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Sing(er)ing "The Real Nitty-Gritty"


In the late 60s, I believe it was, a pop song call "The Real Nitty-Gritty" achieved one-hit-wonder status. Several singers have done versions of it since, and I've always liked how it can apply to a variety of situations beyond the merely sexual. That song came to mind again as my agreggator offered up a blog post yesterday from the New York Times: "Should This Be the Last Generation?"

My first instinct was to assume that the intent of the question was only rhetorical, that it was designed to get us pondering the true extent of human depravity. If that's how it had been meant, I would have appreciated it, while still answering it in the negative. But then I saw that the post's author was Princeton philosopher Peter Singer—you know, the guy who sees nothing wrong with euthanasia or even infanticide, but admitted he couldn't bring himself to off his demented mother. So at once I inferred that the question was meant seriously by a man who is better than his principles. Those who know Singer's reputation will understand why I inferred as much, and reading the post confirms its title's earnest intent. To be fair to Singer, he affirms his belief that "life is worth living." But he does not take that belief as self-evident. He invites readers to ponder his question along with a bunch of others subsidiary to it. Yet I'm inclined to believe that seriously raising such a question bespeaks an attitude toward life that should be treated primarily as a symptom of spiritual disease rather than as suggesting a serious philosophical thesis.

Since the piece itself is rather short, I shall leave Singer's argument to the reader. I'd rather focus on the premise, plain throughout Singer's work, that makes it possible to raise his post's question: the premise, that is, that the principal good of life is the experience of pleasure and the principal evil of life is accordingly that of pain. Now it's possible to hold, as Singer does, that most people hitherto will have experienced more pain than pleasure in their lives; and if that's right, then a utility calculus could lead one to conclude that most people's lives at this stage of history haven't been worth living. That is what Singer appears to believe. That is what makes it possible to raise his question, which he answers in the negative only by projecting a degree of future human "progress" that will end up shifting the utility balance for most humans to the side of pleasure. But the premise is pretty much stuck on a brand of utilitarianism going back to John Stuart Mill. The arbitrariness and incoherence of Mill's utilitarianism is deftly exposed in a chapter of J. Budziszewski's recent book The Line Through the Heart: Natural Law as Fact, Theory, and Sign of Contradiction.

A basic problem with utilitarianism is epistemic: even in its most sophisticated varieties, it requires assessing things from a global, impersonal point of view that we do not and cannot have. (Theodicy in the strict sense of the term is impossible for the same reason, but that's another topic.) There's an additional problem with Mill's and Singer's closely interrelated brands of utilitarianism: the pleasure principle itself. It assumes that the unique and supreme criterion of goodness is undergoing subjectively pleasant experiences rather than doing something of which such experiences, when they occur, would be objectively fitting byproducts. The latter would be the life of love; the former could suffice simply as a life of sensation. But the superiority of the latter cannot be explained in Singer's philosophy. That shows that what we're dealing with is a spiritual disease, not just a philosophically flawed argument. Those who think the superiority of love to pleasant sensation is not evident, or those who think the value of love can be reduced to that of pleasant sensation, share the same disease.

But it's a common enough disease. As the birth rate plummets well below replacement level in much of the "developed" world, it seems many have concluded that no future is better than a present of voluntary sacrifice for the sake of continuing the intrinsic good of human life beyond the present. This, friends, is the real nitty-gritty for the developed world. The choice is between love, understood as holy sacrifice, and nihilism.

Cross-posted at Sacramentum Vitae

Comments (32)

Was that the Nitty-Gritty Dirt Band?

The Chicken

I haven't read the Singer piece, but I think this is a very good post. It's very difficult for any version of the pleasure principle not to lead to despair. The only version that might work would be something akin to Stoicism that redefines happiness or pleasure in something much more like Christian terms. Ultimately, of course, Christians believe that the true happiness lies in God. But "true happiness" there requires going through a lot of unpleasantness in this life. The road is often far from obvious. I think a Stoic is either going to have to become a Christian or invent something akin to Christianity. I believe the science fiction writer John C. Wright was in the process of trying to be a good Stoic when he became a Christian.

The late archbishop Fulton Sheen remarked in a book that if people are complimented excessively, they become extremely uncomfortable, whereas, they can endure the greatest of pain. From this, he concluded, that pain is something that is meant to be expended in this life, whereas, pleasure and fulfillment is something primarily reserved for the next. Singer's premise is based on the non-existence of a Christian afterlife. This, however is somewhat incoherent, since why should nature choose pain over pleasure as a greater good for an organism? Pain has much better survival use than pleasure, for the most part (except in reproduction, but people have eschewed that as a use of pleasure, anyway).

The Chicken

It seems obvious that any amount of pain will be justified by even a single instant of transcendent joy. I would "go through hell" just to hear the words "Well done, my good and faithful servant."

DML:

It isn't at all "obvious" to me that going through "hell" would be worth "a single instant" of anything good. It could conceivably be worth an eternity of "transcendent joy," but on traditional Christianity, nobody who gets that goes to hell.


Best,
Mike

I read through this piece yesterday, as I went on, I was increasingly dismayed. I nearl yelled at my monitor, "but existence itself is a good!" but a restrained myself for the sake of my office mates.

It wasn't until the very end that I saw that it was Peter Singer. And I was strangely releived, since I knew that almost nobody takes him seriously anyway.

He makes a good salary and gives lots of lectures and gets his books assigned as reading in a lot of ethics classes for somebody whom nobody takes seriously.

Chicken:

Interesting observations.

The late archbishop Fulton Sheen remarked in a book that if people are complimented excessively, they become extremely uncomfortable, whereas, they can endure the greatest of pain. From this, he concluded, that pain is something that is meant to be expended in this life, whereas, pleasure and fulfillment is something primarily reserved for the next.

Hence the point of the question asked by the old Irish housekeeper for my childhood pastor: "Is there life before death?" What makes such a question so pointed is the truth that has driven more people away from Christianity than anything else.

Singer's premise is based on the non-existence of a Christian afterlife. This, however is somewhat incoherent, since why should nature choose pain over pleasure as a greater good for an organism? Pain has much better survival use than pleasure, for the most part (except in reproduction, but people have eschewed that as a use of pleasure, anyway).

That interests me for two reasons: one personal, one philosophical. The personal reason is that I chose to marry and have children not because I thought it would be more pleasant than painful--I didn't--but because I had concluded that marriage and family were God's will for me. The pleasure, while it lasted, did not outweigh the pain; but I feel obliged to consider that fact irrelevant. Such an attitude would be incomprehensible to a Singer.

Which brings me to the philosophical point. All the commenters so far seem to believe that Christianity, or something much like it, is the answer to the Singers. But could there be an answer which doesn't presuppose divine revelation? That's a philosophically interesting question, which you've begun to answer by suggesting that it would make no sense for nature to elevate pain over pleasure as a survival strategy. If sex weren't pleasant, the human race would have died out long ago.

Best,
Mike


If you were the only man in the world capable of feeling pain, would your life be more valuable or less valuable than everyone else's ? Pain is an accidental of life. Its value must be determined from context. Singer's context is purely Epicurian.

The Chicken

Yet I'm inclined to believe that raising such a question seriously bespeaks an attitude toward life that should be treated primarily as a symptom of spiritual disease rather than as suggesting a serious philosophical thesis.
Among other such things, real signs of the déluge of the West, are such foolish and often self-refuting assertions as “The design in nature is illusory; living things only give the semblance of design, but aren’t really designed.” and “You should not believe anything without evidence or proof. Only believe in proofs and evidence.” and “Men and women should be treated the same by society.” and “Gay marriage.” and “Abortion is a brave decision; abortion doctors are brave and kind.” and “Orgel’s Second Rule: Evolution is cleverer than you.” and “Since we have an infinite universe, yes, that is possible.” and “Many-Worlds solves that problem.” and “Picasso was a great artist.” and so and so forth.

I think, therefore, that it is wrong for Peter Singer to be sing(er)eled out. The entire vat is festering.

Also, great article.

There are drives to reproduce, of course, that go beyond the pleasure of sexual intercourse. Women in particular feel a huge drive towards child-bearing that cannot be accurately described in terms of pleasure. Ask most people who want to have children why they want to have children, and they will have trouble answering you. The trouble with the Peter Singer types is that they think the urge should therefore be regarded as somehow suspect and indefensible.

I think it's kind of interesting that we've gone from humanism to nihilism in just a couple of generations. When C. S. Lewis wrote _Out of the Silent Planet_, the survival of the human race was the highest good and was being peddled as such by those whose worldview he considered particularly pernicious in his own time. But in _That Hideous Strength_ he portrays very believably how even the sort of hubristic humanism he places in the mouth of Prof. Weston in the first book moves to nihilism, the desire to destroy all life, and even demon worship. I think Western civilization may be going along that path throughout the decades as well.

Lydia

I think it certainly seems to be the case that the anti-humanists have been gaining ground on the secular humanists for some time, and may even have gained the upper hand. This is exemplified in the elevation of 'transgression' in art, literature, and criticism, and now ethics and philosophy.

When these topics come up, I am always reminded of something Foucault wrote in The Archaeology of Knowledge: '...you may have killed God beneath the weight of all that you have said; but don't imagine that, with all that you are saying, you will make a man that will live longer than he.' I think that the sentiment underlying this indictment of the naïveté of secular humanism has become more and more widespread to the point of it being mainstream, a la Singer. When the Absolute is denied from the outset, the value of value itself is brought into question, with Singer's bleak, nihilistic utilitarianism being one possible result.

The attack on the self-evident good of existence reminds me of the old natural law brief against murder: even a murderer resists being murdered. When this resistance comes to be seen as a pleasure-pain reaction or as a response "merely" programmed by natural selection, objections to murder (and suicide) start to fade.

Some of the comments on Singer were pretty funny. "Maybe this line of reasoning led to the extinction of the dinosaur," was the best critical one I noted.

Those who took Singer seriously are funny but in a disturbing way:

"Would it be wrong for us all to irradiate our reproductive organs?"

"Benatar's views are self evident. I figured this all out in the third grade."

When so many common goods are denied or questioned, we have an anti-communion. Most of these people are better than their philosophy in real life, but their anti-ideals will corrupt the real soon enough.

Lydia:

Ask most people who want to have children why they want to have children, and they will have trouble answering you.

I had no trouble answering the question. But few have ever liked my answer. :)

Best,
Mike

New prejudice:

Being-ism: the bigoted belief that existence is better than non-existence.

You know, Frank, after I finished laughing I thought that your quip is a reductio ad absurdum. And it clearly is if the statement 'Believing that being is better than non-being is bigoted' be taken as a maximally general proposition. But I doubt the Singerites would maintain that proposition. What they contend quite seriously is that one cannot safely assume that being is better than non-being for most people who have lived. That raises the question: How can non-being be better for anybody? Wouldn't non-being for somebody mean that there's no somebody to benefit from it? And is not that a reductio?

Best,
Mike

When C. S. Lewis was a young atheist (sorry to keep bringing him up) he was angry at God for having made him exist. He considered it a kind of interference: "I never asked to exist." The levels of illogic in this are many. Obviously, how can you be angry at God if you are an atheist? But also, as he realized later and, I think, laughed at himself about, how can you be harmed by being brought into existence? Who is the "you" who would have been benefited by not having come to exist?

Could the Singerites redeem themselves from this particular absurdity merely by recommending death as a benefit for most of the people who already do exist? But then you can't get into talk about whether this should be the last generation.

One thing Singer leaves out of the discussion of the battlin' P's is the third P - purpose. Purpose is what gives either pain or pleasure their meaning. Which is better: a purposeless pleasure or a purposeful pain? The little Dutch boy holding his finger in the dike had a life-time of pain, but does Singer seriously suggest that he should have removed his finger? Was his life not worth living? Meaningless sex or drug abuse can lead to a life of pleasure, but at the end of the day, what do they accomplish?

The Chicken

Peter Singer is a genuinely intellectually courageous guy who calmly spells out the implications of consequentialism in ways that his less honest colleagues prefer to avoid.

His essay "Famine, Affluence, and Morality" is an immortal classic of philosophical writing. Worthy of Hume.

If I didn't know any better, I might think that his entire career was some sort of heroic "false flag" operation.

Singer is a preference-utilitarian (the good as satisfaction of individual preferences)-- not a classical utilitarian (the good as pleasure and absence of pain) like Mill.

But it's a common enough disease. As the birth rate plummets well below replacement level in much of the "developed" world, it seems many have concluded that no future is better than a present of voluntary sacrifice for the sake of continuing the intrinsic good of human life beyond the present.

When you believe in nothing, you become like a terminal cancer patient. Your main concern is "quality of life," not the continuation of life.

A key part of the problem, though, is that in the name of "justice," the institutions of the developed world have aided and abetted this decline by giving people the very thing they crave as a spiritual and material salve for their suffering. Welfare, socialized medicine, pensions, all of these things contribute mightily toward allowing people the luxury of suicidal ennui. When people are faced with the very real prospect of real abject misery, poverty, injury and death, they tend to snap out of this behavior quickly.

The developed world is, quite simply, like an emo kid sulkin in their parent's basement.

‘There are drives to reproduce, of course, that go beyond the pleasure of sexual intercourse.’

What is it precisely that distinguishes the ‘reproduction drive’ from the ‘sex drive’? Humans have indeed figured out how sex can lead to making babies: Sex can be had without babies being had (contraception) and babies can be had without sex being had (IVF).

Assuming that humans are rational agents, our knowledge of the mechanics of reproduction makes the question ‘Why should humans reproduce?’ a fair one to ask.

Tim's comment is a very important correction. Egg on my face for not having known and caught this.

Steve, if Singer's operation were a false flag one, it would be a failure. People have, instead, bitten the bullet. Infanticide post-birth has become more acceptable, partly because of his influence. That's just an example. The thing is, I think that when people see that their views have monstrous consequences, they should _rethink_. Heck, stop writing and defending the monstrous consequences while you find a way out. There really is such a thing as an ethical reductio. I myself sometimes say that someone is commendably honest for admitting the dreadful places to which his views lead, but this should be the _first_ step. Just to go to those dreadful places and say, "Okay, so I'm now on the side of doing these dreadful things" is one road to hell. I say the same thing about suicide bombers, by the way. :-) Consistency isn't the whole McGiel when it comes to not damnning oneself.

Overseas, I was simply noticing that there _is_ a reproduction drive, particularly in women, that isn't the same thing as the sex drive. The very popularity of non-sexual technologies for reproduction (which I don't support) is evidence that the two are not, in point of fact, identical.

Tim:

Singer is a preference-utilitarian (the good as satisfaction of individual preferences)-- not a classical utilitarian (the good as pleasure and absence of pain) like Mill.

In context, that's a difference which makes no difference. For one thing, Singer's post makes no distinction between the two, speaking instead purely in terms of pleasure and pain. There is a very good reason for that.

The difference between preference and classical utilitarianism is that between treating "getting what's preferred" and "getting what feels good" as the supreme measure of utility. But in practice, the difference amounts to very little. If getting what I prefer is satisfying, but relevantly distinct from getting what feels good to me, then the satisfaction stipulated in the former must be something other than what feels good to me. In that case, in what sense is the former "satisfying"? It might be satisfying in a masochistic sort of way, in which I'm satisfied by pain. But pain, by definition, doesn't feel good; so if I embrace it for preference-utilitarian reasons, that must be because I believe it necessary as a means to some end that would satisfy my preferences. But if that end is not itself pleasant, then in what sense would it be satisfying?

Of course it's quite possible to answer that question in a way that would preserve a relevant distinction between preference and classical utilitarianism. But Singer makes no practical use of such an answer. I think that's because he hasn't got one that he finds convincing himself.

Best,
Mike

I often suspect that hedonism is a literally perverse view (whether or not Singer is a hedonist) and, yet, I am curious about the rational force of comments like this:

That shows that what we're dealing with is a spiritual disease, not just a philosophically flawed argument. Those who think the superiority of love to pleasant sensation is not evident, or those who think the value of love can be reduced to that of pleasant sensation, share the same disease.

How is one supposed to react to such a claim? Does this kind of proposal (that assertions that p are a symptom of a spiritual disease) relieve us of feeling the force of whatever arguments might be marshaled in their support? What is the point of making it? [...other than its effectiveness as propaganda?]

Couldn't p be true (and even knowable) and yet characteristically asserted by those who are spiritually diseased? Or is this not possible... so that the claim that assertions that p are symptoms of a spiritual disease presupposes that p is false (or unknowable)? At any rate: what is added when we learn that (apart from its believability) the assertion that p is spiritually diseased? [I presume we do not merely learn that, for example, Peter Singer is a fallen creature... this is not news.]

[Now that I'm asking questions: what is added by noting that it is spiritually diseased (as opposed to simply diseased)?]

Anscombe is famous for having claimed that some positions the theorist of might take re: ethics are not merely mistaken, but morally disordered. Let's stipulate: OK. Now what?

I should perhaps clarify that the Tim who made the comment above is not related to me.

Anscombe is famous for having claimed that some positions the theorist of might take re: ethics are not merely mistaken, but morally disordered. Let's stipulate: OK. Now what?

Anscombe isn't the only one who said something to the same effect. Aristotle himself suggested that only those who are well brought up, and have reached a certain level of maturity, can usefully do ethics. That seems evident. If it is, then being morally disordered disqualifies one from doing ethics, so that the ethical theories produced by the morally disordered do not require philosophical rebuttal. For the people most in need of such a rebuttal would be those least likely to get it.

All that presupposes, of course, that the question what counts as moral disorder is not one to be decided by moral philosophers or anybody else, as if the question were philosophically open. Admittedly, that doesn't seem so to most moral philosophers today. That's because, as Alasdair McIntyre has argued, we no longer have a common moral vocabulary. That's a collective disease of the soul. It requires repentance and redemption, not academic disputation.

I really liked what "Mary" at First Things had to say about this:

So [Singer]'s not an atheist! He worships the Great God Happiness, to whom all mere human interests must be subjected. Happiness is not good for us; rather, it is our duty to be good for Happiness.

I love that: it is our duty to be good for Happiness.

I love that: it is our duty to be good for Happiness.

If "Happiness" is union with the Good himself, then of course it's our duty to be good for Happiness. That's "eudaimonism," which is the element of truth in utilitarianism. But the utilitarians muck it up by identifying states of affairs, a "sum total" of Happiness, as the ultimate goal. It isn't. The ultimate goal is the glory of God, which he doesn't need, but which he brings about for us and in us precisely out of gratuitous and infinite love. Hence the paradox: Happiness in the relevant sense is only possible if we value the absolutely Valuable, God himself, over the experience of happiness.


Yep, Michael. I read "being good for Happiness" as "being (morally) good for the maximization of utils," not as "for union with God." But I can see how one might construe it that way, too.

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