Pinker vs Hurlbut at MIT

Minding our Morals: Freedom and the Brain from The Veritas Forum on Vimeo.

(Feb 19, 2010)

Dr. Pinker starts out with characteristic lucitidy, laying his "ontological cards" on the table, as he says. He makes the case that the complexity of the brain itself explains the complexity of psychology and gives rise to subjective experience. He goes on to clearly outline the compatibilist position that free will and physical determinism coexist perfectly well, in the most sensible sense of those phrases. He then describes the nature of moral responsibility, by which he means holding other people accountable for their actions via deterrent means ranging from disapproval to incarceration or worse. He goes on to briefly outline the sociobiological origins and utility of naturalistic human morality.

Dr. Hurlbut doesn't think that science alone is an adaquate way of discussing morality, and eventually gets around to the usual notions of transcendent truth, mysterious moral awareness thereof, indeterminist free will, inherent meaning in nature, and other such ancient superstitions. He does not attempt to demonstrate that these conceptual categories have real world referents, but instead appeals to the intuitions of the audience. For once, this might be a bad idea, given the critical and analytical proclivities of MIT students. He rambles around for quite awhile, but it seems that his overarching argument was that humans are mysterious and wonderful beings, and we really ought not attempt to empircally test and deconstruct their essential characteristics such as love and empathy and morality. Or something touchy feeling like that. He closes with something like an altar call.

Their back and forth coffee chat (with audience Q&A) wends itself around various topics, and is notable in at least two respects. Pinker manages to demonstrate how to unfailingly polite even as he vigorously questions his interlocutors deeply held beliefs, and Hurlbut shows us that even reputable M.D.'s occasionally fall back on faith-healing, at least where mental health is concenred. Ok, that is just a bit unfair, but you can the idea.

Overall rating: 3.5
Believer rating: 2.5
Uneliever rating: 4.5

Brandeis Humanists vs Brandeis Chabad in Boston, MA

This debate (video, mp3) was a student produced event featuring student debaters from Brandeis Humanists and Brandeis Chabad.

The religious side of the debate throws in a bit of natural theology (e.g. first cause) as well as arguments from revelation (e.g. Torah) and "morality" (i.e. blind obedience to Authority). It's the usual theological rubbish, and not even dolled up enough to look like philosophy.

The irreligious side talks too fast at first, so I may have missed a couple of their arguments. Eventually, the first speaker commits the genetic fallacy on a global scale, which is a common enough tactic from amateur debaters such as John Loftus. The second debater leads off with the graveyard of dead gods, implicitly makes the argument that, with so many gods on offer, the apriori probability of following the one true religion is fairly low. He also alludes to incompatible properties arguments and presents a highly particularized presentation of the argument from evil, which was fairly well done. He also makes a few other arguments rooted in the nature of Scripture. This final speaker is by far the most effective debater of the day, and he also has a lot of fun interacting with the audience, which is fairly unusual for such events.

Overall, this debate isn't worth watching. In case you are wondering why there are so few atheists and theists making the rounds around the professional god-debate circuit, this debate might help clear that up for you -- it turns out that it is hard to debate well and easy to debate badly. I think it is adorable and even admirable when amateurs take on great challenges, but not particularly enjoyable. Also, the audio quality is so poor that one ends up rewinding in order to hear poorly stated arguments more than once. Nonetheless, I praise both student groups for having a go at this, and I certainly hope more student groups attempt to put together such events. Consciousness raising can be its own reward.

Antony vs. Craig in Amherst, MA

In this debate Craig leads with the argument that it is impossible for there to be any objective moral truths apart from the (implicitly subjective) preferences of a creator deity and that morality cannot possibly arise in a primate species which exists merely as another branch in a vast tree of life.  He does not show how this follows from any particular view of biology or meta-ethics, but merely assumes that morality must be rooted in a stern and powerful father-figure who threatens punishment for sin and promises rewards for righteousness.  One might suppose that the catchy verse enjoining us to “be good for goodness sake” never made much of a mark on his intellect and conscience.

Craig closes with three challenges to his opponent:

• Explain the basis of objective moral values
  
• Explain the source of objective moral duties
  
• Explain how ultimate moral accountability exists
  

Antony rightly ignores Craig’s challenge during her opening statement, and goes on to elucidate the idea that objective truths about the suffering of sentient beings should be all the facts we need to necessitate moral action.  I did not find her arguments convincing as to the existence of objective moral facts, but certainly they were no worse than equating the naked fear of divine wrath (however arbitrary) with moral absolutes.   Antony lucidly lays out and roundly rejects the idea that moral action must involve submission to a higher power, and recounts the Euthyphro dilemma to the audience in clear terms.  She provides some background on what moral action should be taken to mean and makes the case that only the moral agent who is uncertain of eternal rewards or punishments may indeed be perfectly pious, doing good for the sake of goodness alone.  By the time both opening statements were finished, I was cautiously optimistic that Craig had finally met his equal in a public forum.

In the rebuttal period, Craig chastised his opponent for failing to use her opening statement as a rebuttal period in which to address his three challenges which he made at the end of his opening.  This is a standard Craig debating tactic, which he pulls on most of his opponents, e.g. “…he must first tear down my five arguments, then erect a case for naturalism in their place.”  Presumably Craig does this not because he is unaware of the ground rules of any given debate (he is far too experienced for that) but merely as an attempt frustrate and fluster his opponent with a quick below-the-belt jab.  This tactic doesn’t seem to work particularly well on Antony, who seems quite unflustered as she expertly dismantled most of Craig arguments, pointing out exactly where and how he went awry.

In Craig’s counter-rebuttals he asserts that his opponent had not addressed his arguments (as he always does) but for once his words ring hollow.  They go back and forth for awhile, Antony reasserting that moral action is that which objectively alleviates suffering of any sentient creature, Craig reasserting that moral action can only be defined in terms of obedience to the commands of a Grandly Objective Deity.  They also go back and forth on the Euthyphro for a bit, and Craig tried to sound authoritative as he argued that we can avoid either horn of the dilemma by positing goodness as inherent to God’s character.  Of course, this merely gives rise to a slightly different dilemma, “Is God inherently good because he always desires good things, or does God’s desire for good things make him inherently good?” 

 

The overall theme of the debate was that naturalists may well identify actions which are objectively good in the sense that they are rooted in objective facts about the world, such as desires thwarted or fulfilled, while supernaturalists have the blessing of being permanently retarded in their moral development, always and ever looking upward like wee toddlers for their moral advice, rewards, and punishments.  Having sustained the argument that only the moral values of a fatherly deity should count, a theist may go on to link those desires to our own individual desires by invoking promises of divine retribution and reward, thus executing a complexly paradoxical philosophical pirouette which allows for one to smuggle the central tenets of ethical egoism into the heart of divine command theory.  I’ve heard something sort of like this at least once before, “If you kiss Hank's ass, He'll give you a million dollars; and if you don't, He'll kick the shit out of you.”

[2008-04-01]

 

Levin vs. Alexander in Cambridge, MA

This debate is among of the best I’ve heard on deep matters of metaphysics, though it strayed a fair bit from the topic question at times.  Muchos kudos to the Veritas Forum for bringing together two presenters who were articulate, brilliant, cordial, & downright erudite, for good hearty intellectual jousting. 

Since I’m an unregenerate cynic, thought, I’ll start with the low point of the event.  Probably the worst argument of the talk was this one from Dr. Alexander:

1. Memes are (by definition) ideas which spread primarily due to characteristics other than rational persuasiveness.
   
   
2. If some ideas are memes, then all ideas must be memes, including the idea of memes itself
   
   
3. :. Meme theory cannot be rational, and implodes in a paroxysm of self-contradiction
   

Of course, he fails to make premise #2 explicit in his argument, presumably because if he had done so he would have seen this argument as unsound and not bothered to utter it aloud.  Perhaps there is some way to salvage this argument by recasting as inductive, but I cannot see how right at the moment.

For the most part, though, this debate is a fine exchange of worthwhile arguments and pointed counter-arguments.  Definitely worth a listen or two. 

• Unbeliever rating: 5.0 stars
  
• Believer rating: 4.0 stars
  
• Overall rating: 4.5 stars

p.s. I’ve developed a bit of a crush on Jenna Levin.  Why didn’t we have any girls like that in my old physics department?

Ehrman vs. Craig in Worcester, MA

William Lane Craig and Bart Ehrman debated the question "Is There Historical Evidence for the Resurrection of Jesus" at College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts (mp3, transcript). This debate featured a fair bit of poisoning the well and a few genetic fallacies (from both sides) but we'll overlook that for the moment.

Craig made his usual argument, firstly, to the establishment of the following four historical facts:

1. Jesus' burial


2. His empty tomb


3. Post-mortem appearances


4. Disciples' belief in resurrection.

From there, Craig goes on to argue that the bodily resurrection of Jesus is the best explanation for these four facts.

Ehrman attempts to refute this argument by showing that any of these facts might easily have had a perfectly natural explanation. The third point, for example, might be explained by enthusiastic religious visions or by the possibility that grief stricken followers may have mistaken someone else for their beloved rabbi, cruelly taken from them. Interestingly, both of these hypotheses enjoy some support in the Christian Scriptures, the former in the writings of Paul (who claimed to have personal visions of Jesus and who counseled his parishioners in the proper methods of receiving divine revelation while in communal meetings) and the latter in a handful of gospel pericopes in which Jesus' forlorn disciples do not recognize him at first but later come to believe they had seen him.

For the empty tomb, Ehrman comes up with an off-the-cuff scenario which is too good to pass up:

Jesus gets buried by Joseph of Arimathea. Two of Jesus' family members are upset that an unknown Jewish leader has buried the body. In the dead of night, these two family members raid the tomb, taking the body off to bury it for themselves. But Roman soldiers on the lookout see them carrying the shrouded corpse through the streets, they confront them, and they kill them on the spot. They throw all three bodies into a common burial plot, where within three days these bodies are decomposed beyond recognition.

This seems perfectly plausible to me, although we do not have any evidence one way or the other. Once an empty tomb is actually found, it is only a matter of time until the resurrection rumors and claims of personal revelation start flying around the community of those who once followed Jesus and considered him to be the Messiah promised of God.

Ehrman comes up with a few other naturalistic scenarios, few of which Craig even seriously considers even for a moment. When he does do so, however, he does so badly. Here is an example:

Well, look at these other hypotheses. Perhaps, for example, family members of Jesus stole the body. Isn't that more probable?" I don't think so. Notice there's no motive in that case for stealing the body; the family members of Jesus didn't believe in him during his lifetime. Nobody else other than Joseph and his servants and the women disciples even knew where the body had been interred. The time was insufficient for such a conspiracy to be hatched and launched between Friday night and Sunday morning. Also the grave clothes in the tomb disprove the hypothesis of tomb robbery; nobody would undress the body before taking it away.

Here, Craig assumes facts quite apart from those which he established earlier as part of a widespread scholarly consensus, such as the grave clothes in the tomb. Earlier in this same debate, Craig maintained that "the presence of inconsistencies in a later, less reliable source does nothing to undermine the credibility of an earlier, more credible source" but fails to note that the earlier more credible source in this case is that of Mark, which makes no mention whatsoever of grave clothes lying in the tomb! He also seems

Possibly the most unique part of this debate was an admirable but quixotic attempt at Bayesian maths by Dr. Craig. He gets the basic idea right, but mischaracterizes how the formulae ought should apply to his own position as well as that of his opponent. I'm boring myself just recounting this part, so I'll move on.

I'd give each debater 4.5 stars on substance, with -0.5 for snarkiness and circumstantial ad hom. Overall, this was a four-star debate.