micah (2) - shared values, shared lives
thanks to tom and natalie for your excellent comments. although i'm unable to give those comments the attention they deserve, i'm going to try to pick up on some of your points in my post:
dan and i seem to agree that friendship depends on agreement, that the the stuff of friendship is the shared, the common. we also seem to agree that part of what friends share are beliefs and values, and this gives rise to a possible puzzle about how atheists and theists can be friends. i suggest that we can make progress in thinking about this puzzle by keeping in mind that what friends share is, first and foremost, their lives (or, perhaps, their selves) the agreement involved in friendship, then, is not like the agreement involved in pledging agreement to a political creed or supporting a particular school of academic thought. rather, what is shared between friends has to do with particular and specific things about how we are to go about in the world.
in talking about beliefs and/or values, dan raised the point that beliefs and/or values may be 1) peripheral or 2) fundmental in their importance (of course this division is short-hand; i'm sure none of us would deny a spectrum of importance). dan made a further distinction within the idea of 'importance' which, i think, can be faithfully paraphrased or reformulated as the distinction between: 1) important for how we lead our lives, carry ourselves, make decisions; important in a 'practical' sense, and 2) important for how we understand or justify our beliefs and values; important in an 'epistemic' sense.
now, i'm not sure if i understood dan's point correctly, but it seemed to me that there was a worry about what it meant for two people to have the 'same' belief or value if they have two very different sets of beliefs and values. it seems to me that, if this is indeed the worry, then it might have much broader application than the issue of friendship -e.g. did berkeley and johnson both think they were kicking a 'stone'? i suppose that this issue may be connected to fairly deep problems in epistemology and philosophy of langauge (and probably giving the right answer has something to do with saying the word 'holism'), but i'm way out of my depth in trying to tackle this question, and i'm optimistic that we don't need to deal with it at its most general level to talk about friendship (if, indeed, this general worry even was what dan had in mind).
what i do want to say, however, is that it seems wrong to me to think that we don't at allhave the 'same' value simply because our full and final justification or understandings of that value are different, and perhaps even in conflict. it may very well be a physicist has a full and final justification and explanation for her belief 'this is a table' that is very different from the justification and explanation that her ten-year old son has for his belief 'this is a table.' but even so, it seems odd to me to conclude that they don't share the belief 'this is a table.' similarly, dan and i may have different full and final justifcations and explanation and motivations for believing 'cruelty is wrong' or 'patient listening is important', but this doesn't mean that we don't share those beliefs and values at all.
i find myself wanting to say that the fact that the physicist and her daughter have the same belief -'this is a table'- is irreducibly connected to the fact that they both practically respond to the table as a table -they put things on it, they meet there for dinner, etc. similarly, and perhaps even more so, i want to say that dan and i sharing a value has to do with the way we behave, the way we respond to situations, the things we say and do.
along these same lines, it is worth noting that when i began to talk about values i think dan and i share, i was immediately led to talk about values of an especially 'practical' nature -values about the search for truth. these shared values concerning intellectual virtues are ones which are played out in concrete situations, in our conversational practices how we spend our time on a daily basis. (the extent of this practical agreement was also further elaborated upon by natalie in her comment)
my 'answer' to the puzzle, then, is roughly this: people can in some way share a belief or value, even if they have a very different overall set of beliefs and values. and even more important to the question of friendship, it is possible for friends to share values that are of a similar practical importance, even if those values have different epistemic importance in the belief sets of each person. this is so because, as i noted at the beginning of this post, friendship is a matter practical, not confessional or creedal, agreement.
this leads to several other points. i will reserve further elaboration for future posts in order to keep this post from getting too long. but in order to remember them, and possibly to spur others' comments, i will briefly mention them:
1) perhaps we can think about what is shared between friends as certain projects they have. these may be more or less important and more or less encompassing, and the nature of the friendship will vary accordingly. these projects may be described in different ways, and different people may be able to participate in others projects in some ways but not in others -e.g. the project of playing raquetball, the project of being a good student, the project of being virtuous, the project of loving god and one's neighbor.
2) how agreement about values and practices is possible in spite of 'epistemic' disagreement is an intersting question, but one for which no 'nuetral' answer is probably possible. that is, various positions (atheistic or theistic) will have various ways of describing how different people get things right or fail to get them right (see natalie's point on this, and also her own view as an example of one christian way of making sense of non-christian belief and practice)
3) what practical agreement amounts to deserves further attention. there is also the possibility that the 'practical' vs. 'epistemic' distinction may not be so neat, or may especially break down with certain kinds of beliefs (see tom's suggestion about what dis/belief in god amounts to)
4) even if certain agreements are possible, might there be limits to these agreements, and hence limits to the kinds of friendship possible for certain people? (a possibility raised by my friend heath in conversation -that there are different kinds of friendship, and some may be possible between atheists and theists while others are not)
dan and i seem to agree that friendship depends on agreement, that the the stuff of friendship is the shared, the common. we also seem to agree that part of what friends share are beliefs and values, and this gives rise to a possible puzzle about how atheists and theists can be friends. i suggest that we can make progress in thinking about this puzzle by keeping in mind that what friends share is, first and foremost, their lives (or, perhaps, their selves) the agreement involved in friendship, then, is not like the agreement involved in pledging agreement to a political creed or supporting a particular school of academic thought. rather, what is shared between friends has to do with particular and specific things about how we are to go about in the world.
in talking about beliefs and/or values, dan raised the point that beliefs and/or values may be 1) peripheral or 2) fundmental in their importance (of course this division is short-hand; i'm sure none of us would deny a spectrum of importance). dan made a further distinction within the idea of 'importance' which, i think, can be faithfully paraphrased or reformulated as the distinction between: 1) important for how we lead our lives, carry ourselves, make decisions; important in a 'practical' sense, and 2) important for how we understand or justify our beliefs and values; important in an 'epistemic' sense.
now, i'm not sure if i understood dan's point correctly, but it seemed to me that there was a worry about what it meant for two people to have the 'same' belief or value if they have two very different sets of beliefs and values. it seems to me that, if this is indeed the worry, then it might have much broader application than the issue of friendship -e.g. did berkeley and johnson both think they were kicking a 'stone'? i suppose that this issue may be connected to fairly deep problems in epistemology and philosophy of langauge (and probably giving the right answer has something to do with saying the word 'holism'), but i'm way out of my depth in trying to tackle this question, and i'm optimistic that we don't need to deal with it at its most general level to talk about friendship (if, indeed, this general worry even was what dan had in mind).
what i do want to say, however, is that it seems wrong to me to think that we don't at allhave the 'same' value simply because our full and final justification or understandings of that value are different, and perhaps even in conflict. it may very well be a physicist has a full and final justification and explanation for her belief 'this is a table' that is very different from the justification and explanation that her ten-year old son has for his belief 'this is a table.' but even so, it seems odd to me to conclude that they don't share the belief 'this is a table.' similarly, dan and i may have different full and final justifcations and explanation and motivations for believing 'cruelty is wrong' or 'patient listening is important', but this doesn't mean that we don't share those beliefs and values at all.
i find myself wanting to say that the fact that the physicist and her daughter have the same belief -'this is a table'- is irreducibly connected to the fact that they both practically respond to the table as a table -they put things on it, they meet there for dinner, etc. similarly, and perhaps even more so, i want to say that dan and i sharing a value has to do with the way we behave, the way we respond to situations, the things we say and do.
along these same lines, it is worth noting that when i began to talk about values i think dan and i share, i was immediately led to talk about values of an especially 'practical' nature -values about the search for truth. these shared values concerning intellectual virtues are ones which are played out in concrete situations, in our conversational practices how we spend our time on a daily basis. (the extent of this practical agreement was also further elaborated upon by natalie in her comment)
my 'answer' to the puzzle, then, is roughly this: people can in some way share a belief or value, even if they have a very different overall set of beliefs and values. and even more important to the question of friendship, it is possible for friends to share values that are of a similar practical importance, even if those values have different epistemic importance in the belief sets of each person. this is so because, as i noted at the beginning of this post, friendship is a matter practical, not confessional or creedal, agreement.
this leads to several other points. i will reserve further elaboration for future posts in order to keep this post from getting too long. but in order to remember them, and possibly to spur others' comments, i will briefly mention them:
1) perhaps we can think about what is shared between friends as certain projects they have. these may be more or less important and more or less encompassing, and the nature of the friendship will vary accordingly. these projects may be described in different ways, and different people may be able to participate in others projects in some ways but not in others -e.g. the project of playing raquetball, the project of being a good student, the project of being virtuous, the project of loving god and one's neighbor.
2) how agreement about values and practices is possible in spite of 'epistemic' disagreement is an intersting question, but one for which no 'nuetral' answer is probably possible. that is, various positions (atheistic or theistic) will have various ways of describing how different people get things right or fail to get them right (see natalie's point on this, and also her own view as an example of one christian way of making sense of non-christian belief and practice)
3) what practical agreement amounts to deserves further attention. there is also the possibility that the 'practical' vs. 'epistemic' distinction may not be so neat, or may especially break down with certain kinds of beliefs (see tom's suggestion about what dis/belief in god amounts to)
4) even if certain agreements are possible, might there be limits to these agreements, and hence limits to the kinds of friendship possible for certain people? (a possibility raised by my friend heath in conversation -that there are different kinds of friendship, and some may be possible between atheists and theists while others are not)
posted by micah at 10:05 AM
3 Comments:
What a good discussion this is. As Micah suggests, Dan’s grim dilemma is connected to a standard worry about what’s entailed by holism about beliefs and values. The worry is that unless we share all our beliefs, we can’t share any. (“If the content of every one of my beliefs depends on its being embedded in the network that comprises all of my beliefs, then unless you share all of my beliefs, you and I can’t agree about anything.”) To this, a holist can reply: Yes, any particular belief or value is what it is thanks in part to its location in a subject’s vast network of beliefs, values, desires, etc. But no—it just doesn’t follow from this that in order for you and I to agree, e.g., that it’s raining out, or that we ought to support our children, we must share all our beliefs and values.
Of course Dan didn’t say (or imply) that without sharing all beliefs and values, two people can’t share any. He’s interested not in two people who merely disagree about something or other, but in people who disagree in their fundamental belief or set of beliefs. What ‘fundamental’ means here can, I take it, be spelled out this way: if two people can share their central values while disagreeing about X, this shows that beliefs about X are not fundamental.
I guess I don’t think religious beliefs need be fundamental in this sense. I take it Micah doesn’t think so either. It doesn’t follow that religious beliefs aren’t deeply important to religious people’s lives and values. This is, after all, a pretty technical sense of ‘fundamental’ that we've been working with.
For all that, I do think there is a kind of religion that, taken seriously, makes the prospects for sharing central values with a non-believer look dim. I have in mind any faith according to which:
(1) Unbelievers are (or even tend to be) doomed to an eternity of (literal) torture.
(2) This treatment is what they deserve—the universe being fair, in this sense.
I take it that anyone who thinks, e.g., that what Anne Frank deserved after she died was not just a little torture, but an eternity of it, is not someone who could be said to share my basic values.
-David F.
Hmmm…
It’s seems to me that two people can value the same thing for very different reasons and still take pleasure in each other based on the substance of that end value. Indeed, it seems to me that the different paths to that shared value can actually enhance the experience of sharing the value. Who doesn’t enjoy arguing with a friend about the merits of a favorite band—one insisting lyrical prowess is its forte, while the other insists the music itself is the thing—over drinks after you’ve both just enjoyed a concert by said band. Or, in another classic argument: “Great Taste! Less Filling!” All parties still chug the same beer and it could be argued that their enjoyment of it is heightened by the friendly argument (until, of course, everyone is drunk and they start breaking bottles over each other’s heads…).
In other words (perhaps Micah’s), it’s within the “practical” that camaraderie and friendship are realized. If two people can comfortably exist in close proximity to each other, regardless of the paths (different or similar) they each took to be in that shared space, the possibility of friendship exists.
It seems to me that Dan and Micah exist comfortably in close proximity to one another based on the way each of them chooses to maneuver through the world. Their choices are based on different fundamental beliefs about the world, but they’re doing the same dance (e.g. striving to be patient listeners, avoiding cruelty, etc.).
Having said that, I’m intrigued by Heath’s suggestion that there are different kinds of friendship and some may be possible between an atheist and a theist and some might not. While I’m reticent to make sweeping proclamations about what is and what isn’t possible between any given two people, I’m inclined to agree with Heath. Whether friendship does actually differ in substance, so as to be of various “kinds”, or simply differs by degree, I’m not sure. But it does seem to me that increasing levels of intimacy require increasing levels of agreement on “fundamentals.” For example, I confess skepticism when it comes to inter-religious marriages. It seems to me that something must suffer—devotion to one’s god* or to one’s spouse—in this context of what is essentially one’s most intimate friendship.
To continue with my dance metaphor (which will fall apart here any second now), it’s one thing for two people to dance side by side (doing, say, the electric slide); it’s another to dance in each other’s arms (a merengue perhaps). In the former scenario, your partner can improvise, throw in a turn here or an extra shimmy there, and you’re none the worse off. Indeed, extra antics might even be humorous and heighten your enjoyment of this shared “project.” In the later scenario, there has to be much more agreement about both fundamental and peripheral issues (e.g. placement of the hands, syncopation of the hips, trust in the other to lead/follow well**, etc.) for the experience to be an enjoyable (and long-term) one.
So, what does that mean for Micah and Dan? That they shouldn’t get married? Probably. Sorry guys. ; ) But with that option off the table, I think the how of their friendship is found in the present act of, well, friendship. It’s found in their shared values, i.e. practical enjoyment of one another. Based on this exchange alone, I find it easy to believe that the two of them will enjoy and appreciate each other (remain friends) for a long time to come.
The trickier question is this: what would/could their friendship be if they both shared the same fundamental beliefs? Such a comparison is, I suppose, pointless (and technically impossible for that matter). But I guess I don’t have trouble seeing how you two can be friends. Instead, I wonder what, if any, limitations are imposed on your friendship via your different assumptions about what life is fundamentally all about.
--- Lisa
*Assuming, of course, one’s god has something to say about the way one should live his or her life and the consequences (probably dire) of not doing so. I suppose there are perhaps combinations of religions that would co-habitat well. I can’t think of any off the top of my head, but I allow that they could exist.
**It’s perhaps worth noting that an increased capacity for extending grace (or the atheistic equivalent thereof) is also necessary as intimacy increases given that your partner’s missteps are increasingly more likely to hurt you once you’re actually face to face (e.g. stepping on toes, bumping heads, etc.). Okay, end of dance metaphor. I promise.
two questions for micah and dan:
1) is it that when you meet and hang out you feel that you have to 'check in your beliefs at the door'? In other words, if you were to truly engage your disagreements, it no longer feels like a friendship but a debate and therefore you mostly appropriate other topics besides religion? The reason i ask this is that in teaching an undergraduate class, many of my students (who happened to be believers as they told me later) felt as if they had to check in their beliefs at the door, since they were not allowed to fully express them in my class. While i felt that this comment was unfair, i had to rethink my style of teaching in order to allow my students a space in which to express their religion freely.
2) somewhat tied to the first question is what it means to have a friendship in light of David's question about hell. is it that the believer (i.e. Micah) must necessarily share or express in some way the lack/negative aspects of the other non-believer (i.e. Dan)? in my understanding, this necessarily in the last sentence is part and parcel of perhaps an evangelical or mormon point of view, whereas the Roman Catholic or Eastern Orthodox does not have to try to convert anyone as part of the basics to their belief. if one holds the former view, then hell may be a serious impediment to real friendship...
Post a Comment
<< Home