What’s Wrong with the World

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What’s Wrong with the World is dedicated to the defense of what remains of Christendom, the civilization made by the men of the Cross of Christ. Athwart two hostile Powers we stand: the Jihad and Liberalism...read more

Christian polemics, the God of the philosophers, natural law, etc.

JD Walters of the blog Unnatural Theology and I debate The Last Superstition. See his review here and my reply here.

Comments (33)

The first (and only as of this posting) comment to your rebuttal, questioning your contention that advocating the acceptability of bestiality necessarily implies moral corruption, seems to me to translate to "if one is sincere, how can one be morally corrupt?"

Welcome to the dictatorship of sincerity.

Fascinating, especially considering that I'm in the middle of Chesterton's biography of Aquinas right now, in which Aristotle figures prominently.

From Feser's response to Walters

For given the correct (classical natural law) approach to morality and moral psychology, no one whose sensibilities are such that he could seriously entertain such an idea could possibly fail to be morally corrupt.

Hence, I maintain that there are certain ideas that cannot be described accurately and objectively unless they, and sometimes even the people who hold them, are described in language that might seem abusive and polemical. (E.g. not to see that someone even seriously considering whether bestiality might be permissible is morally corrupt is not to understand what moral corruption objectively is.) The assumptions that lead modern people to assume otherwise (the so-called “fact/value distinction,” the cult of “authenticity,” etc.) are just false, and themselves morally corrupting

I argued in precisely this manner against Singer in an ethics course recently: Any argument which finds the conclusion "it is morally ok to kill a 4-yr. old child" has clearly gone wrong somewhere. The argument simply can't be right--there must be a mistake somewhere--as a person with a proper moral sense must surely know. The prof. chuckled, and referred to my approach as the "G.E. Moore shift," since evidently Moore argued against skepticism in this way, "I know that my hand is in front of my face right now, and any argument that you present to the contrary, as to my sure knowledge of my hand being in front of my face, is simply bound to be less convincing to me than my belief that I immediately know that my hand is in front of my face." Since I think we can know, without argument, that killing 4-yr. old children is wrong, no moral argument could possibly be sound if it does not support that conclusion. It is right to identify those who argue otherwise as morally unsound, i.e. insane. One may, for the sake of cultivating an attitude of clinical remove, refrain from making the charge of insanity. Clearly Dr. Feser has no such commitments or compunctions, but rather calls it like it is. Why should anyone have a problem with that?

Hello all, my reply to Doug Portmore in the comments section of my personal blog should hopefully clarify things a little further.

Apostate gadfly John Loftus has just chimed in over at Ed's blog -- this could get damn interesting real quick!

Good review and better response. Thanks, Dr. Feser.

Ah, Byronic, but you're in a better position than Moore. Because he really could be wrong about the claim "that is a skylight" (as the funny story about him shows), but "it's wrong to kill four-year-olds deliberately" is knowable a priori. Sez I.

"it's wrong to kill four-year-olds deliberately" is knowable a priori. Sez I.

If by 'a priori' you mean something like "without a chain of reasoning in which it is a conclusion," I have to agree.

I mean something rather stronger than that, actually.

If by 'a priori' you mean something like "without a chain of reasoning in which it is a conclusion," I have to agree.

Byronic, this is clearly false, and assertions like this, I believe, will lead to subjectivism. That a four-year-old may not be killed is not an immmediate principle, for it can be demonstrated through its cause, i.e. the reason why a four-year-old may not be killed. The syllogism is as follows:

Innocents may not be killed
A four-year-old is an innocent.
Therefore, a four-year-old may not be killed.

The reason I say that yours and Lydia's view may lead to a sort of subjectivism is because you are substituting your sense of right and wrong (which does happen to be correct) for the objective principle. Once you do that, and say like Lydia "Sez I". Someone can then respond, "Sez you".

George, I take it that the term "four-year-old" is acting as a stand-in for "an innocent." I assume that you would agree that your first premise does not need to be demonstrated.

Lydia, obviously most people don't need a syllogism to demonstrate that you can't kill a four-year-old. Nevertheless, it can be demonstrated and is, therefore, not immediately self-evident.

your first premise does not need to be demonstrated.

I believe this premise, that innocents may not be killed, can also be demonstrated. In fact, it can be demonstrated in two ways: either through the principles of sacred theology or through the principles of natural law.

I think people tend to assume that what is obviously true is also self-evident. It is very often not the case.

I have several chapters of a book on the subject of a priori knowledge. I am a strong (incorrigibilist) foundationalist. I don't even believe that it is self-evident in the strong sense that my computer is in front of me. I am well aware that what is obviously true is not self-evident. You are simply wrong, as a philosophical matter, to say that if something _can_ be demonstrated, it is therefore not self-evident. Indeed, this is clear in mathematics from the fact that whether something is self-evident or not to some given person depends upon one's mathematical acumen. And even very simple mathematical truths _can_ be demonstrated in an unnecessarily roundabout fashion. It does not follow that they are not self-evident to those who comprehend them.

George R,

I don't really want to interpose myself on this dispute between you and Lydia. But I am willing to be instructed. Suffice to say, you seem to make a good point. I do agree that "4-yr. old" stands in for "innocent" in my thinking here. What I'm really saying is, "though shalt not murder." And I do rather think that we don't arrive at the conclusion that we can't murder by argument, even though we may be able to make an argument for it (I can't think of one, at present, that really backs us up any significant steps behind the first intuition). I think we just know it. Kant already knew that he couldn't murder before he designed his maxims, didn't he? Did Cain need to be taught the command? I don't think so.

Now, as a matter of philosophical subtlety, I recognize that there is a difference between things we are utterly convinced of without argument and "epistemic priority" (that's the best way I know to put it, at present). I think I understand, also, the distinction between something that is obviously true and something that is self-evident. But I am not, I think, thinking of self-evidence in terms of propositions in this case. The proposition "thou shalt not murder" represents a fundamental moral intuition, does it not? It is something I simply take for a moral axiom, if you will. It is, I hold, a command that we simply recognize as morally binding by virtue of being mentally healthy human beings. Anyone possessing actualized rational faculties who does not immediately recognize the absolute, binding nature of this command is pathological.

I am willing to be shown that I am wrong about this, since there are some philosophical concepts pertaining to the question that I have not mastered at present.

The reason I say that yours and Lydia's view may lead to a sort of subjectivism is because you are substituting your sense of right and wrong (which does happen to be correct) for the objective principle.

I don't think that's what I'm doing, because I don't think its my general sense of right and wrong to which I'm appealing. I think it's my sense that I can't murder. If someone makes an argument that wantonly killing an innocent is sometimes justifiable, I know he's wrong because he's come to a wrong conclusion. It may be impossible for me to find a logical error in the premises of his argument, since there may be none except for the fact that his argument is unsound--it's conclusion is false. I think that moral reasoning is like that.

I think that moral reasoning is like that.

I can't leave this as a categorical statement. Every moral truth is not immediately known, or self-evident, or obvious to a rational person.

It may be impossible for me to find a logical error in the premises of his argument, since there may be none except for the fact that his argument is unsound--it's conclusion is false.

If such a person bothers to give an argument in premise-conclusion form (they usually don't), then either his conclusion doesn't follow from his premises or he has a false premise. Once you spell out such an argument, it usually isn't hard to find the false premise or the non sequitur. "But the whole village will die if you don't kill the four-year-old..." One can either flesh this out with a false premise that specifically states some sort of utilitarianism or consequentialism ("If more people will die as a result of not killing the four-year-old, then it is morally legitimate...") or leave it as a non sequitur: "The whole village will die if you don't kill the four-year-old. Therefore, it is morally legitimate..., etc."

You are simply wrong, as a philosophical matter, to say that if something _can_ be demonstrated, it is therefore not self-evident.

If a proposition is demonstrated, it is demonstrated through a middle term. The middle term is the reason why the proposition is true. But the middle term is not in the proposition itself. Therefore, the reason why the propostion is true is not in the proposition itself. Therefore, the proposition is not self-evident.

If a proposition were self-evident, the reason why it is true would be known by the meaning of the terms in the proposition itself, eg., "a part is less than the whole."

One the other hand, self-evident propositions can be syllogised, but this is not demonstration properly speaking.

I don't think that's what I'm doing, because I don't think its my general sense of right and wrong to which I'm appealing. I think it's my sense that I can't murder.

Byronic, first of all,from the sense that you can't murder, you're deducing that you can't kill a four-year-old, which makes the latter proposition a conclusion after all.

Secondly, the more I think about this "moral-sense" business, the more I am against it as either a reliable or an adaquate substitution for science (properly understood). It seems to me to be placing the soul under the direction of a sub-rational inclination, instead of subjecting that good inclination to truth and thereby perfecting it.


Byronic, first of all,from the sense that you can't murder, you're deducing that you can't kill a four-year-old, which makes the latter proposition a conclusion after all.

I agree, as a matter of technicality. In this context, you should know that I used the term '4-yr. old' because Singer himself says that it is only murder when one kills an actively rational person. He says somewhere that he has known some 4-yr. olds who don't have a notion of death, or something like that, by which I assume he means that even some 4-yr. olds cannot be considered 'persons' in the fullest sense of the word, and can be killed without moral transgression.

Secondly, the more I think about this "moral-sense" business, the more I am against it as either a reliable or an adaquate substitution for science (properly understood). It seems to me to be placing the soul under the direction of a sub-rational inclination, instead of subjecting that good inclination to truth and thereby perfecting it.

I think it's merely a question of a matter of fact. If I have to reason with an adult about why he can't commit murder, I think he's already lost. I know that I can't murder long before I know anything by scientific argument. I think you are making too much of my particular conclusion. I am not subjecting the whole of morality to feeling. But it seems to me that some moral facts are intuitively known, i.e. wanton killing is wrong. I think we know ourselves intuitively as moral beings, which is not to say that every point of the moral law is intuitively known.

If such a person bothers to give an argument in premise-conclusion form (they usually don't), then either his conclusion doesn't follow from his premises or he has a false premise.
I have to admit, I think this is right. Does that make me a foundationalist?

Why should such self-evident truths, as that concerning the protection of the Innocent which should necessarily consist of even 4 year olds, require proof and demonstration?

Better still, why should a self-proclaimed Christian (most especially, one claiming to be Catholic) require one?

It is this kind of vile sophistry that has given birth to the severely morally decadent world of today and continues to give fuel to it in the form of demanding mandatory justification for such acts of virtue.

That a seemingly self-professed Christian would go to the extent of furthering this project of debauchery is merely a testament as to the foul and twisted nature of what constitutes its foundation.

It might, but not necessarily an incorrigibilist one.

George, I think the "part-whole" notion is a rather limited idea of conceptual truth. That a four-year-old is an innocent may of course be considered an a posteriori fact. That is, if we were a different species, we might be mentally and physically mature at the age of four. If one takes "four-year-old" in that most limited and literal of senses, merely to mean "a member of the species homo sapiens who happens to have lived four years after birth," then I can grant that it isn't an a priori truth that it is murder to kill a four-year-old. One might even imagine some bizarre sci-fi circumstances where some person matured overwhelmingly quickly and was a knowingly evil emperor by the age of four. But Byronic and I are taking "four-year-old" simply to mean, conceptually, a normal human four-year-old, who is therefore by definition an innocent. And therefore, your "middle term" is just an explicit parsing out of this meaning, not actually an addition of information.

It is this kind of vile sophistry that has given birth to the severely morally decadent world of today and continues to give fuel to it in the form of demanding mandatory justification for such acts of virtue.

Oh, it's this kind of vile sophistry. I was wondering what kind of vile sophistry was causing all the trouble. Now I know.

George R.,

Your continued attempts at ridiculum is, tragically enough, a sad commentary as to why the whole enterprise of Scholasticism gradually fell into desuetude, from such mierda as this that frequently emanated from a later generation that prominently consisted of substantially lesser minds, unlike in former generations.

Why should such self-evident truths, as that concerning the protection of the Innocent which should necessarily consist of even 4 year olds, require proof and demonstration?

Better still, why should a self-proclaimed Christian (most especially, one claiming to be Catholic) require one?

I suppose I don't have a problem at all with the idea that the moral imperative "thou shalt not murder" ought to admit of some kind of demonstration by "natural philosophy" (a program to which I am certainly amenable, being a wannabe Aristotelian myself). My argument has thus far been what may be broadly termed "phenomenological," in the sense that I think it is just human experience that we intuitively know the truth of the command, that the actively rational person hears this command in his very soul, that his feelings react immediately against such a proposition as advanced by the likes of Prof. Singer. If I am correct about that, then it is a fact that must surely carry some import for moral philosophers. I don't have, at present, the sort of sophistication necessary to argue the point much further than I have up til now.

thebyronicman,

I am sure (or, at least, I hope) you are well aware of the extremes to which even Natural Reason would allow for when unaided by Divine Truth?

This is precisely the context in which I formulated the subject response.

It was a point of even the great Saint Thomas More himself when in his book, Utopia, he made satire of exactly this; how reliance on natural law and reason alone could be taken to an unnatural extreme such that doing this would allow for (and go on to even justify) abominable acts such as, for example, euthanasia and even syncretism -- things which More and Catholic Europe itself found anathema.

This seems a lesson lost on your coreligionist, George.

Ari,

Yes, indeed, even the mighty Greeks needed a purification. Aristotle's children may never have been able, otherwise, to recognize that the worth of the human person was a universal that transcended Greek culture, and those reared in it. Now, I took George to be saying previously that he thinks we ought definitely to rely on Divine Truth, on an ordered sort of rational system that takes the real priority of knowledge into account, as well as the end of the human person, and also the faith of the Church as a guiding force. If this is what he says, then I agree, and I think he does say something like this.

What strikes me as curious and so worthy of exploration is the (what seems to me readily apparent) "a priori" knowledge of certain moral facts by rational persons, and the attendant feelings that seem to just naturally accompany such knowledge. I don't want to give too short shrift to the element of socialization (and of course, education!) in the cultivation of the proper feelings, sentiments, and emotional responses to the world. But you can only back that up so far before you have to ask the fundamental question, "why do humans think that murder is wrong?" I don't think the answer is that we've all been somehow Judeo-Christianized, although we shouldn't sell our cultural heritage short in that regard, as to its socilizing effects over time.

Here's an interesting piece of thinking


Catechism of the Catholic Church
1958 The natural law is immutable and permanent throughout the variations of history;10 it subsists under the flux of ideas and customs and supports their progress. The rules that express it remain substantially valid. Even when it is rejected in its very principles, it cannot be destroyed or removed from the heart of man. It always rises again in the life of individuals and societies: Theft is surely punished by your law, O Lord, and by the law that is written in the human heart, the law that iniquity itself does not efface.11
1959 The natural law, the Creator's very good work, provides the solid foundation on which man can build the structure of moral rules to guide his choices. It also provides the indispensable moral foundation for building the human community. Finally, it provides the necessary basis for the civil law with which it is connected, whether by a reflection that draws conclusions from its principles, or by additions of a positive and juridical nature.
1960 The precepts of natural law are not perceived by everyone clearly and immediately. In the present situation sinful man needs grace and revelation so moral and religious truths may be known "by everyone with facility, with firm certainty and with no admixture of error."12 The natural law provides revealed law and grace with a foundation prepared by God and in accordance with the work of the Spirit.

Lydia:

That a four-year-old is an innocent may of course be considered an a posteriori fact.

Lydia, I was using the fact that four-year-olds are innocent as a premise. So why suggest that I consider it "an a posteriori fact?"

And what's with all this a priori/a posteriori stuff anyway? All I'm saying is that premises are prior to conclusions. Is that controversial?

By the way, what is an incorrigibilist? And why do you consider yourself one?

And what's with all this a priori/a posteriori stuff anyway?

What's with it is that you came into this conversation in the first place by, apparently, challenging my claim that "It is wrong to kill four-year-olds deliberately" is knowable a priori. Of course, if you have no idea what I mean by that, you might ask before saying that I'm wrong or that my view "may lead to subjectivism."

Excuse me, Lydia. I came into the conversation when thebyronicman responded to your comment with this:

If by 'a priori' you mean something like "without a chain of reasoning in which it is a conclusion," I have to agree.

Byronic was clearly placing the issue in the subject of logic. Thus, the question was whether the proposition about the four-year-old was an immediate principle or a conclusion, both terms in logic.

The issue I had (and so did byronic, as you can see by his quote) is whether by a priori and a posteriori you were meaning the same thing as "immediate principle" and "conclusion." If you were, you should have used the more precise terms to make yourself clearer.

By the way, I think that I have definitely proved above that the proposition is in fact a conclusion in a line of reasoning. As to whether or not the denial of this will lead to subjectivism, that question can wait for another day.

is in fact a conclusion in a line of reasoning

Almost anything can be made a conclusion in a line of reasoning. Russell and Whitehead, if I'm not mistaken, made a very long argument for 1 + 1 = 2. It does not follow that 1 + 1 = 2 _is_ a conclusion in a line of reasoning in an absolute sense such that it is not epistemically self-evident and cannot be known, yea, even known with certainty, _except_ as the conclusion of a line of reasoning.

Almost anything can be made a conclusion in a line of reasoning. Russell and Whitehead, if I'm not mistaken, made a very long argument for 1 + 1 = 2. It does not follow that 1 + 1 = 2 _is_ a conclusion in a line of reasoning in an absolute sense such that it is not epistemically self-evident and cannot be known, yea, even known with certainty, _except_ as the conclusion of a line of reasoning.

That's what I would say, as well. The way I understand the problem, at present, is that there is a certain order of knowledge in the moral sphere, and that certain moral commands may just be intuitively known, even if, in some other system of moral reasoning (like Kant's, which is a good one, if imperfect) one could construct an argument for which the intuitively known moral command winds up as a conclusion. Kant's rationalistic Golden Rule, that all persons must be treated as ends in themselves, he makes a grounding principle of his system. But in the natural order of knowledge, do I really know the Kantian maxim before I hear the inner command (if I really do in fact hear it, and I think I do) "thou shalt not kill?" To a person who does not claim to hear this command, or who, for some reason, doesn't think that it binds him, I may indeed require an antecedent argument to give him rational solace, or even propound a whole worldview, like the Thomistic/Aristotelian, in which the moral command is rationally contextualized.

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