dan (3) - practical engagement and justification
dan's third post:
(Big thanks to Tom for helping me formulate these ideas)
When I told Jenn that Micah and I are having an exchange about how atheists and theists can be friends Jenn quipped (something like), “Who’s arguing that they can’t?” I laughed at the time. But now it doesn’t seem so much like a joke, because I appear to have adopted the role of the critic who pokes holes in other people’s positive ideas about how such a friendship is possible. As such, I’m going to post something constructive…next time. Right now, however, I have one more axe to grind.
I’m intrigued by the idea that it is in virtue of a shared practical engagement with the world that Micah and I can be friends. I think there’s something right about this. But, I want to argue, the more weight we place on the idea, the higher the costs of adopting it. Why?
The rough idea that Micah and Natalie seem to be driving at is that while Micah and I might have taken different routes to get there, we have more or less ended up in the same place, practically speaking. So, one might say, our practical values are substantially similar. But what does it mean to say that we ended up in the same place via different routes?
We might mean that the path we took in arriving at our practical engagements were simply causal antecedents to our being where we are. So, as part of the causal history explaining how Micah and I came to value X, my story will include bits about growing up Jewish in Kingston, Ontario, while Micah’s will include bits about growing up Christian in Georgia. Importantly, these causal facts, if they are merely causal, play no justificatory in why we have our commitments. One way of putting this point is by saying that our end point can be grasped independently of the steps we actually took to get there – the conclusion and the route to the conclusion are conceptually independent. It seems fairly clear that this is not what Micah and Natalie have in mind since, I take it, it is essential to their faith that it stand in a justificatory relation to their practical commitments.
So, then the claim might be that Micah and I share the same practical commitments, but that we justify those commitments in different ways. One thing to note is that there are going to be cases where it looks like people have the same commitment, when in fact they don’t because the justification for the supposedly shared commitment is too different. I think it’s an open question whether the relationship between our atheistic/theistic commitments and our practical commitments is going to provide an example of this, but I’m happy to assume for the time being that it doesn’t.
Crucial to the idea that two people can share the same commitment without sharing a justification for that commitment is the idea that the content of the commitment is graspable independently of the justification. (If it weren’t, then we would have different commitments in virtue of justifying the supposedly shared commitment differently. We’ve already ruled out this possibility). So, for example, suppose Micah and I both think the White Sox are going to make it to the playoffs. Micah’s reason for thinking this is that the team has played so well all year and there’s no sign of them falling apart. My reason for thinking it, however, is that I was visited in a dream by Tim Raines’ Great-grandfather who told me that he was pulling the strings in the afterlife to ensure that the Sox make it to the post-season (and lets add in the proviso that this reason is meant to contradict Micah’s reason). This seems like an obvious case where Micah and I share the same commitment (that the Sox will make it to the post-season) without sharing a justification. It seems absurd to say that in virtue of not sharing the justification we must be talking about different things when we say, “The Sox are playoff-bound.”
Here’s the crucial bit: even though in this case Micah has the right justification, it is only contingently true that this is in fact the justification for the commitment. I might be wrong, and Micah can see that I’m wrong, but he can still imagine that I might be right. There’s nothing conceptually incoherent in my justification.
But then what are we to say about the relationship between the theist’s (to take one edge of the sword here) commitment to certain practical values in relation to his theological values? Is it just contingently true that commitments about how to treat other people etc. are justified by facts about Jesus and his life? If this is the case, then it follows that while I, as an atheist, might have the wrong justification for my practical commitments, I really do understand what it is to be good independently of any thoughts about God. It turns out that I happen to have the justification for those commitments wrong, but that’s just a contingent fact. In another world, I might be right and Micah might be wrong.
This, however, seems like far too weak a construal of the relation between a theist’s theistic commitments and his practical values. Instead, I take it that Micah is more inclined to argue (but maybe not) that one cannot even understand the concepts that provide the content for our practical engagements (concepts like, “goodness” or “forgiveness”) without having certain other concepts. In brief, I take the theist to be committed to the claim that values relating to goodness etc. are conceptually related to truths about God such that one cannot have the former if one doesn’t have the latter.
If this is the case, then we are forced to either 1) abandon the idea that Micah and I share practical values (since I don’t have a grasp on the concepts that inform my practical engagement at all) or 2) claim one side is committed to something other than what that side takes itself to be committed to (I take this to be the idea that Natalie is getting at when she says that the theist will see God as informing the life of the atheist even if the atheist denies it). An unpalatable conclusion no matter which way you go.
I would, however, like to suggest that as unpalatable as the choice is the choice isn’t as bad for an atheist as it is for a theist. Lets assume, plausibly, that it’s more palatable for the theist and atheist to conclude that the other person is actually committed to something other than what he thinks he’s committed to. I think, perhaps wrongly, that this claim amounts to different things for the atheist and theist. The theist, it seems, will be forced to conclude that the atheist has more commitments than the atheist takes himself to have: “You do know what goodness is, but the only way to know what goodness is is to have some understanding of God. So, even if you don’t realize it, you have some concept of God working in you.” The atheist, on the other hand, only need be committed to the claim that the theist actually has fewer commitments than the theist takes himself to have. And not even that – the atheist can admit that the theist has all, and only those, commitments that the theist takes himself to have. The atheist need only deny that those commitments hook up in the way the theist thinks they do: “I know you believe in God and I know you know what goodness is. You’re just wrong to think that you can’t understand the second without the first. You need less, conceptually speaking, to understand goodness than you think you do.” Imagine the theist and atheist are going through a mathematical proof. When they get to what we normally consider the end, the theist says, “We’re missing a premise without which none of this makes sense,” and proceeds to write, “Premise: God exists.” Insofar as the atheist resists this move, the theist is forced to say that the atheist must actually, in some sense, be committed to it because without it, the theist can’t hold onto the idea that the atheist actually knows what is going on in the proof. But the atheist need only say, “I know that you believe in God. But you’re simply wrong to think that that commitment is needed to make sense of these mathematical concepts.” So, it turns out that the idea of shared practical engagement is available at a lower cost, so to speak, to the atheist than the theist.
(Big thanks to Tom for helping me formulate these ideas)
When I told Jenn that Micah and I are having an exchange about how atheists and theists can be friends Jenn quipped (something like), “Who’s arguing that they can’t?” I laughed at the time. But now it doesn’t seem so much like a joke, because I appear to have adopted the role of the critic who pokes holes in other people’s positive ideas about how such a friendship is possible. As such, I’m going to post something constructive…next time. Right now, however, I have one more axe to grind.
I’m intrigued by the idea that it is in virtue of a shared practical engagement with the world that Micah and I can be friends. I think there’s something right about this. But, I want to argue, the more weight we place on the idea, the higher the costs of adopting it. Why?
The rough idea that Micah and Natalie seem to be driving at is that while Micah and I might have taken different routes to get there, we have more or less ended up in the same place, practically speaking. So, one might say, our practical values are substantially similar. But what does it mean to say that we ended up in the same place via different routes?
We might mean that the path we took in arriving at our practical engagements were simply causal antecedents to our being where we are. So, as part of the causal history explaining how Micah and I came to value X, my story will include bits about growing up Jewish in Kingston, Ontario, while Micah’s will include bits about growing up Christian in Georgia. Importantly, these causal facts, if they are merely causal, play no justificatory in why we have our commitments. One way of putting this point is by saying that our end point can be grasped independently of the steps we actually took to get there – the conclusion and the route to the conclusion are conceptually independent. It seems fairly clear that this is not what Micah and Natalie have in mind since, I take it, it is essential to their faith that it stand in a justificatory relation to their practical commitments.
So, then the claim might be that Micah and I share the same practical commitments, but that we justify those commitments in different ways. One thing to note is that there are going to be cases where it looks like people have the same commitment, when in fact they don’t because the justification for the supposedly shared commitment is too different. I think it’s an open question whether the relationship between our atheistic/theistic commitments and our practical commitments is going to provide an example of this, but I’m happy to assume for the time being that it doesn’t.
Crucial to the idea that two people can share the same commitment without sharing a justification for that commitment is the idea that the content of the commitment is graspable independently of the justification. (If it weren’t, then we would have different commitments in virtue of justifying the supposedly shared commitment differently. We’ve already ruled out this possibility). So, for example, suppose Micah and I both think the White Sox are going to make it to the playoffs. Micah’s reason for thinking this is that the team has played so well all year and there’s no sign of them falling apart. My reason for thinking it, however, is that I was visited in a dream by Tim Raines’ Great-grandfather who told me that he was pulling the strings in the afterlife to ensure that the Sox make it to the post-season (and lets add in the proviso that this reason is meant to contradict Micah’s reason). This seems like an obvious case where Micah and I share the same commitment (that the Sox will make it to the post-season) without sharing a justification. It seems absurd to say that in virtue of not sharing the justification we must be talking about different things when we say, “The Sox are playoff-bound.”
Here’s the crucial bit: even though in this case Micah has the right justification, it is only contingently true that this is in fact the justification for the commitment. I might be wrong, and Micah can see that I’m wrong, but he can still imagine that I might be right. There’s nothing conceptually incoherent in my justification.
But then what are we to say about the relationship between the theist’s (to take one edge of the sword here) commitment to certain practical values in relation to his theological values? Is it just contingently true that commitments about how to treat other people etc. are justified by facts about Jesus and his life? If this is the case, then it follows that while I, as an atheist, might have the wrong justification for my practical commitments, I really do understand what it is to be good independently of any thoughts about God. It turns out that I happen to have the justification for those commitments wrong, but that’s just a contingent fact. In another world, I might be right and Micah might be wrong.
This, however, seems like far too weak a construal of the relation between a theist’s theistic commitments and his practical values. Instead, I take it that Micah is more inclined to argue (but maybe not) that one cannot even understand the concepts that provide the content for our practical engagements (concepts like, “goodness” or “forgiveness”) without having certain other concepts. In brief, I take the theist to be committed to the claim that values relating to goodness etc. are conceptually related to truths about God such that one cannot have the former if one doesn’t have the latter.
If this is the case, then we are forced to either 1) abandon the idea that Micah and I share practical values (since I don’t have a grasp on the concepts that inform my practical engagement at all) or 2) claim one side is committed to something other than what that side takes itself to be committed to (I take this to be the idea that Natalie is getting at when she says that the theist will see God as informing the life of the atheist even if the atheist denies it). An unpalatable conclusion no matter which way you go.
I would, however, like to suggest that as unpalatable as the choice is the choice isn’t as bad for an atheist as it is for a theist. Lets assume, plausibly, that it’s more palatable for the theist and atheist to conclude that the other person is actually committed to something other than what he thinks he’s committed to. I think, perhaps wrongly, that this claim amounts to different things for the atheist and theist. The theist, it seems, will be forced to conclude that the atheist has more commitments than the atheist takes himself to have: “You do know what goodness is, but the only way to know what goodness is is to have some understanding of God. So, even if you don’t realize it, you have some concept of God working in you.” The atheist, on the other hand, only need be committed to the claim that the theist actually has fewer commitments than the theist takes himself to have. And not even that – the atheist can admit that the theist has all, and only those, commitments that the theist takes himself to have. The atheist need only deny that those commitments hook up in the way the theist thinks they do: “I know you believe in God and I know you know what goodness is. You’re just wrong to think that you can’t understand the second without the first. You need less, conceptually speaking, to understand goodness than you think you do.” Imagine the theist and atheist are going through a mathematical proof. When they get to what we normally consider the end, the theist says, “We’re missing a premise without which none of this makes sense,” and proceeds to write, “Premise: God exists.” Insofar as the atheist resists this move, the theist is forced to say that the atheist must actually, in some sense, be committed to it because without it, the theist can’t hold onto the idea that the atheist actually knows what is going on in the proof. But the atheist need only say, “I know that you believe in God. But you’re simply wrong to think that that commitment is needed to make sense of these mathematical concepts.” So, it turns out that the idea of shared practical engagement is available at a lower cost, so to speak, to the atheist than the theist.
posted by micah at 1:00 PM
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