As a follow up to John’s post clarifying his identity, it’s no secret to anyone who has noted my unartful charts that I am Razib Khan. I chose “David Hume” as my identity because I think with the religious grounding of the modern American Right people often forget the secular individuals who are part of the tradition’s intellectual lineage, e.g., F. A. Hayek, and the aforementioned H. L. Mencken. My normal brief is life science, and I have very little interest in commenting too much on contemporary politics. But, I do consider myself on the Right, and as you can see I have a fixation on using the GSS to clarify opinions on social issues. Far too many believe they can introspect and extrapolate from their own reasoning to others, and that leads to error. Finally, I would like to add a quick “cut-out” which distills some of my thinking on the various taxa being discussed here:
The Secular Left asks, why not?
The Secular Right asks, why?
The Religious Left demands that we should, “Because god wills it!”
The Religious Right asserts that we can’t, “Because god forbids it!”
These are admittedly cut-outs. My point is that human psychology is at the root of our reasoning. That psychology emerges from a synthesis of innate presuppositions, socialization and random-acts-of-fate. Most people who believe X may believe Y, but we need to keep in mind the residual. To a great extent, the Secular Right is a residual, if not a trivial one. Most of the non-religious are on the Left.
“Most of the non-religious are on the Left.”
All too true. And many of us within the secular right often downplay our views in order to get along with our political allies.
Even the left pays a lot of lip service to religion (in the USA); has there ever been a serious candidate for POTUS that has declared himself non-religious?
Ed,
Remember that the founding fathers up to Monroe were all rather heterodox. And we’ve had Unitarian presidents as late as Taft. Religious orthodoxy, or its appearance, as a necessary precondition for high office is a relatively new phenomenon (this is not to deny that Jefferson was accused of being a heathen, but his opponent John Adams was an anti-Trinitarian Christian! So Rod Dreher et al. wouldn’t consider either of the candidates in 1800 Christian).
Additionally, these two assertions are not in contradiction:
The probability of someone being liberal if they are an atheist is high
The probability of someone being a theist if they are liberal is high
How do I apply for blogging privileges?
Obama is the son and grandson of Unitarian/Universalists.
I wouldn’t doubt that that is still his actual religion — throughout his life Obama has been widely noted for his ability to hide his true thoughts and feelings from everyone around him.
Here’s a question.
How did the Unitarians become the religion of the Left?
John Adams’ actual church is today a shrine of Leftist activism, where any sign of a God almost doesn’t exit. They are worshiping the idol of leftist politically correct activism.
Obama’s mother went to what was call “the little Red Church” on the hill — a left wing Unitarian/Universalist church on Mercer Island, WA.
When did the church of Adams become the church of Rousseau and Bellamy and Goldman and Jane Fonda and Code Pink?
Any good histories on this?
Taft was President quite a while ago. Less than 1% of the adult population has a memory of that presidency.
Along these same lines Mrs. Ben Bradley has a columnherf=”http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/21/AR2008112102649.html in Saturday’s Washpo advising BHO to attend services at the (self proclaimed) “National” cathedral. The general tone suggests that a president must be — or appear to be — religious because … well … because he must.
The GSS link is malformed.
Personally, I think the problem is with empiricism. (And, I should probably add that I HATE David Hume!) Nevertheless, I guess I am on the secular right — kind of libertarian, but perhaps a little “statist” according to them… yadda yadda yadda.
The whole problem is with what Hayek called “scientism”, and it stands in the tradition of David Hume. It is the idea that philosophy, particularly moral philosophy, should be replaced with something more “scientific”. This notion of trying to turn everything into a science (which, again, is quite specifically what David Hume was trying to do with moral philosophy) has taken a number of very critical subjects completely out of the sphere of inquiry that they belong in. Specifically, moral and political philosophy have been quite nonsensically relegated to such approaches as psychology or economics when they belong with a priori philosophical pursuits.
What we really need is a much larger paradigm shift than just the possibility of “scientific” morality (which has caused the crumbling of western society since about 1800 — not even a century after it was introduced). We need to realize (or really just remember) that our science will never be able to do our philosophy for us. That will always beg the question. (Which, no doubt, is why it is such an effective and long standing tool of the left.)
Instead of reclaiming science from the left and employing it for good conservative uses, we need to (not embrace religion, but…) ring in a new era of rational, *non-scientific* thought. We need to return to our Platonic roots, reclaim math from scientism and especially from such vulgarities as engineering and business, and set moral and political philosophy on the same level as mathematics all together as one coherent rationalist philosophy. That is not to say that we should not do science empirically, but we should not err in the other direction of trying to do philosophy or math empirically, as well.
While ultimately a persons ethical axioms cannot be derived scientifically, ounce the axioms are introduced the scientific method should play the primary role in determining how to achieve the normative goals of the previously determined moral philosophy. In other words, I cannot scientifically justify utilitarianism, but I can use the scientific method to determine which behaviors would result in the maximization of happiness and the minimization of suffering.
@Adrian
So you are saying that we should make morality as removed from human concerns as possible by making it abstract, distant, and mathematical? I think that’s absurd. Ethics cannot be derived from thin air like mathematics (although I would argue that simple mathematics is a posteriori).
What is the good life, what matters, how ought we act are questions of human agents. If you try to explain them using obtuse logic constructs you get something that has is arbitrary, having no rational basis in human agency.
@Adrian
I am very much a fan of Hayek and just wanted to mention that his Scientism is not what you’re talking about. It does not say anything about philosophy or moral philosophy; he refers to the way social sciences–especially economics and psychology–try to ape the physical sciences in their standards of precision and perhaps their positivism. Although I like your point about how some on the left beg the moral question.
@Adrian
Although I’m kind of a jerk for mentioning it, because now that I think about it, Hayek does talk about other things that are almost identical to what you’re saying. Sorry.
Adrian,
You do know, I assume, that your assertion “We need to realize (or really just remember) that our science will never be able to do our philosophy for us. That will always beg the question,” is every bit as question begging as any assertion of scientism in the field of moral philosophy. What the province of a priori philosophy legitimately is is not something that someone with a dog in the fight (as you most obviously have) can propound on without independent argument. Jumping up and down and citing the Rationalist glory days of Plato, Descartes, Spinoza, or even Kant isn’t an argument. The Humeans can cite interesting research programs on many fronts of naturalisation (morals, knowledge, function, etc.); what, absent a longing for something ‘left out’ (which is suspiciously never ennunciated clearly) can the Rationalist rear guard point to? But hey, maybe I just need to think about What It’s Like to Be a Rationalist harder.