Today I will offer a brief synopsis of an argument advanced by Stuart C. Hackett in William Lane Craig’s reader on Philosophy of Religion. His argument can be found on pages 149-154 and it is entitled “The Value Dimension of The Cosmos: A Moral Argument.” Then I will expand upon it and offer my own insights, for better or worse.
The essential thesis of Hackett’s argument can be stated as follows: “…Persons, merely as such and just on account of their personhood, possess intrinsic value or worth. What this means is that persons are not to be construed as merely means or instruments of further ends, but rather as ends in themselves,” (pp. 149). By “ends” he means the goal of doing something. Looked at another way, doing something for a person – i.e. your friend, spouse, parent, etc. – has worth in virtue of the fact that it is being done for them, and no further appeal or justification is necessary to explain why the deed has worth. So you would not need to say, “I am doing this for my mother, which has value because doing so for her will make the economy grow, which is an inherently good thing to do.” Instead, a person (one’s mother, in this example) has inherent worth; therefore they are the reason for why things are done, not the means for achieving further ends.
Now, Hackett goes on to make an interesting observation as an extrapolation of this contention, “…In aiming at significant goals, a person implicitly accepts his own intrinsic worth and that of other persons as the rational basis of the worth of his choice, so that those goals themselves are judged appropriate, in the final analysis, because they are extrinsic means for actualizing the intrinsic worth of persons,” (pp. 150). Hackett later goes on to attempt to ground the worth of persons in the existence of a being of ultimate value – or God.
In this first portion of the article, the main point that Hackett attempts to communicate is that persons have intrinsic worth – as I have stated. He states that this is a rather unsurprising assertion in the commonsensical framework of everyday life, but that nonetheless there are those that would challenge it. Towards defending this supposition, he offers the above statements amongst a paragraph or two elaborating the idea that human beings involved in making choices presupposes the idea of either (a) a basis for intrinsic worth existing somewhere or (b) that, if such a basis does not exist, then choice making becomes absurd. I will now offer an elaboration on what I understand him to be saying and a potential defense of this position in the face of claims to the contrary.
In the ordinary event of making a decision it is not uncommon for the average person to engage in the simple process of what I will call value reductionism. The term “reductionism” I am borrowing from the more familiar sense of reductionism in which one attempts to reduce one thing to another, such as reducing the mind to the brain, or reducing morality to evolutionary processes and survival. In the sense that I wish to use it, a person engages in value reductionism when they go through a list of reasons or motivations for making a particular decision. An example of this would be the typical college student whose decision to attend a University is justified according to a reduction of the value of his decision to an ultimate ground of worth:
I will to college.
Why?
Because I want an education.
Why?
Because I want a decent job.
Why?
To support myself and my family.
Why do that?
Because my family is worth the effort and I do not want to burden others by forcing them to support me.
Why?
I do not need a reason to justify these as ends because they have intrinsic worth.
Now, the brief exercise that I have just run through is probably not the normal experience for a college student, because they usually have a myriad of reasons for attending school and few of them are thought out in such a linear fashion. Nonetheless, the point of making such a list is to demonstrate that the reaching of a final end of intrinsic worth – that is, basically a stopping point – makes the idea of choice much more coherent than if one does not suppose that such a stopping point exists. In other words, if there were no point at which one could stop the perpetual “Why?” by simply answering “Because it has inherent worth,” then the list of reasons for doing anything would continue on ad infinitum (to infinity, without end). On this hypothesis, no one actually knows why they do anything, which means that making a decision based upon emotion or impulse is all that one is left with. Furthermore, the idea that certain decisions are “better” than others becomes an incoherent concept, because no decision is directed towards grounds of inherent worth or less worth. And, finally, if someone says that a list of infinite reasons for doing something is what justifies making a decision, then two conclusions follow: (1) any decision to do anything is justified and (2) the person has actually contradicted themselves, because to assume an infinite list to be a justification for making a decision is to assume it has intrinsic value, which is precisely what the existence of the list is supposed to deny.
Given all of this, Hackett does not do so well in arguing that persons are the items which we should label as having intrinsic worth. He does say that persons act towards ends, which must presuppose themselves or someone else to have intrinsic worth, but there are numerous people that would either balk at this notion all together, or otherwise claim that it is difficult to support considering that most people do not structure their thinking along such lines. This observation would lead them to claim that people do not really know why they do most things, therefore one is question begging to say that people act as they do because persons have intrinsic worth. While these points can be acknowledged, it is difficult to outright deny Hackett’s point that, “…Any other proposed candidates for the status of intrinsic worth…turn out to be patently ridiculous on analysis – the pursuit for example, of power, wealth, knowledge, pleasure, or even health – all these ends are so obviously instrumental means to the well-being of persons as selves that any supposition that they are themselves intrinsically valuable becomes virtually ludicrous…” (pp. 150).
So Hackett’s argument and my own extrapolations can be summarized as follows, along with a final comment. Persons in virtue of their personhood have inherent worth. What I mean by “worth” is that something is either (a) an end in and of itself or (b) a means to an end. Persons have intrinsic worth because no reason needs to be given for why someone should do something beneficial to a person. That persons act towards anything as either an intrinsic end or an instrumental end implies that intrinsic ends exist because if they did not then decision making would be incoherent, which it does not seem to be. The fact that some people do not recognize the intrinsic worth of persons is not an argument against this being true, and that one cannot offer an argument for why persons themselves have intrinsic worth does not render the claim indemonstrable. It is possible that the value of persons must not be argued for but rather perceived, just as one could not argue a colorblind person into believing in the color blue without trusting the testimony of others. Furthermore, to argue that persons have intrinsic worth is to presuppose the worth of argumentation and logic, which would need just as reasonable a justification before one should believe in it. And, obviously this justification could not be based in logic because then one would be using logic to prove the value of logic, which is circular reasoning. Therefore it is possible that the worth of persons is inarguable without being, in any sense of the word, less real.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
alt="" border="0" >
4 comments:
We don't need to take the irrational leap to God to justify valuing liberty and our inherent sense of freedom which is obvious. I think your value reductionism methodology shows this quite nicely. Hume, Mill and Locke have provided a fairly good reductionism process that is far superior to Hackett.
Liberty and natural law is very different than acting on impulse. I think you are equivocating if you think all reductionism will always result in "a decision based upon emotion or impulse." We sense that we are free, and that empirical sensation is the foundation for our moral and ethical state. We experience freedom and we chose to create value-- see Camus. Experience and choice is much different from emotion or mere impulse.
You dogmatically say that people have inherent worth. But by not basing this on experience and choice, you are not creating an ethic. You are side stepping the core issues; you fair no better than Beckett. Moreover you beg the question of what is "beneficial." What one person thinks is beneficial (locking the children in the basement til they are 21) is probably child abuse. Unless you use the filter of liberty and freedom can you generate a proper system to define beneficial.
Logic is an implicit agreement/quality of language-- it is not a "thing" that is out there. So that does not bolster your arguments.
You are correct to pick apart Beckett's argument and (lack of) rationale. But I think it would be more enlightening if you cross compared Beckett (and your own weak position) with Locke. That would be an interesting read.
Anonymous,
Thanks for the response. I would love sometime to do a cross-comparison between Locke, Hackett, and Hobbes (maybe throwing in John Rawls for fun) sometime, but my current interest is an investigation of the problem of evil. Thanks for the suggestion, though, and I appreciate you saying that it would be interesting.
As regards the rest of your post, obviously I will avoid a systematic response due to limited space. Instead I will simply point out where you have not responded to what I have said but have made assertions with no support:
"We don't need to take the irrational leap to God to justify valuing liberity and our inherent sense of freedom which is obvious." - Assertion
"We sense that we are free, and that empirical senstaion is the foundation for our moral and ethical state." - Assertion (by the way, how do sensory perceptions translate into obligations? How does one go from purely descriptive sensations interpreted by a physical machine to imperatives - moral commands - which are not a part of the external world or the sensations themselves? This is a poor example of reductionism.)
"We experience freedom and we chose to create value - - see Camus." - Assertion (Camus, Sarte, Heidegger, Hagel, Jaspers, Kierkegaard, they seem to implicity hold this to be true, but it is nonetheless an assertion. What do you mean by "value"? How does I create something which did not first exist? Pure assertion, that is without granting myself God's ex nihilo creation abilities.)
"You dogmatically say that people have inherent worth. But by not basing this on experience and choice, you are not creating an ethic." - Assertion (Why would I want to "create" an ethic? How is such possible and what would qualify it as an "ethic"? I don't believe ethics is created, rather it is discovered or revealed by God - in which case it is still discovered. Also, I should probably point out that Hackett's entire theory is based upon experience and what people actually do, which he then reasons to implying the idea of intrinsic value.)
"Unless you use the filter of liberty and freedom can you generate a proper system to define beneficial." - Assertion.
"Logic is an implicit agreement/quality of language - - it is not a'thing' that is out there." - Actually, language is the only medium in which being illogical is possible! It is not necessarily inherent in language, take this sentence: I cannot type a word of English. It is an obvious contradiction, now point out to me where such a contradiction exists in the external world. It actually seems to be the case that language is the only area of our existence in which illogical or contradictory notions can possibly exist.
You Said: "Assertion (by the way, how do sensory perceptions translate into obligations? How does one go from purely descriptive sensations interpreted by a physical machine to imperatives - moral commands - which are not a part of the external world or the sensations themselves? This is a poor example of reductionism."
Sensory perceptions translate to obligations via neural network patterning.
A parallel network if interrelated neurons goes takes input to create a pattern of sensation. The memory of the sensation is a reflection of the external world in as much as the neuronal pattern is part of the physical world.
See Paul Churchland, Engine of Reason, Seat of the Soul.
You Said: "What do you mean by "value"? How does I create something which did not first exist? Pure assertion,"
My understanding is that you feel Assertions are claims that are not backed by proportionate evidence. We exist, and we make choices after we recognize that empirical state. Any choice after that is the creation of value. One need not presuppose the apriori.
See Camus, Absurd Walls. Even a choice to obey a God will depend on this first existential choice.
If you think value is something abstract outside our ability to chose or create, then by what grounds do you reach that? Where is your evidence for such a "thing" to exist? How can a human do this without first resolving the existential dilemma?
You Said: "Assertion (Why would I want to "create" an ethic?"
You can't have ethics any other way. Unless blind obedience is ethical. Would you say a dog's willingness to obey your commands is an ethic? If you say Ethics is a "thing" out there that is revealed by God, then you've contradicted what you've said previously. What evidence of a pre-determined ethic do you have-- and if you do present such evidence does that not make morality a sense perception empirical process? I don't see how you can have it both ways.
As Hume and Locke have shown the need to depend on some arbitrary ethic from God is not necessary. Intrinsic worth of humans is a core value of liberal Americanism. One need not invoke God.
I like your style of response, so I'll imitate it. But first allow me to apologize for taking so long to respond, I have been quite busy with many different matters.
First, you said, "Sensory perceptions translate to obligations via neural network patterning.
A parallel network if interrelated neurons goes takes input to create a pattern of sensation. The memory of the sensation is a reflection of the external world in as much as the neuronal pattern is part of the physical world. "
To examine the function of the human brain is a very interesting endeavor. However, what you have just done is describe things in terms of operations within the brain that are entirely physical in nature without explaining how one arrives at an imperative from a "parallel netowrk [of] interrelated neurons." A memory is not the same thing as c-fiber being impinged upon, because the two possess different properties and hence via the law of identity they are in fact different. What this demonstrates is that there is a distinctly first-person perspective to perception which has not been, and cannot be in my own opinion and that of others such as Nagel, described by any scientific third-person account. Indeed, if it could then it would not be what we deem "first person" but merely a form of the third person. You need to explain why a memory and a c-fiber do not have the same properties and yet are supposed to be the same thing. Again, you have stated the interaction of physical properties but no where did you mention the observation of an imperative, as a first-person perspective is still required to make sense of what one is.
"If you think value is something abstract outside our ability to chose or create, then by what grounds do you reach that? Where is your evidence for such a "thing" to exist? How can a human do this without first resolving the existential dilemma? "
First, I would not say that value is completely outside of ourselves because we do indeed have value, so the question is perhaps misconstruing my statement. Nonetheless, that point is minor. Second, my evidence that value exists would be that it makes better sense of decision making than does the hypothesis that value does not exist (if you don't like this as a methodology of proving that something exists, then I suppose we haven't yet proved that atoms exist by only being able to observe their effects). I admit that it is far from convincing in the short space we have here, but nonetheless I think it can probably be developed into a sound argument.
Lastly, you said, "My understanding is that you feel Assertions are claims that are not backed by proportionate evidence. We exist, and we make choices after we recognize that empirical state. Any choice after that is the creation of value. One need not presuppose the apriori.
See Camus, Absurd Walls. Even a choice to obey a God will depend on this first existential choice."
In this response you seem to be equating value with action, and hence the distinction between the two is lost and one can no longer make sense of either. In other words, it seems to be you are saying, "We invent value by acting." Hence I might ask, "Well, why does our acting give something value?" And you might respond, "Because, you are acting, you are creating, you are choosing to give it value." If I reply with, "But how do I chose what I will value if value does not pre-exist my decision?" you seem to be a bit of an impasse, having already defined value as something that comes after the decision to create value. I think you then eqivocate by using the word "value" in a different sense by saying that we have to make the "existential" choice even if God exists, because in that sense the word "value" simply means to recognize value, or to act consistent with what we are designed to value, rather than to create value.
In any event, I will stop writing because this is becoming long, but we can transfer this over to a discussion board if you would like.
Post a Comment