We Go Together / Like Essence and Telos / Doo-bop a doo-bee doo

Last updated on: December 30, 2012 at 1:18 am by Leah Libresco

We Go Together / Like Essence and Telos / Doo-bop a doo-bee doo 2012-12-30T01:18:06-05:00 Leah Libresco

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Here’s Adam of Daylight Atheism’s reply to the questions I asked him yesterday about the difference between moral and mathematical laws, and whether either is human-independent. (He also pointed out that we’ve sparred on this point before, and you may want to refer back to the map-territory post).

I believe that mathematics and logic are discovered, rather than invented, although those terms are apt to get us bogged down in deep semantic waters.

I think it sheds more light on my position to answer in this way: As jack put it, mathematics and logic depend on objective properties of the universe that are independent of humans. Morality also depends on objective facts, but these facts aren’t independent of humans. They’re objective facts about humans: facts about what harms us and what causes us to flourish, facts which are therefore dependent on the kind of creatures we are. If our evolution had taken another path, if we were a very different kind of creature than we are, the rules of morality that apply to us would be different; and if we never existed at all, there would be no true facts about us and therefore morality would not exist.

Technically mathematical facts aren’t independent of the objects they describe, either. It’s not a property of math-writ-large that the angles of a triangle sum to 180 degrees, it’s just a property of triangles. (Or, more precisely, a property of triangles in Euclidean geometry). It would be true of Euclidean triangles whether or not any existed in the physical world or there were any people anywhere to think of them.

Once you name something a triangle or mention some of it’s qualities, you’ve pulled in many other properties, including some you might not yet have discerned (the sum of any two sides of a triangle exceeds the length of the remaining side, etc). Technically you’ve encapsulated them all once you said “three-sided polygon” but it takes work and discovery to understand what logically follows and why.

I’m still inclined to believe we should talk about morality in the same way. Once you define human, the moral obligations we have follow swiftly on the heels of the definition of our nature. If we define humans as the rational animal (or, to make it more unwieldy but more precise, the living thing that recognizes its own mind and those of others and can percieve that there’s a division) why shouldn’t there be rules that apply to this construct whether or not it’s instantiated?

Describing what a thing is (its essence) constrains its telos (the ends it’s directed toward). There can be true facts about non-existent things — for example: unicorns have four legs, whether or not they exist. It’s our ability to describe and predict the properties of things that may not exist that lets us come up with ways to test whether they’re real or categorize them at all. If we weren’t humans, or if humans ceased to be, then their would still be facts about hypothetical rational animals, even if there was no one to hypothesize about them.

So, yes, moral law is dependent on humans insofar as the obligations of humans are different from those of dogs, but I think this kind of hairsplitting distracts from the bigger question about cultural relativism and changing norms. I don’t want to get too far into the weeds on the very abstract “what if humans were different and so the moral way to treat them was different” question, because I think the moral law is actually fairly stable over a number of conceivable variations in human culture and human biology. I’ll explain why in a second post, which will also be a chance to start making good on my promise to explain where I think C.S. Lewis gets it right.

(And, lo! that post is now up)

Epistemology/Philosophy

Previous Post

April 11, 2012

Human-Independent Morality

Next Post

April 12, 2012 Morality in Multiple Dimensions

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category 7 Quick Takes Apologetics Atheism Book Conversion Debate Tactics Debates Epistemology/Philosophy Housekeeping Ideological Turing Test Marriage Morality in Practice Parsing Catholicism Possibly Heretical Radio Reviews/Recommendations Sequence Index Spiritual Practice Uncategorized

Select a Month April 2017 March 2017 January 2017 December 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011 July 2011 June 2011 May 2011 April 2011 March 2011 February 2011 January 2011 December 2010 November 2010 October 2010 September 2010 August 2010 July 2010 June 2010

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

Be strong and work, for I am with you. My Spirit remains among you according to what covenant?

Select your answer to see how you score.

The covenant made when Israel came out of Egypt The Mosaic covenant The Abrahamic Covenant The new covenant