Morality as a Natural Phenomenon

Simon Blackburn helpfully lets us know that the roots of morality as a natural phenomenon are found in our natural moral capacities:

Morality is a natural phenomenon. Its roots lie in our needs and our capacities for sympathetically imagining the feelings of others, for inventing co-operative principles, for being able to take an impersonal view of our own doings. We have what Adam Smith called a “man within the breast” monitoring our feelings and actions in the name of those with whom we live. Imagining their admiration, we feel pride; imagining their anger, guilt, their contempt, shame.

Next on the list: showing that reasoning is a natural phenomenon whose roots lie in our natural ability to make judgments and draw conclusions, that religion is a natural phenomenon rooted in our natural ability to engage in religious practices, and that going to bed is a natural phenomenon whose roots lie in our need for sleep.

Seriously, though, I actually don't know of anyone spends much time talking about the subject who doesn't think that morality is a natural phenomenon in at least something like this sense, even if they have weaker sentimentalist inclinations than Blackburn; even the very strongest forms of divine command theory hold that we have natural moral capacities -- they just think that consistent atheism is inconsistent certain things that moral capacities require, or that it enervates their effectiveness, or that these natural capacities culminate or find their best organization when combined with the belief that their demands are actually truly authoritative commands. If William Warburton can agree with your moral naturalism, you don't really have much of a moral naturalism.

But it is nice to see Adam Smith's impartial spectator, even if Blackburn doesn't acknowledge how controverisal he is. Plus I'm experimenting with using Blackburn's Think as a textbook for a course this summer (I've wanted to try it out for years now, and my usual course structure isn't suitable for the particular kind of course I'll have to be teaching this summer, due to the way it's scheduled); I can add this review as a supplement to the "What to Do" chapter.

Ritual

Ritual is really much older than thought; it is much simpler and much wilder than thought. A feeling touching the nature of things does not only make men feel that there are certain proper things to say; it makes them feel that there are certain proper things to do. The more agreeable of these consist of dancing, building temples, and shouting very loud; the less agreeable, of wearing green carnations and burning other philosophers alive. But everywhere the religious dance came before the religious hymn, and man was a ritualist before he could speak.

G. K. Chesterton, "Christmas and the Aesthetes," Heretics.

How Canst Thou Renounce

Nature
by James Beattie

O how canst thou renounce the boundless store
Of charms which Nature to her votary yields!
The warbling woodland, the resounding shore,
The pomp of groves, and garniture of fields;
All that the genial ray of morning gilds,
And all that echoes to the song of even,
All that the mountain's sheltering bosom shields,
And all the dread magnificence of heaven,
O how canst thou renounce and hope to be forgiven!

Links

* A post at "Webpagina Joost Hengstmengel" on the relationship between economics and ethics in light of Dooyeweerd.

* Philosophy Carnival #123 at "Faith in Philosophy"

* The Catholic Moral Theology Blog has recently started up. So far the posts manage to avoid much Glubglubglub, which is usually, as you know, the official language of contemporary theology; and some of the contributors, like Beth Haile, can definitely be trusted to make reasonable and careful arguments; and they at least recognize that good Catholic moral theology has to put down properly Catholic roots; so it looks very promising.

And since I tend to be very critical of theologians, who I think have, for a very long time now, used the eminence of their discipline as an excuse for not holding themselves to anything other than completely laughable standards of intellectual accountability, I think it's important to encourage those that seem to be doing things the right way (as I've noted before, I think they are much easier to find than they once were). I almost went into theology rather than philosophy; in undergrad I double majored in the two. I went into philosophy for three reasons: I was sick of the awful reasoning (and complete manglings of philosophical ideas and arguments) that I was constantly coming across; and I had discovered that philosophy, despite inconsistencies, was much more congenial to the study of the actual reasoning of the great theologians of history (I got more actual theology in classes and books devoted to the history of philosophy than in even my best theology classes, with fewer arbitrary assumptions, better arguments, and less tendentiousness of rhetoric); and I fell in love with history of philosophy, as a field, in its own right. Over the past decade, though, I've noticed increasing numbers of theologians who are doing the sort of work that would have genuinely kept my interest then, so that's a good sign.

* Ed Feser on Descartes's trademark argument for God's existence.

* Arsen Darnay talks about calculating logarithms by hand. You can read John Napier's own original account at Google Books.

* Despite slowly sinking U.S. numbers, the Narnia movie franchise has been doing well enough that Walden Media will be filming another one. However, they are skipping The Silver Chair for the moment and going to The Magician's Nephew. I suspect that this is a mistake -- The Silver Chair is much more cinematic in character, in the sense that it would be far easier to make a good movie of without botching anything, than The Magician's Nephew. However, The Magician's Nephew is the second most popular Narnia book, and The Silver Chair is the least, and since the proportions of the movie sales have been roughly following the proportions of the book sales, they're trying to play it safe. And (1) there's nothing sacrosanct about any particular ordering of the books and (2) a reasonably successful movie at this point will prevent the series from running out of steam in the middle.

* It's refreshing to find a friar doing what a friar is supposed to do. And in very secular Portland, Oregon, no less.

* Calah of "Barefoot and Pregnant" discusses the phrase "woman in crisis". (ht)

* Jonathan Schaffer, Causes Need Not Be Physically Connected to Their Effects: The Case for Negative Causation (PDF)
Michael Hartsock, Absences as Causes: A Defence of Negative Causation (PDF)

* One thing that struck me about this report on the connections (PDF) between Planned Parenthood and Catholic colleges is that it muddles together two different things: college actions, which genuinely raise issues of consistency, and independent actions of professors, about which colleges often have only very limited say if it's not something actually done in the classroom. This is very uninformative, and the suggestion that a no-tolerance policy on relationships with Planned Parenthood include external affiliations of professors would, if followed, quickly mire many colleges in serious contract violations and wrongful termination lawsuits. (In full disclosure, one of my undergraduate philosophy professors, indeed, one of my favorite undergrad philosophy professors, is on the list because of affiliations listed on his CV.)

* What Is It Like to Be a Woman in Philosophy? is up and running again, and now has a sister site, What We're Doing about What It's Like.

* I hope to say something about "structures of sin" or structural sin (as it is somewhat more loosely called) at some point, so I found this post at "WIT" interesting.

Cathedrals and Lack Thereof

I noticed that Martin Rees in his Templeton Prize speech mentioned Ely Cathedral:

All too often the focus is short term and parochial – the urgent and the local loom higher on political agendas than even the gravest long-term challenges. We downplay what's happening even now in impoverished far-away countries. And we give too little thought to what kind of world we'll leave for our grandchildren.

As regards my own "philosophy", I continue to be inspired by the music, liturgy and architectural tradition of the Anglican Church in which I was brought up. No one can fail to be uplifted by great cathedrals – such as that at Ely, near my home in Cambridge. Ely Cathedral overwhelms us today. But think of its impact 900 years ago – think of the vast enterprise its construction entailed. Most of its builders had never travelled more than 50 miles; the Fens were their world. Even the most educated knew of essentially nothing beyond Europe. They thought the world was a few thousand years old – and that it might not last another thousand.

But despite these constricted horizons, in both time and space – despite the deprivation and harshness of their lives – despite their primitive technology and meagre resources – they built this huge and glorious building – pushing the boundaries of what was possible. Those who conceived it knew they wouldn't live to see it finished. Their legacy still elevates our spirits, nearly a millennium later.

The Cathedral Church of the Holy and Undivided Trinity of Ely is a good example for his purposes; it is a massive and stunning cathedral in a tiny town -- about 15,000 people -- that has never been large. The Cathedral website has virtual tours, so if you've never been there you can see some of it for yourself. The current cathedral goes back to a Benedictine monastery founded about 970; this was converted into a cathedral about 1109. Its most distinctive feature, the Octagon Tower, was completed by about the middle of the fourteenth century.

William Whewell once argued that Gothic cathedrals are dominated by the Idea of the Vertical, precisely because it gave the sense of the indefinite, and thus of aspiration:

The ornaments, openings, windows, pillars, which had formerly been governed by the most imperative rules of horizontal arrangement, had been disbanded, or at least their discipline had become good for nothing. The Gothic architect restored the reign of order, and rallied these vague elements in a vertical line. A new thought, a new idea, was infused into the conception of such members, which at once gave them connexion and fixity. The previous change from classical architecture had been a breaking up of the connexion of parts, multiplicity without fertility, violation of rules without gaining of objects, degradation, barbarism. The change now became the formation of connexion; the establishment of arrangements which were fertile in beautiful and convenient combinations; reformation; selection of the good, rejection of the mere customary.

And since Panofsky the analogies between the Gothic architecture -- up and up -- and medieval intellectual life -- also "vertical, aspiring, indefinite," to use another phrase by Whewell -- have often been noted; and what is remarkable is that they both were in their own way conceived of as a shared patrimony, a resource for everyone. We don't really have anything similar (I once suggested, only halfway with tongue in cheek, that the architectural work that most completely expresses our intellectual life is the parking lot). Rees notes this, and suggests that perhaps instead we can work cooperatively to leave our children "a fair inheritance" -- a healthy planet, and the like.

Which is a nice idea, but honestly I don't see it happening. In today's "runaway world" we don't even have the attention span to plan something like a cathedral for centuries; and it strikes me as very plausible that the sort of project envisioned by Rees will require much more planning and have to last for centuries itself.

Mimi and Eunice at Prayer

Stern Joy

Real joy, believe me, is a stern matter. Can one, do you think, despise death with a care-free countenance, or with a "blithe and gay" expression, as our young dandies are accustomed to say? Or can one thus open his door to poverty, or hold the curb on his pleasures, or contemplate the endurance of pain? He who ponders these things in his beart is indeed full of joy; but it is not a cheerful joy. It is just this joy, however, of which I would have you become the owner; for it will never fail you when once you have found its source. The yield of poor mines is on the surface; those are really rich whose veins lurk deep, and they will make more bountiful returns to him who delves unceasingly. So too those baubles which delight the common crowd afford but a thin pleasure, laid on as a coating, and even joy that is only plated lacks a real basis.

Seneca, Epistle XXIII