I don't know how relevant the 9/11 link is, but I think Newby is right when he says:

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"Now, more than ever, it appears difficult to argue the case for the Enlightenment - that the growth of knowledge results in social progress. Instead, in recent years, anti-Enlightenment sentiments appear to have been on the increase.

"If anything, we have succumbed to a lack of faith in the notion of social progress and a suspicion amounting to an assertion that the growth of knowledge does not guarantee human happiness - rather the reverse.

"An increasing proportion of the population seems to distrust rational inquiry to establish both the facts and the uncertainties; rather they prefer their instincts or even to celebrate anti-intellectualism."

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If peoples' generalizations are too broad, chop em up! (The generalizations, not the poster).

Myself, I think it is a fascinating topic, because
I think the last hundred years in philosophy have involved an attack on The Enlightenment in some broad sense.

Since the Enlightenment generally insisted on equality for all in civil society, the idea that it excluded women does not make any sense to me. Mary Wollstonecraft was very much an Enlightenment figure, as were the authors of the first Declaration of the Rights of Women.

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Since the Enlightenment generally insisted on equality for all in civil society, the idea that it excluded women does not make any sense to me. Mary Wollstonecraft was very much an Enlightenment figure, as were the authors of the first Declaration of the Rights of Women.

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The problem we have is that the discoveries of science have trickled into the the hands of minds best described as stuck in the supperstitions of the middle ages.

In all cultures.

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Most of the feminism that came out of the Enlightenment era was a reaction AGAINST the patriarchal and economically unfair world that the male leaders of the Enlightenment thought was just peachy.

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The basic idea of the Enlightenment was that reason should be used to critically assess all custom, and all religion.

Patriarchy has no reasonable basis, as both men and women discovered when they turned their thoughts in that direction.

While the initial impulse, "all men are created equal" fails to include women, it is criticism from within the Enlightenment tradition which broadened that. I do not believe that it was a reaction to the Enlightenment per se.

According to Bronner:

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The fact of the matter is that the most successful and emancipatory movements of the oppressed were all inspired by a commitment to either the language of rights or universalist principles. These movements championed the power of reasoned dialogue, cultural cosmopolitanism, and what Jurgen Habermas has appropriately termed "constitutional patriotism" or a vision of the state predicated on the rule of law (Rechtsstaat). It has traditionally been movements of the right which have employed arguments about the inherent uniqueness of their constituency, privileged "experience" over reasoned dialogue, and identified with the organic community (Volksstaat). A basic choice of worldview is still with us and seeking to combine left-wing politics with right-wing assumptions can only lead to moral disillusionment and unprincipled compromise.

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Yep, many of Voltaires bastards were bastards. But just because the slogan of the French revolution was "liberty, equality, fraternity" and not sorority, and just because those dead white guys talked about "the rights of man" doesn't mean the principles they enumerated were any less universal.

Again, according to Bronner:

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Nothing is more false or self-defeating for a progressive than to reduce the Enlightenment to the interests of white, male, bourgeois Europeans. This view, which is embraced by so many on the left, rests on the assumption that the value of an idea is reducible to the particular attributes of its author or the complex of interests dominant when the given work was produced. Such a stance is nothing other than a crude version of the sociology of knowledge, which was never particularly radical in the first place.

The value of the Enlightenment spirit lies precisely in its ability to jut beyond its historical context. Its commitment to tolerance and equality, its skepticism of religion and established tradition, reflect more than the interests of a white, male bourgeoisie on the rise. It projects an invigorated notion of the individual -- or the expansion of what Goethe termed the "personality" -- and a new respect for work beyond any market incentives.

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I said "taking a stab..." which implies some people made the first step outside of the "box" of medieval-age thinking, where each person had a defined place in society and could not deviate from it. Inequities were beginning to be questioned. At first, of course, the horizon of such questioning was quite narrow - the notion at the time was that if inequity was to be questioned, it was on the basis that all men were inherently equal. This is still discriminatory, but less so than before.

And this halting beginning of an incremental process has come down to us today, being broadened and deepened over the years, decades and centuries to now make the statement that "all people are equal", regardless of who they are or what they look like.

While the enlightenment project has provided great benefits like the idea - though not practice - of equality, and the breakdown of religious doctrines, for example, in other areas in has been an astounding failure. The enlightenment notion of progress, (often regarded solely economic progress) for example rests on the assumption that the environment in which we live is nothing more than, to use Marxian terminology, surplus capital which exists for the sole purpose of human expolitation - exploitation we can pursue indefinitely and with impunity. This is evidenced by the enlightenment notion that there is no greater human achievement than to alter the world in which we live, with no regard to the concequences.

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The enlightenment notion of progress, (often regarded solely economic progress) for example rests on the assumption that the environment in which we live is nothing more than, to use Marxian terminology, surplus capital which exists for the sole purpose of human expolitation

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Not feeling very articulate today, I'll quote Bronner again:

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Perhaps the most powerful critique of the Enlightenment, for all that, derives from its emphasis on the domination over nature. Instrumental rationality employed without respect for the intricacies of various eco-systems has created an environmental nightmare.... But still, identifying technology or instrumental rationality with the domination of nature is a mistake. Ecology is not rigidly opposed to Enlightenment notions of science and technology. Coming to terms with the technological degradation of the environment, in fact, can only occur from the standpoint of technology itself. A return to the premodern past is no option. It is a matter of setting new priorities for technological development in the future and invigorating liberal and socialist values with ecological concerns.

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I'm not advocating a complete abandonment of the enlightenment principles, but rather moving past and building on these principles.

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To 'transcend and include' to borrow Ken Wilber's phrase.

Wilber demonstrates that all growth is 'holonic' (Arthur Koestler's term) and that all holons are found in 'holarchies' or hierarchies of wholes.

Is there such a thing as a trans-rational state, or a state that transcends and includes rationalism?

Or has the human species 'arrived'.

Flowers by Irene, it is common for the solid questions you raised to be misinterpreted and forced into what Wilber calls the pre/trans fallacy.

I have started a thread that addresses these issues in great span and depth: here

[ September 16, 2002: Message edited by: flotsom ]

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The enlightenment idea of 'equality' is equality for all white, land owning men. I think we can move beyond that - not trash it.

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Race, religion, sex, height, weight and favourite radio station are not factors in the epistemology described here. True, these principles were devised by dead white European men, for the most part, although both Persia and China had respectable scientific traditions. Indeed, it is my opinion that China had the only theoretically consistent science of medecine prior to the birth os molecular biology, but I digress. The statement

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The enlightenment convienently leaves no room for feminism, for example

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FBI, I don't mean to call you a post-modernist, because ad hominem attacks don't belong in these forums in my opinion, however

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but the project as a whole is seriously flawed, and something more than a reactionary 'post modernism' philosophy should be explored, and expanded upon.

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I think that the primary failure of the Enlightenment, in terms of inclusion, had to do with coloured peoples and racism. Because they were not potential European citizens, their concerns were marginalized and denied.

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The primary axiom of the enlightenment - rationalism - relies on the assumption that there is only one possible correct answer for any given question.

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The enlightenment notion of progress, (often regarded solely economic progress) for example rests on the assumption that the environment in which we live is nothing more than, to use Marxian terminology, surplus capital which exists for the sole purpose of human expolitation - exploitation we can pursue indefinitely and with impunity. This is evidenced by the enlightenment notion that there is no greater human achievement than to alter the world in which we live, with no regard to the concequences.

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Scientific rationalism starts to break down at first glance when dealing with some areas of quantum physics, eg. the fact that the act of observation has unpredictable effects when dealing with sub-atomic particles, but that is neither here nor there as far as this thread goes.

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We now live in a world with many competing metanarratives, (or at least we now live in a world with access to the competing narratives, many of which have been isolated by circumstance in the past) and I think many, but by no means all, can coexist even without resorting to a reactionary postmodern relativism.

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I assume, by enlightment thought, we're talking about scientific epistemology

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Um, no. This I am agreeing with. It is the application of these ideas to non-scientific (i.e. social) studies I am arguing against. This is the area in which we require a new narrative.

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Any branch of science that attempts to claim knowledge of an objective definition of the word "progress" is not a science

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Sort of what I was getting at, I think. It is social progress measured solely by economic factors that I disagree with, and it is those who see progress as such that dismiss any other yardstick.

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If it was a failure of the Enlightenment, the failure was in convincing those in power (e.g. the Church), and by extension, the population at large that policies of exclusion had no rational basis, in the long run. Let's face it, attitudes of exclusion of vulnerable members of society were aroung long before the Enlightenment and persist to this day, resistant to reason.

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This is precisely the failure I was alluding to, which is why I advocate a new argument. The ones proffered over the last four centuries or so don't seem to be getting us anywhere very fast, or at the very least have hit a wall, and are not moving us ahead today at more than a minimal pace.

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This is a common misconception among people who don't know anything about quantum mechanics

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You'll notice I said "at first glance" - meaning with deeper analysis, quantum physics is as purely rational as you can get. AFAIK, anyway.
The supposed irrationality comes from, as you pointed out, the use of mathematics as a primary language of explanation, and the difficulties in understanding such language by those not so inclined.

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Um, no. This I am agreeing with. It is the application of these ideas to non-scientific (i.e. social) studies I am arguing against. This is the area in which we require a new narrative.

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Sort of what I was getting at, I think. It is social progress measured solely by economic factors that I disagree with, and it is those who see progress as such that dismiss any other yardstick.

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[ September 16, 2002: Message edited by: Sisyphus ]

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NO, we now live in a world where second-rate academics who lack either the intelligence or the discipline to learn science feel free to blindly attack the one epistemological system yet created (discovered?) that can show the lunacy of sexism, racism, religious fanatacism, elitism, consumerism, corporatism, anti-environmentalism and militarism. And they have the gall, not only to make pronouncements where they are ignorant, but to pollute our post-secondary institutions with a childish posture of intellectual relativism or nihilism and deprive trusting students of the chance to learn serious critical thinking skills just to advance their worthless little tenured positions.

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The opposition to genetic modified crops on health grounds, and the row over the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine despite the lack of hard scientific evidence reflect this suspicion.

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"The scientific community is mystified by the idea that morals should direct its research, while those who seek to make science more publicly accountable are equally baffled by the logic and methods of science.

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[ September 16, 2002: Message edited by: Sisyphus ]

[ September 16, 2002: Message edited by: Sisyphus ]

[ September 16, 2002: Message edited by: Sisyphus ]

There are too many bodies who have a vested interest in keeping people as gullible as possible.

So we should stifle technological innovation to control the worst humanity can produce? Kill the best to hamper the worst? That's a post-apolcalyptic mentality that'll cater to our most base and destructive tribalism. Canadian, American and European Muslims are now living with a backlash based in fear and ignorance reminiscent of Germany in the early 30s. Obviously what we need is more information, not less, better communication, less isolationism. More rationality, not less. The quality of life for everyone in the future hinges on our current ability to control the primal urge to retreat to our caves and limit our knowledge to the shadows on the walls, and push forward to close the gap between our scientific and technological knowledge and our knowledge of ourselves and our society.

Sisyphus says:

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Technology is a product of human imagination, it does not flow out of objective science by magic.

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That is, Sisyphus defends the existence of a sphere in which science does not determine the answers.

And so the question is what are the borders of that human land in which science doesn't rule?
What about morality? Once it was believed that nature held the answer to moral questions, but few think so now.

What about history? What about anthropology? Economics? Can we tell the story of a multitude of "human imaginations" using methodology which
cannot be applied appropriately to a single human imagination?

It may be that Sisyphus is defending only the usefulness of scientific reasoning within the domain of the hard sciences. I agree with him there. But the question of the usefulness of the Enlightenment tradition is a question primarily of
the applicability of reason to SOCIAL reality.

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Personally, I'm really quite reluctant to pontificate on what effect a Supreme Being might have on the state of the Universe, and am not at all convinced that it is within the purview of science to investigate the matter, any more than science can comment on whether Bach is superior to Mozart. IMHO science is of no use in studying any phenomenon that cannot yield reproducible observations that are independent of the identity of the observer. .

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What about history? What about anthropology? Economics?

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a combination of real-world observation, creation of hypotheses, testing of hypotheses and rational interpretation of results of said experiments. The main assumptions (as I see them) are as follows: there is a universe, external to my subjective conciousness that is , in principle, knowable by myself and others, at least to the extent that we can create mutually-intelligible descriptions of this universe and make modest predicitions of events without necessarily having prior empirical knowledge of the existence of these events.

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But I think he overdoes it on postmodernism. I am not sure that his contempt for non-scientific academics is not the obverse of their contempt for those who do not know their Nietszche.

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Can we tell the story of a multitude of "human imaginations" using methodology which cannot be applied appropriately to a single human imagination?

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I think it it a profound mistake to toss out the Enlightenment and its critical tradition in exchange for an alternative without
clear criteria for determining what is knowledge and what is nonsense

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And so the question is what are the borders of that human land in which science doesn't rule? What about morality? Once it was believed that nature held the answer to moral questions, but few think so now.

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[ September 16, 2002: Message edited by: Sisyphus ]

So, one reason I read postmodernist theorists is that it is unfair to place the burden of proof on them, and then fail to read what it is that they have to say.

This has the advantage of keeping me engaged with the last hundred years or so of philosophy.

The thing to be said in favour of post-modern thought, is that it considers human ideas and principles not in dichotomized extremes of passion and reason, mathematics and linguistics, social science and hard science, but within a framework of a complex intellect that is comprised of both emotion and reason, the interconnectedness of which is evident in everything we think and do. In fact, it is this interconnectedness that is the leading wave of "reality science" - the quantification, measurement and understanding of everything's relationship to everything else. Quantum entanglement. String theory.

I've tried hard to read Nietzche, and Wittgenstien and Derrida. Maybe it's like math, and you either have a mind for it or not. Apparently, I don't. What strikes me about Nietchze is that when he seemed to want to say something, he could be pretty clear about it. Makes me wonder why so much of the other stuff is indecipherable to me.

I think social stuff falls into the perview of science. I think conservative and liberal approaches can both be "scientifically valid".

It all depends on one's starting point, I think. If one believes that the economy should be set up to funnel money from the many to the few, then we can sit down and figure out using reason, mechanisms for accomplishing this, and be very good scientific tories indeed.

We can also be very good scientific social democrats too, but we'll come up with different results because we begin with a different set of perameters.

The Trinidiadian born Marxist CLR James criticized the slogan "Black and White, Unite to Fight!" because it ignored the specific oppressions which black people face and what was later described by James Baldwin as the "lie of whiteness".

David Roediger wrote an amazing book called The Wages of Whiteness, which describes the historical formation of American white working class consciousness.

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It all depends on one's starting point, I think. If one believes that the economy should be set up to funnel money from the many to the few, then we can sit down and figure out using reason, mechanisms for accomplishing this, and be very good scientific tories indeed.
We can also be very good scientific social democrats too, but we'll come up with different results because we begin with a different set of perameters.

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So, should we choose the lefty road out of self-interest, as our esteemed Prime Minister has suggested? Perhaps we should just concede to the tory view that self-interest is the engine of human society and not try to hypocritically mask it by throwing money at corrupt regimes. Is it equally a part of human nature to be altruistic? Is altruism, in fact more widespread than selfishness?

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[ September 17, 2002: Message edited by: Sisyphus ]

Does Kenneth Lay go to court and say, "Yes, Your Honour, I lied and cheated and defrauded share-holders. I did it because it is human to be selfish, and human nature trumps the law. I plead genetic predisposition."

Please. This is nothing more than some pseudo-scientific form of the doctrine of Original Sin. I reject this, both in its religious and biosociological guises. Blessed with intelligence (however we came about it), we have not only the ability but the obligation to transform ourselves.

If not, the quote which started this thread will have been proven correct:

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If anything, we have succumbed to a lack of faith in the notion of social progress.

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The popular writer and neurologist Oliver Sacks often talks a bout a 'romantic science', derived from a psychologist named Luria. Sack's book The Man who Mistook His Wife for a Hat is great. Also his book Awakenings, which is really wonderful.

One of the most profound contemporary anti-positivist social scientists is the Jewish Brazillian born Marxist, Michael Lowy. His book Redemption and Utopia is an amazing study of the elective affinity between revolutionary socialism/anarchism and messianic Judaism. His work is some of the most radical and useful writings on Walter Benjamin, a figure whom the pomo-ists love to misuse. For an example of his writing, check out Lowy's essay on Marx and Weber.. He has also written on the romatic nature of the Zapatista movement. His book on Trotsky's theory of permanet revolution is called The Politics of Combined and Uneven Development. Well, worth reading.

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So the question remains, how does one choose? I maintain that this is a matter of aesthetics.

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I guess this is where you and I would part ways in this discussion. I think it is, if not possible now or ever, at least theoretically possible to scientifically determine a system of governance that is the "best fit" (I'm under no utopian illusions here) for the kind of animal we are.

I think this is where Marx and Engels took the first wrong turn in the road; they denied "human nature".

The first step is to determine just what kind of animal we humans are.

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Please. This is nothing more than some pseudo-scientific form of the doctrine of Original Sin. I reject this, both in its religious and biosociological guises. Blessed with intelligence (however we came about it), we have not only the ability but the obligation to transform ourselves.

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Ricci jumps out ahead a bit on this issue. No one is saying that our inate behaviors are an excuse for anti-social behavior. Included in our behaviors is the "ability....to transform ourselves" or, to overide the auto-pilot part of our brain.

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Does Kenneth Lay go to court and say, "Yes, Your Honour, I lied and cheated and defrauded share-holders. I did it because it is human to be selfish, and human nature trumps the law. I plead genetic predisposition."

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They're at least exempt enough to admit that making $100,000,000 at the expense of someone's life savings is WRONG !!

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Please. This is nothing more than some pseudo-scientific form of the doctrine of Original Sin. I reject this, both in its religious and biosociological guises. Blessed with intelligence (however we came about it), we have not only the ability but the obligation to transform ourselves.

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we have not only the ability but the obligation to transform ourselves.

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I guess this is where you and I would part ways in this discussion. I think it is, if not possible now or ever, at least theoretically possible to scientifically determine a system of governance that is the "best fit" (I'm under no utopian illusions here) for the kind of animal we are.

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I may be a lefty who believes in "human nature", but what separates me from the right is that I'd rather appeal to the best of it, instead of the worst.

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[ September 17, 2002: Message edited by: Sisyphus ]

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That being said, I can't comment further other than to ask what the features of a "best fit" may be, in your estimation.

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I don't think at this point we are knowledgeable enough about who we are to make an assertion about what that "best fit" might be. Personally, I have a gut feeling it would be a variety of democracy, but beyond that I won't speculate in the current vaccuum of facts.

Surely we can get bogged down in details, and in as much as our knowledge is rarely complete there are always grey areas. But there are general principles at work in human behavior, and to not account for them when formulating systems on how we are to live together strikes me as a guaranteed path to failure.

What strikes you as a matter of "aesthetics" strikes me as a difference resulting from ourdifferent experiences in our environment. If one had to make some kind of judgement regarding them, one could asses them in the current or projected environment to which those "aesthetics" are to be applied.

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I don't see (regretably) that there is any satisfactory answer (other than aesthetic) to the question "Who says we have that obligation?".

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If I understand how you're using the word "aesthetics", you are referring to some form of human judgement not conditioned by science or spirituality. Why then can you not say "ethics"? If aesthetic judgement exists, why cannot exist ethical judgement?

Unless you mean aesthetics to imply something individual, with only accidental social consensus. But as a believer in society, I say that the answer to your question "Who says so?" is "us".

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So, I take a little cool comfort in the fact that altruistic behaviour is also a feature of biological determinism.

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Whatever makes you happy I take comfort in the fact that human intelligence has developed a remarkable ethical consensus revealed in philosophical and religious texts written over several millenia -- even if we have not yet developed all the social institutions we need to implement it.

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Could the social progress in which you have faith be the result of the success of "altruism genes"?

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I personally prefer to think with my brain cells than with my genes, but to each their own OK, that was a bit unfair -- I know what you are trying to say, I think. We have a problem with consciousness. Toss out god, toss out souls, seize the technoreductionism of strong AI, and we are left with little more than biochemical reactions. Perhaps I am short on Enlightenment, but I accept my intuition that consciousness and intelligence exist, and that furthermore ethics and social good exist and are features of society.

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But there are general principles at work in human behavior, and to not account for them when formulating systems on how we are to live together strikes me as a guaranteed path to failure.

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I agree with this. We need to take them into account when formulating institutions. But not when defining what is right and wrong.

Myself, I think some societies are objectively better than others, though I do not think only one model exists. So, I do not think the choice is entirely aesthetic.

But I also do not think that biological determinism is related to the religious doctrine of original sin. Biological determinism developed precisely as a response to religion and its assumptions. The specific content of the idea of the "Fall of Man" and the absorption of the consequences of original sin are a long way from genetics.

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If I understand how you're using the word "aesthetics", you are referring to some form of human judgement not conditioned by science or spirituality. Why then can you not say "ethics"? If aesthetic judgement exists, why cannot exist ethical judgement?

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The discovery that aesthetic standards presented as timeless and universal are in practice neither timeless nor universal - that they largely reflect beliefs and values typical of European patriarchy - has led to a more critical, historically grounded analysis of artistic concepts, institutions and practices generally. This in turn has resulted in a broader and deeper understanding of the many social and cultural variables that contribute to prevailing notions of taste, aesthetic value and artistic genius

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I take comfort in the fact that human intelligence has developed a remarkable ethical consensus revealed in philosophical and religious texts written over several millenia -- even if we have not yet developed all the social institutions we need to implement it.

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I personally prefer to think with my brain cells than with my genes,

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Toss out god, toss out souls, seize the technoreductionism of strong AI

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Whether or not we have a genetic predisposition to fight each other, we can agree that war is a Bad Thing.

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[ September 18, 2002: Message edited by: Sisyphus ]

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But I also do not think that biological determinism is related to the religious doctrine of original sin. Biological determinism developed precisely as a response to religion and its assumptions. The specific content of the idea of the "Fall of Man" and the absorption of the consequences of original sin are a long way from genetics.

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Perhaps I wasn't being clear. I didn't mean to say that biological determinism is religious; rather, that it provides another road to the doctrine of Original Sin.

Original Sin is a convenient ideology because it justifies anti-democratic practice. It rejects democracy because the people cannot be trusted -- we are, after all, sinners/greedy individualists/...

So we need to give ourselves over to the transhuman perfectionism of the word of god as revealed by the infallible pope or by the infallible market.

"Declaratio quod subesse Romano Pontifici est omni humanae creaturae de necessitate salutis" (It is here stated that for salvation it is necessary that every human creature be subject to the authority of the Roman pontiff).

Adam Smith himself was deeply religious; for him, I think, the invisible hand was yet another demonstration of divine benevolence. That this connection continues to exist is evidenced from the writings of Michael Novak, for example.

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Fallen Man and the Free Market. Novak reminds his readers that Christian doctrine teaches that all men have fallen from grace — that all men have sinned and will sin. Social and economic institutions, therefore, must reflect the fact that men are sinners and not saints. Capitalism serves this purpose. Based on voluntary exchange and division of labor, the market economy makes all men interdependent; and it teaches everyone to direct their attention toward the needs of others in the process of caring for and fulfilling their own purposes. The impulses of selfishness are redirected into a more rational and more humane self-interest. The market teaches the importance of "other-orientedness." And this fosters a respect, a tolerance and an appreciation of the values of others. God works in mysterious ways; and the "invisible hand" of the free market is one of those ways.

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(from a review of Novak's The Hemisphere of Liberty by Richard M. Ebeling.

[ September 18, 2002: Message edited by: Rici Lake ]

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Since your brain cells are largely determined by your genes, it amounts to the same thing

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That they exist is determined by my genes, yes. What they think about, though, is not.

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I don't see any evidence that any of these have contributed one iota to any sort of "bettering" of humankind.

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Perhaps you are expecting too much. I think that we have developed systems of justice and even systems of democractic governance that have made life significantly better than it was, say, 400 years ago. They are neither perfect nor sufficiently widely applied, but they are an indication of what is possible.

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Or should we say to those living under brutal regimes where torture and murder are the order of the day: "Suck it up. War is a Bad thing.?"

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That is a very good question. I do not like to judge those who take up violence when presented with an extreme provocation, but I am also hard-pressed to find examples where war has improved the lives of those living under brutal regimes. (As Bernard Shaw famously wrote: "Revolution does not lift the burden of tyranny; it merely shifts it to another shoulder." I am perhaps not so cynical, but it is worth thinking about what led him to say that.)

I think that is true, but I do not think it is helpful to toss religion into the mix; if biological determinism leads to authoritarianism, etc. etc, it does because of its intrinsic makeup, not because of any connection to religion.

Anyway, we recently had a thread on Steven Pinsker, who is the latest biological determinist on scene. A science article on him in the New York Times is worth reading:

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/09/17/science/social/17PINK.html?pagewanted=1

I'm not sure why it is not useful to "drag religion into it", though: the parallel is obvious. Even the interesting article you provided ends with the following from Dr. Pinker:

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"It's a game anyone should be able to play if they do their homework," he says, "so I hope it wouldn't become the exclusive province of a scientific priesthood." (my emphasis)

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I certainly agree with this:

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The politics and the science must be disentangled, Dr. Pinker argues. Equal rights and equal opportunities are moral principles, he says, not empirical hypotheses about human nature, and they do not require a biological justification, especially not a false one.

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But how does one get from there to:

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"some degree of inequality will arise even in perfectly fair economic systems"

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[ September 18, 2002: Message edited by: Mandos ]

Whether or not an equitable economic system is achievable is an open question -- but there is no doubt that we can do a lot better than we have done. We just have to want to, and for that we have to believe that it is possible.

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neither do I reject the theory of evolution, but I argue against its misuse as social darwinism

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There is a history professor in Ireland (name to follow through wise editting) who has shown that
at the time of the rise of social darwinism, the evolutionary theory in vogue was actually lamarckianism. Further, that many "darwinists", including social darwinists, were actually Lamarckians.

The idea, central to social Darwinism, that people can advance if they work harder, is Lamarckian. It claims the next generation inherits acquired characteristics.

I do not think biological determinism is necessarily "right wing", but I think it tends in that direction. The more that is determined, the less that can be overcome by policy.

But Jeff House is right about Lamarckianism. Until Mendel's work on genetics was rediscovered, biologists could only speculate on the mechanism of inheritance. And in the Soviet Union, with Lysenko, Lamarck enjoyed a politically-motivated rebirth that ruined Soviet agriculture.

I also like Gould's eyeglasses analogy. There is such a thing as human nature. We aren't, as the behaviorists believed, blank slates whose values and instincts can be arbitrarily molded. And our nature acts as a constraint on the kind of society we can create. But while our nature may be a key determinant of our moral and ethical principles, those principles are also shaped by culture and technology.

It reminds me of the argument made by Aristotle in the Nichomachean Ethics. He said happiness is not just a product of doing what we believe is right, but in having our instincts correspond to what is right. It's best, for example, to not only refrain from stealing from others, say, but to not even have the impulse to steal. And that correspondence between right instinct and right action is not intrinsically human but needs to be instilled through moral education--the eyeglasses, if you like, that correct for the ethical or moral shortsightedness we inherit from nature. It's moral education that transforms a natural instinct--cooperate with your neighbour, say--to a universal moral principle--cooperate with all your fellows.

Now an intriguing question is whether understanding and knowledge are the same thing? Most of what is common knowledge, is not in fact based in understanding of the particulars. Most people don't really understand how a computer works, but they have knowledge of what it does and what they can do with it. Knowledge does not suppose understanding necessarily. And the same can be said for understanding. Economists understand the economy in quite a detailed, specialized way, but often fail to be knowledgable of how the economy impacts the environment, our mental-environment, or our happiness.

Understanding without knowledge, is something I really am frightened of. Science when isolated from knowledge becomes dangerous. We see this evidently with the ongoing destruction of our social system. Right-wing politicians have unleased their formulas and economic ideologies on the Canadian system and its people. We are being governed by a specialized crew. Missing are the sages and folks who can apply holistic knowledge. People who can understand the need of a healthy social system, for the benefit of citizens, and in turn even the economy.

So l can only hope that people do become frightened of technocratic science. A shift towards a holistic society (which would include science of course - but in it's place) could possibly be just what the doctor ordered.

[ September 19, 2002: Message edited by: dirtfunk ]

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"An increasing proportion of the population seems to distrust rational inquiry to establish both the facts and the uncertainties; rather they prefer their instincts or even to celebrate anti-intellectualism."

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I think people fall back on their instincts instead of depending on 'rational inquiry' because the enlightenment philosophy of science hasn't been fully developed yet. It's true that it was a philosophy for white men, but I don't think that was just caused by historical reasons. The scientific epistomology itself is flawed.
People do know, by instinct, that the scientific method isn't complex enough for the real world that we live in, but no alternative is strong enough yet. In the absence of another paradigm, people choose a variety of ways to deal with the feeling that there's something more. They revert to religious explanations or other forms of mysticism or they give up entirely and just rely on 'good old common sense'. Others choose to ignore the nagging feeling that science doesn't have the answers and insist on clinging to formal logic's scientific method, blindly.

It's tempting to think that dumping an adherence to scientific method is just sheer laziness, but I think people are willing to struggle hard with their beliefs if they have confidence in the method of struggle. The fact that a lot of people are willing to give up on rationality, especially in the face of difficult issues, speaks to me of the shortcomings of the philosophy itself, more than the shortcomings of people.

For me, dialectical logic comes the closest to filling the gap in formal logic, but I certainly don't understand it well enough for it to be really useful in a day to day way. I found the pro and con writings by Georg Lukacs and Karl Popper helpful in clarifying the issues, but it's still something I only get glimpses of.

I'm not sure that dialectical logic is the cure that rationality needs, but it needs some refinement before it can catch the imagination of people in our century like formal logic did for the people of the enlightenment.

[ September 21, 2002: Message edited by: janew ]

His answer was "how should society allocate medical care?"

We are so much less comfortable with morality than with science that we routinely disregard moral questions. But those are the questions which most desperately need answers. This, I think, is the epistemological vacuum janew refers to.

One way to avoid thinking about moral issues is to imagine that there is a scientific solution to them, that Joe was wrong in his assessment and that someday we might hope to construct a computer program which can compute a moral judgement. That is laziness, at best -- and at worst, creeping despotism.

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We are so much less comfortable with morality than with science that we routinely disregard moral questions. But those are the questions which most desperately need answers. This, I think, is the epistemological vacuum janew refers to.

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I do think that's really true that we disregard moral questions in favour of more concrete questions.

I don't see it as a conflict between morality and science, though. If we're talking about science as in the 'method of science' or 'rationality' then I do believe that everything (including morality) should be approached that way. I just also believe that the scientific method needs to be expanded to include more than just formal logic.

That's where I run into a problem, though. The only viable alternative to formal logic that I know of is dialectical logic and while the concepts have proven useful in some areas of science (like quantum theory), they're still very foreign and difficult to grasp.

We can all relate to the formal logic 'rule' (that a thing is always equal to itself and never equal to something opposite to itself). But that covers only the surface, simple analysis of our reality.

The dialectical logic 'rule' (that a thing is at the same time equal to and not equal to itself) is way harder to get your head around. I don't think that we've found a good way to deal with it yet.

When we do, I'll bet that we'll be able to apply a scientific method to lots of areas that have alluded a systematic approach, so far.

[ September 21, 2002: Message edited by: janew ]

[ September 21, 2002: Message edited by: janew ]