Q&A: A Letter of Question
A Letter of Question
Question
Hello Rabbi,
Last week I read Dawkins' book The God Delusion, and I saw on Wikipedia that you wrote a response book to his claims. During the week I got hold of the book, and this Sabbath I sat down to read it [I got to the end of chapter 1].
I wanted to note that the book gave me great Sabbath delight; in contrast to Dawkins' popular and shallow book [see Inbal's response to it], I find a profound and high-level book that deals with the topic under discussion.
Now to the substance of the matter: I read chapter 1, and probably because I lack the necessary background for the philosophical arguments, I did not grasp the depth of the arguments. I will set out their gist, in the strong hope for a clear answer understandable to a layman like me.
A) You emphasize many times that according to materialists there is no concept of morality and justice, since we are nothing but matter. I did not understand the argument: “morality” does not depend on the question of the origin of consciousness [whether it comes from conjunction with some spiritual entity or whether it is only a function of molecules — dualism and materialism]. Rather, morality is an idea that is true and binding in itself, and any consciousness, from the moment it comes into being [in whatever way], immediately recognizes this moral rightness and is supposed to act accordingly. Therefore, even if our development came about through a natural evolutionary process, it is still not right to act against morality, and therefore a person who acts contrary to it is vile.
B) I have a similar comment on what follows in your remarks, where you want to entangle Dawkins in various paradoxes and problems. I did not understand how this is connected to the materialist approach more than to the dualist one. The reason we believe an inference drawn from evidence is that consciousness recognizes that the evidence necessarily compels it. True, one can always cast doubt against intuition and wonder whether perhaps we are mistaken and imagining things, etc. But seemingly there is no justification for applying this to materialists more than to dualists. Both approaches admit that there is consciousness that understands and thinks independently [non-deterministically], and as such it can [or cannot] arrive at sound conclusions.
That is the gist of what I do not understand in your remarks, and I would be glad if you could simplify the matter for me.
Best regards
Answer
Hello.
First, in the future I prefer questions through the website.
1. A collection of molecules is not obligated to do anything, neither to do something nor to refrain from doing something. When a lion preys on a gazelle, it is not doing something immoral. And neither is a tsunami when it drowns people. Therefore morality cannot exist in a materialist world. The value of life, for example, is irrelevant if life is just a collection of organic molecules. That is regarding the addressee of morality. Beyond that, there is the question of the source of morality’s validity. Without God there is no way to give validity to moral principles. See my fourth notebook on the site, part 3, about this.
2. This is not a question of materialism but of determinism. My claim is that a deterministic machine has no judgment, and therefore there is no justification for believing the results of its calculations. When there is a mechanical mechanism that outputs some result, the chance that it is correct is negligible. By contrast, if we have judgment and we make decisions, then judgment itself is the ability to determine what is reliable and what is not. See a bit in column 35, 175.
Discussion on Answer
A. I explained why this has nothing to do with consciousness in any way. A materialist human being is incapable of recognizing this, only of feeling it. The problem is that he has no indication whatsoever that his feelings reflect something valid and binding.
B. A materialist is a determinist, and Dawkins certainly is one. But the focus in this question is not materialism but determinism. Just as every wicked person is a human being, yet morally I attack the wickedness in him and not the humanity in him.
I understand that you take materialism to be something that necessarily goes together with determinism, and as something that holds that there is no reality of “consciousness” that can understand a rightness that stands in itself and by its own nature.
I would be glad if you could explain why you think so, and whether this is your own position or a commonly accepted overlap.
In a world where everything is matter, the laws of physics rule. These are deterministic laws (except for quantum theory in the micro realm, which has no implications for the macro realm, and even there there is no choice but only randomness). This is a commonly accepted overlap. In my book The Science of Freedom I explained why attempts to insert free will into physics (as if there were non-deterministic gaps in it) are based on misunderstanding. This is also explained in my article here on the site.
A) You did not explain why the existing consciousness cannot recognize rightness and morality [which do not depend on matter or spirit; they are an idea that is true and binding in itself. And that is the answer to your puzzlement about Dawkins]. B) In your book you present the materialist view without associating it with determinism, and therefore you challenge it [quite rightly] as to how one can understand its connection with matter. But if we somehow digest that question mark, and accept that this is how reality is [that there is consciousness free in its decisions], then there is no room for the way you go on to complicate this view there.
I did not understand the question. I explained that with respect to matter there are no moral principles. This is not a problem of inability to understand/recognize them, but that there is no such thing. Both in terms of the addressee and in terms of the legislator of moral principles. According to your view, stones that strike one another are violating a moral prohibition under compulsion (only because they do not know)? That is absurd. There are no moral prohibitions regarding them. The issue requires a sharper definition of what morality is in the first place. Again, I refer you to the fourth notebook, in the third part. There I explain in more detail.
There is nothing immoral about one stone hitting another, A) because it does not hurt it, so what immorality is there here? B) because it has no ability to prevent it [in a case where there is pain], and therefore “immorality” is not relevant here.
But a person who both causes pain to another and recognizes that and can refrain — that is immorality if he denies it; for in my humble opinion [before reading the excellent notebook], moral principles exist in and of themselves, and just as one plus one equals two, so striking your benefactor equals villainy.
I referred you to the notebook. There you will see a discussion of the question of what morality is.
Hello,
A) If you gave a lion consciousness like that of a human being, why would it be moral to kill the gazelle — why do you think otherwise, etc.? The lion is definitely doing something not nice, something basic decency obligates one to avoid; and in the human case he is indeed capable of recognizing that and refraining accordingly, or of not refraining and then rightly being called a villain.
B) In the book, aren’t you attacking Dawkins and materialism on this basis? [Dawkins does not write that his view is deterministic.]