draw exactly the opposite conclusions from the thought experiment.
1. We have no way of ever knowing what moral means for another person.
2. We have two types of moral experience: our own experience and peer pressure.
3. The heart of the LDS religion is that your own moral experience must guard against peer pressure.
The reason you are a threat is that I think people can get confused between the two types of moral experience. One is good and the other is evil. You are arguing for the evil team. I don’t need any words for my argument because the good moral sense is not linguistic. The bad moral sense is linguistic guile.
Nature enforces morals via the spiritual law and God intercedes to appease nature.
Comment by Martin James — February 24, 2016 @ 5:03 pm
The fruit is external and the eating of it individual. The people made people of the great and spacious building made people ashamed.
Comment by Martin James — February 24, 2016 @ 5:06 pm
So you have no way of knowing what morality means to me or anybody else? Why then have you been arguing? Why are you worried about other people’s reactions when you have no clue what their reactions should or should not be? Why pressure me or my readers to not believe my parts?
Why do we in the church peer pressure people to do good things by exhorting them like the scriptures command us to do? Indeed, why do the prophets and scriptures pressure us through commandments?
Your rejection of socialized morality undermines every comment you’ve posted.
Comment by Jeff G — February 24, 2016 @ 5:10 pm
Your rejection of socialized morality undermines every comment you’ve posted.
Not at all. The socialization I’ve been talking about is that required to allow people to have the individual experience of eating the fruit. You’ve confused the protection necessary to have that experience with the experience itself. Eat the beetle and live.
Comment by Martin James — February 24, 2016 @ 5:14 pm
Socialized morality is the natural man.
Comment by Martin James — February 24, 2016 @ 5:17 pm
You yourself point out how natural that socialized morality is. All your theories are about the natural man.
Comment by Martin James — February 24, 2016 @ 5:18 pm
Why are you peer pressuring me to stop teaching these things? Why are you peer pressuring people to not believe me?
Comment by Jeff G — February 24, 2016 @ 7:37 pm
“Socialized morality is the natural man.”
Yet another unsupported (and somewhat slanderous) assertion.
Comment by Jeff G — February 24, 2016 @ 7:41 pm
I’m just having a really hard time seeing how you can call my model “Satan’s plan”, “natural man”, “the evil team” and other forms of condemnation when 1) you obviously – even by your own admission – do not understand it, and 2) you think “peer pressuring” people with regard to moral values is evil. (How can you pressure your peers into not pressuring their peers?)
Put differently, I’m having a very difficult time perceiving a criticism that is not 1) unsupported, 2) irrelevant or 3) self-defeating.
Comment by Jeff G — February 25, 2016 @ 1:50 pm
Fair questions.
1. First the personal part. I hope you don’t take it as personal criticism because it is not. I’ve commented enough that you know I’m trying to push you to consider all the aspects of your theory. I’ve also tried to tell you when I’ve been convinced by what you have said.
2. I’ve never addressed anyone else but you or told them you were wrong nor have I told anyone else not to adopt your thinking. I’ve also given you encouragement on your posts and that I hope you get your book done.
3. The question of support is pretty tough. It is far from clear to me what you would consider support. Part of my whole concern is that I can’t tell what counts as support for you. At various times I’ve heard it is authority, personal revelation in context, authorities with stewardship, etc. You seem to conceive all things as social bargaining and I don’t know what society counts in this context. I haven’t seen you recognize any objections or criticisms as valid, so I don’t have many examples to follow in that regard.
4. The reason that it is not self-defeating is simple. Peer pressure for someone to consult their own conscience or to pray about something or to avoid taking things on authority that aren’t backed up by study and prayer are not peer pressure that is a bad thing. Just like when authority tells us to choose the right or follow the spirit that is not a bad thing. I have always been trying to show you the consequences of your own thinking, not create consequences that would cause you to violate your own thinking by coercion. *trigger warning* I admit that in a world as social as the one you theorize, all speech is coercion.
As to relevance, you also seem to dismiss anything that you don’t find relevant with the greatest of ease. Again, I don’t know what you accept as a measure of relevance other than your own theory.
You asked “How can you pressure your peers into not pressuring their peers?” I think calls to conscience are not pressure. Calls to social shame are.
Comment by Martin James — February 25, 2016 @ 6:27 pm
1. I never took it as a personal attack as such. I just think insulting a position by calling it names is not an adequate substitute for actually engaging it.
2. This is a public forum. We are both addressing a larger audience when we use it.
3. So you just stopped trying to support your claims at all? Indeed, isn’t your inability to find a shared premise from which to mount an objection just another way of saying that you don’t really have an argument against the position?
4. You’re trying to play a shell game. In terms of a venn diagram, you’ve placed my own “ethics based in social influence or ‘calls to do good'” within a circle of “peer pressure” which is itself within the larger circle of “evil”. Now your trying to say that there are forms of social influence which are outside the circle of “evil”. You can’t have it both ways. Either there are some types of social influence that are good – in which case we each might be right – or there isn’t – and we are both definitely wrong. Either way, your objection doesn’t go through.
5. Unless you can show me why your objections are relevant, I see no reason why I shouldn’t dismiss them. It is up to you to shoulder that responsibility, not me.
Comment by Jeff G — February 26, 2016 @ 8:53 am
“3. So you just stopped trying to support your claims at all? Indeed, isn’t your inability to find a shared premise from which to mount an objection just another way of saying that you don’t really have an argument against the position?”
No, it just means you don’t want me to be able to find any shared premises. So, I’ll just keep up the name calling. Your position is social nihilism and if it is going to be nihilism, I’ll keep mine solipsistic, thank you you very much.
Comment by Martin James — February 26, 2016 @ 11:04 am
Again with the name calling. I’ve described the different moral grammars and you think I’m somehow left with zero. Yes, I refuse to limit myself to your one, very recently invented moral grammar. But that is exactly the point that you continually fail to address!
Comment by Jeff G — February 26, 2016 @ 11:34 am
Hope springs eternal for me so here is another attempt to see if i can understand how your theory applies to the everyday.
It seems to me that the cases that best bring to light differences in the moralities are cases of determining the mental competency of persons. I think it is very tough to do. I think these are good cases for 3 reasons.
1. They show the tension line between expertise and non-expertise.
2. They show the connection between the biological (and or external) and the mental and social.
3. They are common enough to be of concern to everyone.
Consider a hypothetical case of a family member dealing with a distraught relative while driving on the freeway. The distraught person gets out of the car and walks in front of an oncoming car and is killed. Person A says that the the distraught person was morally wrong to step in front of the car by causing pain to the driver and her family. Person B says that the distraught person, was likely not in their right mind and was not responsible for their action. Person C says, the family of the distraught person was morally responsible because they didn’t take sufficient steps to help the person who walked onto the freeway.
Here is my hypothetical. Let’s say you are asked by a young adult LDS member the following. Jeff, you think a lot about morals and LDS doctrine, how does your understanding of our morality, help me decide whether to agree with A, B or C.
Personally, I don’t think we know, but I’d like to see how you would answer.
Comment by Martin James — February 26, 2016 @ 11:34 am
Morals don’t have grammars because they aren’t words.
Comment by Martin James — February 26, 2016 @ 11:58 am
“Morals don’t have grammars because they aren’t words.”
Whelp, that’s the smoking gun for me. Anybody who isn’t willing to grant that the rules, meanings and (yes, even the) words that structure our moral lives count as a grammar in any sense clearly isn’t acting out of good will.
Indeed, after a full week of back and forth, I don’t even think you know what your point is. I will answer your hypothetical and then leave it at that.
My model is not aimed at saying what is and is not right. Rather, it is aimed at showing the person that within our society, there are (at least) three differently structured moral cultures with their own unique moral grammars. I then explicate each of these moral cultures to them. Then, having presenting the person with multiple viable and coherent options, I leave the person to freely choose for him or herself which moral culture he or she wishes to identify with. Indeed, we all already do something very close to this everyday… we just do not have conscious control of the process as I hope to give people.
Comment by Jeff G — February 26, 2016 @ 3:44 pm
At least I’ve got you talking about good will. I was just trying to maintain my distinction between morals and moral perception. Calling moral perception a grammar seemed biased in favor or linguistics to me.
If you are only describing the three different moral cultures, I don’t have a problem with your options. I thought you were also saying the that pre-modern is the moral culture of the church.
You do have me interested in the free choice aspect though. From what moral position does one make that choice? Is it in a sense pre-moral or does it exist within a moral system even as one is choosing it.
One reason that my objections seem incoherent to you is that I’m arguing that human morals are incomplete and inherently problematic due to the fall and the natural man, whereas it seems to me that you think human moral systems work ok.
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