Clark of Mormon Metaphysics points to this screed by Peter Lawler over at Postmodern Conservative by way of praising Atheist Delusions: The Christian Revolution and Its Fashionable Enemies. Lawler asserts:
… It begins as a criticism of the naive stupidity of the “new atheists” such as Hitchens, Dawkins, and Dennett from the perspective of the older atheist Nietzsche. The new atheists criticize religion (or basically Christianity) from an anti-cruelty, pro-dignity, pro-rights, pro-enlightenment perspective. They don’t realize that their humane values are, in fact, parasitic on Christianity and make no sense outside the Christian insight–completely unsupported by modern or Darwinian science–concerning the uniqueness and irreplacability of every human person. Nietzsche was right that secular Christianity or Christianity without Christ is unsustainable, and that the sentimental preferences of the new atheists are no more than that.
I have been blogging for 7 years now, and the whole time I have made it clear that I am an atheist. My readers who are orthodox Christians have often asserted that Nietzsche is the only true consistent and honest atheist, that only his atheism faces the plain facts of existence in a world without God, and that I should man up. Though the author of Atheist Delusions is an Eastern Orthodox theologian and philosopher, Lawler reports that his criticism of the New Atheists starts from a Nietzschian perspective. All I have to say is that homey don’t play that game. Friedrich Nietzsche was the product of a line of Lutherans pastors, so it should not surprise that his atheism engages so directly, and inverts so forcefully, the thrust of Christianity. As philosophy goes much of what Nietzsche had to say was captivating, but then I also find science fiction captivating, as well as some portions of the Bible.
The atheism of Nietzsche plays on the terms of Christianity, and that is why Christians often admire his work. It is entirely intelligible to them insofar as it operates in the same universe of morals, albeit characterized by inversions. So naturally Christians castigate atheists who are not Nietzschians, such a stance creates much greater difficulty in fashioning rhetorical thrusts. Too many presuppositions simply are not aligned. Where Lawler and many others declare that Christianity is a necessary precondition of humane values, I simply assert that humane values, or more accurately the values we hold today, used Christianity, as well as other religions and philosophies, as cultural vessels. Morality and ethics existed prior to religion, and the emergence of “Higher Religions” which fused a moral sense with supernatural intuitions was a process which occurred in the light of history. It was no miracle, and may even have been inevitable once humans reached a particular level of organization.
Of course this sort of argument leaves many loose ends hanging. So be it. Those who believe that they have the Ultimate answer do not, and yet we continue to muddle on.
I don’t see how Nietzsche’s philosophy can be characterized as a mere inversion of Christian morality; this assertion needs more support. As you know there are a few of your fellow Takimag alternative conservatives who subscribe to a Nietzsche view. It’s not clear whether you are distancing from merely the style, or the conclusions of Nietzsche. Would you elaborate?
Is it merely that you have no interest in being a “Superman” and are content to go with the flow, that is just a matter of personal taste?
Lawler hit the nail right on the head. If you can’t see how Nietzsche has refuted the ideology of Secular Right, then that says more about your own ability to read Nietzsche than about Nietzsche himself. If you and Heather Mac Donald have an answer to Nietzsche’s critique of the “freethinkers” at Secular Right (sorry, the sneer quotes are Nietzche’s, not mine), you’ve sure kept it a secret. At Secular Right, Nietzsche’s thought goes not just unrefuted, but entirely unaddressed. And no, your current post does not address Nietzsche’s critique; it ignores it. Just for starters, the stuff you write above about “humane values…the values we hold today” is torn apart in Beyond Good and Evil 186. Any rational defense of “the values we hold today” would have to address that problem, the problem or morality as such.
The strongest arguments against Secular Right (measured by your own standards) come from the secular right, not from the religious. I’m talking about the negative arguments, the arguments against Enlightenment moral philosophy, whatever one may think of the positive arguments made in favor of some alternate morality. Thinkers like Nietzsche have already ripped your faith-based claims to shreds more than a century ago, but Secular Right is too busy arguing against some uneducated hick preachers to pay any attention to its serious critics.
look, we just don’t take each other seriously. what are you going to do about it? if you think i’m the type who thinks i need to jot down all the rationalizations for morality you’ve got the wrong man. i know as much about the foundations for these sorts of things as a christian, not much.
I don’t see how Nietzsche’s philosophy can be characterized as a mere inversion of Christian morality
i didn’t say mere. there’s a lot there. i focused on one aspect which i think christians are trying to leverage.
and this post has nothing to do with takimag, where views on these sorts of questions are pretty diverse from what i can tell. i’m just really tired of christians telling me what i should believe if i’m not going to be a christian.
Morality and ethics existed prior to religion
This is a very fallacious argument. The assertion is not that morality could not exist prior to ethical monotheism, but that only ethical monotheim provides adequate rational justification for acting morally. That may be wrong, but temporal sequence doesn’t seem to be particularly relevant to its truth or falsity.
Furthermore, you seem to labour under the impression that the mere existence of moral sentiments and moral reasoning implies some obligation to follow them. Not to mention the fact that not everyone has moral sentiments.
David Hume, here you basically pass on engaging Nietzsche, saying you’re not interested, which of course is fine, but i think ‘just because you’re not interested in Nietzsche’s critique of morality doesn’t mean it’s not interested in you’ …
a lot of the Christian values that you appreciate, even without the God who gives them binding power, are as you imply, rooted in evolutionary psychology … the “humane values” you speak of, many of them pity-based, have their precursors in apes.
but there are a lot of moralities that, for example, exalt hardness over pity. (I believe that Western civilization needs such a non-christian morality to survive, but that’s another topic).
the idea that every human being has certain inalienable rights, which is a foundational tenet of the past few hundred years, and implicit in all modern politics, is by no means a ‘human universal,’ and if you believe in things like ‘human dignity,’ that, e.g., ‘slavery is inherently wrong’ etc., I wonder if you appreciate the extent to which that is Christian socialization. Morality deals with “ought” – and evolution has guaranteed that different humans will have different “oughts” that feel right to them. (One reason why homogenous countries ‘work’ better). Nietzsche basically ranked moralities with respect to how well they promote the strengthening of man. Other moralities have other goals…
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“What then is truth? A movable host of metaphors, metonymies, and; anthropomorphisms: in short, a sum of human relations which have been poetically and rhetorically intensified, transferred, and embellished, and which, after long usage, seem to a people to be fixed, canonical, and binding. Truths are illusions which we have forgotten are illusions- they are metaphors that have become worn out and have been drained of sensuous force, coins which have lost their embossing and are now considered as metal and no longer as coins.”
From Lawler’s collection of false statements: “Our creation by a personal Creator explains better human freedom, love, and creativity…”
And what explains the creation of the “personal Creator?”
All I’m going to do about it is, when you and (especially) Heather Mac Donald make arguments that were already famously refuted over a century ago, maybe sometimes I’ll point that out. Or sometimes maybe not. This is just the comment section of a blog, so, whatever.
But as one of the commenters noted, even if you’re not interested in Nietzsche, Nietzsche really is interested in you. You, Secular Right, and not the religious, are the target of many of Nietzsche’s strongest attacks. The warring parties in this modern free-for-all cleave along various ancient lines. From some perspectives you and Heather Mac Donald are on the side of Christian humanists fighting against Nietzsche and other antihumanists (Derbyshire?), with the antihumanists including both atheists and Christians. The fight is actually much more interesting than Secular Right acknowledges.
I understood by the way that you were not claiming to have a rational foundation for morality. (Heather Mac Donald does seem to claim that there is such a thing – morality, and a rational foundation for it – though she’s never hinted at what it might be.) But BGE 186, which is an attack on Enlightenment moral philosophy, applies just as well to what you are claiming: that “morality” (which one?) will survive the end of Christianity.
@Aaron
Show off with your propaganda moron!
Bollocks (as usual), the iterated prisoner’s dilemma provides perfectly adequate rational justification for acting morally without any metaphysics whatsoever.
Dame Iris Murdoch makes a lengthy case in Metaphysics as a Guide to Morals, 1994 before succumbing to alzheimers. Critics would probably argue after.
http://www.amazon.com/Metaphysics-Guide-Morals-Penguin-Philosophy/dp/0140172327/ref=pd_bxgy_b_text_b
Robert Pirsig of Zen/Motorcycle fame expanded and attempted to counter the critics in his second book, Lila: An Inquiry Into Morals, 1992.
Murdoch is lent some credibility and weight, probably given imprimatur in a bookstore’s philosophy section. Discounted Pirsig, probably in the New Age category. Reading both excursions into moral philosophy back-to-back around the time of publishing the intersections were more than coincidental, often remarkable, and iirc sometimes shocking.
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Nietzsche was a syphilitic madman. I see no reason to consider anything he had to say.
In any case, all of this is just sophistry, nothing more. Religion, ideology, and philosophy is really just sophistry used to justify why a particular group of people should be in charge of all others. There is no deeper, underlying reality to any of these worldviews. In reality, there are two kinds of people in the worlds. Those who want to control others and those who have no such desire. I am of the latter.
the iterated prisoner’s dilemma provides perfectly adequate rational justification for acting morally without any metaphysics whatsoever.
Except for all the hard cases.
http://rossdouthat.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/01/the_moral_sense.php
@kurt9
fyi, nietzsche probably wasn’t syphilitic:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/5961133_The_madness_of_Dionysus_a_neurosurgical_perspective_on_Friedrich_Nietzsche
@Kevembuangga
It’s not a trivial point to ask that you define what you mean by morality… do you simply mean the ‘golden rule’? Sure, we might have some genetic predisposition for that, but only ‘among equals’ … whom we should consider our equals, though, is the domain of morality as well, as is justice – who deserves what, who should rule, etc, etc. and there is far less consensus on that stuff. It’s naive to think that prisoner’s dilemma, with all its conditions, has much to say about the big picture of human hierarchy, and the justification thereof.
let’s keep the language under control here guys. would be un-christian of us not be charitable 🙂 the fundamental issue is we’re talking about two camps who just don’t find the other comprehensible and think they’re making awesome arguments.
also, for the record, though i think the iterated PD has more going for than the purported awesome justifications of christianity, i think the models for human social morality persists are going to be more complex. probably a lot of it has to do with how we frame “rational” too, or at least the interval over which it’s evaluated.
Per N, the interesting thing about him is that the morality he spent attacking that he labeled ‘Christian’ wasn’t Christian at all, and it’s all the more odd given that he was from a family of ministers on both sides of his family. He got Christian moral thought confused with the sort of bastardized Christian Epicureanism that comes out of the Enlightenment, he got Voltaire and Kant confused with Aquinas and Augustine.
The Enlightenment is when the term ‘compassion’ first makes it’s appearance as a bastardized form of ‘caritas’. Embedded in the word is the notion that here and now human welfare consists of pleasure/pain, and thus loving one’s neighbor, or caring about his welfare, consists of increasing his pleasure and decreasing his pain. The older traditional Christian way of looking at it is that human welfare consists of the possession of virtue, and not in an other worldly get into heaven sort of way, or not only so, but in a this worldly here on earth sort of way, pleasure/pain as an end, though not necessarily as a side effect, be damned as it were. There isn’t anything narrowly Christian about thinking about it this way, Plato and Aristotle and pretty much every Greek moralist other than Epicurus, thought of it this way, as did the Romans, who just assumed it rather than wrote about it (‘virtue’ literally means ‘manliness’ in Latin) and Christian thought on the topic is more from Aristotle than from the few spare pronouncements concerning the topic in the New Testament. Ancient German Wotan worshippers thought of it this way too, though their list of virtues obviously isn’t going to match up with Aristotle’s or a Christian’s.
N’s ‘last man’, where he thought western civ was going if nothing intervened, was a satisfied Epicurean, and per N the problem with the last man wasn’t that he was miserable, the last man isn’t miserable, but that he was contemptible. Augustine and Aquinas would have thought so too, but … Voltaire. Voltaire probably would of, but Voltaire didn’t realize that that’s where his view of human welfare gets you.
A good dystopia is where one gives someone his head in that one describes his perfect world, if he gets what he wants. Brave New World is an Epicurean dystopia, as is the cruise/space ship in that WallE cartoon movie about the robot where everyone is so fat that they cannot get out of their deck chair that came out a few years ago, they are what ‘last men’ look like. The inhabitants are all happy and their appetites are satisfied, but they’re losers. Humans find both outcomes quite revolting because… they do, which is where N’s critique of what he confuses with Christian moral thought gets it’s power.
Gone on long enough, gotta stop.
I like Nietzsche a lot, although obviously he has some big problems. One also has to ask which Nietzsche. The Nietzsche of say Brian Leiter is quite different from the Nietzsche Lawler probably interprets. That said, I’m surprised anyone would say Nietzsche is the only honest atheist. That just seems completely brain dead to me. I think Nietzsche’s critiques of the Christianity he encountered was quite penetrating. However as you note Razib, that was hardly the only Christianity about even at the time of Nietzsche.
One big problem with Nietzsche is that he glorifies a kind of holy suffering not that much different from what you found in the Catholicism or Lutheranism he attacks. I don’t think most atheists, especially American ones, will find Nietzsche a natural fit even if they find a lot to admire. (Still, I suspect many would be more sympathetic to the Leiter reading of Nietzsche)
So as I mentioned at my blog post you linked to, I find this postmodern critique of atheism odd in the extreme.
To add, most European philosophers are atheists. Even the non-atheist ones seem to have a God quite unlike the traditional personal God of Christianity. They are more akin to very liberal Protestants or Catholics theologically. And I think that once you divest most of the “personal” aspects of God and most of claims of divine intervention as myth that the difference between a theist and atheist starts to blur at best.
I just got into it with the guys on Postmodern Conservative. The general tone and intent of their screed is that we “seculars” should do more to help support their agenda to promote Christianity in the public arena, along with their political agenda in general. I just told them that, despite being a hard-core Ayn Rand libertarian, that I would actually support them and their candidates on the social issues if they were to be more libertarian on economic issues and if they were to less hostile towards efforts to develop effective anti-aging biomedical therapies.
Instead of agreeing that there is common grounds for agreement, I got flamed for being a “transhumanist”, along with a general denouncement of “transhumanism” in general. I have gotten into a previous row with these “First Things” over life extension before. If there attitudes are representative of the religious right (and I think that they are), its clear to me that these people are not interested in any kind of coalition-building to stop the liberal-left. They are only interested in conducting witch hunts against those who do not share their beliefs.
This kind of strategic stupidity tells me that they will never be a credible political force anytime in the future.
The prevailing sentiment in this country (as well as the West, in general) is liberal-left. The social conservatives, in order to have any influence at all, should be willing to work with anyone who is not liberal-left. This includes “Ayn Rand” types as well as those into radical life extension, such as myself. The failure of the social conservatives to do this makes it clear that they are losers and that they will never have political influence in the foreseeable future.
j mct,
Interesting post. I never really thought of Wall-E that way, but you’re right. Pixar’s movies tend to track with Nietzsche, especially The Incredibles, which I think were falsely accused of being Randian (Syndrome was the real Randian in that picture).
@Thursday
” but that only ethical monotheim provides adequate rational justification for acting morally.”
For my money, almost nothing about morality can be justified rationally. Evolution is 99% about emotional reaction — morality included — because in our daily lives as humans, chimpanzees and chipmunks, we spend the vast majority of our time reacting emotionally (hence the difficulty of “conscious living”).
Put another way: incest is not something about which one weighs the pros & cons. Rather, we just feel: ick!
It’s this impulse that rationalism very often finds itself arguing against. Like gay marriage. And before that interracial marrriage. And before that a woman’s right to vote. And before that slavery. And so on, and so on, and so on…
Oh! Yeah! Sure, madness from syphilis is all bad whereas madness from brain tumor is OK.
It is not “naive” it is a rejection your purported big picture, this big picture is all in your head, there is no overall justification of anything.
Only the actual participants of any given “moral situation” are to be concerned, whatever you or me think of the case doesn’t matter to them.
I guess you are referring to this:
If so I would say that contrarywise to Douthat assertion this is NOT a case of individual moral choice but a case of ingroup rules of conduct.
If the strong and the weak aren’t from the same group, no problem it’s an ordinary case of intergroup predation.
If the strong and the weak are from the same group, no matter if the abuser gets caught or not the group will not last that long, it will be depleted of such weak members and therefore will change it’s nature.
Because, if the weak were among us to start with, what was their role?
The abusing strong man is undermining his own group, again, this is NOT an individual moral question.
@Kevembuangga
yup, nothing wrong with slander.
@Kevembuangga
yeah, i’m talking about the “actual participants.” where u find humans, u find status hierarchy. but unlike other species, every hierarchy has its moral justification.
@Kevembuangga
Nietzsche’s propaganda, not mine. Beyond Good and Evil §186, for starters.
@kurt9
Whatever you think of his philosophy, Nietzsche was completely sane during the time he wrote his books.
If we’re talking only about Nietzsche’s critique of the faith-based secular humanism of Secular Right, then I don’t think there’s much of a question “which Nietzsche?”. His critique of Enlightenment moral philosophy seems a lot less controversial than his other stuff (will to power, etc.). Even Leiter and Lawler would probably agree on the meaning of BGE 186, which was the text I cited.
I agree that if you’re talking about Lawler’s whole post then the question “which Nietzsche?” becomes important. By the way, when I said that Lawler hit the nail on the head, I was talking about the paragraph quoted above. I don’t agree with all of his post.
@Derek Scruggs
The question of rational justification is a bit of a red herring. Some (Razib?) seem to argue that whether or not morality can be rationally justified, there’s a natural human tendency to be moral, and that tendency does not need religion to express itself. Nietzsche’s answer to them is the same as his answer to Enlightenment moral philosophers: what is this “morality” which you’re assuming as a given in your argument?
It seems to me that the two camps understand each other pretty well. Where’s the misunderstanding (as opposed to disagreement) on either side?
Strategic stupidity. The Religious Right consists of, what, let’s say 30 percent of the electorate, just to pick a number. If they form a coalition with Objectivists into radical life-extension, then their coalition will grow to 30.0000000001 percent of the electorate. And yet they throw away that golden opportunity! Those fools!
@rasputin
Very well said. I tried to make the exact same Nietzschean point back here when Razib was talking about some universal “Golden Rule” as a basis for morality, but you said it better than I could.
Theists are incapable of rationally defending their position. Their only hope is to direct attention away from their primary claims and bog opponents down in tangential arguments.
Appeals to Nietzsche are just a slight-of-hand attempt to control the terms and conditions of the discussion.
Aaron, I think my point was more that more the New Atheists have more in common with Leiter and Leiter’s ethics and that what Neitzsche is criticizing applies at best to a small minority of actual New Atheists.
Yup, this is called legitimacy, political propaganda disguised as morals, justice, democracy, freedom and all those “noble ideas”, soooo much better sounding, the neocortex is indeed very useful.
It is therefore obvious that the god argument is the best of all, except it’s total bunk and is the best cover for deliberate cheaters.
@Aaron
One, the religious right certainly did not do well in the last election, now did they?
Two, yes people who are into life extension and the like are a small number today, but our numbers are growing. If effective anti-aging therapies are developed, say by 2030, how powerful of political force do you think we will become?
Three, if they actually did try to ban such effective therapies in this country, do you honestly believe that they are going to keep me from getting on a plane and getting them elsewhere (or through a black market)?
Life extension is going to be like abortion. once developed, there will never be a person of means that will not have access to such therapies. Thus, any political debate on the “morality” of life extension is really a debate on whether such therapies should be made available to those without means. It is silly to believe otherwise.
Comments that struck me were:
rasputin: Morality deals with “ought” – and evolution has guaranteed that different humans will have different “oughts” that feel right to them. (One reason why homogenous countries ‘work’ better). Nietzsche basically ranked moralities with respect to how well they promote the strengthening of man. Other moralities have other goals…
kurt9: ‘Religion, ideology, and philosophy [are] really just sophistry used to justify why a particular group of people should be in charge of all others. There is no deeper, underlying reality to any of these worldviews. In reality, there are two kinds of people in the worlds. Those who want to control others and those who have no such desire. I am of the latter.’
Clark: ‘most European philosophers are atheists. Even the non-atheist ones seem to have a God quite unlike the traditional personal God of Christianity. They are more akin to very liberal Protestants or Catholics theologically. And I think that once you divest most of the “personal” aspects of God and most of claims of divine intervention as myth that the difference between a theist and atheist starts to blur at best.’
Exactly right. Pre-Christian Roman theologians had arrived at the conclusion that gods were variants of God; and God was impersonal. Then the West was overrun with the Eastern, Christian enthusiasm of a personal god, the original concept of which, by the way, can be traced back to late New Kingdom pagan Egyptian religion.
kurt9: ‘If their attitudes are representative of the religious right (and I think that they are), its clear to me that these people are not interested in any kind of coalition-building to stop the liberal-left. They are only interested in conducting witch hunts against those who do not share their beliefs.
This kind of strategic stupidity tells me that they will never be a credible political force anytime in the future.’
Christian sects seem interested less in the ‘big tent’ strategy and more in the divisive, futile, ‘True tent’ one. It is at once their Achilles Heel and blind spot.
Nietzsche didn’t have available to him the scientific advances we today must mull over carefully. Accordingly, Christian apologists like to appeal to him in their arguments agains atheism, because they don’t have to consider the Himalayas of evidence accessible to us, against which dogma is no match.
If nobody can prove that their own view of morality is correct, than the obvious solution is for me to do my thing and you to do yours. Presto! Libertarianism.
John, I’d have thought the obvious answer isn’t libertarianism but democracy where we vote on ethics.
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I just reread 5 of Beyond Good and Evil. (I have to admit my Nietzsche is rusty) After reading it I think your just completely off Aaron about the New Atheists. The New Atheists aren’t in the least trying to make prevailing morality law. I’m no atheist but this line of reasoning just seems completely off. I doubt most New Atheists have considered the question of ethics in depth. But I’d lay a pretty good bet that most are more than willing to criticize prevailing morality.
I’m an Atheist, I don’t believe in morality, and I don’t kill people; Explain me.
Wether or not morality is used to the benefit of society, or wether Enlightenment philosophers derived their ethics from Christianity, still doesn’t make the proof of God any more viable. I could say something as ridiculous as a Flying Waffle Iron who spews fecal material into space to form planets describes the origins of our universe and if you don’t believe in the Waffle Iron, then you’re a crazed, rampaging lunatic, serial murderer for your lack of faith in the Waffle Iron. That’s fine, in fact that may be so, but THAT STILL DOESN’T MAKE THE WAFFLE IRON ANY MORE CREDIBLE AN IDEA. People throughout the history of man have been desperately trying to caulk the morality gap with any frivolous fairy tale of a religion they could possibly dream up. People have common sense, and we are empirical beings. We derive our innate sense of right and wrong from what is culturally excepted among particular groupings of people; an ethos. In New Guinea, it’s perfectly moral and in fact encouraged for the father to rape his own son and ejaculate semen into his rectum to make him into a man. By your standard ethos, you might find this repulsive, but the bottom line is nothing is objective in this realm. If morality was so obviously objective, then why is there such competition? You’d think Christianity would’ve monopolized ethics by now. The sheer concept of right and wrong derive from human experience first, as a product of man. We know this, because there is no logical alternative for us to know-remember, you may claim God to be real without proof, but then I could just as easily claim my Waffle Iron to be real without proof as well. Why should my religion be any less significant just because mine wasn’t quit as successful at duping a mass of idiots as yours was. where does this anti-reasoning end? You can’t prove a negative, and as rational, thinking beings, we must assume to only know what we know and suspend our judgment for everything else until it is proven, if ever proven. We don’t need to follow a literal transcript in order to “do good”, history has shown that we can do just fine without it.
Where the majority tyrannizes the minority.
“Democracy is the art and science of running the circus from the monkey cage.” H.L. Mencken