response to Robert George
dano
the conservative moral theorist at Princeton:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/20/magazine/20george-t.html
I have composed a response, which I have decided to post here.
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By appealing so strongly to "invoking no authority beyond the authority of
reason itself," Mr. George has made his entire argument vulnerable to the
inherent limitations of logical argumentation itself. Logic is ultimately
an incomplete system, because one must begin at some point with a set of
axioms that are not the result of any prior logical argument. Logic then
transforms that axiomatic set into a set of derived results.
However, logic works just as well backwards as it does forwards. That is,
one can proceed from a set of desired results and back-fit a set of axioms
that will yield those results, as if the results were the axioms and the
axioms were the results. Logic doesn't care what direction you go, because
there are rules to take you in either direction at any point in the
argument.
This is clearly what Mr. George has done: He has commenced from a set of
desired results and logically derived a set of axioms that will produce his
desired results. Unfortunately, the further back one goes in order to
arrive at a set of axioms that seem "obvious" (or as he is quoted: "natural
law"), the more subjective and arbitrary -- and less universally compelling
-- his axiomatic claims become.
For example, if Mr. George describes moral philosophy as "a contest between
... Aristotle and ... David Hume," with Aristotelians holding that there is
"an objective moral order" while Humeans that the universe "includes facts
but not values," then one might suggest alternatively that this is a false
dichotomy and that there is a hybrid position that incorporates valid
elements of both positions without adhering to an extreme or pure (or
ideological) version of either one.
This hybrid position suggests that the human species is generally
"hard-wired" (by our shared DNA) with the capacity for empathy with other
humans, and that empathy is the origin of perhaps the most fundamental
axiom of human moral systems: the Golden Rule. This is for the most part
universal to humans (we call the exceptions "psychopathic" or
"sociopathic"), and thus provides a practically universal foundation for
human morality. However, clearly there are other species whose sense of
empathy is typically constrained or even absent entirely. So this value
system is understood to be specific to humans, and not somehow inherent in
the universe in some more fundamental manner. In short, human morality is
not randomly arbitrary, but it is also not abstractly absolute. It is no
contradiction to say this; it is merely an observed fact. Presumably,
having a sense of empathy contributes to our evolutionary advantage as a
species.
For another example, Mr. George's exceedingly complex claim that
heterosexual procreative-style sexual union is somehow superior to other
sexual acts is already so tortuously constructed as to be preposterous to
anyone who doesn't proceed backwards from the result he wishes to produce
from this supposed axiom. His "one-flesh union" is a sweet metaphor, but
not limited to the one type of sexual act that he identifies (and that act
may not in fact reliably lead to the "one-flesh union" that he describes).
As his argument for this gets increasingly complicated, it becomes
increasingly less convincing. The phrase "angels on the head of a pin"
comes to mind.
Mr. George is an intellectually dangerous man. He appears to believe in
his arguments to the point of ideological fervor, and this sense of
absoluteness of his axioms is both incorrect and, by virtue of that error,
uncorrectable within his own internal logical system.
In short, it is dogma, not truth. Logic cannot prove anything, other than
that a well-defined set of axioms leads to a well-defined set of results.
It cannot prove the axioms (in order to "prove a set of axioms" one would
need a prior set of axioms, leading to an infinite regression).
The best we can do is proceed from a set of axioms that seems obvious and
against which no one would genuinely argue. Mr. George has ended up with a
set of axioms that many can easily dispute, and he should not be so married
to those axioms as to contend that they are in some way absolute.
He is welcome to his subjective opinion, but he should not be surprised
that many others disagree, and he should not be so arrogant as to consider
that disagreement a reflection of inferior reasoning on the part of others.
He has worked himself into a logical corner into which many others see no
reason to follow. If he thinks that he can convince others that his axioms
constitute "the one true way" then he is sadly -- and troublingly --
mistaken.
This applies equally to his followers, as well.