Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science

Moral confusion is a common problem. When a conversation begins about the difference between right and wrong, everyone can feel the tension, because admitting you’re wrong isn’t just about saying you have bad reasons, but can become about whether or not you are a bad person. Sometimes we argue past each other because we’re using the same words to mean radically different things. Sometimes we agree with each other, but we don’t even recognize it. This article is an attempt to offer conceptual clarity so we can have fairer, more intelligent conversations with one another about the pressing moral issues of our day.

For the sake of further clarity, I’ve divided this article on ethics into two parts. In the first part, using the metaphor of a house, I offer a brief overview of the categorical differences between behavior, ethics, and meta-ethics. The second half of the article explains the implications of this metaphor for the ‘New Atheist’ worldview, as exemplified by Richard Dawkins.

Part One: The difference between behavior, ethics and meta-ethics

Generally speaking, there are three different levels, or kinds, of ethical statements: meta-ethics, ethics, and descriptions of our actual behavior (or descriptive ethics). In any case, one way to visualize these differences is by thinking about a one-story house with its roof and foundation.

Let’s look at our “house of morality” from the top down:

In this metaphor, the roof of the house is how you behave, your actual actions. For instance: I tutor a child from a disadvantaged school or I embezzle money.

The first or main floor of the house is your ethical theory, that is, what you believe is right and wrong to do. For instance: I believe volunteer service is morally good or theft is wrong. You might also turn these specific ethical statements into general principles like “do not harm others without good cause (e.g., for the sake of a medical operation).”

The foundation of the house is your meta-ethical position, what you believe to be true about ethics and morality. For instance: Moral beliefs are an expression of personal preferences or moral truth is based upon God’s holy character.

To summarize:

There’s our actual behavior – our morally significant (or insignificant) choices and actions There’s our ethical system – what we believe to be right and wrong There’s our meta-ethical position – what we believe about the nature of our ethical system

In daily life, the common understanding is that personal integrity and logical consistency come from an alignment between the foundation, the first floor, and the roof of your ‘moral home.’ For instance, if you believe that “moral truth is based upon God’s holy character” (foundation) and that “theft is wrong” (first floor) but you also embezzle money (roof), we see this contradiction as glaring hypocrisy. In this case, the supposed foundation and first floor of the home don’t properly support the roof.

Clarity about the difference between meta-ethics, ethics, and behavior is essential. When these issues get mixed up, angry disagreements arise. For instance, when Christians claim that “the atheistic worldview cannot support the existence of moral truth” (discussing the foundation), sometimes atheists hear this as an attack on the roof (“you are saying we are immoral”).

Similarly, sometimes atheists point out immoral behavior among Christians and say “this behavior is inconsistent with your (and our) ethical system, which makes you a hypocrite.” Christians can respond by saying, “Yes, that is bad behavior, and we resolve to change our lifestyles.” But if they respond, “But our ethical standards are the same here, so really, we agree” then they’ve missed the point.

Read on

“What really interests me is whether God had any choice in creating the world.”

That’s how Albert Einstein, in his characteristically poetic way, asked whether our universe is the only possible universe.

The reference to God is easily misread, as Einstein’s question wasn’t theological. Instead, Einstein wanted to know whether the laws of physics necessarily yield a unique universe—ours—filled with galaxies, stars, and planets. Or instead, like each year’s assortment of new cars on the dealer’s lot, could the laws allow for universes with a wide range of different features? And if so, is the majestic reality we’ve come to know—through powerful telescopes and mammoth particle colliders—the product of some random process, a cosmic roll of the dice that selected our features from a menu of possibilities? Or is there a deeper explanation for why things are the way they are?

In Einstein’s day, the possibility that our universe could have turned out differently was a mind-bender that physicists might have bandied about long after the day’s more serious research was done. But recently, the question has shifted from the outskirts of physics to the mainstream. And rather than merely imagining that our universe might have had different properties, proponents of three independent developments now suggest that there are other universes, separate from ours, most made from different kinds of particles and governed by different forces, populating an astoundingly vast cosmos.

The multiverse, as this vast cosmos is called, is one of the most polarizing concepts to have emerged from physics in decades, inspiring heated arguments between those who propose that it is the next phase in our understanding of reality, and those who claim that it is utter nonsense, a travesty born of theoreticians letting their imaginations run wild.

So which is it? And why should we care? Grasping the answer requires that we first come to grips with the big bang.

Read on and view video

Sign Petition

In my first post here at Information Culture, I made the argument that in order for science to progress, the results of scientific studies must be shared with others.

One of the challenges facing scientists in the modern world is that this research is typically published in journals that individuals and libraries must pay to access, sometimes at exorbitant rates. Unfortunately, the costs associated with these journals often prevent patients, researchers and other folks from learning about new scientific findings.

However, since modern science is largely funded through taxpayer support (federal research grants, public universities, etc.) it seems logical that taxpayers should be able to access the research results they’ve already paid for.

Currently, research funded by the National Institute of Health must be made publicly available within 12 months of publication. A current petition at the White House website seeks to expand this requirement to research funded by other federal agencies (the National Science Foundation, the Department of Energy, etc.)

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Researchers have encoded a form of rewritable memory into DNA.

The arduous work involved in building the system is almost as notable as the achievement itself, says Drew Endy of Stanford University in California who led the work, which is published today in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences1.

Synthetic biologists have long sought to devise biological data-storage systems because they could be useful in a variety of applications, and because data storage will be a fundamental function of the digital circuits that the field hopes to create in cells.

Rewritable biological memory circuits have been made previously, for instance from systems of transcription factors, which can be used to shut gene expression on or off in a cell. In such systems, once the memory state of the circuit is set, it can be erased and encoded with a new memory state, as is done in everyday devices such as personal computers.

Endy’s group attempted to create a rewritable memory system by splicing genetic elements from a bacteriophage — a bacterium-infecting virus — into the DNA of the bacterium Escherichia coli.

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If you missed this video posted in the article below, please take a look.

Dr. Peter Boghossian's May 6th public lecture, "Faith: Pretending to know things you don't know"

On Monday 16 April 2012, the day after the fabulous Global Atheist Convention, we brought together three fiercely articulate freethinkers to argue the question "Can Atheists and Believers work together for the common good?"

Chris Stedman is the first Interfaith and Community Service Fellow for the Humanist Chapliancy at Harvard University. Chris writes for the Huffingtion Post, and Washington Post and his own blog, NonProphet Status. His book "Faitheist: how an atheist found common ground with the religious" will be published later in 2012.

PZ Myers is professor of biology at the University of Minnesota, specialising in evolutionary biology. His blog "Pharyngula" has been listed by the journal Nature as the top-ranked blog written by a scientist. He is often cited as the 'cranky curmudgeon' of the freethought community.

Leslie Cannold is an award-winning ethicist based at the University of Melbourne and noted as one of Australia's most influential public intellectuals. A native New Yorker, she has made Australia home for the past 23 years. In addition to her prolific writing on a wide variety of ethical issues, her distinctive voice is heard across public and commercial radio. In 2011 Leslie was named Australian Humanist of the Year.

Listen here

The Mencken quotes this week will all, of course, deal with religion and theology. Here’s your Sunday lesson, from Mencken’s Notebooks, p. 373:

It is often argued that religion is valuable because it makes men good, but even if this were true it would not be a proof that religion is true. That would be an extension of pragmatism beyond endurance. Santa Claus makes children good in precisely the same way, and yet no one would argue seriously that the fact proves his existence. The defense of religion is full of such logical imbecilities. The theologians, taking one with another, are adept logicians, but every now and then they have to resort to sophistries so obvious that their whole case takes on an air of the ridiculous. Even the most logical religion starts out with patently false assumptions. It is often argued in support of this or that one that men are so devoted to it that they are willing to die for it. That, of course, is as silly as the Santa Claus proof. Other men are just as devoted to manifestly false religions, and just as willing to die for them. Every theologian spends a large part of his time and energy trying to prove that religions for which multitudes of honest men have fought and died are false, wicked, and against God.

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In a previous post, I indicated what I consider the “dangerous” realisation that there is no top-down meaning; that our actions aren’t found to be important by anyone (or One) other than ourselves. This idea destroyed and continues to destroy many ideas I embraced (and that I encounter). Based on this, one must ask what follows.

One might become nihilistic, depressed and/or commit suicide; one might also choose to deliberately ignore all the evidence and conjure up bizarre claims about energy and so on, inflating our solipsism to the point where we view our actions as – from a top-down, metaphysical perspective – meaningful.  These are just two, quite extreme, ways people respond to what they realise is a meaningless (from a top-down perspective) existence.

Many of us grew up with the idea that “right” and “wrong” were synonyms for God’s likes and dislikes. Pork and alcohol, premarital sex, praying regularly, clothing in special places, strange rituals, respecting one’s elders: these were the types of ideas that fit the bracket of “morality” for me, when I was young and considered myself Muslim. Looking at that list now, one can see how utterly solipsistic it is. From dietary to fashion, the invocation of God had little to do with what I realise now actually morally matters: the wellbeing and reduction of unnecessary suffering of others. For my younger self – and for many others –we need not worry about the well-being of others because that is God’s domain. What’s the use of interfering, when life is dependent on how much love you’ve earned from God? If something bad happens, it is because you have upset God somehow: you haven’t prayed correctly, bathed correctly, dressed correctly, respected correctly, thought correctly. Of course, “correctly” was a synonym for whatever God wants. Morality therefore became merely about how much or little you thought God loved you, followed by what you planned to do about it.

This apathy is certainly not true for all religious believers. Many are examples of the best people, including, for example, Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu, especially during the struggle against apartheid in South Africa. Here we have a man who played an active, powerful role in helping an entire nation, filled with complete strangers, many of whom were and are godless. He certainly did not believe things would “just work out”, if left up to God. Even the Archbishop then was not of the opinion that morality concerns random rules about our relationship to our god.

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Is faith a reliable means of aligning your beliefs with the truth?  Professor Peter Boghossian says it is not and, in fact, calls faith both a delusion and a cognitive sickness.  Having watched his lecture, “Jesus, The Easter Bunny and Other Delusions: Just Say No!” we decided to ask him to share his thoughts with the readers of The Bent Spoon in an effort to further discussion about this important topic.  He was kind enough to invite MMA coach and voice of reason Matt Thornton to participate as well.

What follows is the full text of our interview.  We hope you’ll find it engaging.

Before we get started, Professor Boghossian, can you please give a brief introduction of yourself to readers who may not be familiar with your work?

I’m in the philosophy department at Portland State University (PSU). My specialty is critical thinking and reasoning. Here’s my PSU homepage:  http://pdx.edu/philosophy/peter-boghossian

I’ve invited Matt Thornton to answer these questions with me:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matt_Thornton_%28martial_artist%29  Matt was a pioneer in reality-based martial arts training and remains a strong voice of reason.

Matt and I will be debating religious leaders at some point in the near future. This is a good opportunity for readers to understand our positions.

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The book "Attack of the Theocrats: How the Religious Right Harms Us All & What We Can Do About It" is available in audiobook, ebook & hardcopy

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Faircloth is Dir. of Strategy & Policy with the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason & Science, US.