Interesting piece here from Spengler in Asia Times Online.
Spengler is commenting on a 1985 paper on ethics and the marketplace wiritten by then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI.
Spengler’s recurrent theme is “nihilism“:
The Europeans are paying for their own nihilism. Having invented the perfect post-Christian society with cradle-to-grave services, they have not found anyone willing to live in it, except for the immigrants who well may inherit it from the disappearing locals.
In this latest piece he applauds Ratzinger for identifying the moral emptiness of the market-driven, consumerist, low-birthrate society.
Underlying the crisis is the Western world’s repudiation of life, through a hedonism that puts consumption or “self-realization” ahead of child-rearing … Economics simply never has had to confront a situation in which the next generation simply failed to turn up.
It’s always tempting to respond to Papal scoldings about our reluctance to breed in the manner of a U.S. politician of forty years or so ago: “You no play-a da game, you no make-a da rules.” And the then-Cardinal does not seem (on Spengler’s account) to take up the issues that underlie the underlying issues Spengler claims he identified, e.g.
- Should the human race return to pre-modern levels of reproduction? Given the life-preserving powers of modern medicine, that would get you a generation-on-generation multiplier of four or five. So for each person alive today, there would be 256 or 625 alive four generations later, bringing the U.S. population to something in the range 80 to 200 billion. Is this a desirable goal?
- Given that the cratering of European birthrates has been most sensational in the most traditionally Catholic countries (Spain, Italy, Ireland), possibly the Catholic church may not be the most effective instrument for restoring demographic vitality.
- As Heather keeps pointing out, the connections between religiosity, social order, and moral behavior are, to put it mildly, not clear. The least religious state of the Union is Oregon, 18 percent of whose inhabitants declare themselves as having no religious affiliation. For murder (2007, per 100,000), births out of wedlock (1995, percentage), and persons living with AIDS (2007, per 100,000), Oregon’s stats are 1.9—28.9—76. The most religious state is Mississippi, with only four percent having no religious affiliation. Mississippi’s stats are 7.1—45.3—109. If it’s responsible, ethical behavior you want, religion may not help.
- How do you re-religionize a de-religioned populace? Ratzinger’s paper is a generation in the past, so obviously learned articles by eminent church intellectuals don’t help much. My guess would be that the one thing that does help is seriously hard times. “In good times you don’t burn incense; in bad times you hug Buddha’s foot,” say the Chinese, who know a
thing or two about bad times. Getting people to believe the things that you believe, when they currently don’t, is quite a trick. In our age, when the top three IQ quartiles, at least, have gotten used to legal and scientific standards of evidentiary demonstration, it isn’t easy. And if only the bottom quartile gets persuaded and starts pumping out kids, you get Idiocracy.
These are the dilemmas of our time. Certainly they are nontrivial. That Ratzinger’s paper, on Spengler’s acoount, offers any help, or even gives a full analysis, is not obvious to me.
Our economic order, like our political order, is built on the notion that if you get the structures right, self-interest will keep your system afloat, and the lower human instincts will be restrained, or at least will never go so unchecked as to sink the system. That’s a democratic ideal. It was appealing to the 18th century in part because of the horrors of the preceding age, when moral authoritarianism ruled.
Ratzinger’s position is — and must be, since he is a functionary in an authoritarian church — that a return to moral authoritarianism is what we need. (How these clerics hate the Enlightenment!) He also believes that his brand of moral authoritarianism, based on the “truths” of Christianity, is just the ticket. Those truths are a hard sell in a skeptical age, though; and Ratzinger does not, probably cannot, confront the fact that the 18th-century arrangements, the ones that got us where we are, were better, in every way, than the moral-authoritarian order that came before.
Those arrangements are throwing up problems now; but a return to the earlier, failed synthesis is neither desirable nor (probably) possible. We need to work on the structures, that’s all. Ratzinger’s notion that we should get everyone going to Mass and making babies, isn’t going to happen; and if it did, it would in very short order create problems far greater than those we now face.
Spengler is right, though, that the current economic system, as it applies in advanced countries, is based on some demographic assumptions that no longer apply. This needs figuring out.
My favorite article by Spenglar is the one he wrote for First Things as “David Shushon…a cultural historian and student of Jewish theology” describing how support of the state of Israel is one of the most important tenants of the Christian faith.
Regardless, the demographics thing is a problem. The most gloomy idea I’ve ever heard about the subject is that in the future we will adapt to civilization until we resemble the area of the globe that has had civilization the longest: The Middle East. Altruism may have made sense 10,000 years ago in the icy winters of Northern Europe. But now? Altruism is for suckers and genetic dead-enders. Nepotism and big man alpha politics is our future.
It is disappointing how much effort the human race puts into regulating the breeding habits of their pets while completely neglecting their own.
My folks, serious Catholics indeed, have taken a shine to this little parish nearby which performs the Tridentine Mass (i.e., pre-Vatican II style) on a regular basis. They’ve become friendly with the priests at this parish, and regularly have them over for dinner…including Thanksgiving dinner, sometimes.
Last Thanksgiving, during the regular rounds of liberal-bashing (fine), then Darwinist-bashing (not so fine, but you hold your tongue for civility’s sake), it came out that most of these priests at the church were political Monarchists.
I stopped eating, mid-bite. “Monarchist?” I asked, “as in, we should go back to having Kings, and not representative government?” The priests went on to patiently explain that yes, sometimes you need to save people from themselves, the masses do not know what is best for them, and that a (benevolent) Monarchy was really the best way to arrange our society.
So…I think Bradlaugh’s right in supposing that Razinger, et al. aren’t engaging in much more than wistful nostalgia when it comes to their prescriptions for what ails us.
One large reason the human race is no longer at pre-modern levels of reproduction is that it no longer uses pre-modern means of production — manual labour is simply not required as much in the developed world, and thus large numbers of offspring are no longer an economic benefit to a family, but actually a net drain on resources. It has long been recognized that one of the most effective contraceptives is prosperity. It is profoundly ironic that, in a long article that allegedly relies on economics, Spengler doesn’t bring up this fundamental economic point.
“The least religious state of the Union is Oregon […] The most religious state is Mississippi[.]”
If you want to figure out the relationship between religion and crime (as if there is one thing, “religion”), you might want to control for such things as racial demographics when comparing states. Try comparing Oregon and, say, Utah.
I don’t think the pro-natalists are saying that we should reproduce at the rate of pre-industrial societies. They believe that we should reproduce at or slightly above replacement rates. They are also talking mostly about the differential reproduction rates between developed and lesser developed economies. At least this is Mark Steyn’s shtick (“Spengler” is somewhat different).
Unless we do some kind of space colonization at some point in the future, we will sooner or later reach the maximum population capacity of the Earth. This limit is certainly higher than the greenie-types say it is. However, there is a finite limit to how many people the Earth can host (I think this is around 15 billion) and that at some point human society will adapt to a steady state population.
There is also the prospect of pro-longevity (radical life extension), which the pro-natal people like Spengler and Steyn seem to be blissfully ignorant of.
Beyond a critical point within a finite space, freedom diminishes as numbers increase. …The human question is not how many can possibly survive within the system, but what kind of existence is possible for those who do survive.
–Frank Herbert, Dune
If we converted the entire planet into a system for supporting humans and humans alone – probably sustained by algae grown in the oceans – we could fit a lot more than fifteen billion people onto the globe. But why would we want to?
How much would we be willing to destroy and lose in order to support even those fifteen billion?
How do you re-religionize a de-religioned populace? Ratzinger’s paper is a generation in the past, so obviously learned articles by eminent church intellectuals don’t help much.
The history of the Catholic Church in 19th century France might help out. Also, obviously religion is not a silver bullet solution; the Russian people are notionally way more religious than they were in the 1980s, but fertility has cratered in the post-Communist era.
I think that Mary Eberstadt is right: the more kids you have, the more religious you tend to be.
http://www.hoover.org/publications/policyreview/7827212.html
A-Bax: I’m not a big fan of monarchy, but there are some things it does better than more democratic forms. For one, When you know that in thirty years it is going to be either you or your children still in charge of the country, you care about the long term. People talk about the Bush family as a monarchy, but it isn’t at all. Both of them being elected was neither sequential nor even all that likely. If anything the Bush form of governing seems to be screw everything up and leave.
Anthony: Good point, although it does bring us to the question of whether crime is a factor of race, or one of poverty.
Kurt9: I would argue that we are already over capacity. It isn’t about how many people we can cram on the planet before cannibalism sets in. There are plenty of other environmental and elbow-room considerations. What is the long term benefit of having more people anyway? The only arguments I ever see for it are for short term economic gain, or in places like France where they are trying to having avoid their culture overrun by being out-bred by Muslims. I think they will find that you can’t screw your way out of your problems. Radical life extension will be offset by something, whether it is war, space travel, or sterilization is up to our policies now.
That would get you closer. Controlling for IQ would probably get you closer still.
Nice work, Derb/Bradlaugh.
As others here comment, your point about ever-extending lifetimes coupled with a return to high birthrates creating a very high total population argues for some sort of an “mortality-adjustment” factor when analyzing these “then vs. now” situations..
The graph used in the article tracks population percentages “under 4” and “over 65”. Given: A 2008 “under 4” is nowhere near as likely to perish before producing offspring as a 1909 “under 4”, and the 2009 (and all future) “over 65’s” will not be the non-productive cripples as were most 1909 “over 65’s”. So fewer and fewer “under 4’s” will be needed over time to maintain relatively the same net cultural and economic impact, and the “over” number should adjust up to reflect true relative productivity and mortality. So the distance between the two lines should be adjusted accordingly closer together, and thereby less scary and less supportive of Spengler and B16.
There! All fixed.
I am not following this discussion. Spengler has identified a set of problems (e.g., reproduction below replacement level) ing fairly neutral and secular criteria, and a set of solutions which are not explicit religious (i.e., the need for belief in transcendent moral truths), to which Bradlaugh’s response is to attack the Catholic Church. This seems to smack more of anti-clericalism, i.e., banning religious figures from public participation, than of a demand for secular reason.
Spengler’s article was quite interesting and I sort of agree with all of it except the conclusion. It is very well reasoned but when Derb puts up the hard facts that make nonsense of all the assumptions upon which is is based, it all falls to pieces.
Uh, y81, did you read Spengler’s article? In his last paragraph, he writes:
“Ethics founded on religion are the precondition for long-term economic success, if for no other reason than economies depend on family formation.”
So, Spengler’s proposed solution IS explicitly religious, it would seem. Also, I don’t see anything in Bradlaugh’s post that would indicate he favors “banning religious figures from public participation”. To the contrary, here he is actively engaging religious figures (and writers) on the very substance of their proposals! (He may disagree, but “banning”?)
Best,
y81: You are a paranoid nutso. I’m a blogger in an attic. I have no power to ban anyone from anything, and have never said I wanted to anyway (I don’t). As for anti-clericalism: this blog is called “Secular Right,” duh.
This is an interesting point, often made by anti-religionists:
“The least religious state of the Union is Oregon, 18 percent of whose inhabitants declare themselves as having no religious affiliation. For murder (2007, per 100,000), births out of wedlock (1995, percentage), and persons living with AIDS (2007, per 100,000), Oregon’s stats are 1.9—28.9—76. The most religious state is Mississippi, with only four percent having no religious affiliation. Mississippi’s stats are 7.1—45.3—109. If it’s responsible, ethical behavior you want, religion may not help.”
Fair enough. But the big question is, would Mississippi’s stats *improve* if one were to reduce religious belief there, while holding all else (e.g., educational attainment, ethnic balance, etc.) equal? And, contrariwise, would Oregon’s stats *decline* if one were to increase religious belief there, while holding all else (see above) equal?
Personally, I’d guess that the correct answer to both questions would be a resounding NO.
Oregon is absolutely jammed with well educated European-Americans who can keep chugging along for quite a while on their accumulated cultural capital, long after they’ve abandoned the religious underpinning thereof – kind of like Scandinavia.
Mississippi, on the other hand, is absolutely jammed with poorly educated African-Americans who desperately need to accumulate precisely that sort of cultural capital. And where are they going to get it, if not from Christianity?
Long story short: I suspect that if Oregonians got more religious, they would get even nicer. And if Mississippians got less religious, they would get even nastier.
More briefly: Christianity is stronger in Mississippi than it is in Oregon because they *need* it more there.
I suspect that if Oregonians got more religious, they would get even nicer.
There are plenty of regions of Oregon which are very religious and conservative. It’s an extremely polarized state. I didn’t note a big difference in “niceness” personally (having lived in both 75% Republican half Mormon and 75% Democrat and mostly unchurched towns), though liberal secularists can be a bit cloying in their efforts to show their multiculturalism while conservative religionists do have some basal level of racial prejudice. So it might be wise to point out that “niceness” can often be constrained to people perceived as your ingroup. Religious Muslims can be very nice…if you are a religious Muslim.
It’s complicated, and the ideologues get tiresome.
all else (e.g., educational attainment, ethnic balance, etc.) equal?
Also, I think that the “all else equal” assumption is just too abstract in this case. On the margins it seems likely that a hyper-religious society is really difficult to maintain when you have a modicum of affluence and personal liberty; ask the New England Puritans. Similarly, I doubt there will ever be a situation where atheism would flourish among contexts of intense economic stress (though if you have a working class in a wealthy society who feels that the church is on the side of power and privilege, anti-clericalism can emerge).
Paranoid nutso? I’m a lawyer with degrees from fancier universities than you dream of. But I don’t have to read your blog or think about anything you say ever again, and I won’t.
BTW, it seems that within societies the religious have more children. But the cross-cultural data between societies is way more mixed (crunch the data from the Eurobarometer survey, you’ll see what I mean. Speaking as someone who has actually looked at the data). So it seems likely increased religiosity would increase fertility, ceteris paribus, but the fact that secular Sweden has way higher TFR than religious Greece, shows how much other parameters matter.
I’m a lawyer with degrees from fancier universities than you dream of.
Well, perhaps, but that makes you sound like you’re 15.
More briefly: Christianity is stronger in Mississippi than it is in Oregon because they *need* it more there.
Steve, I didn’t know you thought like an economist! 🙂
DH writes:
“conservative religionists do have some basal level of racial prejudice.”
Really? Do you base that statement on adverse experiences with right-wing Christians in Oregon?
Shame on them.
I would assume prejudice has less to do with Christianity than other factors. My only point is that I’d probably marginally say my experiences suggested more “niceness” in the secular than religious town. It works that both towns are about the same size too, and 98% white to boot. And FWIW, the religious town was half Mormon. Portland itself is famous for being like a town, and not a city.
Hey, DH, if I thought like an economist, would I be dead broke, just now?
Oh…wait…
y81, that was the funniest thing I read all day. Thanks for a laugh.
Bradlaugh, please don’t chase away all the paranoid nutso’s. A few in the mix keeps the discussion animated.
DH, intrigued by your comment about the Church in 19th century France. Any particular articles you recommend on it that are online?
Does the argument for religion as a precondition to moral, law-abiding behavior run somewhat as follows: high levels of crime and anti-social behavior among the religious do not undercut the claimed efficacy of religion in restraining moral behavior, law-abiding behavior among the religious does show the relation between belief and ethical behavior, and law-abiding behavior among the non-religious also does not weaken the relationship between faith and good conduct. This may be a perfectly respectable position, once the various possibilities for regression analysis are taken into account, but I’m just wondering if there’s somewhat of a heads-I-win, tails-you-lose quality to the argument.
@steve burton Mississippi, on the other hand, is absolutely jammed with poorly educated African-Americans who desperately need to accumulate precisely that sort of cultural capital. And where are they going to get it, if not from Christianity?
I don’t know the numbers, but the conventional wisdom is that African Americans are generally more religious than whites. You seem to be suggesting that there is some other cultural baggage that slows them down and the best solution is more religion, even though that was not the path taken by Oregonians. How much more religion do they need to catch up?
This reminds me of prosperity gospel – if you’re not rich yet it’s because you’re not praying hard enough.
The thing that holds birthrates down, IMO, is government guaranteed retirement pensions. The big incentive for big families is that you have a better chance that someone will take care of you in your old age. Well, if nanny gov’t is there to see to that, then why cramp your younger adult years with kids, unless you particularly like dealing with them? In western societies, kids have been reduced to the status of luxury items.
I believe someone has demonstrated, though I have no time to look it up, that a big determinant of birth rate in advanced countries is provision of child-care services.
Probably the biggest thought revolution of modern times was the idea that women can, and should, be educated and employed on the same basis as men.
The study I am vaguely remembering argued that the Nordic welfare states were much better at this than the old Catholic nations, I forget why, and that this accounted for the differentials in fertility.
On those differentials, the CIA World factbook gives total fertility rates as follows: Spain-Italy-Portugal-Ireland 1.3-1.3-1.49-1.85, versus Sweden-Norway-Finland-Denmark 1.67-1.78-1.73-1.74. In the cases of Denmark and Ireland there are big immigrant populations skewing the numbers, but there does seem to be something going on there.
Socialized daycare could account for the differentials between the range of 1.3-something and 1.7something, but it doesn’t explain the difference between 1.anything and 3-5.anything.
Caledonian and Steel Phoenix,
My estimates for the maximum sustainable population comes from the following website, which I consider to be the best, by far, discussion on the issue of resource limits.
http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/progress/
You will note that I did not say that it was desirable to increase global population to 15 billion. I just said that we could do this and not run out of any resources (except for petroleum) necessary for advanced, technological civilization.
However, back to my original point. The “pro-natalists” are not into wildly increased birth rates. They are simply making the case for a birth rate that is at or very slightly above the population replacement rate. This is not an unreasonable argument.
The single best piece I have seen on the net about economics of having kids in the U.S. is Steve Sailor’s Affordable Family Formation (he really needs to write his book on this – it would sell at least as well as “Freakonomics”). The price of most manufactured goods as well as travel has decreased relative to real wages over the past 30 years. However, the cost of housing, education, and health care relative to real wages has gone up dramatically in the past 30 years. One experiences the cost of these three areas much more if you have kids than if you do not. Thus, for economics reasons alone as well as the opportunity cost trade-off of maximizing one’s fulfillment of life, many people are choosing not to have kids at all.
I have pointed out the issue of Affordable Family Formation (AFF) to “Spengler” on several occasions on his boards. For reasons not clear to me, he does not seem responsive to the issue of AFF.
Except for three things:
1) Crop diversity,
2) Domestic animal diversity, and
3) Ecological diversity
People often don’t realize that ecologies routinely perform tasks that would be ruinously expensive if we were to try to complete them ourselves, or even beyond our technological capacity to carry out. It’s in our own self-interest to keep ecologies healthy, and it is completely beyond our ability to do so with the people we already have, even in the technologically advanced and wealthy parts of the First World.
Ms MacDonald:
(1) I don’t think that anybody worth taking seriously would argue that religion is a “precondition” for moral, law-abiding behavior.
(2) Bradlaugh has quoted statistics that demonstrate “high levels of crime and anti-social behavior” in states with high levels of religious belief. But such statistics do *not* obviously demonstrate relatively “high levels of crime and anti-social behavior *among the religious*” in such states, do they?
If such statistics exist, I’d love to see them.
(3) Based purely on (lots of) personal experience, I would not look forward to the decline of Christian belief amongst poor African-Americans in places like Mississippi.
I mean, what are the available alternatives? Would it be better for them to grow up on an unmixed diet of hip-hop stars?
Except for three things:
1) Crop diversity,
2) Domestic animal diversity, and
3) Ecological diversity
These points are overrated from an economics point of view. As an outdoors person who likes being away from people, I certainly appreciate the third one, ecological diversity. But its more of an aesthetics choice than an economic one.
I think biotechnological advances will eliminate the need for land-based farming (not to mention animal husbandry). Certainly a much higher population would drive the development of such technology.
In any case, I agree with you that the population we have today is high enough. We don’t need it to be any higher. The changes in fertility that “Spengler” and others comment about will certainly limit future population growth.
Reader Steve Burton writes: “I don’t think that anybody worth taking seriously would argue that religion is a ‘precondition’ for moral, law-abiding behavior.”
Phew! Then we can close up this blog and go back to our respective fields.
But my impression is certainly the opposite. Just two recent examples. Dinesh D’Souza concluded a speech this September at Hillsdale’s College National Leadership Seminar in Colorado Springs (yes, there) with the warning that the “eradication of Christianity–and of organizaed religion in general–would also mean the gradual extinction of the principles of human dignity.”
Michael Novak in No One Sees God: “think of the burdens that slide off one’s shoulders just by becoming an atheist. It’s a helluva temptation.”
It used to be a commmonplace that religion was necessary for morality. Unitarian John Adams
said: statesmen “may plan and speculate for Liberty, but it is Religion and Morality alone, which can establish the Principles upon which Freedom can securely stand.” http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/religion/rel06.html and if I remember rightly wrote at length on that idea.
Ms. MacDonald:
I don’t think there can be serious disagreement with the statement attributed to D’Souza. The statement speaks not of any particular individual but of general attitudes exhibited by large numbers.
For a great many, though certainly not all, a principal at-least-partial determinant of their behavior is the composite of whatever may be their personal convictions with regard to “higher authority” combined with the belief that a great many of their own social contemporaries share a general similar belief. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to appreciate that Pascal’s wager presents no overarching truth but the plain fact is that plenty see in it nothing more than “good common sense.”
Further (and as I’ve mentioned before in other comment) we have whatever we know of history and contemporary observation pointing in the same direction. The fact that we know of no specific ancient societies built around non-belief should incline toward a suspicion that, if any such existed, they were unable to survive (for reasons open to conjecture). Further, more or less contemporary societies deliberately so constructed would seem to’ve been, ultimately, more nihilistic and rationally genocidal (apart from being economically “suicidal”) than anything ever imputed to the social operation of religious belief.
There are many sources of conflict (and potential conflict) between people and among those we may certainly include diversity in belief system. But the progress of civilization has been one of increasing recognition of the superiority of conflict-reduction through toleration and cooperation rather than through annihilation and conversion—to such extent that expansionist Islam seems the last generally-acknowledged barrier to significant further progress. (I don’t include here the left/right schism, that between collectivist and individualist prescriptions for the “better society” because I am personally convinced such divergence doesn’t depend ultimately on faith-based belief but is, rather, amenable to scientific scrutiny ultimately capable of resolution favoring individualism and, thus, its ideologic dominance (though I’m also not going to hold my breath).
Michael Novak in No One Sees God: “think of the burdens that slide off one’s shoulders just by becoming an atheist. It’s a helluva temptation.”
I think that speaks volumes about Novak’s own belief system and psychological make-up. In fact, I would argue that the logical conclusion of Novak’s assertion is that he’s obviously borderline clinically sociopathic.
We know of no ancient societies that weren’t built around slavery, but I take it that you don’t think this fact suggests a re-organization of our current economic practices. The utility of historical examples is greatly determined by the ceteris paribus conditions, and it is arguable that, with universal education, mass communication, democracy, and thousands of years of philosophy, the ceteris between the US and “ancient societies” is definitely not paribus.
“I don’t think there can be serious disagreement with the statement attributed to D’Souza [‘eradication of Christianity–and of organizaed religion in general–would also mean the gradual extinction of the principles of human dignity.’]. The statement speaks not of any particular individual but of general attitudes exhibited by large numbers.”
I would posit a serious disagreement with that statement for it supposes that “human dignity” is a uniquely religious and specifically Christian concept. One needs only to point out the manner in which religious people have asserted specifically religious reasons to mistreat other humans and to rob them of their human dignity – from heretics to apostates; from people who work on the “sabbath” to homosexuals, etc., etc., etc. – to conclude that the supposition at the heart of D’Souza’s assertion is worthless and, with it, his thesis is exposed as false.
Apropos of the back and forth between Heather and Steve Burton (two of my favorite conservative writers…I’m hopelessly torn between smart religious conservatives and smart secular conservatives) is this post by Will Wilkinson, citing a book called “Society Without God”:
http://www.willwilkinson.net/flybottle/2008/11/09/why-are-american-atheists-less-happy-and-cooperative/
It would be fun to read some thoughts on the book from this website’s contributors.
@ Gene Berman: So, are you a proponent of the Strauss/Plato “noble lie” formulation? Because I doubt D’Souza would consider it a *lie*.
Further, Grant Canyon touches upon the ability for religious convictions to amplify negative behavior as well as positive. So, if you want to argue that religion is a “precondition” for moral behavior, you open yourself up to the counter-claim that, by similar reasoning, religion can be thought of as a “precondition” for immoral behavior as well.
Is it a wash, net-net? I don’t know if we have enough data to really say, but that’s the working hypothesis that Bradlaugh and Hume endorse, and it seems reasonable to me.
On a different note,
I ‘ve always wondered the same sort of thing. “borderline clinically sociopathic” may be a bit of an embellishment, but I see what you’re getting at. Religious apologists often seem to think that the only thing keeping us in line morally is a Big-Brother type Sky-God who is watching our every move and keeping score. So that, if it turns out there is no such watchful figure then hey, why not just rape and pillage all day long?
I see two serious flaws in this kind of implicit reasoning that the Michael Novaks of the world use:
1) It undermines their standard claim that moral behavior based on theism is in any way more “noble”, or “higher” than the sorts of self-interested, transactional morality they typically deride. Instead, their religious beliefs (with ETERNAL pleasure or ETERNAL damnation awaiting us), is really the most base form of behavioral-bribery you can imagine. (“Don’t do X”, not because it’s *wrong*, but because you’ll suffer greatly, etc.)
The phrase “God-fearing” in this context is very telling.
2) Conversely, it sort of gives up the moral high-ground to those who DO attempt to live a moral live WITHOUT the promise of everlasting reward or the threat of everlasting torment.
The *moral* thing to do, as even theists tell us, is to follow the prescriptions of right and wrong without regard to self-interest (more or less). So, the non-believer who attempts to act in a moral way is ipso facto more worthy of our admiration than a believer, as the former rejects cosmic punishment-reward systems, while the latter must (at least) contend with their supposed existence. (I.e., am I refraining from cheating on my wife because it’s *wrong* or because I’ll be *punished*? Etc.
Eric:
You are quite correct. Carefully contemplative individuals of Adams’ day were quite right–for their time. They saw that a certain amount of (usually) religiously-inspired morality was highly correlated with the
peaceful, industrious, prosperous and happy society. Such men (and they would have been among the keenest observers and thinkers of their day) were of much the same mind, to the extent that, although many may have had their own doubts as to the existence of supernatural authority, they mostly thought it better to let “sleeping dogs lie” in the interest of preserving what were obviously favorable social developments; those harboring doubts had nothing better (nor even as good) to offer in the way of an “organizing principle” for society.
In Adams’ time, the science of Economics could well have been said to have been just lately “discovered.” Malthus and Adam Smith had written and were respected but the concept of any regularity in the phenomena of the market were dimly (if at all) appreciated. Ricardo had not yet appeared on the scene, so even such an organizing principle of behavior as what he was to call the Law of Costs (pertaining to agricultural land) had appeared on no horizon. Indeed, the law is called, throughout modern Economics, “The Law of Comparative Advantage” and is widely recognized and taught.
But the seminal event in the young science did not occur until nearly halfway through the 19th century, when was discovered the exclusively subjective nature of what people had (from time immemorial) called “value” or “worth” and believed to inhere in the things valued, whatever they might be. And, of 3 men who made the discovery independently, only one, Karl Menger, of Austria (therefore, “The Austrian School”) made the step-by-step inferences which resulted in the concept of “marginal utility” underlying all modern studies of economics, honored more or less in the breach by all except those who originally followed Menger and whose most modern exponent is Mises (d. 1973). Mises referred to Ricardo’s law by the more comprehensive term “Law of Association”; he and his followers (of whom I am one) see quite clearly that the same law explaining the rent of differing pieces of agricultural land underpins also all that is specifically human in the behavior (called “action”)of men and, moreover, is the basis (indeed congrous and congeneric) with what we call “civilization.”
Tulse:
Whether intentional or not, yours is a cobbling together of straw-man arguments.
With respect to slavery, we are aware of various societies in which it was not present. And, of some in which it was certainly present in one or another form, it was not necessarily in the form of what is called “chattel slavery.” In no wise nor form did I attempt to justify ANY specific practice merely on the ground of prior existence–only to point out that its traceability to older practice at least lent some
evidentiary plausibility to its survivability.
I could, as well, ask if you don’t think it’s better to enslave people you’ve conquered than simply to butcher them–huh? Because, at some point, that was a choice certainly available to both the conqueror (and the conqueree, too–hard to prevent suicide). And the fact that the simplest human grouping are likely to exhibit certain hegemonic bonds cannot be taken as some prima facie evidence that “slavery” was a necessary organizing principle of the earliest societies.
Neither you nor I (nor anyone) know enough about historical circumstances to make any more than the admittedly vague generalizations through which I’ve attempted to make some points capable of common agreement. I could, however, offer various evidence that, as a broad generality, slavery was hardly ever “profitable” as an economic basis of society. Further, I would have to express that I am “glad” that humans discovered some apparent advantage in the practice (as, otherwise, many of the ancestors from whom we are descended might not have had the opportunity of begetting us; some African-Americans might even count themselves lucky to have had ancestors enslaved and brought to America where their descendents would live in freedom and propsperity compared with the likliest alternatives).
The fact is that slavery has never proved successful as an organizing social principle when in competition with individual freedom, whether full or partial. Whether or not you recognize it, slavery doesn’t “pay.”
It wouldn’t surprise me, for example, to learn that the ancient Egyptians came to a sort of realization of that fact and simply decided to unburden themselves of the Israelites in their midst.
“It wouldn’t surprise me, for example, to learn that the ancient Egyptians came to a sort of realization of that fact and simply decided to unburden themselves of the Israelites in their midst.”
Given that there is zero evidence of this supposed Egyptian captivity, such a discovery would be doubly surprising…
A-Bax:
I don’t know who Strauss is except I assume reference is to someone followed by what are called “neocons.” I have virtually no education in such matters except an allusion or three picked up in casual reading on this and other blogs. I don’t know to what the “noble lie” refers and what Plato might have had to say about it. Now, if you’re talking about the bull-session dilemma posed by a man intent on murder who asks you whether his intended victim ran to the left or the right–I can tell you very definitely that I’d try to mislead (or otherwise deter) the guy. Whether that’s “noble” or not, I cannot say. Lying is something that all people do, most somewhat frequently, for many different reasons and it is a skill that is learned progressively from very shortly after being born. As I’ve expressed before, every man is the best liar of whom he is personally aware.
I do not know just who believes in the supernatural tenets of any religion. All I can say of my belief is that I have no such beliefs and that I suspect that most who share my non-belief are truthful in that representation. Conversely, I believe that very many who profess belief in a supernatural order do so falsely (for a variety of reasons) and that the degree of (false claiming of belief) such increases generally with intelligence. I am persuaded that a very high degree of falsely-expressed belief is prevalent precisely among those who exist as leaders of one sort or another, including religious leaders themselves. If I were to guess at the motivation for such false representation, I’d posit not only something akin to my own toleration for belief dissimilar to my own (that it has a general favorable moral effect on those who “need it”), that it is, in some respects, a “membership card” to certain desired social groupings without whose approbation the falsifier cannot comfortably exist, and finally (but by no means insignificantly) it has “cash value” either as a paid hierarch, a remunerated writer on such subjects, etc., or as a businessman or tradesman dependent on the custom of the believing set.
To address your other concern: in no wise have I said or implied that religious belief was a precondition for any behavior, moral or otherwise.
Specifically, I’m of the unprovable opinion that morality (systems of behavior) is logically and temporally precedent to religion and that religion itself (and religious leaders) is a response mechanism to the observable difficulty inherent in enforcement of moral codes. And, as I’ve attempted originally to express, it is not clear at all by any means that the progression of society could have ever been achieved by other means (and that is quite apart from whether or not I support barbarism of one or another sort in the furtherance of particular “religious” objectives).