Skepticism – To what degree?

It is clear to me that you are not a Skeptic; that is, you do not think it is impossible to know anything. You do have beliefs about various topics that you believe are true. Nor are you an Agnostic; that is, you do not think that in principle we cannot know whether God exists or whether any particular religion is true. Otherwise, you would not be spending time and energy in a debate about whether Christianity is true or not. Rather, in terms of your epistemological orientation, you are, to a significant degree, a skeptical person. In terms of your currently held beliefs, you are currently agnostic about certain particular questions, in particular, religious questions.

I myself would (and often do) describe myself as a skeptical person. That is, on the spectrum from credulity to skepticism, I to a significant degree lean towards the side of skepticism, requiring very good reasons for thinking something to be true before I will believe it. I think you lean significantly farther towards the side of skepticism than I do, but, considering the spectrum from credulity to skepticism as a whole, I do not think that we are all that far apart. You argue that “most of us” in our society could benefit from being more skeptical, rather than less skeptical. That may be true, but when I suggested that it might be better if you were less skeptical, I was not directing that suggestion towards most people; I was directing it specifically to you. Certainly, no one needs to convince me of the importance and value of subjecting one’s beliefs to critical scrutiny, ensuring that one has sufficient reasons for holding to one’s beliefs, and deliberately challenging one’s own beliefs by examining with an open mind the beliefs of others and their reasons for believing. Certainly, I believe that there is value in adopting a skeptical attitude. The question is not whether we should be skeptical, but to what degree we should be skeptical. There is such a thing as healthy skepticism, but I believe there is also such a thing as unhealthy skepticism, just as there is such a thing as unhealthy credulity.

You argue that, in order to reasonably believe something, one must first “consider as many perspectives as possible” and take “into consideration any and all credible counter-propositions.” This may sound reasonable in theory, but, given the limited span of human life, is frequently practically impossible; if we did this consistently, we would be paralyzed with indecision about almost everything. Of course there is value in considering many differing points of view, but, in order to live, we must frequently believe things and act on them without first examining every single alternative theory. For example, it is reasonable for person to hold to and act on beliefs about science, history, and medicine based on the consensus of experts in those fields without first thoroughly examining all minority viewpoints among scientists, historians, and medical practitioners. It is simply not feasible to carefully examine the possible reasons for believing every different religion on earth before deciding to adhere to one of them.

You argue that agnosticism about religious questions is reasonable because multiple religions “hold comparable levels of explanatory power and/or are backed up by comparable levels of evidence.” I suppose this is precisely one of the questions we are debating in this series: is there significantly more reason to believe that Christianity is true than that other religions/worldviews are true? Answering such a big picture questions is no simple or easy task, and requires cumulative input from many different subjects: history, philosophy, and so on. The only way forward is to continue to examine and discuss the particular issues that are relevant to answering this question, and to assess what sort of answer cumulatively emerges.

Skeptical Withdrawal and Evil

My remark in a previous post¹“Imagination, Authority, and Knowledge” about more evil being caused by people withdrawn in skepticism than deeply committed to evil causes was a tangential comment that does not really constitute a significant or vital part of my argument for Christianity.²In fact, in that same paragraph itself I stated, “I can’t prove that this is the correct way to approach life; I can just say that it seems that way to me.” And perhaps it is an exaggeration to say that “much more” evil has historically been caused by a lack of conviction than by a deep commitment to evil causes; I certainly agree that misguided enthusiasm has contributed to its share of evil results in history. Nevertheless, I believe my comment about this to be essentially correct.

So what did I mean by this claim and what evidence do I have to back it up? I essentially had two things in mind when I made this claim. First, for every Hitler or Stalin, there have been thousands or millions of people who did nothing to stop their atrocities because they were not sure enough in their convictions that that was the right thing to do. For example, at the time of Hitler, most Germans would not have given their approval to the massacre of six million Jews; yet they were responsible for the occurrence of this atrocity, because they could have said “no” to Hitler and stopped him, but they lacked the conviction to do so. The second thing I had in mind was our modern humanitarian crisis. Globally, millions live in desperate poverty and thousands starve daily. Meanwhile, the United States and other Western countries have far more than enough excess time, energy, and resources to end global poverty,³I recognize that there are logistical complexities that prevent humanitarian aid from reaching people in certain areas such as North Korea or the area controlled by ISIS, but, in most cases, getting aid to people in need, even on the other side of the world, is logistically quite feasible. but contribute little, relatively speaking, of their excess wealth towards this end. Massive numbers of people are suffering and dying on a regular basis, not because anyone is committed to harming them, but because most people lack the conviction to do what is needed to help.

Now, you might argue that skepticism/agnosticism has not been a major factor in leading people to withdraw from resisting evil and doing good because the number of people actually identifying themselves as agnostics has been relatively small. However, an explicit self-identification of someone as “agnostic” is not primarily what I am thinking of when I talk about skepticism/agnosticism leading to withdrawal from doing good. There is a much more common type of agnosticism than explicit agnosticism; this agnosticism consists in nominally identifying oneself as an adherent of the religion/worldview that is dominant in ones’s society (or that one was raised in), while not actually believing that it is true or living as if it is true.⁴A personal anecdote will illustrate this. I once had a discussion with a friend who called herself a Christian about a particular moral issue in which I presented a carefully reasoned argument grounded in the Christian gospel. Her response was essentially: “But you can’t know that the Christian gospel is true.” This made me realize that, even though she called herself a Christian, she was in fact skeptical/agnostic about the truth of Christianity; consequently, she was unwilling to challenge a particular evil in our society. You correctly point out that skepticism/agnosticism does not necessarily lead to withdrawal from being committed to doing good because a person can still do good things even if they do not have any coherent explanation for why these things should be regarded as “good.” However, I would argue that, logically, agnosticism about what is good leads to a lack of commitment to doing good, and that, practically speaking, agnosticism, whether it is explicit or (as it much more commonly is) implicit, does often lead to this.

You rightly problematize the idea of measuring amounts of evil or badness. But even if I cannot articulate a clear method for measuring amounts of evil, I believe it is still reasonable for me to claim that, for example, the Holocaust constituted a greater amount of evil than a schoolyard bully bullying another child does. And I do believe that, in the long run, more evil has been caused by a lack of conviction than by misguided zeal.

The Proper Use of Moral Arguments

Before I begin my discussion of the proper use of moral arguments, I will clarify that particular sense in which I am using the term “moral argument” by contrasting it with what I would call a “moral judgment.” A “moral judgment” is when someone claims “this action is morally wrong” or “this action is morally right” (or, to put it in terms of virtue ethics, “this character trait is a virtue” or “this character trait is a vice”). A moral judgment may be grounded only in a nonrational sentiment or intuition (unfortunately, this is very often the case), or it may be grounded rationally in a particular understanding of objective reality. People frequently have arguments about which moral judgments are correct and which are false, but this is not what I will mean by a “moral argument” in what follows. Instead, by a “moral argument,” I will mean an argument that attempts to argue from a moral judgment to a something being true or not true in objective reality.

It is not uncommon for people to make use of moral arguments in an attempt to argue that a particular metaphysical belief is objectively true. For example, theists often try to argue to the conclusion that God exists from the assumption that a certain set of moral judgments is true.⁵Besides the more basic problem with the moral argument for God that I will point out above, the other problem with it is that there are numerous metaethical theories that are both coherent and nontheistic: for example, Plato’s theory of the Forms, the Buddhist concept of Nirvana and how to achieve it, the Hindu concept of Karma, which, in my understanding, is thought to act as an impersonal force. However, strictly speaking, by itself a moral argument can never prove that a certain metaphysical state of affairs is objectively true. This is because, logically, moral judgments must be based in a certain understanding of the way the world objectively is, not the other way around;⁶I am fully aware that, generally speaking, most people come to hold to moral judgments because of their intuitions and because of social conditioning, not logical reasoning. However, I am here pointing out what logically must be the case. in order to coherently and reasonably explain why someone, morally speaking, ought to act a certain way (or ought to be a certain kind of person), one must be able to appeal to reasons that are grounded in objective reality, not mere sentiment and intuition.

So can moral arguments have any legitimate role at all in reasoned arguments about beliefs? The answer is yes. While moral arguments can never by themselves prove that a certain metaphysical state of affairs is objectively true, what they can do is be used to point out incoherences in another person’s worldview or articulated set of beliefs. One can point out that the moral judgments someone has articulated cannot be reasonably explained in light of the metaphysical beliefs they have articulated. Or, one can argue that a certain idea or course of action someone has proposed will lead to results which, according to moral judgments they themselves have articulated, are problematic. By exposing inchoherences in another person’s worldview in this way, one can inspire them to rethink and modify their beliefs (though just how that modification will proceed may be unpredictable).⁷For example, one can point out to an atheist that atheism is logically incompatible with belief in objectively true moral judgments. This could help lead them to eventually abandon their atheism, but it could also lead them instead to eventually abandon their belief in objectively true moral judgments. Many atheists have in fact explicitly acknowledged that their atheism entails the lack of objective moral truth, with varying degrees of reluctance, or, alternatively, celebration.

I will now bring this rather lengthy (but necessary) clarification to bear on our discussion. When you argue that my use of a moral argument against skepticism regarding skepticism’s evil effects in history is problematic because it assumes particular moral judgments about certain events in history to be true, this would be a legitimate critique if I were presenting this moral argument in the abstract. However, that was not what I was doing. Instead, what I was attempting to do was, within the specific context of our debate, to make an ad hoc moral argument appealing to certain moral judgments which I know (or at least I believe) that you yourself hold. For example, I believe that you believe that the Holocaust was evil; thus, it is reasonable for me to appeal to such a moral judgment within a moral argument directed specifically towards you, even though the moral judgment that the Holocaust was evil, like all moral judgments, is by no means a self-evident truth.

Metaphysical Skepticism and Ethical Skepticism

You argue that “one can be skeptical and still be ethical.” If by this you simply mean to point out that, historically, there have been skeptics/agnostics who have been committed to acting in ways which most people would judge to be “good” or “ethical,” in order to argue against my assertion that skepticism has has historically had evil consequences, this is a perfectly legitimate point to make. However, if I am interpreting you correctly, you seem to be saying more than that, and this is where some of your comments become puzzling to me or even troubling.

What you seem to suggest (if I am interpreting you correctly) is that it is perfectly acceptable for someone to have moral beliefs without having any explanation or reason for why they should think those beliefs to be true. You argue that people can hold to moral/ethical principles and act on them without having a metaphysical explanation for why these principles are objectively true, and you do this in a way that seems not only to describe, but also to approve of such a course of action. In a footnote, you argue that “in the real world there’s no necessity or inevitability to. . . morals having a coherent rational or transcendent metaphysical foundation.” It may be true that in the “real world,” as you call it, most people usually adopt moral beliefs without having good reasons for adopting them, just as most people usually adopt beliefs about religion, politics, and many other subjects without having good reasons for adopting them. But in a reasoned debate between two educated intellectuals, such an appeal to a popular lack of critical thinking is out of place, and certainly runs counter to your own commitment to the value of skeptically scrutinizing one’s beliefs. What if, in response to your five initial objections to Christianity, I had merely responded that, in the “real world,” people do not need their religious beliefs or practices to have a coherent rational foundation? What would you have thought of this? It is simply inconsistent to be skeptical about religious and metaphysical beliefs, while refusing to be skeptical about moral or ethical beliefs.

You suggest that it is possible to hold to “moral principles that don’t necessarily rest on a particular metaphysical belief or set of beliefs,” making reference in a footnote to utilitarianism. However, it is simply not true that utilitarianism (the ethical theory that being moral means bringing about the greatest good result for the greatest number) can be coherently and reasonably articulated independently of any metaphysical belief, since this theory merely begs the question of what is objectively “good” and why, a question which, at bottom, requires a metaphysical answer.

In your case for skepticism, you make frequent appeals to certain moral judgments. You argue that it is “wise and responsible” to question authority.”⁸In a previous post, “The Trouble with (Traditional) Worldviews.” You appeal to the “values” of a “good” skeptic, in contrast to a “bad” skeptic. You argue that we should have more of the virtues of “discernment,” “humility,” and “wisdom.” You explicitly articulate an ethic entailed by skepticism in which questioning authority is “good” and “responsible,” one regards free thought as “valuable” and “virtuous,” and one values “ethical virtues such as humility, empathy, sympathy, honesty, and candor.” But at the same time, you argue that “exactly what constitutes good and evil (or even whether such categories exist in any real sense) is one of the key truths worth questioning”; in other words, you call into question whether we can know if our moral judgments are actually true or not. What, then, do you mean by your numerous appeals to particular moral judgments? If the moral judgments you appeal to when arguing for skepticism are merely expressions of your personal intuitions about what is good, then they have no place in a rational argument. If, on the other hand, you believe these moral judgments to be objectively true, then you contradict yourself, since you are then making claims about what is objectively good, while at the same time you argue that we should be skeptical about what is objectively good or evil. The fact that you seem unwilling to abandon making particular moral judgments, even as you advocate skepticism/agnosticism about metaphysical and religious matters, supports my argument in a previous post⁹“On Belief.” that we essentially cannot dispense with buying into a particular worldview, since, in order to live, we must answer the ethical question (how should I live? what should I do?).

The Problem with Ethical Subjectivism

Finally, I will make a moral argument that your suggestion that it is acceptable for someone to hold to moral beliefs while not having any explanation for why they should think those beliefs to be true is highly problematic, not just from my perspective,¹⁰One of my main problems with moral subjectivism has been articulated by Christian thinker C.S. Lewis in this way: “The very idea of freedom presupposes some objective moral law which overarches rulers and ruled alike.  Subjectivism about values is eternally incompatible with democracy. We and our rulers are of one kind only so long as we are subject to one law.  But if there is no Law of Nature, the ethos of any society is the creation of its rulers, educators, and conditioners; and every creator stands above and outside his creation.” but also according to moral principles that you yourself have articulated. In your previous series on this blog, Beyond Love and Hate,¹¹I realize it is possible you have changed your mind in certain ways about the philosophy of ethics since writing this series a few years ago; if so, you can clarify this for me in a future post. you claim that it is “dangerous” to assume the goodness of love and the badness of hate as a self-evident or obvious principles,¹²“In Defense of Hate,” paragraph 4. arguing that we instead need to be able to answer the question of why hate should be considered wrong;¹³“In Defense of Hate,” paragraph 6. otherwise, “we could sacrifice our ability to understand each other and engage in productive dialogue about some of the things that matter most to us all.”¹⁴“In Defense of Hate,” paragraph 9. Speaking more generally, you criticize the formation of moral judgments “based not so much on demonstration or analysis as on intuition and majority rule”¹⁵“The Reason for Hate,” paragraph 4 as being problematic in multiple ways. Yet this is precisely what your suggestion that it is acceptable to hold to and act on moral judgments without having any explanation for why they are objectively true leads to: an ethical discourse in which people cannot rationally explain why the the moral judgments they make are correct, instead basing their moral judgments in intuitions,¹⁶You might object that people can still make reasoned moral judgments about particular actions by reasoning from general moral principles, even though they do not have a metaphysical foundation for these principles. However, this objection would miss the fact that general moral principles themselves are a type of moral judgment, which, if it is not based in a metaphysical foundation, must, at bottom, ultimately be based in “intuition and majority rule.” and then attempting to impose these moral intuitions on others through methods other than rational discourse. Thus, moral subjectivism leads to results which, according to judgments which you yourself have articulated, are bad.

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