The ‘traditional’ objections to a wholly naturalistic metaphysics, within the modern Western philosophical tradition, involve the vexed notions of freedom and consciousness. But there is, I think, a much deeper and more interesting line of criticism to naturalism, and that involves the notion of intentionality and its closely correlated notion of normativity.
What is involved in my belief that I’m drinking a beer as I type this? Well, my belief is about something — namely, the beer that I’m drinking. But what does this “aboutness” consist of? It requires, among other things, a commitment that I have undertaken — that I am prepared to respond to the appropriate sorts of challenges and criticisms of my belief. I’m willing to play the game of giving and asking for reasons, and my willingness to be so treated is central to how others regard me as their epistemic peer. But there doesn’t seem to be any way that the reason-giving game can be explained entirely in terms of the neurophysiological story of what’s going on inside my cranium. That neurophysiological story is a story of is the case, and the reason-giving story is essentially a normative story — of what ought to be the case.
And if Hume is right — as he certainly seems to be! — in saying that one cannot derive an ought-statement from an is-statement,and if naturalism is an entirely descriptive/explanatory story that has no room for norms, then in light of the central role that norms play in human life (including their role in belief, desire, perception, and action), it is reasonable to conclude that naturalism cannot be right.
(Of course, it does not follow from this that any version of theism or ‘supernaturalism’ must be right, either.)
keiths,
I’ve already gone through this with you on this thread. This is a “one man’s modus ponens…..” issue. You either remove the actual value part with your translations or you don’t. If you do, I don’t like the translations, if you don’t, you’ve still got the values in there, “free-floating” or not.
I’m not too bothered but I disagree that you’ve presented any scenario that would require an explanation that was paranormal, or as I like to say to avoid ambiguity, imaginary. You can present a scenario that perhaps is inexplicable but you seem to be almost falling into the same trap that, say Plantinga likes to fall into, and default to “paranormal” rather than “I don’t know”.
Robin said:
Yes, science “knows” all sorts of things – until it later changes that knowledge. So your claim that scientists “know” it is “impossible” rings a little hollow. Even if it were impossible for human biology to regrow a limb, it’s not impossible for physics to regrow the limb via a massively unlikely group quantum fluctuation similar to what Dawkins pointed out.
It may be a miracle in the technical sense of the term, but are you saying that unlikely quantum fluctuations are supernatural? I doubt it.
I’m sure lots of stuff (like Douglas Adams’ deadlines – h/t Petrushka”) goes whooshing over my head. I seem to have missed how your imaginary limb regrowth scenario is any kind of evidence for something.
The nicest thing about being a pragmatist is never having to think things through. 🙂
Don’t get excited William, but I’m agreeing with you here!
walto,
You’re claiming that values are objective, and that this is problematic for naturalism.
I agree that objective, free-floating oughts, if they existed, would be a problem for naturalism,
What is your evidence or argument for their actual existence?
Suppose that person A feels that adultery is morally wrong, while person B thinks it’s fine. Is adultery objectively moral, immoral, or neither? How can we tell? How can we even determine that there is an objective fact of the matter?
I’ll come back to you on 1. Not sure how Euler could have come up with the expression without some minimum social skills acquired from the outside world.
2) You couldn’t think this unless you had some outside social contact to develop the language with which to think it..
3) Unless someone wrote that and someone took the trouble to learn enough math to understand it, it wouldn’t exist. Or would it?
4) Not seeing any knowledge in that statement. You’ll have to elaborate a bit.
Exactly. WJM can hardly blame us realists for a dilemma of his own creation!
Alan,
I think we should (provisionally) adopt the best available hypothesis, whether or not it happens to be a supernatural hypothesis.
For example, I think it was quite reasonable to be a creationist in the 1700s, before Darwin’s great insight.
We’re aiming at the truth. Assuming ahead of time what form that truth will take is counterproductive.
I’m claiming that values are objective. I don’t have any ready definition for “naturalism” so I leave to you to decide whether my view is problematic for your fave version.
My evidence is that they seem to me to exist in much the way chairs and tables seem to me to exist. Just as I accept the evidence of my senses in the latter case, I accept the evidence of my emotions in the former. Could I be wrong? Yes.
We do the same sorts of things we do when something looks green to one person and red to another. In the case of the value, we ask a bunch of people, perhaps including those from other cultures, we consider the matter from different angles. We think about the effects on society and on relationships. We might ask psychologists, sociologists and anthropologists what effect that sort of behavior has elsewhere. We ask economists what economic effects a change in this precept might have. That’s the best we can do. There aren’t any proofs, either of values or of physical objects. But if there are no values (just as if there were no physical objects), a tremendous amount of our common-sense, ordinary language take on the world has to be scrapped. So I think the burden lies elsewhere than on me: it falls on you revisionists.
Alan Fox,
Not sure you need to be pragmatist for that. I’ve failed to think things through straight through several changes of philosophic outlook. I’ve gotten pretty good at it too, if I say so myself!
walto,
All of that is perfectly compatible with naturalism, and none of it establishes adultery as objectively immoral.
For the nth time, I don’t deny the existence of values. I just don’t think that they exist independently of our brains, and so they don’t imperil naturalism in any way that I can see.
The only thing that has to be “scrapped” is the illusion that values and morals are objective and independent of us.
We are notoriously susceptible to illusions and mistaken intuitions. For example, space and time seem absolute and fixed to us, but relativity tells us that they aren’t.
What gives us confidence that tables and chairs aren’t illusions is the fact that we have independent means of confirming their existence. That’s exactly what we don’t have in the case of objective, free-floating values.
That’s not the question. The question is whether you are likely to be right, because naturalism is in trouble only if you are right that values exist objectively and independently of us.
William, to Robin:
In my scenario it happens consistently in response to a particular prayer, and not at all in response to a slightly reworded prayer.
Which do you think is more likely:
1. A series of massively improbable quantum fluctuations is occurring, any single one of which is vastly unlikely to have occurred even once in the history of the entire observable universe — and they continue to happen, again and again, right here on earth, every time someone recites a particular prayer, but not when they recite a slightly reworded version of that same prayer.
2. Something supernatural is happening.
Note the phrasing: “category B phenomenon and “category A reality The problem is that if the supernatural exists and is part of reality,then reality cannot be category A because a category A reality cannot by definition include, find, locate, or examine category B phenomena. Reality must be something other than “Category A” that houses both kinds of experience.
As if naturalists know what pushes atoms around, or how they are pushed around. Physicists have a set of models with labels. All the physical forces are is a set of descriptions of interactive patterns. A supernatural force would just be a description of the interaction pattern; which wouldn’t be universal or as predictable as other force descriptions, and may not be available to be experienced at all by various kinds of experiencers.
I’m not insisting any such thing; you are by conflating “detectable” with “detectable via scientific methodology”. Of course supernatural phenomena can be detected; people have experienced the supernatural throughout history.
Can’t be appropriately studied.
Note your category A conceptualization of realty as “the material world”, as if what you are experiencing is in fact one material world and not a matrix of similar experiential configurations, some parts of which have differing degrees of exclusivity (analogous to blind men, sighted men, color-blind men) and some parts widely inclusive, some aspects highly regular and predictable, others not so much.
You are still arguing from the position that category A is reality, and everything that wants to be considered to be part of reality must pass category A testing. If it doesn’t pass the test, it’s dismissed. If it is not fully explicable in terms of your A-reality conceptualization (how it pushes atoms around, indeed), then it’s not “detectable” at all.
Has anyone here ever done the fingertips trick, where 4 people lift a heavy table or chair with a person sitting in it with nothing but their fingertips, and the thing you are lifting feels virtually weightless? Has anyone here ever attended a spoon-bending party? Anyone here ever give a ouija board a serious effort?
Once, a long time ago during my student days. It was serious enough to give one girl a bad case of the hysterics, cured by a swift slap on the cheek by her boyfriend No useful information was received from “the other side” and it didn’t catch on. I did go to the couple’s wedding much later so there were no long term effects on their relationship either.
re spoon bending : You are aware Uri Geller has been exposed as a trickster aren’t you, William?
How can you assess the likelihood of imaginary hypothetical scenarios? It seems -well, the mildest word I can find- a bit premature.
keiths,
“For the nth time, I don’t deny the existence of values. I just don’t think that they exist independently of our brains, and so they don’t imperil naturalism in any way that I can see.”
That’s because you’re still not understanding that I don’t consider those things in brains values at all: no one who believes in objective values will do so. What you’re doing, on my view simply involves an incompetent translation of “ought” talk into “is” talk. It’s some combination of the genetic fallacy, and the denial of what I’d call actual values.
We’re going around in circles at this point, however. I’ll say this one final time to see if you can understand it: If you believe that ought can’t be derived from is, as I do, you will not buy these translations into brain talk any more than I believe that talk of chairs can be translated into talk of appearances or talk of elementary particles. If you think oughts can be so translated, I take you to be simply denying the existence of what I’m talking about when I talk about values. You are free to do so–I can’t prove their existence and have no great interest in convincing anybody. Though it would be nice to feel I’m being comprehended, I can live without this in the name of avoiding additional trips around this circle.
Heh. Spoon-bending parties? I didn’t know they had those.
I did play around with ouija boards, dowsing, and pendulums as a youth (~10 years old maybe). Then I discovered the ideomotor effect, and lost interest.
ETA: My interest briefly returned when I read Margins of Reality, but again faded after reading a critique of the book.
I would certainly be interested in seeing an example of a free-floating ought.
Alan said:
Even if so, that becomes irrelevant when you and a roomful of people bend your own spoons – the ones you bring from your own homes.
petrushka,
Here is Kant’s offering:
“Act only according to that maxim whereby you can, at the same time, will that it should become a universal law.”
You can bend spoons?
petrushka,
I think we should book an auditorium.
Dare I say I’m skeptical?
The finger-lift “trick” on youtube:
It doesn’t look all that spectacular on the video, but it does show the technique. I did some experimentation with this and we were able to lift things we couldn’t lift at all otherwise. While you feel the object you are lifting with your fingers, you don’t feel like it has any weight. One thing I found out was this doesn’t work at all for some people, and works to varying degrees of success with different people. It seems to work best with children.
I learned it when a teacher in my 3rd or 4th grade class had 4 of us pick her up as she sat in a chair. We lifted her up to our shoulder-height.
So, the skeptic might look for an apologetics-style dismissal for the finger-lifting trick, and find this:
http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2008/05/27/2257305.htm
Which all seems like a reasonable explanation. The question is, how many people test it further? Can you pick up the thing IN UNISION with just your 2 fingers with 4 random people without the ritualistic prepping? How heavy can things be that you can still lift? Do you just accept the “explanation” without actually testing it because it fits your worldview expectations that it must just be a trick of some sort?
I would actually, personally, empirically test it out to see if the naturalistic “explanations” held up. In my experience, they did not because we could pick up things much too heavy to lift othwerwise, even in unison.
Feel free to attach some numbers.
I’m waiting for some details about spoon bending.
Petrushka,
I cannot prove the supernatural to you. You can only prove it to yourself.
I am not asking you to prove the supernatural. You made what appears to be a claim that you and your acquaintances can bend spoons — presumably without using physical force. I mean, I can bend spoons too, but I would use my hands.
I’m merely asking for details.
As for whether the parlor lifting trick works, apparently it does work, but I would like to know something of the details before deciding whether anything happens that is difficult to explain.
William J. Murray,
I agree with that. My own (non-supernatural) view of this matter is that no basic categories are subject to literal proof. We can argue that some batch is more consonant with the findings of modern science or common sense than some other choices, that they’re more comprehensive, or more useful, that they’re more parsimonious, or more free from contradictions or unclarity, that they’re more likely to be believed in a wider variety of cultures, that belief in them provides more economic equality or good sex or whatever. That kind of stuff.
But, for good or ill, proofs there are none. All of those claims might be true and the category still be misleading about the true nature of the world.
ETA: I’m not really sure they can be “proven” to oneself either, though. I don’t really know what that would mean.
Do you have a camera? Take a well-lit, close up video of yourself bending a spoon and post it to youtube. Better yet, post video of your group lifting a large amount of weight (> 100 kg each, say). Four young guys lifting a “300 lb” person is not at all out of the ordinary.
It should not be difficult to prove that one can bend spoons without using physical force, if it can be done.
It should not be difficult to demonstrate that the finger lift actually involves lifting more weight per person than they can lift as individuals.
This is not rocket science.
Honestly, my interest in all this lifting and bending is more mercenary than intellectual. There’s serious coin to be made with these powers.
I’ll rent the auditorium!!
Not to mention a million bucks from Randi for the spoon bending.
petrushka,
If you lift them with only two fingers, they’ll float.
William,
You’re being entirely too credulous. 300 pounds across 4 guys is only 75 pounds per guy, which is only 37.5 pounds per finger.
Meanwhile, from the link you provided:
Those are outliers, of course, but do you really think that 4 young, healthy guys can’t manage 37.5 pounds per finger?
I could salute them with one.
petrushka,
Careful, a lot of those bastids have long nails (and longer memories).
walto:
keiths:
walto:
I understand that perfectly. I was responding to your statement (the one I quoted at the beginning of this comment), in which you claim that “you revisionists” (whatever that means) deny the existence of values.
I keep telling you that I don’t deny the existence of values per se, just the objective, free-floating kind. That’s important, because it nullifies your objection that “a tremendous amount of our common-sense, ordinary language take on the world has to be scrapped.” It doesn’t. The only thing a moral subjectivist has to “scrap” is the illusion that morality is objective.
Since you consider “actual” values to be objective values, it shouldn’t surprise you that a moral subjectivist — someone who thinks moral values are subjective — denies what you refer to as “actual values”, by which you really mean “objective values”. I affirm subjective values and deny objective ones.
I understand your claim, but I think it’s wrong. We’ve been over this already, when I wrote (to KN):
You quoted me and remarked:
The issue seems to be this: You think that objective oughts are the only genuine oughts, while I don’t believe that objective oughts even exist. For me, subjective oughts are the only “actual” oughts, while you think they don’t qualify.
walto:
It isn’t merely that you haven’t proven them. You haven’t provided any evidence for them at all, as far as I can see, apart from “they seem to me to exist in much the way chairs and tables seem to me to exist.”
Your view is simple and easy to understand, but I don’t agree with it. Please stop interpreting disagreement as if it were a lack of understanding.
Par for the course, absolutely nobody addresses anything I actually say and responds exactly as predicted.
keiths to William, after quoting examples of two men who could lift well over 500 pounds with one finger:
William:
To the contrary, I was addressing precisely this question of yours:
Guess what, William? I have investigated this myself. On a recent trip, my suitcase weighed more than 50 pounds and I needed to transfer items out of it and into my backpack to avoid being charged extra by the airline. Out of curiosity, I tried picking the suitcase up with one finger. It wasn’t a problem (though I wouldn’t have wanted to do it for a long time).
Why haven’t you done this, Mr. “I investigate everything for myself”?
So much for your claim:
keiths,
Right. What you call “objective oughts,” I call “oughts.” That is indeed the problem. And I still think what you wrote about Hume and deriving ought from is spot on. At that point, you tollens and I ponens.
It’s like life.
In the first place, keiths, only an idiot would believe something on youtube. Secondly, I said: “It doesn’t look all that spectacular on the video, but it does show the technique. I did some experimentation with this and we were able to lift things we couldn’t lift at all otherwise.”
You seem to have taken this to mean that I saw the video and the believed it represented something out of the ordinary. You seem to be oblivious to the fact that I was referring to the video as an example of the technique of what I was talking about. For all I know, the video is entirely staged and faked – but the technique is the same one we used.
I specifically said I did, keiths. You even quoted where I said it: “we could pick up things much too heavy to lift othwerwise, even in unison.” Did you miss that?
Sounds like you’re implying that I lied, which I think is suitable for guano.
Or did you just assume that we didn’t try it on anything actually too heavy for us to lift otherwise?
And, that doesn’t even take into account the effortlessness and the lack of a sense of weight on one’s fingers, which the “distributed weight” theory doesn’t account for, other than as “bad memory” or some kind of group hallucination – which is just more patent naturalist apologetics.
walto,
So if oughts are objective and exist independently of us, then how do they influence our moral decisions, which are made by our brains?
Or if you think that moral decisions aren’t made by our brains, then where and how are they carried out and how do the results get “inserted” into our brains?
If this works, surely someone would have thought of documenting such an event? With the actual weight of the object being lifted of course. There must be video more compelling than the one with the 300 lb guy.
I think decisions, moral or otherwise, are made by people, and they would not be able to make them without their brains (various political activities, notwithstanding). I don’t know exactly what you mean by “influence” there. But I guess I’d say that just as a passing cat may influence my driving and a fact may influence some belief of mine, a value may influence a feeling of disapproval.Obviously, if there are no such things, they can’t be influencing anything. That’s true of facts as well.
William,
That’s the wrong test.
The right way to do it is to test the amount of weight that one person can lift using one or two fingers. Otherwise you are not controlling for the unison problem, as the skeptical article you linked to points out.
Earlier, you wrote:
Do you find it remarkable that 4 people can lift a person in a chair using only their fingertips? How much did the person + chair weigh? How much weight was actually being supported by each fingertip?
keiths:
walto:
I’m raising the interaction problem. You’ve proposed the existence of objective, non-physical values that can somehow influence our behavior. That means that they must change what the brain would otherwise do, pushing it in a different direction than it would have taken had the values not existed. How is that interaction accomplished? How do objective, non-physical values existing outside of our brains manage to influence the trajectories our brains take?
Cats are physical objects, so it’s no surprise that they can influence other physical objects, including you. How do objective, external, nonphysical values accomplish this?