Q&A: Cognitive Duality
Cognitive Duality
Question
I read your post about duality in the Haredi world. In your opinion, do atheists who claim there is no free will and no objective morality live in a state of duality when they act and are convinced of things exactly as we are? Is duality the right definition? Or maybe there is a better way to define this phenomenon? If by any chance you wrote about this in one of your hundreds of posts, I’d be happy for a reference (because I see that you remember all of them from the references in your other posts). Thanks in advance.
Answer
That can be a case of duality. But not because they experience it, since they know that this is their experience, yet claim that it is an illusion built into us. That is a legitimate claim and does not indicate duality. Duality is a situation in which, inside yourself, you know what is true, but consciously you live according to a different position. Not every time we reject a position we are naturally inclined toward is that duality.
In my view, moral atheists do live in duality, because philosophically there is no valid morality without God. But if they also reject morality, then there is no duality here.