Missional Professors: The Need for Theological and Philosophical Maturity

 * From Paul Gould's The Outrageous Idea of the Missional Professor...

"Finally, while experts within their own particular fields of study, Christian professors often possess a Sunday school level of education when it comes to matters theological and philosophical.  A missional professor, however, must be competent, even well-versed, in such matters.  Sadly, this is rarely the case, and the result is a patchwork attempt to integrate one's faith with one's scholarly work and an inability to fit the pieces of one's life into God's larger story.  Christian professors who are seeking to be faithful witnesses for Christ within the secular academy face immense challenges." (p. 7)

Coherentism: Problems

·      B¹ is a belief with observational status within Coherent System A.

 

·      According to Bonjour, “the observational status of a belief [B¹] can be recognized in a justified way from within the person’s system of beliefs, for only then could this status be used as a partial basis for the justification of such a belief, which then would allow such observational beliefs to appealed to for these various further purposes.” (p. 195)

 

·      B¹ is justified by belief B²—“But for a coherentist, the basis for such a recognition can only be the further belief, itself supposedly justified by coherence, that a given belief has this status.” (p. 195)

 

·      But another coherent system with differing beliefs could also have beliefs within it which justify beliefs with observational status.  Think of Coherent System B with B^1* which is justified by B^2*.

 

·      “As long as it only beliefs and the relations among them that can be appealed to for justification, the beliefs that a specific observation has occurred is all that matters, and whether such a belief was really caused in the right way becomes entirely irrelevant.” (p. 195)

 

·      Thus, one cannot, on coherentism, “distinguish genuine observational input from this counterfeit variety.” (p. 195) 

·      The coherentist wants to allow for observational inputs but there is no guarantee that the observational beliefs link up a mind-independent world.  Coherence of beliefs is only internal to the agent.  There is not direct access to the world through knowledge by acquaintance as one might have on a foundationalist understanding.

This appears, to me, to be a powerful critique.  The initial plausibility of coherentism being able to accommodate perceptual inputs which create beliefs is only rendered plausible if a foundationalist understanding is smuggled in.  Once the inner consistency of the coherentism view is made clear—only other beliefs within one noetic structure can serve to justify other beliefs—then the problems as outlined by Bonjour are manifest.

Critique of Laurence BonJour's Indirect Representational Realism

 * A paper written for an epistemology class for Biola's MA in philosophy.

AN INDIRECT DEFENSE OF DIRECT REALISM BY A DIRECT CHALLENGE

TO LAURENCE BONJOUR’S INDIRECT REPRESENTATIONAL REALISM

 

Direct realism is motivated by pre-philosophical intuitions that seem to orient one’s beliefs in an external world with which one is in direct contact.  However, direct realism has fallen on hard times.[1]  Since direct realism is seen as problematic, this sets up a search for other views which are more philosophically defensible.  Laurence BonJour’s version of indirect representational realism is one influential version of representationalism.  The following examination of BonJour’s views will proceed in two steps.  First, I will provide a brief expositional outline of Bonjour’s views regarding indirect realism.  These include, (i) realist intuitions that motivate a belief in an objective, external world, (ii) the denial of direct access to this objective, external world, and (iii) the belief that any such access to this objective, external world must be indirect access via mental representations.  The second step will consist in an examination of some deep internal problems with BonJour’s views.  This failure of indirect realism, coupled with the acknowledged realist intuitions, will motivate a renewed examination of direct realism.  Although a full-fledged defense of direct realism is impossible in this short paper, the argumentation contained here will serve to clear away the option offered by BonJour, thus opening up avenues for a reconsideration of direct realism.

BonJour’s Indirect Representational Realism

            BonJour is a realist in that he affirms a mind-independent external world which a subject can access.  He acknowledges these realist intuitions when he speaks of “our 

ingrained inclinations to describe the experiential content in physical-object terms.”[2]  Later he refers to “the approximately commonsensical idea that my sensory experiences are systematically caused by a realm of 3-dimensional objects”[3]  A recognition of these realist intuitions will be important when assessing BonJour’s views since it is precisely these realist inclinations that will work against BonJour’s overall position.

            Although BonJour affirms realism, he denies the traditional notion of a direct realism.  BonJour summarizes the representationalist view under two theses:

[F]irst, that what is perceived directly or immediately in sensory experience is not ‘external’ physical or material objects, but rather entities that are mental or subjective in character—sense data or sensa, according to the most standard versions of the view; and second, that the only available (reasonably cogent) reasons deriving from perception for thinking that perceptual beliefs about the physical world are true depend on inference from facts about these directly perceived mental or subjective entities, i.e., from facts about the character and contours of subjective sensory experience, to conclusions about physical or material objects.”[4]

 

Thus, according to BonJour’s first thesis, what the subject has access to are representations of the world in one’s conscious states; there is no direct access to the external world.  Bonjour does speak of “direct comparison or ‘confrontation’ between a conceptual description and the non-conceptual chunk of reality that it purports to describe,” but he is quick to add the important caveat: “Such a confrontation is only possible, to be sure, where the reality in question is itself a conscious state and where the description in question pertains to the conscious content of that very state.”[5]

            BonJour’s second thesis regarding the inference from sensory mental states to the conclusion of an external world is also important.  Here BonJour must argue against Berkeleyan idealism.  To engage the specter of idealism, BonJour makes a distinction between analog and digital explanations.  As used by BonJour, an analog explanation attempts to explain the features of the world “by appeal directly to the basic features of the objects in the hypothesized world.”[6]  On the other hand, a digital explanation of the experience one is having is appeals,

“to the combination of (i) something like a representation of a world, together with (ii) some agent or mechanism that produces experience in perceivers like us in a way that mimics the experience that we would have if the represented world were actual and we were located in it, even though neither of these things is in fact the case.”[7]

 

An analog explanation, in this context, would mean that the sensory experience in the subject is being produced by an objective, external world.  Whereas the digital explanation would appeal to some distorting force or figure (i.e., a Cartesian demon or Berkeley’s God directly causing the sensory experiences without a corresponding external world).

From this distinction, BonJour argues that the digital explanation is less simple and by a principle “something like Ockham’s Razor” he argues that the analog explanation is the better one.

Problems with BonJour’s Indirect Representational Realism 

            BonJour’s position is fraught with two key internal tensions: (1) the problem of non-conceptual awareness and (2) no justified contact with the external world.  To 

understand (1) it will be important to understand a key dilemma that must be overcome.  The dilemma has its roots with Wilfrid Sellars’ challenge regarding the “myth of the given” but its articulation can be found in BonJour himself.  BonJour writes:

[T]he givenist is caught in a fundamental dilemma: if his intuitions or immediate apprehensions are construed as cognitive, then they will be both capable of giving justification and in need of it themselves; if they are non-cognitive, then they do not need justification but are also apparently incapable of providing it.  This is at bottom why epistemological givenness is a myth.[8]

 

With BonJour’s turn to foundationalism, he must answer this challenge.  He seeks to overcome this dilemma in the following manner.  Acknowledging the second horn of the dilemma, BonJour affirms that a non-conceptual (“non-cognitive”) phenomenon cannot stand in a logical relation, but it can be construed in a descriptive relation.[9]  He then argues that the non-conceptual phenomena in question here is of a special nature.  BonJour’s key move is described in this manner:

But in the very special case we are concerned with, where the non-conceptual item being described is itself a conscious state, my suggestion is that one can be aware of its character via the constitutive or “built-in” awareness of content without the need for a further conceptual description and thereby be in a position to recognize that a belief about that state is correct without raising any further issue of justification.[10]

 

This “built-in awareness” is, in his words, a “non-apperceptive awareness”—a non-cognitive awareness.[11]  

            It is here that BonJour’s view runs into conceptual difficulty.  What exactly is a non-cognitive awareness of a non-cognitive sensory content?  As Steven Porter aptly notes,

It would seem that a non-conceptual grasp of the non-conceptual content of a non-conceptual state is a conceptually empty grasp of conceptually empty content of a conceptually empty state.  This awareness is supposed to be conceptually described, but it is far from clear what the subject is aware of in a non-conceptual awareness of a non-conceptual state which can serve as the object of description.[12]

 

In seeking to avoid the dilemma described above, BonJour has attempted to use a philosophical notion which appears epistemically vacuous.  As Porter argues, “non-conceptual awareness is a contradiction in terms.”[13]  It would appear that conceptualized perceptual awareness cannot so easily be dismissed.

            The second major problem for BonJour is that his view does not end up justifying belief in an external world.  It is important to remember that BonJour is motivated by realist intuitions; internal sensory states are indicative of an external world of three-dimensional objects.  The basic move here is that one can inferentially move from internal representational states to an objective external world.  BonJour dispenses with alternative hypotheses (e.g., Berkeleyan idealism) by his use of analog explanations versus digital explanations.  The analog explanation of an objective external world is preferred to the digital explanations since digital explanations are arbitrary and not as simple of explanations.  In his critical analysis of BonJour, Steven Porter acknowledges that it is true that there is no reason to prefer digital explanation over another digital explanation and that it is true that is arbitrary to prefer a digital explanation over an analog explanation.  

But Porter accurately assesses the situation when he notes the following:

But it does not follow from these two facts that we now possess a non-arbitrary reason to prefer the quasi-commonsensical hypothesis.  Unless there is something in sense experience that calls for the quasi-commonsensical hypothesis over the others, the same arbitrariness would equally attach itself to the quasi-commonsensical hypothesis.[14]

 

BonJour is seeking to argue that the reason to prefer the analogical explanation of an external world as the cause of one’s sensory states is that the phenomenology of one’s internal sensory states suggests an objective external world.  But it is precisely here that BonJour’s representationalism cuts one off from the external world.  What reason, given only one’s internal representational states, can there be given to prefer one explanation (analog) over another (digital)?  Steven Porter uses a helpful example to show the philosophical problem inherent in BonJour’s view.

Let us suppose that we are watching a film and an image resembling the Golden Gate Bridge appears on the screen.  Some philosophically attuned, inconsiderate movie whisperer poses the question as to whether the image is actual footage of the Golden Gate Bridge or whether it is a computer-generated image.  In other words, did the Golden Gate Bridge itself cause the image on the film (i.e., an analog explanation) or did a computer cause the image (i.e., a digital explanation)?  Of course, the image itself bears features which closely align with the features of the actual Golden Gate Bridge and which do not closely align with the features of a computer.  But this fact does not give us any reason to prefer the explanation that the image we are seeing was caused by filming the actual Golden Gate Bridge over and against the explanation that the image was caused by a computer which was used to digitally represent the bridge.  Indeed, there is nothing about the image of the Golden Gate Bridge which would lead us to prefer one explanation or the other if all that we have access to is the image and both explanations are in all other respects equal in their ability to account for the image.  If, of course, we had independent access to the actual Golden Gate Bridge, we could compare the actual features to the features of the image on the screen, and perhaps determine whether the image is an analog or digital production.  But if we only have access to the feature of the image, any preference for the analog or digital explanation based on those features alone would be arbitrary.[15]

 

According to BonJour’s representational indirect realism there is no possibility of having direct access to reality by which to compare the features of the actual world with the features of one’s internal sensory states.  All one has are mental representations of the external world and analog and digital explanations can equally account for this mental representation.  Even if BonJour attempts to argue that his analog explanation is superior to the digital explanation of Berkeley due to simplicity, this argument can be overcome by noting that according to Berkeleyan idealism only one causal entity is postulated “while BonJour must postulate a multitude of physical objects, their properties, and the causal powers and relations essential to the quasi-commonsensical view.”[16]  Thus, BonJour is left without any rational preference for his analogical explanation.  In the end, “BonJour’s position leaves us with justified beliefs about appearances but without justified beliefs about the external world.”[17]

BonJour’s Caveat and Rejoinder 

            Granting realist intuitions and recognizing the internal tensions inherent in BonJour’s view of indirect representational realism, one might think that a reconsideration of direct realism would be in order.  However, BonJour argues against such a move in the following manner:

No matter how difficult or even seemingly impossible the representationalist’s attempted inference from subjective experience to the material world may turn out to be, this is not enough by itself to show that direct realism provides a better epistemological alternative or indeed that it provides one at all.[18]

 

BonJour argues that unless the direct realist can give a positive account of how perceptual beliefs are justified then the door is open for the representationalist view “as the only apparent contender in the field (phenomenalism aside), however allegedly problematic it may be.”[19]

            BonJour’s thought can be captured in the following manner:

(1) Realist intuitions motivate a belief in an objective external world composed of three-dimensional objects.

 

(2) Direct realism cannot provide a positive account for justified perceptual beliefs.

(3) No matter the difficulties, indirect representational realism is the only apparent contender in line with the realist intuitions of (1) above.

 

But the defender of direct realism could mirror this reasoning in the following manner:

(1) Realist intuitions motivate a belief in an objective external world composed of three-dimensional objects.

 

(4) Indirect representational realism cannot provide a positive account for justified perceptual beliefs.

 

(5) No matter the difficulties, direct realism is the only apparent contender in line with the realist intuitions of (1) above.

 

The defender of direct realism defends (4) by an appeal to the analysis offered above about the inherent contradictions and tensions in BonJour’s defense of his views.  Thus, (5) follows and provides the impetus to reexamine the details in defense of direct realism.  

 

Steven Porter accurately captures this dialectic.  After summarizing the key problems with BonJour’s views, he writes, “These problems seem to offer insuperable difficulties for representationalism.  But many have come at things the other way around.  Starting with the natural view of direct realism they find defeaters of it, which lead them to the next best thing from the realist point of view—that is, representationalism.”[20]  But this dialectic, as set up by BonJour, should be challenged.  Granting the realist intuitions of (1), which are affirmed by BonJour, and considering the deeply problematic tensions within BonJour’s indirect representational realism, this should motivate a reconsideration of direct realism.  It is beyond the purview of this paper to attempt to this larger project; it has been the more modest project to clear the field of BonJour’s defense of representationalism.[21]

---

     [1] For a series of arguments against DR with potential replies see Pierre Le Morvan’s “Arguments Against Direct Realism and How to Counter Them,” American Philosophical Quarterly 41 (2004), 221-234.

     [2] Laurence BonJour, “Foundationalism and the External World,” in Philosophical Perspectives 13, edited James E. Tomberlin (Oxford: Blackwell, 1999), 240.

     [3] Laurence BonJour, “Foundationalism and the External World,” in Philosophical Perspectives 13, edited James E. Tomberlin (Oxford: Blackwell, 1999), 244.

     [4] Laurence BonJour, “In Search of Direct Realism,” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 69.2 (2004), 350.

     [5] Laurence BonJour, “Foundationalism and the External World,” in Philosophical Perspectives 13, edited James E. Tomberlin (Oxford: Blackwell, 1999), 235—emphasis added.

     [6] Laurence BonJour, “Foundationalism and the External World,” in Philosophical Perspectives 13, edited James E. Tomberlin (Oxford: Blackwell, 1999), 244.

     [7] Laurence BonJour, “Foundationalism and the External World,” in Philosophical Perspectives 13, edited James E. Tomberlin (Oxford: Blackwell, 1999), 244.

     [8] Laurence BonJour, “Can Empirical Knowledge Have a Foundation?” American Philosophical Quarterly 15.1 (1978), 11.  This formulation is found in BonJour’s “coherentist” stage, but he recognizes the problem in his later “foundationalist” perspective.  He lays out the same dilemma in “Foundationalism and the External World” (page 231) where he states, “It is this dilemma that has always seemed to me to be the most fundamental objection to empirical foundationalism.”  In this latter paper, BonJour is specifically seeking to meet the dilemma’s challenge.

     [9] Laurence BonJour, “Foundationalism and the External World,” in Philosophical Perspectives 13, edited James E. Tomberlin (Oxford: Blackwell, 1999), 235.

     [10] Laurence BonJour, “Foundationalism and the External World,” in Philosophical Perspectives 13, edited James E. Tomberlin (Oxford: Blackwell, 1999), 235.

     [11] Laurence BonJour, “Foundationalism and the External World,” in Philosophical Perspectives 13, edited James E. Tomberlin (Oxford: Blackwell, 1999), 233.

     [12] Steven L. Porter, Restoring the Foundations of Epistemic Justification: A Direct Realist and Conceptualist Theory of Foundationalism(Lexington, 2006), 82.

     [13] Steven L. Porter, Restoring the Foundations of Epistemic Justification: A Direct Realist and Conceptualist Theory of Foundationalism(Lexington, 2006), 83.

     [14] Steven L. Porter, Restoring the Foundations of Epistemic Justification: A Direct Realist and Conceptualist Theory of Foundationalism(Lexington, 2006), 84.

     [15] Steven L. Porter, Restoring the Foundations of Epistemic Justification: A Direct Realist and Conceptualist Theory of Foundationalism(Lexington, 2006), 85-86.

     [16] Steven L. Porter, Restoring the Foundations of Epistemic Justification: A Direct Realist and Conceptualist Theory of Foundationalism(Lexington, 2006), 88.

     [17] Steven L. Porter, Restoring the Foundations of Epistemic Justification: A Direct Realist and Conceptualist Theory of Foundationalism(Lexington, 2006), 88.

     [18] Laurence BonJour, “In Search of Direct Realism,” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 69.2 (2004), 351.

     [19] Laurence BonJour, “In Search of Direct Realism,” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 69.2 (2004), 351.

     [20] Steven L. Porter, Restoring the Foundations of Epistemic Justification: A Direct Realist and Conceptualist Theory of Foundationalism(Lexington, 2006), 98.

     [21] For attempts at the larger project of explicating and defending direct realism see the following: Pierre Le Morvan, “Arguments Against Direct Realism and How to Counter Them,” American Philosophical Quarterly 41 (2004), 221-234 and Steven L. Porter, Restoring the Foundations of Epistemic Justification: A Direct Realist and Conceptualist Theory of Foundationalism (Lexington, 2006).

Advice for Christian Academics from "A Grander Story"

 

A few quotations from A Grander Story: An Invitation to Christian Professors by Rick Hove and Heather Holleman...

Professor George Marsden's "The State of Evangelical Scholarship" outlines a wise path for Christian academics:

 

"For us as scholars this means that our agenda ought to be directed toward building for our community as solid a place in the pluralistic intellectual life of our civilization as is consistent with our principles.  Helping to establish the intellectual viability of our world view and pointing out the shortcomings of alternatives can be an important service to our community and an important dimension of our witness to the world.  To perform this task properly requires a delicate combination of modesty and assertivenss.  Our intellectual life must display the Christian qualities of self-criticism and generosity to others.  Richard Neuhaus puts it well when he says we should have 'reverence for those with whom we disagree.'  At the same time, we properly attempt to establish for others the attractiveness of our world view." (p. 50)

 

And then this one... 

Nathan Hatch, however, warns of a common temptation, one inevitable for Christians in a minority position within the academy:

 

"Like children long rejected, evangelical scholars are still too anxious to be accepted by their peers, too willing to move only in the directions that allow them to be 'relevant.'  [The result is that] we have been far more inclined to speak up when our Christian convictions are in tune with the assumptions of modern academic life than when they are at odds.  It is much easier, for instance, to set oneself in the vanguard of social progress than it is to defend those Christian assumptions tha the established and fashionable intellectual circles of our day regard as obscurantist and fanciful.  Yet it is this tougher mental fight that we must not avoid."  (p. 51) 

Human Dignity and Why It Matters--SMCC Presentation

Human Dignity and Why It Matters

Richard Klaus

September 13, 2023

South Mountain Community College

 

Introduction:

 

·      Thank you for the invitation by Christian Challenge to present before you today!

 

·      Areopagus in the city of Athens

 

o   Functioned at times—judicial court and place of intellectual examination of ideas

 

o   Same city in which Socrates caused trouble by “corrupting the youth” and was put to death!

 

o   I hope for better things today!

 

 

·      We live in a time of cultural controversy: “Culture Wars”

 

o   Fractured society at the ideological level (the level of ideas)

 

·      Consider just a few of the cultural “hot spots” of clashing viewpoints…[1]

 

o   Euthanasia

o   Abortion

o   Sexual ethics

o   Transgenderism

o   Reproductive cloning

o   Organ donation and informed consent

o   Rationing of health care

o   Embryonic stem cell treatments

o   Biotechnological human enhancements (transhumansism)

o   Poverty alleviation policies

o   Affirmative action

o   Prison reform and the infliction of punishment

o   Death penalty

 

·      And yet… amid all this controversy across multiple issues there is a surprising agreement about a central concept in all of these debates

 

o   HUMAN DIGNITY (and human value)

 

o   John Kilner: There is widespread agreement that people matter![2]

 

o   Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948)

 

§  Preamble (1^st paragraph)

 

“Whereas recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world,” 

 

§  Preamble (5^th paragraph)

 

“Whereas the peoples of the United Nations have in the Charter affirmed their faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person and in the equal rights of men and women and have determined to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom,”

 

§  Article 1

 

“All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.  They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.”

 

§  Numerous human rights documents and over 40 constitutions since the beginning of the 20^th century

 

·      I want to probe this concept of Human Dignity

 

·      My title: “Human Dignity and Why It Matters”

 

o   Title is intentionally vague!

 

o   At least two differing meanings…

 

§  (1) Focuses on the consequences or implications

 

·      What happens when we deny human dignity?

 

·      What areas of life are affected?

 

§  (2) Focuses on the foundation and framework which renders the concept of human dignity intelligible and defensible

 

·      My focus is on (2)—the philosophical justification of human dignity

 

·      In particular, I want to examine which philosophical worldview best accounts for human dignity?

 

o   Flow of talk…

 

§  (1) Examine the concept and definition of human dignity.

 

§  (2) What are consequences of denying human dignity?

 

§  (3) Argue that Christian theism, as a philosophical worldview, better accounts for human dignity than naturalistic materialism

 

The Concept of Human Dignity: What Are We Talking About?

 

·      If the concept of Human Dignity is so important, why have some called is “useless” (Ruth Macklin) and “stupid” (Steven Pinker)?

 

·      Failure to account for conceptual distinctions in our use of “dignity”

 

·      Three-fold distinction[3]:

 

o   Attributed dignity

 

§  Worth human beings confer on others or themselves

 

§  Comes in degrees

 

§  Created value

 

§  Attribute worth and value to others based on…

 

·      Position

·      Admiration

·      Talents or skills

 

§  Example: When we say that extreme poverty creates degrading and undignified living conditions

 

o   Intrinsic dignity

 

§  Worth or value that people have simply because they are human

 

§  Value, not conferred or created by human choices (individual or collective)

 

§  Discovered

 

o   Inflorescent dignity—human flourishing

 

§  The excellence of a human life consistent with and expressive of, intrinsic dignity

 

 

·      Intrinsic dignity is the key element needed to undergird the equality of human rights and universal human value

 

·      Intrinsic dignity cannot be a degreed property tied to the expression of a particular attribute

 

o   “Intrinsic human dignity, if it indeed exists, cannot be a degreed property like rationality, moral virtue, intelligence, height, or weight.  For at whatever degree each is manifested, that degree is accidental and not essential to the sort of thing that has that property.  For by their very nature these properties change, develop, diminish or cease to be actual over time for a human being who has them.”[4]

 

o   If degreed: some humans will have more intrinsic dignity than others

 

§  Problematic for upholding human rights

 

§  As philosopher Francis Beckwith argues:

 

“… we would have to abandon the idea of human equality and draw the conclusion that no two human beings have the same degree of dignity.”[5]

 

Problematic Moves in Understanding Human Dignity

 

·      Deny human dignity

 

o   Horrible consequences

 

§  Ashley Fernandes—“Why Did So Many Doctors Become Nazis?”

 

·      Ideas have consequences, some bad ideas have victims!

 

§  “Personalism posits the ultimate unit of value of human life is the individual person herself. Society is and ought to be built around this value. In short, society is created for the person, not the person for society, and hence the dignity and integrity of the person and her freedom cannot be sacrificed for the sake of society. No contingent factor—race, religion, economic status, disability, or actions of the past, present or future—can rob a person the dignity she is owed. Integrating this kind of rigorous, universal philosophical anthropology is an antidote to the corruption of medicine, and vital for the prevention of future genocides.”[6]

 

o   Sociologist, John Evans—What Is A Human? What the Answers Mean for Human Rights(Oxford: Oxford Press, 2016).

 

§  Social science test: more than 3500 adults in the US

 

§  Three views:

 

·      Christian theological view—created in the image of God

 

·      Philosophical view—defines humans by possessing certain capacities (self-consciousness and rationality)

 

·      Biological view—defined and differentiated from animals solely by DNA

 

§  Q: How do these views affect one’s perceptions about humans rights?

 

·      Risk soldiers to stop a genocide in a foreign country

·      Allow kidneys to be bought from poor people

·      Have terminally ill people die by suicide to save money

·      Take blood from prisoners without their consent

·      Torture terror suspects to potentially save lives

 

§  “What came out was very striking.  The more a respondent agreed with the biological definition of a human, the more likely they were to see humans as being like machines and the less likely they were to see them as special, unique or all of equal value.  On the human rights questions, they were less willing to stop genocides and were more likely to accept buying kidneys, suicide to save money and taking blood from prisoners.  In contrast, those who agreed with the theological view were less likely to agree with suicide to save money and taking blood from prisoners against their will.”[7]

 

·      Misunderstand the nature of human dignity

 

o   Need intrinsic dignity

 

o   Dignity not a degreed property

 

§  It is an intrinsic, essential property

 

 

Grounding Human Dignity: The Need for Philosophical Justification

 

·      How do we explain and justify the needed concept of intrinsic human dignity?

 

·      Can’t we just agree and not worry about the philosophical justification?

 

·      Jacques Maritain

 

o   Catholic theologian, instrumental in drafting the Universal Declaration of Human Rights

 

o   “… someone expressed astonishment that certain champions of violently opposed ideologies had agreed on a list of those rights.  ‘Yes,” they said, ‘we agree about the rights but on condition that no one asks us why.’”[8]

 

·      “In a society such as ours, committed as we are to human equality, we cannot avoid worrying about distinctions in dignity, and we cannot forever avert our gaze from the question of what grounds our commitment.”[9] –Gilbert Meilaender

 

 

·      “Pragmatic foundations are inherently vulnerable and even if the moral edifice that is constructed above them is unlikely to collapse altogether, it is surely beholden on us to construct it as securely as possible.  Hence the question about which ideology best supports humanist ideals.” [10] --Nick Spencer

 

 

Which Worldview Best Accounts for Intrinsic Human Dignity

 

·      Comparative approach—compare worldviews to each other

 

o   “Ideally, a worldview should be evaluated in comparison with other worldviews—at least with major alternatives. The reason for this is that if we think a certain worldview faces some difficulty or problem, we might be tempted to dismiss it simply for that reason, without taking proper time to consider whether competing worldviews face the same or similar challenges—or perhaps even greater challenges. In other words, rather than asking, ‘Which worldview passes all the tests without any problem whatsoever?’ we should ask, ‘Which worldview passes the tests better than any other worldview?’ We will then be able to see which worldview is the most reasonable to believe. This worldview will be one that is most consistent and coherent, that best explains the most important features of the world we inhabit and our experiences of it, and that can best account for all the evidence available to us.”[11] —James Anderson

 

·      Naturalism with its attendant materialism cannot account for human dignity and value

 

·      Defining “naturalism”—can be difficult; multiple conceptions

 

o   E. O. Wilson—“The central idea (of naturalism) is that all tangible phenomena, from the birth of the stars to the workings of social institutions, are based on material processes that are ultimately reducible, however long and torturous the sequences, to the laws of physics.”[12]

 

o   John Searle: “There is exactly one overriding question in contemporary philosophy … :How do we fit in? … How can we square this self-conception of ourselves as mindful, meaning-creating, free, rational, etc., agents with a universe that consists entirely of mindless, meaningless, unfree, nonrational, brute physical particles?”[13]

 

o   Yuval Noah Harari—professor of history at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. (sold over 20 million books)

 

§  “There are no such things as rights in biology.”

 

§  “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men evolved differently, that they are born with certain mutable characteristics, and that among these are life and the pursuit of pleasure.”[14]

 

§  “He [Harari] concludes that the concept of equal rights is nothing but a ‘Christian myth.’”[15]

 

o   Harari is not the only atheist to acknowledge the deep connection between human dignity with its attendant human rights and Christian theism…

 

o   Nancy Pearcey draws attention to atheistic philosophers, Luc Ferry and Richard Rorty[16]

 

§  “Christianity is the first universalist ethos.” –Luc Ferry

 

§  “Rorty notes, Christianity gave rise to the concept of universal rights, derived from the conviction ‘that all human beings are created in the image of God.”

 

·      Human dignity—”an intrinsic, immaterial, nonempirical, non-degreed, and essential property had by human beings by nature.”[17]  --Francis Beckwith

 

o   This conception of human dignity does not comport well with a naturistic ontology and epistemology

 

Christian Theism and the Grounding of Human Dignity

 

·      As a Christian, I want to argue that Christian theism, as a philosophical system, provides the needed grounding for human dignity

 

·      Human dignity finds a coherent home in Christian theism

 

·      Many themes and concepts from within Christianity move toward this point[18]

 

·      Two themes in particular: Creation and Redemption

 

o   Creation in the image of God (Genesis 1-2)

 

o   Love of God displayed in Jesus Christ

 

§  John 3.16 “For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”

 

§  Especially the self-giving love displayed in the death of Jesus Christ

 

·      Romans 5.8—“But God demonstrates his own love toward us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us.”

 

o   Gilbert Meilaender—“a great rupture in Western culture, a rupture that gradually reshaped the classical notion of dignity … by brining it within a system of thought and practice that worshipped as God a crucified man who suffered a criminal’s death upon on a cross.”[19]

 

 

o   “God stopped at nothing to reach out to humanity.  God in Christ suffered and bled and died.  What more could God do to demonstrate love for the world?  Belief in human dignity is deepened considerably by reflection on the ultimate nature of the price God paid at the cross.  The incalculably terrible suffering and death of Jesus Christ and the demonstration in that suffering and death of how very much God values each and every human being have contributed profoundly to a Christian moral tradition that exalts the immeasurable worth of the human being.”[20]  

--David Gushee

·      A cautionary caveat…

 

o   Claim is NOT that Christians have lived out or up to these ideals!

 

o   Nor… only Christians are or can be concerned for human dignity

 

§  Plenty of non-Christians—including naturalistic atheists—are concerned for such things

 

·      Key issue: the grounding of human dignity

 

·      What we’ve seen…

 

o   Near universal assent to human dignity

 

§  Tried to briefly spell out what that entails—intrinsic human dignity

 

o   But what worldview best provides the most philosophically coherent home for the concept of human dignity?

 

§  “Here, then, is our problem, from which we cannot for long continue to avert our gaze: Our society is committed to equal human dignity, and our history is in large part a long attempt to work out the meaning of that commitment.  Christians and Jews have an account of persons—as equidistant from God and of equal worth before God—that grounds and makes sense of this commitment we all share.  A society that rejects their account but wishes to retain the commitment faces, then, a serious crisis in the structure of its beliefs.”[21] –Gilbert Meilaender

 

§  “It may be that we cannot make good sense of an egalitarian and non-comparative understanding of human dignity, to which our civilization has in many ways been committed, if we abstract it entirely from the context of the religious beliefs that formed it.”[22]  --Gilbert Meilaender

 

o   In the end, I would argue…

 

o   Jesus Christ is not only the Savior in a religious sense, but he is also the Savior of the philosophical concept of human dignity.

 

o   Thank you.  [Questions and dialogue]

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     [1] Much of this list is motivated by John F. Kilner’s lead essay, “Why This Book Matters: The Need for Common Ground in Debates Today” in Why People Matter: A Christian Engagement with Rival Views of Human Significance, ed. John F. Kilner, (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker, 2017), 4-7.

     [2] John F. Kilner, ed., Why People Matter: A Christian Engagement with Rival Views of Human Significance, (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker, 2017), 7.

     [3] See Daniel P. Sulmasy, “The Varieties of Human Dignity: A Logical and Conceptual Analysis” Medical Health Care and Philosophy 16 (2013), 937-944 for more details.

     [4] Francis J. Beckwith, “Dignity Never Been Photographed: Bioethics, Policy, and Steven Pinker’s Materialism,” in Taking Rites Seriously: Law, Politics, and the Reasonableness of Faith, (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2015), 89.

     [5] Francis J. Beckwith, “Dignity Never Been Photographed: Bioethics, Policy, and Steven Pinker’s Materialism,” in Taking Rites Seriously: Law, Politics, and the Reasonableness of Faith, (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2015), 90.

     [6] Ashley K. Fernandes, Why Did So Many Doctors Become Nazis” Tablet (December 9, 2020)—online: https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/history/articles/fernandes-doctors-who-became-nazis . 

     [7] John H. Evans, “Does Science Undermine Human Rights?” New Scientist (August 3, 2016)—online: https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg23130850-200-who-we-think-we-are-and-why-it-matters/.

     [8] Nick Spencer, The Evolution of the West: How Christianity Has Shaped Our Values, (London: SPCK, 2016), 69.

     [9] Gilbert Meilaender, “Human Dignity: Exploring and Explicating the Council’s Vision,” in Human Dignity and Bioethics, ed. Edmund D. Pellegrino (Washington D.C.: The President’s Council on Bioethics, 2008), 275.

     [10] Nick Spencer, The Evolution of the West: How Christianity Has Shaped Our Values, (London: SPCK, 2016), 70.

     [11] James N. Anderson, Why Should I Believe Christianity? (Scottland: Christian Focus, 2016), 48-49.

     [12] Quoted in Scott B. Rae, “More Than Meets the Eye: Naturalism and Human Significance,” in Why People Matter: A Christian Engagement with Rival Views of Human Significance, ed. John F. Kilner, (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker, 2017), 95.  Rae is quoting E. O. Wilson, Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge, (New York: Knopf, 1998), 266.

     [13] Quoted in Scott B. Rae, “More Than Meets the Eye: Naturalism and Human Significance,” in Why People Matter: A Christian Engagement with Rival Views of Human Significance, ed. John F. Kilner, (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker, 2017), 95.  Rae is quoting John R. Searle, Freedom and Neurobiology: Reflections on Free Will, Language, and Political Power, (New York: Columbia University Press, 2007), 4-5.

     [14] Andrew Wilson, “We (Do Not) Hold These Truths to Be Self-Evident,” Crossway (September 10, 2023)—online: https://www.crossway.org/articles/we-do-not-hold-these-truths-to-be-self-evident/?utm_source=Crossway+Marketing&utm_campaign=9eb62330ff-20230911+Acad%2BArt%2BGov%2BHist-Truths+Self-Evident&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_0275bcaa4b-982ebf4e4d-%5BLIST_EMAIL_ID%5D.  Wilson is quoting Yuval Noah Harari, Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind (London: Vintage, 2011), 123.

     [15] Nancy R. Pearcey, Love Thy Body: Answering Hard Questions About Life and Sexuality (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker, 2018), 65.  Pearcey is quoting Yuval Noah Harari, Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind (New York: HarperCollins, 2015), 108-110.

     [16] Nancy R. Pearcey, Love Thy Body: Answering Hard Questions About Life and Sexuality (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker, 2018, 101.

     [17] Francis J. Beckwith, “Dignity Never Been Photographed: Bioethics, Policy, and Steven Pinker’s Materialism,” in Taking Rites Seriously: Law, Politics, and the Reasonableness of Faith, (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2015), 91.

     [18] See the essays by John F. Kilner, “Special Connection and Intended Reflection: Creation in God’s Image and Human Significance,” and David P. Gushee, “Nothing Is Merely Human: Various Biblical Bases for Human Significance,” both in Why People Matter: A Christian Engagement with Rival Views of Human Significance, ed. John F. Kilner, (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker, 2017).

     [19] Gilbert Meilaender, “Human Dignity: Exploring and Explicating the Council’s Vision,” in Human Dignity and Bioethics, ed. Edmund D. Pellegrino (Washington D.C.: The President’s Council on Bioethics, 2008), 261.

     [20] David P. Gushee, “Nothing Is Merely Human: Various Biblical Bases for Human Significance,” in Why People Matter: A Christian Engagement with Rival Views of Human Significance, ed. John F. Kilner, (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker, 2017), 181-182.

     [21] Gilbert Meilaender, “Human Dignity: Exploring and Explicating the Council’s Vision,” in Human Dignity and Bioethics, ed. Edmund D. Pellegrino (Washington D.C.: The President’s Council on Bioethics, 2008), 263-264.

     [22] Gilbert Meilaender, “Human Dignity: Exploring and Explicating the Council’s Vision,” in Human Dignity and Bioethics, ed. Edmund D. Pellegrino (Washington D.C.: The President’s Council on Bioethics, 2008), 262.