William Irwin, in his New York Times article “How to Live a Lie” (2015), asserts that our beliefs in G-d, objective morality, and free will are based on a philosophy called fictionalism. Irwin supports this assertion by using ideas from famous philosophers and specific examples to explain how we accept morality, G-d, and free will as being true, even though we inherently believe them to be untrue. Irwin intends to convince his readers that their beliefs are based on a system of accepting what they believe to be untrue, and thus teach them to believe that their faith in G-d, morality, and free will is ill-founded, though understandable, and should be challenged. The tone of the article is formal and educational, as well as a little pompous and forceful, as though Irwin expects his ideas to be accepted by everyone.
While I certainly respect the work and research that was put into this article, I find that I wholeheartedly disagree with much of what Irwin says. His first suggestion, that morality is based on “moral fictionalism,” seems utterly ridiculous to me. He wants us to believe that though we accept statements like “stealing is wrong” to be true, we actually don’t believe it to be true at all. He claims that if we were pushed to give a theoretical answer to whether stealing is wrong, we would say no. But who on earth would say no?!?!? Of course we all believe inherently that stealing is wrong! Stealing is wrong! We are taught from a young age that taking something from someone else is not the right thing to do. Why? There are oodles of answers! It would make them upset, it isn’t polite, the list goes on and on. Is Irwin suggesting that people inherently don’t care about others’ feelings? How else could he say that we don’t actually think stealing is wrong???
While I certainly respect the work and research that was put into this article, I find that I wholeheartedly disagree with much of what Irwin says. His first suggestion, that morality is based on “moral fictionalism,” seems utterly ridiculous to me. He wants us to believe that though we accept statements like “stealing is wrong” to be true, we actually don’t believe it to be true at all. He claims that if we were pushed to give a theoretical answer to whether stealing is wrong, we would say no. But who on earth would say no?!?!? Of course we all believe inherently that stealing is wrong! Stealing is wrong! We are taught from a young age that taking something from someone else is not the right thing to do. Why? There are oodles of answers! It would make them upset, it isn’t polite, the list goes on and on. Is Irwin suggesting that people inherently don’t care about others’ feelings? How else could he say that we don’t actually think stealing is wrong???
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/11/02/how-to-live-a-lie/?ref=opinion
I take issue with both of your points in this post. First, you say that we all inherently believe that stealing is wrong. While I could provide examples of many people who obviously don't believe that stealing is wrong, I don't need to, because then you provide reasons why we believe inherently that stealing is wrong that all come after birth. For something to be inherent, it has to be a part of our makeup from birth. We are taught and shown that stealing is "wrong" by parents and, if not them, society or other groups of people, we don't know it inherently.
ReplyDeleteThen you say that Irwin posits that we don't inherently care about other's feelings. It's true. People don't inherently care about other's feelings. In fact, if anything, it's the opposite. The natural urge is to disregard other's feelings and do whatever you feel is best for you. How many children are there that seem to not care about anyone? Many. Eventually, they may be taught to care. We teach our neighbors and our children to resist that urge in order to make society function properly.
Second, you assert that free will and God's knowledge have nothing to do with each other. You then provide your mother's "knowledge" that you are going to buy eggs as an example disproving the theory. What you have to understand is that their is an important difference between God's knowledge of a human's future actions and any human's knowledge of another human's future actions. God's knowledge is absolute. He sees future, past, and present. He knows what will happen. On the other hand, human knowledge of other human's future actions is really just an expectation. In your example, your mother doesn't know you are going to buy eggs. She expects you are going to buy eggs because of some source of information, whether it was that you told her, or you have gone to buy eggs in some sort of routine. What would happen if on your way to buy eggs, you were stopped in some fashion. Your mother would still "know" you are going to buy eggs until you returned with no eggs. Your mother doesn't know you are going to buy eggs, she expects you are going to buy eggs. God on the other hand, knows. He knows what you are going to do every moment of your life. He knows what your grandchildren will do. He can see the future. That's entirely different from human knowledge of other human's future actions.
You picked a very difficult topic to argue with because it's philosophical. It can't be proved or disproved with facts. It' leaves you only with the counter argument: "Because it's wrong!" This doesn't persuade. I guess my suggestion would be for you to pick your battles and stick to ones you can win.
ReplyDeletealso-who is the intended audience?
ReplyDelete