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New philosophy book!

From Roman & Littlefield, the publisher’s website:

Constructivism dominates over other theories of knowledge in much of western academia, especially the humanities and social sciences. In Exposing the Roots of Constructivism: Nominalism and the Ontology of Knowledge, R. Scott Smith argues that constructivism is linked to the embrace of nominalism, the theory that everything is particular and located in space and time. Indeed, nominalism is sufficient for a view to be constructivist.

However, the natural sciences still enjoy great prestige from the “fact-value split.” They are often perceived as giving us knowledge of the facts of reality, and not merely our constructs. In contrast, ethics and religion, which also have been greatly influenced by nominalism, usually are perceived as giving us just our constructs and opinions.

Yet, even the natural sciences have embraced nominalism, and Smith shows that this will undermine knowledge in those disciplines as well. Indeed, the author demonstrates that, at best, nominalism leaves us with only interpretations, but at worst, it undermines all knowledge whatsoever. However, there are many clear examples of knowledge we do have in the many different disciplines, and therefore those must be due to a different ontology of properties. Thus, nominalism should be rejected. In its place, the author defends a kind of Platonic realism about properties.

New essay: Critical Theory and Abortion as an Act of Oppression

My new essay just came out in Christian Research Journal (Dec 2021). Here is a synposis:

Critical theory (CT) has become a major influence in society. It maintains that oppressed groups should be liberated from their oppressors. CT manifests itself in many ways, including critical race theory and feminist theory. That is, CT provides justification for women to be liberated from their patriarchal domination, and a crucial way that can be achieved is through the permissibility of abortion. Yet, on the contrary,  I argue that abortion should be construed as immoral based on CT’s own internal logic. By determining the value of their unborn by their conceptualizations, women arbitrarily exercise power over and oppress their unborn.

Some counter that actually the unborn is an oppressor, restricting the woman’s freedom to make her own choices, as well as to define her own sense of identity via her self-conception. Another objection is that while the unborn are humans, they are not persons, for in order to count as persons, humans also have to have certain functional qualities, such as a self-concept. However, for CT, there is no equality on the basis of self-concepts. According to CT, there are no essences, and thus the claim that we are valuable because we have self-concepts is nothing but an interpretation given from a particular standpoint, which results in an arbitrary imposition of power. It is a much greater oppression for the woman to have the unborn put to death than for her to remain pregnant. Thus, taking CT consistently, the unborn need to be liberated from their oppression by abortion….

See that issue, pages 16-21.

Panel Discussion with William Lane Craig & Rich Davis on Craig’s Nominalism & the Atonement, EPS 2020

I noticed from announcement by Reasonable Faith that RF has posted a link to the panel discussion held at the 2020 Evangelical Philosophical Society national conference.

Here is that link if you’d like to watch.

And, since then, my article about this topic came out in Theologica.

Two August 2021 Updates

As is the case for all of us, COVID has impacted me as well. Part of it included a much heavier teaching load in the fall of ’20 and spring of ’21. Often I was scrambling just to keep up with online classes and students’ many posts!

Also, in many writing projects, I feel I have been “on hold,” waiting for publishers to reply to me or to release some work that I did some time ago. I have three book projects in the works, one on nominalism, another on critical race theory (an ethical, philosophical assessment), and how the church has been deeply affected by naturalism (and what to do about it).

I want to catch you up on some developments. Two essays have been published in the first half of 2021.

In January, my essay on nominalism and human dignity appeared:

“The Nominalist Foundations of Constructivist Dignity.” In The Inherence of Human Dignity: Foundations of Human Dignity, Vol. 1, ed. by Barry Bussey and Angus Menuge (Anthem Press, 2021).

These two edited volumes explore philosophical, legal, and other factors involved in human dignity discussions today (including the “new dignity”), and not just in the U.S.

Another essay was published this spring, and this one explores the implications of William Lane Craig’s anti-Platonism (or, nominalism) for the penal substitutionary theory of Christ’s atonement:

“Craig’s Anti-Platonism, Lowe’s Universals, and Christ’s Penal Substitutionary Atonement.” TheoLogica: An International Journal for Philosophy of Religion and Philosophical Theology 5(2), 2021. DOI: https://doi.org/10.14428/thl.v5i2.55993

Two more essays, as well as one book proposal, are out for review, so I hope to have some more updates sometime soon.

Making Sense of Morality: A Brief Assessment of MacIntyre’s Ethics

Various ethics terms

Image by Mary Pahlke from Pixabay

Some Contributions

What should we make of MacIntyre’s proposals? His ethics focuses on the importance of good character by embodying moral virtues and being authentic. He also draws attention to the importance of community. And, he emphasizes the need for living out the virtues, and not merely engaging in abstract theorizing.

Broad Concerns

As we have seen, MacIntyre and other authors writing in the light of the postmodern turn embrace nominalism. Yet, we have seen its disastrous effects, leaving us without any qualities whatsoever. So, there are no people, no morals (not even our core ones), no world, etc. But surely this is false, and it destroys morality.

We also have surveyed issues with historicism, which ends up with no way to start making interpretations. Yet, are we really so situated that we cannot access reality directly? Now, surely no human is blind to nothing, and we cannot know something exhaustively. Surely we have our biases, too.

Yet, from daily life, it seems we can notice that we do access reality. For example, how do children learn to form concepts of apples? It seems it is by having many experiences of them. Then they can notice their commonalities, and they can form a concept on that basis. Then they can use that concept to compare something else they see (e.g., a tomato) and notice if it too is an apple or not. Adults do this, too, when they use phones to refill prescriptions, or enter their “PIN” for a debit card purchase.

It seems to be a descriptive fact that we can compare our concepts with things as they are, just as in that apple example. We also can adjust our concepts to better fit with reality. I think we can know this to be so, if we pay close attention to what is consciously before our minds.

However, how we attend to what we are aware of can reflect patterns. We can fall into ruts, noticing some things while not attending to others. As J. P. Moreland suggests, “situatedness functions as a set of habit forming background beliefs and concepts that direct our acts of noticing or failing to notice various features of reality” (Moreland, 311). But these habits do not preclude us from accessing reality.

Specific Concerns

Now, MacIntyre rejects the soul as the basis for one’s being the same person through change. For one, it would be an essence, and he seems to think humans are just bodies (Dependent Rational Animals, 6). Can the unity of one’s narrative meet this need?

For him, a narrative does not have an essence; it is composed of sentences that tell a person’s story. At any time, the narrative’s identity just is the bundle of sentences that are its members. However, if a new sentence is added, then the set of members has changed, and a new story has taken the old one’s place. Sadly, then, someone cannot grow in virtue or rationality on this view, for they do not maintain their identity through change.

Moreover, can we really see that one tradition is rationally superior to another? MacIntyre in banking on our ability to become bilingual. However, on his view, a person at any time is constituted by his or her narrative, and that in turn cannot be pried off from the tradition on which it is based. When a person immerses him or herself into another tradition to learn its language, that learning always will be done from the interpretive standpoint of the first tradition, by which that person has been formed. Indeed, it could not be otherwise, since that person is narratively “constituted” by the first tradition’s conceptual/linguistic framework. But, as that person “learns” that second language, new sentences should be added to that person’s narrative. Yet, if so, that person no longer is the same! So it becomes impossible to see the rational superiority of another tradition on his own views.

For Further Reading

Alasdair MacIntyre, After Virtue, 3rd ed.; Dependent Rational Animals; and Whose Justice? Which Rationality?

J. P. Moreland, “Two Areas of Reflection and Dialogue with John Franke,” Philosophia Christi 8:2 (2006)

R. Scott Smith, In Search of Moral Knowledge, ch. 11

Making Sense of Morality: Singer’s Ethics

Various ethics terms
Image by Mary Pahlke from Pixabay

Introduction

Now I will give a brief, selected overview of Peter Singer’s ethics. He is one of the most influential ethicists today, and he takes seriously the implications of naturalism and utilitarianism. He has written extensively on animal rights, the right to life of fetuses and infants, and much more.

Singer’s Views

For Singer (b. 1946), the evolutionary, naturalistic story is a given. Therefore, the belief that humans have intrinsic moral worth is from Christianity and thus is not universally applicable or even true. He also distinguishes between humans and persons. Humans and other species do not have essences, and mere species membership does not seem morally significant. So, Singer decries the Christian, essentialist view as giving an unjustifiable preference to humans, making it speciesist.

Instead, Singer adopts functional criteria for personhood, such as having (1) the capacity to see oneself as a continuing subject; (2) a desire to keep living; (3) the capability to make choices and act on them (autonomy); (4) self-awareness; and (5) a capacity to experience pleasure and pain (i.e., sentience). Moreover, there are members of other species that are persons, such as apes and dolphins. As persons, they should be subject to greater moral protection than a human fetus or infant, which lacks these traits. Accordingly, abortion and infanticide are permissible.

As a utilitarian, he thinks pleasures should be increased and pains avoided. Still, only actual pleasures and pains should be included in the calculus; we cannot calculate other, possible ones. He also gives weight to a person’s desires, or preferences. If beings prefer to live, they are persons, so it is wrong to kill them. Killing them would thwart their preference and thereby reduce pleasures.

Sentience is crucial since sufferings directly affect the calculus. Further, since suffering extends across species, and there are nonhuman persons, we should give equal moral consideration to any person that suffers. But, if a being cannot experience suffering (i.e., is not sentient), then there is nothing to factor into the calculus. Moreover, Singer believes that when giving such consideration, we should adopt a universal point of view.

Assessment

Singer’s views have been widely influential, and he seems to take the implications of naturalism for ethics quite consistently. After all, if all life has evolved without God, why should humans have greater moral value than other species? 

Still, there are various concerns we can surface with his ethics. First, as a utilitarian, Singer’s views do not seem exempt from various concerns we raised about utilitarianism. While he evidently would support murder and rape as wrong, and justice and love as good, still those conclusions would depend upon the calculus. So, these core morals could be overturned. Yet that would undermine several deeply held convictions.

Consider also Singer’s functional definition of personhood and the capacity to see oneself as a continuing subject of one’s life. On naturalism, can there literally be an identical person who continues through time and change? There are no essential properties on naturalism. It seems I am just a bundle of physical properties at any given time. That bundle would be identical to another bundle at a different time only if they have all the same properties. But, physical things always are changing. I am changing continuously; some may be relatively minor, e.g., my hair grows, while others may be more significant, such as my growing into adulthood.

What makes all these bundles of properties me at each of these times? The answer seems to be that there is nothing that can do that. My properties keep changing – even the cells in my body and brain. Without something that remains the same, there is no continuing subject, which is a prerequisite for personhood for Singer. Unfortunately, his view entails that there are no persons, which surely is false. Moreover, without any literal sameness of person through time and change, his other criteria are undermined, too.

Crucially, his ethics depends upon the validity of naturalism. Is it justified? That answer will affect all the naturalistic options we have considered, and any others too. To that question I now turn.  

For Further Reading

Peter Singer, Practical Ethics, 3rd ed.

R. Scott Smith, In Search of Moral Knowledge, ch. 6

Making Sense of Morality: Error Theory

Various ethical terms

Image by Mary Pahlke from Pixabay

Naturalism and Error Theory

Still another kind of naturalistic moral cognitivism is error theory, which has been defended by J. L. Mackie (d. 1981) and Richard Joyce (b. 1966). Mackie used two arguments for his view. First, the argument from relativity maintains that empirically, there are many moral differences amongst people. For him, the best explanation is that moral judgments are tied to different forms (or ways) of life, each of which has its way of interpreting reality. Second, the argument from queerness says that, if objectively real, moral qualities would be very bizarre things in an otherwise naturalistic world. Since we know natural kinds of things empirically, to know objectively real, intrinsically moral properties would require some extraordinary faculty.

Moreover, moral discourse is dependent upon institutional facts. Unlike brute facts about the world itself, which are natural, institutional facts are social constructs, due to how people in various societies (or forms of life) have constructed their institutions and their rules that guide peoples’ actions, including moral discourse. When people speak as though morals are objectively real and not dependent on their social, institutional settings, they show that moral discourse really is filled with error.

Joyce follows Mackie in that there are no independently real moral facts. Still, as a kind of moral cognitivism, error theorists do maintain that we do make moral judgments. However, since there are no real moral qualities, these claims are systematically false and thus filled with error.

Still, Joyce thinks that error theory does not demand that people give up engaging in moral speech. It is just that, to be consistent, their speech act is only making an assertion. They are not believing these moral claims to be true. Additionally, since error theorists reject the existence of any real moral properties, they deny that any action is moral or immoral. Nevertheless, they still can oppose others’ actions, for that need not require that they believe objective moral properties exist.

Assessment

Error theorists consistently hold that on naturalism, there are no intrinsically moral properties. This naturalistic view of what morals are trades upon language use. They are just ways of speaking according to the “grammar” (or, rules) of a given people that allows them to use moral discourse, yet while (apparently) avoiding the reality of morals.

Now, we will see when we explore ethical relativism that while there is a fact of moral diversity amongst people and cultures, nonetheless those differences may not be as wide or deep as we have been taught. Instead, we can identify common morals that may be applied differently (e.g., how people in one culture show respect for their elders, versus how people in another culture do so). Further, just because there is a descriptive fact of diversity, that alone does not give us ethical relativism, which is a normative thesis.

Granted, too, irreducibly moral properties would be rather “queer” given naturalism. But, perhaps there are independent reasons why we should question that assumption. In later essays, I will suggest a few such reasons.

Moreover, it is true that we may speak in ways that do not necessarily commit us to the reality of things we are talking about. Generally, mere word uses do not have power to cause things to come into existence (except, for instance, stories). A scientific example was talk of phlogiston to explain combustion. Later, however, scientists discovered it was not real; instead, oxygen was what was involved.

 Further, error theory does not explain why we find morality to be such a ubiquitous aspect of life. After all, why talk morally if there are no morals? While error theory explains why we can talk morally, given naturalism, it still does not give us an adequate explanation of what morals are. If they are just the way we use words, then we can change morals by changing how we talk. In that case, murder could become right, and justice could become bad. But surely that is false.

For Further Reading

Richard Joyce, “Mackie’s arguments for the moral error theory,” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

J. L. Mackie, Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong

R. Scott Smith, In Search of Moral Knowledge, ch. 5