Part 1—Sexual Commitment
1. What is difference between the ways you love your dog, your best friend, your mother, and your spouse?
2. Should you marry your best friend and become lovers or marry your lover and develop friendship? Why?
3. What is the difference between a covenant and a contract?
4. Why do you think almost every major religious tradition in history has so strongly opposed divorce?
5. What is the purpose of dating? What things interfere with this purpose?
6. What are the advantages of dating and selecting a spouse the way we do it in America?
7. What are the problems with dating and selecting a spouse the way we do it in America?
8. Why would someone say people should get married instead of just living together?
9. Why would someone say people should just live together instead of getting married?
10. Why might someone favor arranged marriages?
11. Why might someone oppose arranged marriages?
12. What is the purpose(s) of sexual intercourse?
13. Ignoring unwanted pregnancy and disease, are there any other reasons to wait until marriage to have sex?
14. Is sexual behavior a significant human endeavor? Why do you say so?
15. What don’t you understand about the positions of people who disagree with you on these issues?
Part 2—Sexual Fantasy
1. Why might someone argue that looking at pornography is an excellent thing to do?
2. Why might someone argue that looking at pornography is not an excellent thing to do?
3. Is looking at pornography when you are married a form of adultery?
4. Is looking at pornography when you are single a form of pre-marital sex?
5. Is it wrong to use looks for the purpose of attracting a spouse? Why?
6. Is it wrong to consider looks in selecting a spouse? Why?
7. Why might people find make-up, revealing clothing, and pornography to be similar?
8. If men tend to be sexually stimulated by visual things, what tends to stimulate women sexually?
9. Why might someone argue that having sexual fantasies is a good thing?
10. Why might someone argue that having sexual fantasies is a bad thing?
11. Why might someone say that masturbation is a good thing?
12. Why might someone say that masturbation is a bad thing?
13. What don’t you understand about the position of people who disagree with you on these issue?
Part 3—Gender
1. Why do genders exist? What purpose do they serve?
2. If you believe in God, does God have a purpose in making each person of a particular gender? What?
3. What things are women better at generally than men?
4. What things are men better at generally than women?
5. Should authority and leadership always be given to the most competent person?
6. What standards or expectations are different regarding men and women?
7. How is the ideal woman as portrayed by modern media different from the ideal woman as imagined 60 years ago?
8. How are the contributions to parenting different and similar for mothers and fathers?
9. What is the moral value of choosing to stay at home and be a mother full time?
10. Why might some people say that having mothers go to work outside the home is a bad idea?
11. Why might some people say that having mothers go to work outside the home is a good idea?
12. What are the ideal features of a family structure for providing the needs of children?
13. How is the attitude toward men as portrayed by modern media different from the attitude toward men 60 years ago?
14. Is there anything men can do which is as important as creating a life?
15. Who has more power in the modern world: women or men? Why?
Part 4—Contraception
1. What is the purpose of medicine?
2. If there were a medication which people took in order to make them temporarily blind, why would that be strange?
3. Is fertility a disease/disordered condition or a normal condition?
4. What impact does the easy availability of contraception have on adultery?
5. What impact does the easy availability of contraception have on pre-marital sex?
6. What attitude toward children and pregnancy does contraception represent?
7. What is the attitude of people who do not like children toward contraception?
8. What is the attitude of people who love promiscuity toward contraception?
9. Does contraception within a marriage foster generosity or selfishness concerning sex?
10. What impact does the easy availability of contraception have on unwanted pregnancy and abortion?
11. Why might someone argue that contraception is a cause of divorce?
12. What was the first command/blessing given in the Bible? How is this relevant to this issue?
13. What is the moral value of becoming pregnant and giving birth?
14. Is parenting a significant life endeavor that causes people to grow? How?
15. Are children better off in small (1-2 children), medium (3-4) or large (5+) families? Why?
Part 5—Homosexuality
1. Is sexual desire something you can control? Why or why not?
2. Is sexual behavior something you can control? Why or why not?
3. Sodomy is defined as any non-procreative sexual activity. (Oral sex, anal sex, masturbation, etc.) How do you morally categorize sodomy: A, B, C, or D? Why?
4. Most people accept that bestiality (sex between humans and animals) and incest (non-forced sex between close relatives) are both immoral. What makes them wrong?
5. Is the use of contraceptives morally objectionable? Why or why not?
6. What is the definition of a perversion?
7. What don’t you understand about the position of people who disagree with you on this issue?
Part 6—Abortion
1. What are the best arguments used by Pro-Life people that abortion is wrong and should be illegal?
2. What are the best arguments used by Pro-Choice people that abortion is wrong but should be legal?
3. What are the best arguments used by Pro-Abortion people that abortion is good and should be legal?
4. Do the rights of individuals depend on other people thinking you have them or not?
5. Are there limits on what we can or should do with our bodies even if no other person is involved?
6. Do you think reproduction is a fundamental part of our human design or purpose?
7. Are children a burden or a blessing? How is a society’s attitude on this question relevant here?
8. What don’t you understand about the position of people who disagree with you on this issue?
Monday, October 26, 2009
Ethics Experiments 7-9
Ethics Experiment 7—Appearance (Due 11/4)
This week, you have the opportunity to do something which should be both easier than many of the other experiments (you deserve a break), and yet also perhaps more interesting than some of the other ones. This is truly a science experiment, although the duration of the experiment is not long enough to really get you statistically meaningful results. What I want you to do this week is to try making yourself look different than you ordinarily do so that you can see what (if any) effect your appearance has on the way other people treat you.
In America, we have a strong desire to act for the sake of comfort. This is nowhere more evident than in the way we dress. We also tend to think of our appearance as an expression of our individual values and identity. For many people, however, they do not realize the abundance of information which we communicate to other people simply in the way we appear to them. Whether or not it is proper to judge someone based on appearances, everyone knows that most people do in fact judge others on this basis
First, dress up for two days. Dress as you would for a job interview or a formal date. Men, wear a tie, long sleeve dress shirt, and slacks. I recommend business colors: blue or white shirt and red tie or at least one that does not contain any cartoon characters. Women, wear a business dress, suit, or blouse and formal length skirt, including appropriately professional accessories, hair style, makeup, shoes, etc.
Second, dress down for two days. For some of you, this may not be possible without some effort, but be creative. Dress more sloppy, dirty, or grungy than normal. Men, don’t shave, wear old jeans, wear a ratty hat (or don’t do your hair at all), etc. Women, don’t wear makeup, don’t do your hair, wear sweats, be totally comfortable as if you weren’t even leaving home. The basic idea here is to temporarily appear like someone who you might judge to be “better” than you socially for two days and then as someone who you might judge to be “worse” than you socially for two days. People may become very uncomfortable with you dressing so differently because they can’t pigeon-hole you as easily. Also, you may find it very uncomfortable to look like a different person than you believe you are.
Since I have only prescribed four of the seven days, use the remaining three days to try entirely different approaches. For men, this does not offer as much opportunity as for women simply because men don’t dress in as much variety as women. But if you can, and are willing, try doing something really different like dying your hair blue or wearing clothes that are way outside your normal comfort zone (gothic, punk, sexually provocative, puritanical, etc.) Use your creativity and pay attention to how other people treat you. If you want to just use the other three days to do more of the first two approaches, that’s fine, but I think you’ll have more fun if you try being radically different for at least one day. I also would recommend that you don’t tell people you’re doing this when they ask you why you’re dressed differently. Play it up like it’s just something you felt like doing, but this part is up to you.
Ethics Experiment 8—Radical Honesty (Due 11/11)
Some people have held the belief that honesty is at the core of everything morality addresses. I’m not sure I would go this far, but I would say that one of the key problems we have in our lives is an unwillingness and even inability to be truly honest with others. You will recall from experiment 5 that it was relatively easy to act nice toward other people but much more difficult to think nice toward them. Although you have probably never thought about it this way, such a difference between your thoughts and your words is dishonest. You are specifically not telling those other people what you really think of them, which is a form of lying.
This week, I want you to practice being meticulously honest. When something bothers you, say so. When something is unpleasant, don’t let it go. If someone makes you mad, say, “You are making me angry.” If someone hurts your feelings, tell him so. The easiest way to do this is to always describe things in terms of yourself. Instead of saying, “You’re being mean,” which is disputable, say, “I feel like you’re being mean,” or, “It hurts my feelings when you say that to me.” Allow yourself the freedom to really tell people what you are thinking, and watch yourself so that you don’t fudge with the accuracy of the things you say
Perhaps the most crucial aspect of this experiment is the requirement that if you have a problem with someone, you must discuss it with them directly. Gossip is the most common kind of unkindness, and complaining about people to others is the most common kind of dishonesty. For one week, don’t let yourself complain about another person unless you have already spoken to that person about the problem you have with him or her. I suspect that most of you will find this experiment extremely difficult because you have, like most Americans, developed great skill at concealing your true thoughts from others. This is best demonstrated by the American obsession with sarcasm. Try going an entire week without being sarcastic. If you don’t like something, say so openly.
In all of this, I want to remind you to use your common sense. Don’t mouth off to your boss and then come complaining to me if you get fired. There are times to be radically honest, and there are times to exercise restraint. There are also many times when we moderate our honesty with concern for the impact of our words on others for the sake of kindness. This is not a license to be stupid, but for one week, do as much as you can to be honest with those around you: teachers, co-workers, spouses, parents, friends, etc.
Ethics Experiment 9—Self-evaluation (Due 11/18)
There are three foci this week: motives, choices, and relationships. At the end of each day, I want you to take some time (the amount will vary but probably be at least ten to twenty minutes) to reflect on the day now that it is over. Look back at it and write down as many of the basic events as you can remember in a list. This includes your choices and your interactions with others. Then go back over that list and think about each one making notes on what you did well and what you did poorly.
For your choices, the key is to be totally honest with yourself about your motives. Why did you make the choice you did, and why did you want to make the other choice? Even if you chose to do what you think was right, what other impulses were operating in you? For instance, you might have been at dinner with your girlfriend when a cute girl walked by. You chose to ignore her. Your motives were perhaps to practice purity, perhaps a desire to honor your date, perhaps revulsion at your nascent lust for a stranger. But what if your girlfriend hadn’t been there? Did you want to look but restrained yourself? Had you been at dinner with guy friends, would you have done differently? If so, then you acted primarily on fear of being caught by her. That’s the kind of honest self-evaluation I want you to engage in. How did you feel when the beggar asked you for money? When the obnoxious kid in class asked a question? When the teacher with a lisp stumbled over a word? Everything that happens during the day engenders reactions, judgments, and emotions in you. Think about them and evaluate them honestly. Are these responses and choices ones you want to continue performing or want to change? If you want to change them, what do you propose doing differently?
For your interactions with others, do something similar. How did the interaction go? What kind of impact did it have on the other person? How do you feel about the event and the person? What seemed to work well, and what didn’t? Could you have done anything differently? Were you really paying attention to that person and what he was saying or what his needs were? Again, what kind of motives and thoughts were at work in you during the interaction? Do you feel guilty? Proud? Why? What lessons can you learn in general and in particular for that person? What alternative strategies might you try next time? The key here is to cultivate the habit of thinking beforehand about how what you say and what you do will impact the other person.
The last part will seem a little strange, but I think you’ll find it very useful. Having really evaluated the day and tried to squeeze as much knowledge out of it as possible, simply look back on it and try to get a sense of what that one day really represented to you. Try to imagine it as a painting or as an animal or as a feeling. If you had to describe the day just past in one word or short phrase, what would accurately describe it? I want you to name the day as if you were naming a pet or a child according to its character. Today I had a day. Use anything you like to describe it, so long as you feel you have really captured the essence of the day. If you told someone else what kind of day you had, they’d understand what you were talking about, even though they obviously wouldn’t know the details. How do you feel about having had that kind of day, now that it is done? Is it the kind of day you want to have again? Once you have done this for a few days, try giving a few moments to thinking about what kind of day you might like to have tomorrow. Then keep this in mind as you do things the next day and see if you pull it off or if you intended a Golden Retriever kind of day but wound up with a rather Picasso one instead.
This week, you have the opportunity to do something which should be both easier than many of the other experiments (you deserve a break), and yet also perhaps more interesting than some of the other ones. This is truly a science experiment, although the duration of the experiment is not long enough to really get you statistically meaningful results. What I want you to do this week is to try making yourself look different than you ordinarily do so that you can see what (if any) effect your appearance has on the way other people treat you.
In America, we have a strong desire to act for the sake of comfort. This is nowhere more evident than in the way we dress. We also tend to think of our appearance as an expression of our individual values and identity. For many people, however, they do not realize the abundance of information which we communicate to other people simply in the way we appear to them. Whether or not it is proper to judge someone based on appearances, everyone knows that most people do in fact judge others on this basis
First, dress up for two days. Dress as you would for a job interview or a formal date. Men, wear a tie, long sleeve dress shirt, and slacks. I recommend business colors: blue or white shirt and red tie or at least one that does not contain any cartoon characters. Women, wear a business dress, suit, or blouse and formal length skirt, including appropriately professional accessories, hair style, makeup, shoes, etc.
Second, dress down for two days. For some of you, this may not be possible without some effort, but be creative. Dress more sloppy, dirty, or grungy than normal. Men, don’t shave, wear old jeans, wear a ratty hat (or don’t do your hair at all), etc. Women, don’t wear makeup, don’t do your hair, wear sweats, be totally comfortable as if you weren’t even leaving home. The basic idea here is to temporarily appear like someone who you might judge to be “better” than you socially for two days and then as someone who you might judge to be “worse” than you socially for two days. People may become very uncomfortable with you dressing so differently because they can’t pigeon-hole you as easily. Also, you may find it very uncomfortable to look like a different person than you believe you are.
Since I have only prescribed four of the seven days, use the remaining three days to try entirely different approaches. For men, this does not offer as much opportunity as for women simply because men don’t dress in as much variety as women. But if you can, and are willing, try doing something really different like dying your hair blue or wearing clothes that are way outside your normal comfort zone (gothic, punk, sexually provocative, puritanical, etc.) Use your creativity and pay attention to how other people treat you. If you want to just use the other three days to do more of the first two approaches, that’s fine, but I think you’ll have more fun if you try being radically different for at least one day. I also would recommend that you don’t tell people you’re doing this when they ask you why you’re dressed differently. Play it up like it’s just something you felt like doing, but this part is up to you.
Ethics Experiment 8—Radical Honesty (Due 11/11)
Some people have held the belief that honesty is at the core of everything morality addresses. I’m not sure I would go this far, but I would say that one of the key problems we have in our lives is an unwillingness and even inability to be truly honest with others. You will recall from experiment 5 that it was relatively easy to act nice toward other people but much more difficult to think nice toward them. Although you have probably never thought about it this way, such a difference between your thoughts and your words is dishonest. You are specifically not telling those other people what you really think of them, which is a form of lying.
This week, I want you to practice being meticulously honest. When something bothers you, say so. When something is unpleasant, don’t let it go. If someone makes you mad, say, “You are making me angry.” If someone hurts your feelings, tell him so. The easiest way to do this is to always describe things in terms of yourself. Instead of saying, “You’re being mean,” which is disputable, say, “I feel like you’re being mean,” or, “It hurts my feelings when you say that to me.” Allow yourself the freedom to really tell people what you are thinking, and watch yourself so that you don’t fudge with the accuracy of the things you say
Perhaps the most crucial aspect of this experiment is the requirement that if you have a problem with someone, you must discuss it with them directly. Gossip is the most common kind of unkindness, and complaining about people to others is the most common kind of dishonesty. For one week, don’t let yourself complain about another person unless you have already spoken to that person about the problem you have with him or her. I suspect that most of you will find this experiment extremely difficult because you have, like most Americans, developed great skill at concealing your true thoughts from others. This is best demonstrated by the American obsession with sarcasm. Try going an entire week without being sarcastic. If you don’t like something, say so openly.
In all of this, I want to remind you to use your common sense. Don’t mouth off to your boss and then come complaining to me if you get fired. There are times to be radically honest, and there are times to exercise restraint. There are also many times when we moderate our honesty with concern for the impact of our words on others for the sake of kindness. This is not a license to be stupid, but for one week, do as much as you can to be honest with those around you: teachers, co-workers, spouses, parents, friends, etc.
Ethics Experiment 9—Self-evaluation (Due 11/18)
There are three foci this week: motives, choices, and relationships. At the end of each day, I want you to take some time (the amount will vary but probably be at least ten to twenty minutes) to reflect on the day now that it is over. Look back at it and write down as many of the basic events as you can remember in a list. This includes your choices and your interactions with others. Then go back over that list and think about each one making notes on what you did well and what you did poorly.
For your choices, the key is to be totally honest with yourself about your motives. Why did you make the choice you did, and why did you want to make the other choice? Even if you chose to do what you think was right, what other impulses were operating in you? For instance, you might have been at dinner with your girlfriend when a cute girl walked by. You chose to ignore her. Your motives were perhaps to practice purity, perhaps a desire to honor your date, perhaps revulsion at your nascent lust for a stranger. But what if your girlfriend hadn’t been there? Did you want to look but restrained yourself? Had you been at dinner with guy friends, would you have done differently? If so, then you acted primarily on fear of being caught by her. That’s the kind of honest self-evaluation I want you to engage in. How did you feel when the beggar asked you for money? When the obnoxious kid in class asked a question? When the teacher with a lisp stumbled over a word? Everything that happens during the day engenders reactions, judgments, and emotions in you. Think about them and evaluate them honestly. Are these responses and choices ones you want to continue performing or want to change? If you want to change them, what do you propose doing differently?
For your interactions with others, do something similar. How did the interaction go? What kind of impact did it have on the other person? How do you feel about the event and the person? What seemed to work well, and what didn’t? Could you have done anything differently? Were you really paying attention to that person and what he was saying or what his needs were? Again, what kind of motives and thoughts were at work in you during the interaction? Do you feel guilty? Proud? Why? What lessons can you learn in general and in particular for that person? What alternative strategies might you try next time? The key here is to cultivate the habit of thinking beforehand about how what you say and what you do will impact the other person.
The last part will seem a little strange, but I think you’ll find it very useful. Having really evaluated the day and tried to squeeze as much knowledge out of it as possible, simply look back on it and try to get a sense of what that one day really represented to you. Try to imagine it as a painting or as an animal or as a feeling. If you had to describe the day just past in one word or short phrase, what would accurately describe it? I want you to name the day as if you were naming a pet or a child according to its character. Today I had a day. Use anything you like to describe it, so long as you feel you have really captured the essence of the day. If you told someone else what kind of day you had, they’d understand what you were talking about, even though they obviously wouldn’t know the details. How do you feel about having had that kind of day, now that it is done? Is it the kind of day you want to have again? Once you have done this for a few days, try giving a few moments to thinking about what kind of day you might like to have tomorrow. Then keep this in mind as you do things the next day and see if you pull it off or if you intended a Golden Retriever kind of day but wound up with a rather Picasso one instead.
Monday, September 28, 2009
Homework 13 (Due 10/5 by 5:00 PM)
Part 1: Questions
1. Since money is not something you can eat, wear, or use for shelter, what qualities does it have that make it a valuable thing?
2. Imagine a hurricane destroys a city. One hour after the storm is over, who is better off than if it had never happened? Who did the hurricane make wealthy?
3. If there is only so much wealth to go around, does this mean everyone must get poorer as more people are born?
4. If it is necessary for one person to earn less if another earns more, wouldn’t that mean it is immoral for you to be in college attempting to make more money?
5. Would an all-powerful, all-loving God make a world where we can only get ahead at the expense of others?
6. When Thomas Edison invented the light bulb and began selling it to people and making a profit, who became poorer because he was making money? Was the world better, worse, or the same afterward?
7. How does the life of a person on welfare in America today compare to the life of the average person in the country 100 years ago? Medical, technology, labor, food, education, etc.
8. When I voluntarily give money to buy a new suit, do I do so because I think the money and the suit are of equal value, the suit is worth more, or the money is worth more? What does the merchant think?
9. If I give a hundred pounds of seed corn to a farmer and also to a starving man, how will each of them use it?
10. When we say that a sporting event is fair to all competitors, what does that mean? Can the event be fair and yet still have winners and losers?
11. If an outside observer were to come and watch K-12 education, what observations might he make about the purpose of the way school is structured as it relates to being an employee?
12. If capitalism is our economic system and entrepreneurs drive the economy, why don’t we teach people to start and own businesses in school?
13. Can poor people help other poor people to be financially secure?
14. When a new casino is built in town, people talk about all the new jobs created. Where does the money come from to fund those new jobs? Where would that money be spent if there were no casino?
15. If a window gets broken, it is certainly good news for the window-maker. Is it bad news for anyone?
16. Historians have sometimes observed that a “wartime economy” is very prosperous for a country. How might you explain this?
17. Can you earn a lot of money and still have financial problems?
18. Who has more potential for financial disaster, someone who earns much or someone who earns little?
19. How would you define financial independence?
20. If a house is such a good investment, why do banks buy mortgages instead of houses?
1. Since money is not something you can eat, wear, or use for shelter, what qualities does it have that make it a valuable thing?
2. Imagine a hurricane destroys a city. One hour after the storm is over, who is better off than if it had never happened? Who did the hurricane make wealthy?
3. If there is only so much wealth to go around, does this mean everyone must get poorer as more people are born?
4. If it is necessary for one person to earn less if another earns more, wouldn’t that mean it is immoral for you to be in college attempting to make more money?
5. Would an all-powerful, all-loving God make a world where we can only get ahead at the expense of others?
6. When Thomas Edison invented the light bulb and began selling it to people and making a profit, who became poorer because he was making money? Was the world better, worse, or the same afterward?
7. How does the life of a person on welfare in America today compare to the life of the average person in the country 100 years ago? Medical, technology, labor, food, education, etc.
8. When I voluntarily give money to buy a new suit, do I do so because I think the money and the suit are of equal value, the suit is worth more, or the money is worth more? What does the merchant think?
9. If I give a hundred pounds of seed corn to a farmer and also to a starving man, how will each of them use it?
10. When we say that a sporting event is fair to all competitors, what does that mean? Can the event be fair and yet still have winners and losers?
11. If an outside observer were to come and watch K-12 education, what observations might he make about the purpose of the way school is structured as it relates to being an employee?
12. If capitalism is our economic system and entrepreneurs drive the economy, why don’t we teach people to start and own businesses in school?
13. Can poor people help other poor people to be financially secure?
14. When a new casino is built in town, people talk about all the new jobs created. Where does the money come from to fund those new jobs? Where would that money be spent if there were no casino?
15. If a window gets broken, it is certainly good news for the window-maker. Is it bad news for anyone?
16. Historians have sometimes observed that a “wartime economy” is very prosperous for a country. How might you explain this?
17. Can you earn a lot of money and still have financial problems?
18. Who has more potential for financial disaster, someone who earns much or someone who earns little?
19. How would you define financial independence?
20. If a house is such a good investment, why do banks buy mortgages instead of houses?
Ethics Experiments 5-6
Ethics Experiment 5—Kindness (Write-up due 10/7 by 5:00 PM)
This week, I want you to focus on an ideal rather than practice a particular set of behaviors. Kindness means essentially that you treat every person as an opportunity to give. As with any virtue, kindness is more than simply not being mean. The beginning of this task is for you to refrain from saying hurtful things to people, whether they are there in front of you or absent. (Gossip is inherently unkind.) Learning to keep your mouth shut when you might feel like saying something, even making a rude joke, about someone is perhaps going to be a challenge for some of you. But kindness is more than just such restraint. Kindness means actually going out of your way to give people something valuable: encouragement, thanks, a smile, a compliment, holding a door open, letting someone go first, etc. Kindness, therefore, is active. “Appreciate” as a word means “to cause to have increased value.”
One time I saw one of those “Instruction Book” type lists and it said, “Leave every situation a little better than you found it.” For this exercise, I have modified this to say, “Leave every person you meet a little better than you found him or her.” Every person on the planet is built to need other people. Go ahead and give them something that will satisfy that need a little bit. Who can you do this for? Any human qualifies: parents, siblings, strangers, cafeteria workers, waiters, grocery checkers, teachers, janitors, police, etc. In fact, part of the fun of this experiment is to go out of your way to not let anyone pass by you without giving them some kindness. We in this society have a habit of ignoring each other. For one week, simply strive to notice other people more and bless them somehow in little ways. Here is a good goal to have: give at least three people a day a compliment. At least one of them has to be to a stranger. This is the easy part of the exercise.
The harder part of this exercise involves something completely intangible: your thoughts. It is a very good thing to speak kindly and to act kindly towards other people. But the real trick to loving people is to learn to think kindly toward them. Remember, every behavior ultimately starts as a thought. It is far easier to treat people well when you think well of them. In our society, coarseness is the rule of the day. We routinely mock people in our heads and even out loud. I am encouraging you to learn to be judgmental in a favorable way on purpose as an exercise in controlling your own thoughts. Try to do more than simply not think bad (remember, the mind does not perform negation well), instead actively steer your mind in the direction of thinking good of people. Find something about them that you can admire or value.
Every person has value. Think of this exercise as attempting to see that value in each of them. If it helps, try to think of what their parents love about them, or their children, or spouse, etc. I try to consider what God made them for and what He sees of value in them, since He always sees not only who you are but who you can be as well. So I try to see and treat people according to best person I think they can be, in part by imparting this vision to them and in part by expecting and encouraging them to live up to it. As you do this, pay attention to yourself, your thoughts, how others respond to you, and how easy or difficult it is to be kind to people in your mind and then out loud in behavior and speech.
Another aspect of kindness is sensitivity or becoming aware and considerate of how others are doing emotionally. If you don’t normally do so, try asking people around you how they feel, and don’t take “okay” for an answer. Kindness often means learning to listen intently to people. Simply caring enough to pay attention to their emotional needs will be very meaningful to many people, especially women. Although some people will try to not reveal how they are feeling, it is also worth noting that some people are simply doing all right, and some are so out of touch with their own emotions that they can’t describe them. Remember, the idea is to be aware, not to invade or offend.
Ethics Experiment 6—Productivity (Write-up due 10/14 by 5:00)
In the 1950s, there once was a businessman who had a time management expert in to help him in his efforts. I forget the man’s name and the company, but it’s a true story as far as I know. The advisor gave him one simple formula to implement and told the man to send him a check for however much money he thought the suggestion was worth after he tried it for a few weeks. After about a month, the businessman sent the expert a check for $25,000. I want you to try doing the suggestion for one week, but with a slight twist.
Each night, make a list of the six most important things you must do the next day. Then number them in their order of importance. The next day, start on task one, and work on it until you finish it. Cross it off. Then start task 2, and work on it until you finish it. Cross it off. Continue until you either run out of day or run out of tasks. Then that night, repeat the exercise. Don’t worry too much if you don’t finish all the items every day. You will do more than you would have otherwise, and if you couldn’t do them all by this method, you couldn’t have done them all by any other method either.
My addition to the procedure is to make a prediction of how much time each task will take you. One of the great downfalls of many people in their planning is they underestimate how much time things will take and then they get frustrated and behind when a more realistic estimation would have prevented this problem. It’s called trying to be a “time hero.” So I want you to be as accurate as you can in predicting the time each task will take, and then I want you to be as accurate as you can in actually measuring how much time each does take. Try to become so accurate that by the end of the week you can guess within 15 minutes each task’s duration to complete.
This week, I want you to focus on an ideal rather than practice a particular set of behaviors. Kindness means essentially that you treat every person as an opportunity to give. As with any virtue, kindness is more than simply not being mean. The beginning of this task is for you to refrain from saying hurtful things to people, whether they are there in front of you or absent. (Gossip is inherently unkind.) Learning to keep your mouth shut when you might feel like saying something, even making a rude joke, about someone is perhaps going to be a challenge for some of you. But kindness is more than just such restraint. Kindness means actually going out of your way to give people something valuable: encouragement, thanks, a smile, a compliment, holding a door open, letting someone go first, etc. Kindness, therefore, is active. “Appreciate” as a word means “to cause to have increased value.”
One time I saw one of those “Instruction Book” type lists and it said, “Leave every situation a little better than you found it.” For this exercise, I have modified this to say, “Leave every person you meet a little better than you found him or her.” Every person on the planet is built to need other people. Go ahead and give them something that will satisfy that need a little bit. Who can you do this for? Any human qualifies: parents, siblings, strangers, cafeteria workers, waiters, grocery checkers, teachers, janitors, police, etc. In fact, part of the fun of this experiment is to go out of your way to not let anyone pass by you without giving them some kindness. We in this society have a habit of ignoring each other. For one week, simply strive to notice other people more and bless them somehow in little ways. Here is a good goal to have: give at least three people a day a compliment. At least one of them has to be to a stranger. This is the easy part of the exercise.
The harder part of this exercise involves something completely intangible: your thoughts. It is a very good thing to speak kindly and to act kindly towards other people. But the real trick to loving people is to learn to think kindly toward them. Remember, every behavior ultimately starts as a thought. It is far easier to treat people well when you think well of them. In our society, coarseness is the rule of the day. We routinely mock people in our heads and even out loud. I am encouraging you to learn to be judgmental in a favorable way on purpose as an exercise in controlling your own thoughts. Try to do more than simply not think bad (remember, the mind does not perform negation well), instead actively steer your mind in the direction of thinking good of people. Find something about them that you can admire or value.
Every person has value. Think of this exercise as attempting to see that value in each of them. If it helps, try to think of what their parents love about them, or their children, or spouse, etc. I try to consider what God made them for and what He sees of value in them, since He always sees not only who you are but who you can be as well. So I try to see and treat people according to best person I think they can be, in part by imparting this vision to them and in part by expecting and encouraging them to live up to it. As you do this, pay attention to yourself, your thoughts, how others respond to you, and how easy or difficult it is to be kind to people in your mind and then out loud in behavior and speech.
Another aspect of kindness is sensitivity or becoming aware and considerate of how others are doing emotionally. If you don’t normally do so, try asking people around you how they feel, and don’t take “okay” for an answer. Kindness often means learning to listen intently to people. Simply caring enough to pay attention to their emotional needs will be very meaningful to many people, especially women. Although some people will try to not reveal how they are feeling, it is also worth noting that some people are simply doing all right, and some are so out of touch with their own emotions that they can’t describe them. Remember, the idea is to be aware, not to invade or offend.
Ethics Experiment 6—Productivity (Write-up due 10/14 by 5:00)
In the 1950s, there once was a businessman who had a time management expert in to help him in his efforts. I forget the man’s name and the company, but it’s a true story as far as I know. The advisor gave him one simple formula to implement and told the man to send him a check for however much money he thought the suggestion was worth after he tried it for a few weeks. After about a month, the businessman sent the expert a check for $25,000. I want you to try doing the suggestion for one week, but with a slight twist.
Each night, make a list of the six most important things you must do the next day. Then number them in their order of importance. The next day, start on task one, and work on it until you finish it. Cross it off. Then start task 2, and work on it until you finish it. Cross it off. Continue until you either run out of day or run out of tasks. Then that night, repeat the exercise. Don’t worry too much if you don’t finish all the items every day. You will do more than you would have otherwise, and if you couldn’t do them all by this method, you couldn’t have done them all by any other method either.
My addition to the procedure is to make a prediction of how much time each task will take you. One of the great downfalls of many people in their planning is they underestimate how much time things will take and then they get frustrated and behind when a more realistic estimation would have prevented this problem. It’s called trying to be a “time hero.” So I want you to be as accurate as you can in predicting the time each task will take, and then I want you to be as accurate as you can in actually measuring how much time each does take. Try to become so accurate that by the end of the week you can guess within 15 minutes each task’s duration to complete.
Monday, September 14, 2009
Procedural Note
There are three new posts today, one with the next two weeks of ethics experiments and then homework 11 and the previously unposted homework 10. 11 is for next week, but 10 should have been for today, and it's my fault I forgot to post it. You can do it, but obviously not for credit.
Ethics Experiments 3 and 4
Ethics Experiment 3—Study (Write-up due 9/23 by 5:00 PM)
It has been my experience that one of the things school often does to people is completely destroy in them any desire to learn after they have survived their formal education. I cannot count how many times I have heard people say, “I hope I never have to read another book again after I graduate.” This attitude is quite sad and yet tragically common.
This week, I want you to experience the pleasure of learning something for the sake of your own desire to know it. If you develop this habit now while you are in school, you will be less likely to suffer from the anti-educational disease so many people develop when they are no longer coerced into learning. Life is much more fun when we are growing, even if the thing we are growing in isn’t earth-shatteringly important. We were built to learn and grow, and learning people are usually more alive and excited than others. Consider children when they are learning.
This week, I want you to take fifteen minutes each day and read something educational that you have always wanted to learn about but kept putting off until you had “more free time.” (This usually happens when there are suddenly 25 hours in the day. In other words, never.) Find a book you have been wanting to read and just read it for fifteen minutes a day this week. Don’t worry if you don’t finish it, you probably won’t. The key is a book, not the Internet, not magazines, not the newspaper. Books.
I have heard it said from so many different people that I can’t even number them that leaders are readers. Studies have been done on vocabulary in various organizations, and these studies prove that there is a direct relationship between a person’s language ability and his success and position. The best way to develop vocabulary and be learning neat stuff at the same time is to read.
Many of you are religious. If you have never read your religion’s Scriptures, I recommend you start there. If you aren’t or don’t want to do that for whatever reason, just go to the library and browse the new releases section for something that captures your interest (non-fiction). If you read that book for fifteen minutes and you decide it isn’t very interesting, grab a different one the next day. As long as you are reading something of your choice, that’s enough. I realize that 15 minutes may seem like a lot, but for those of you who watch television regularly…duh! For the rest of you, just make the time.
Ethics Experiment 4—Service (Write-up due by 5:00 PM 9/30)
This week, you get to be Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts. I have always thought that the Scout Slogan of “Do a good turn daily” was an outstanding idea. As my copy of the Scout Handbook says, “Good turns are helpful acts of kindness done quietly, without boasting, and without expecting a reward or pay. Doing at least one Good Turn every day is a normal part of a Scout’s life.”
The idea here is to give a gift of service to at least one person a day. There are millions of possible ways to satisfy this, but I recommend you shoot for more than just holding open a door for someone or giving them a smile. These things are good and you should not neglect to do them if you can, but this week try to do things which are somewhat more significant.
Here are some suggestions, but don’t feel limited to this list in any way: offering to help your parents cook dinner or to do it entirely, paying for the person behind you at McDonalds (or giving five dollars extra at the grocery store for the person behind you), offering to wash someone else’s windshield at the gas station, giving your parents a back rub, cleaning someone else’s car, or helping someone with their groceries (especially if it’s raining).
If all else fails, you can always find someone and simply ask him or her if there is something you can do to help. If it helps, you can even tell them why you’re asking. “I’ve got this weird class I’m taking where I’m supposed to do a nice thing for someone every day. Is there anything I can do like that for you?” Ask your parents if there are any extra chores you can help out with or projects that won’t take too long or can be done over several days. However, I strongly encourage you to try to get a nice mixture of friends and strangers involved in this experiment. Don’t only serve people you know. If you do serve people you already know, be sure to do it in a way that they desire rather than in a way you desire. Give the gift they want to receive rather than the gift you want to give. “Do unto others as they want you to do unto them.”
A key component of service is humility, because the idea of real service is that you are saying to someone else, “I’m not too good or too important to serve you.” This is why a lot of service acts are doing the things that no one much likes to do but must be done. (Cleaning bathrooms, changing diapers, doing dishes, etc.) Since genuine service goes hand in hand with humility and generosity, it is crucial that the server not expect or accept any reward or recognition for the service. This is why it’s good to serve strangers who can’t reward you later in the relationship. If you find yourself resenting people who aren’t more lavish with their thanks, you’re missing the point of the entire exercise. But don’t be surprised if most people are rather stunned in a pleasant way. As always, have fun and enjoy the creativity which this experiment may require of you.
It has been my experience that one of the things school often does to people is completely destroy in them any desire to learn after they have survived their formal education. I cannot count how many times I have heard people say, “I hope I never have to read another book again after I graduate.” This attitude is quite sad and yet tragically common.
This week, I want you to experience the pleasure of learning something for the sake of your own desire to know it. If you develop this habit now while you are in school, you will be less likely to suffer from the anti-educational disease so many people develop when they are no longer coerced into learning. Life is much more fun when we are growing, even if the thing we are growing in isn’t earth-shatteringly important. We were built to learn and grow, and learning people are usually more alive and excited than others. Consider children when they are learning.
This week, I want you to take fifteen minutes each day and read something educational that you have always wanted to learn about but kept putting off until you had “more free time.” (This usually happens when there are suddenly 25 hours in the day. In other words, never.) Find a book you have been wanting to read and just read it for fifteen minutes a day this week. Don’t worry if you don’t finish it, you probably won’t. The key is a book, not the Internet, not magazines, not the newspaper. Books.
I have heard it said from so many different people that I can’t even number them that leaders are readers. Studies have been done on vocabulary in various organizations, and these studies prove that there is a direct relationship between a person’s language ability and his success and position. The best way to develop vocabulary and be learning neat stuff at the same time is to read.
Many of you are religious. If you have never read your religion’s Scriptures, I recommend you start there. If you aren’t or don’t want to do that for whatever reason, just go to the library and browse the new releases section for something that captures your interest (non-fiction). If you read that book for fifteen minutes and you decide it isn’t very interesting, grab a different one the next day. As long as you are reading something of your choice, that’s enough. I realize that 15 minutes may seem like a lot, but for those of you who watch television regularly…duh! For the rest of you, just make the time.
Ethics Experiment 4—Service (Write-up due by 5:00 PM 9/30)
This week, you get to be Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts. I have always thought that the Scout Slogan of “Do a good turn daily” was an outstanding idea. As my copy of the Scout Handbook says, “Good turns are helpful acts of kindness done quietly, without boasting, and without expecting a reward or pay. Doing at least one Good Turn every day is a normal part of a Scout’s life.”
The idea here is to give a gift of service to at least one person a day. There are millions of possible ways to satisfy this, but I recommend you shoot for more than just holding open a door for someone or giving them a smile. These things are good and you should not neglect to do them if you can, but this week try to do things which are somewhat more significant.
Here are some suggestions, but don’t feel limited to this list in any way: offering to help your parents cook dinner or to do it entirely, paying for the person behind you at McDonalds (or giving five dollars extra at the grocery store for the person behind you), offering to wash someone else’s windshield at the gas station, giving your parents a back rub, cleaning someone else’s car, or helping someone with their groceries (especially if it’s raining).
If all else fails, you can always find someone and simply ask him or her if there is something you can do to help. If it helps, you can even tell them why you’re asking. “I’ve got this weird class I’m taking where I’m supposed to do a nice thing for someone every day. Is there anything I can do like that for you?” Ask your parents if there are any extra chores you can help out with or projects that won’t take too long or can be done over several days. However, I strongly encourage you to try to get a nice mixture of friends and strangers involved in this experiment. Don’t only serve people you know. If you do serve people you already know, be sure to do it in a way that they desire rather than in a way you desire. Give the gift they want to receive rather than the gift you want to give. “Do unto others as they want you to do unto them.”
A key component of service is humility, because the idea of real service is that you are saying to someone else, “I’m not too good or too important to serve you.” This is why a lot of service acts are doing the things that no one much likes to do but must be done. (Cleaning bathrooms, changing diapers, doing dishes, etc.) Since genuine service goes hand in hand with humility and generosity, it is crucial that the server not expect or accept any reward or recognition for the service. This is why it’s good to serve strangers who can’t reward you later in the relationship. If you find yourself resenting people who aren’t more lavish with their thanks, you’re missing the point of the entire exercise. But don’t be surprised if most people are rather stunned in a pleasant way. As always, have fun and enjoy the creativity which this experiment may require of you.
Homework 12 ((Due 9/21/09 by 5:00 PM) (Four Points)
Part 1: Rights Theory
A relatively new idea in the history of ethics is that morality can be described completely by enumerating the rights of human beings and then acting so that those right are maximized. You should all be familiar with this theory since it was a major component in the founding of our country. We actually have in our Constitution a specific list of such rights and the statement that “The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.” (Amendment 9) Our government is designed around the idea that justice is the situation which obtains when people have the maximum protection of their rights.
Instead of explaining how Rights Theory works, I want you to consider the following list of rights and evaluate how much in agreement you are that these are fundamental human rights. I also want you to describe the source of each of these rights.
Below is a list of candidates for rights and duties. On a scale of 1-5, how would you rank each of them. After ranking them, list from where you think that right or duty comes.
Rights
5 = Fundamental right
4 = Important right
3 = Generally a right
2 = Occasionally a right
1 = Not a right
Rights
1. To life
2. To liberty
3. To property
4. To worship according to your conscience
5. To own firearms
6. To free speech
7. To a job
8. To adequate medical care
9. To an education
10. To choose your own spouse
11. To have sex before marriage
12. To defend yourself if attacked
13. To enjoy sexual pleasure as you prefer.
14. To spank your children
Part 2
Answer the following questions.
15. Is the right to life violated by capital punishment? Why?
16. Is the right to liberty violated by mandatory school attendance? Why?
17. Is the right to property violated by income taxes? Why?
18. Is the right to pursuit of happiness violated by drug regulations? Why?
19. If someone else doesn’t think you have the right, do you still have it? Why?
20. When you say, “It’s my right to do this thing,” are you saying that it is excellent? Why?
21. Where do the rights in the Constitution come from?
22. If someone is being oppressed (perhaps he is prevented from speaking his mind), do we say he has no free speech rights or do we say that his free speech rights are being violated?
Part 3: Questions
Remember, yes and no are not sufficient answers to any of these questions. Explain yourself.
1. If you give bad people a lot of freedom, what happens? If you give good people a lot of freedom, what happens? What does our system of government presume about people?
2. What is the relationship between the size of a government and the morality of the people it governs?
3. What does the term “politically liberal” mean to you? Be specific.
4. What does the term “politically conservative” mean to you? Be specific.
5. If you wanted to take a free country like America and transform it into a tyranny, how might fear and the desire for security be of use to you?
6. If one of the principle founding ideals of our country is the right to property, how can we justify taxation? Does it make a difference if the benefit for the program comes back to the person himself or not?
7. Why might someone claim that winning the lottery or suing a rich person are both immoral ways to get rich?
8. Why is it important that the people who make the laws be required to live by those same laws?
9. Should people who do not have to pay a tax get to vote to impose that tax on other people? (i.e. Should poor people be able to tax the wealthy? Should non-landowners be able to levy property taxes?)
10. Is it more important to the stability of a society that its justice system arrive at the correct answers (innocent or guilty) or that the people believe in the process by which those answers are arrived at?
11. If people believe they will not and cannot be treated justly, how will they behave? (Consider how act when their boss does not treat them fairly.)
12. If something has been done a certain way for a long time, should we tend to leave such a tradition as it is or should we tend to try to change it?
13. Is it good to give money to charity? Is it okay to coerce someone by force to give money to a charitable cause?
14. Why might it be important that the people who make the laws be required to live by those same laws?
15. Which kind of person most often is heard demanding more freedom: morally mature or immature people?
16. What is the purpose of having a civil government? Is there anything it must do, should do, can do, cannot do?
A relatively new idea in the history of ethics is that morality can be described completely by enumerating the rights of human beings and then acting so that those right are maximized. You should all be familiar with this theory since it was a major component in the founding of our country. We actually have in our Constitution a specific list of such rights and the statement that “The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.” (Amendment 9) Our government is designed around the idea that justice is the situation which obtains when people have the maximum protection of their rights.
Instead of explaining how Rights Theory works, I want you to consider the following list of rights and evaluate how much in agreement you are that these are fundamental human rights. I also want you to describe the source of each of these rights.
Below is a list of candidates for rights and duties. On a scale of 1-5, how would you rank each of them. After ranking them, list from where you think that right or duty comes.
Rights
5 = Fundamental right
4 = Important right
3 = Generally a right
2 = Occasionally a right
1 = Not a right
Rights
1. To life
2. To liberty
3. To property
4. To worship according to your conscience
5. To own firearms
6. To free speech
7. To a job
8. To adequate medical care
9. To an education
10. To choose your own spouse
11. To have sex before marriage
12. To defend yourself if attacked
13. To enjoy sexual pleasure as you prefer.
14. To spank your children
Part 2
Answer the following questions.
15. Is the right to life violated by capital punishment? Why?
16. Is the right to liberty violated by mandatory school attendance? Why?
17. Is the right to property violated by income taxes? Why?
18. Is the right to pursuit of happiness violated by drug regulations? Why?
19. If someone else doesn’t think you have the right, do you still have it? Why?
20. When you say, “It’s my right to do this thing,” are you saying that it is excellent? Why?
21. Where do the rights in the Constitution come from?
22. If someone is being oppressed (perhaps he is prevented from speaking his mind), do we say he has no free speech rights or do we say that his free speech rights are being violated?
Part 3: Questions
Remember, yes and no are not sufficient answers to any of these questions. Explain yourself.
1. If you give bad people a lot of freedom, what happens? If you give good people a lot of freedom, what happens? What does our system of government presume about people?
2. What is the relationship between the size of a government and the morality of the people it governs?
3. What does the term “politically liberal” mean to you? Be specific.
4. What does the term “politically conservative” mean to you? Be specific.
5. If you wanted to take a free country like America and transform it into a tyranny, how might fear and the desire for security be of use to you?
6. If one of the principle founding ideals of our country is the right to property, how can we justify taxation? Does it make a difference if the benefit for the program comes back to the person himself or not?
7. Why might someone claim that winning the lottery or suing a rich person are both immoral ways to get rich?
8. Why is it important that the people who make the laws be required to live by those same laws?
9. Should people who do not have to pay a tax get to vote to impose that tax on other people? (i.e. Should poor people be able to tax the wealthy? Should non-landowners be able to levy property taxes?)
10. Is it more important to the stability of a society that its justice system arrive at the correct answers (innocent or guilty) or that the people believe in the process by which those answers are arrived at?
11. If people believe they will not and cannot be treated justly, how will they behave? (Consider how act when their boss does not treat them fairly.)
12. If something has been done a certain way for a long time, should we tend to leave such a tradition as it is or should we tend to try to change it?
13. Is it good to give money to charity? Is it okay to coerce someone by force to give money to a charitable cause?
14. Why might it be important that the people who make the laws be required to live by those same laws?
15. Which kind of person most often is heard demanding more freedom: morally mature or immature people?
16. What is the purpose of having a civil government? Is there anything it must do, should do, can do, cannot do?
Homework 11 (For informational purposes only) (No Points)
Part 1: Divine Command Theory
Divine Command Theory is a deontological theory which clearly comes from the position that religion is necessary for morality. In fact, Divine Command Theory looks at the world as being the property of the Creator who made it. This Divine source, or God, has ownership by being the Creator. Therefore, He has authority to set the rules for our lives. Instead of us owning ourselves, as many people think, we are actually the subjects or property of God and, therefore, have a duty to live our lives in accordance with His Will. We have the freedom to obey or disobey, but we do not have the freedom to set the standards which define the concepts of obedience and disobedience themselves.
Divine Command Theorists differ over details, but one position held by many Christians is that there is more to morality than simply obeying God’s commands. This position actually believes that man was never meant to operate apart from constant guidance from God. Therefore, even though a person might happen to be operating according to God’s edicts, he is not morally good unless he is doing so by the constant guidance of God Himself. Here, morality becomes more than simply a matter of behavior, but a matter of behavior and relationship both.
Of course, the natural question which arises is, “Which God and how do we know which set of rules?” Most Divine Command Theorists will claim there is some set of sacred writings and/or a group of people who are so closely in touch with God that they are authorized to speak for Him. By looking to writings/people such as the Bible, the Koran, or the Holy Catholic Church, or even a combination of sources, we can know how we ought to live. For example, according to the Bible, when God wrote the Ten Commandments in the tablets of stone on Mt. Sinai, He made it clear to us that we should not worship idols or covet our neighbors property, among other things. Anyone who does these things is violating the Will of God and is behaving immorally. However, such rules can change or be modified pending new dictates from God Himself.
Plato gave an objection against Divine Command Theory which has troubled many people. Since God is the owner and sets all the standards for morality, there seems to be a strange paradox or dilemma which the Divine Command Theory advocate finds himself caught in. On the one hand, whatever God says is right. Therefore, presumably, if God were to say it is good to rape, it would be. That seems to be a rather unpleasant conclusion. On the other hand, perhaps God cannot say it is okay to rape because there are certain principles in the universe which are independent of God that even He cannot break. If this is the case, then we should be looking for those principles rather than and regardless of God’s Will. We seem to either run the risk of not knowing anything for sure from day to day (since God could change His mind tomorrow) or else God becomes superfluous to the theory. Plato posed the question as, “Are things good because the gods command them, or do the gods command them because they are good?” Either answer seems problematic.
1-6. Answer the questions from above.
7. Does Plato’s objection compel us to discard Divine Command Theory as a serious option?
8. With so many conflicting religions in the world, is Divine Command Theory a useful theory?
Part 2: Natural Law Theory
Natural Law Theory has arisen primarily within the Catholic tradition as a response to Plato’s objections to Divine Command Theory. Natural Law Theory says that God made the universe with certain rules. Many of these rules can be discerned by scientific experiment through experience because they deal with the physical universe. Gravity and Conservation of Mass/Energy are two simple examples. Unlike physical rules, moral rules are not so easily tested. However, they are every bit as real as the physical rules and they, too, were created by God when He fashioned the universe. Since they are not so easy to discover, God has revealed them to us, again, through some combination of people and writings over time. Once God has said that something is wrong, He is bound by His own character not to change His Word. Therefore, since the Ten Commandments say murder is wrong, it is. Just as there are no exceptions to the law of gravity, there are no genuine exceptions to Natural Law Theory because all the rules are already there to establish what is right and wrong. When rules come into conflict with each other, there is a hierarchy to decide which to follow. Things fly not because gravity is not there. They fly because other laws of the physical universe overcome gravity. Similarly, things that seem like exceptions are merely the result of applying the most important or relevant Natural Law but then seeing that this appears to violate some other, less important or less relevant, Natural Law. Unlike Divine Command Theory, Natural Law Theory says that morality is entirely a matter of being in accord with God’s unchanging rules. Even an atheist might be moral, just as an atheist might understand the law of gravity, regardless of his beliefs about Who put it there. Thus, Natural Law Theory has the unique appeal of allowing for God (as Source of the rules) but does not necessarily require talking about Him.
1-6. Answer the questions from above.
7. Can God work miracles which violate the very rules of the physical universe He created?
8. Is there such a thing as a moral miracle?
9. Can God change His mind about something without compromising His Character or Integrity?
Note on Ethical Theories: Choosing Your Own Ethical Theory
You have now read and we have discussed many of the traditional theories of ethics. After having done this, what conclusions have you drawn about what theory is the correct one? How do you decide right from wrong? Are your ethical conclusions binding on other people? On what foundation do you base moral criticisms of other people or cultures? Does morality change over time? When you are doing these criteria, you should consider these questions. You should also consider which theory is the right one and does the best job of explaining right and wrong. Do not simply choose a theory which “fits your ethical prejudices best.” Try to pick the one that makes the most sense and really works the best, even if it challenges some of your other beliefs. Also, you need to be specific about your theory. For instance, which version of Divine Command Theory might you follow specifically? There are many different ones, after all. The purpose of studying all of these theories is not so that you can simply become “more aware” of the options, but so that you may choose one and make at least a presumptive or provisional commitment to live your life by it.
Divine Command Theory is a deontological theory which clearly comes from the position that religion is necessary for morality. In fact, Divine Command Theory looks at the world as being the property of the Creator who made it. This Divine source, or God, has ownership by being the Creator. Therefore, He has authority to set the rules for our lives. Instead of us owning ourselves, as many people think, we are actually the subjects or property of God and, therefore, have a duty to live our lives in accordance with His Will. We have the freedom to obey or disobey, but we do not have the freedom to set the standards which define the concepts of obedience and disobedience themselves.
Divine Command Theorists differ over details, but one position held by many Christians is that there is more to morality than simply obeying God’s commands. This position actually believes that man was never meant to operate apart from constant guidance from God. Therefore, even though a person might happen to be operating according to God’s edicts, he is not morally good unless he is doing so by the constant guidance of God Himself. Here, morality becomes more than simply a matter of behavior, but a matter of behavior and relationship both.
Of course, the natural question which arises is, “Which God and how do we know which set of rules?” Most Divine Command Theorists will claim there is some set of sacred writings and/or a group of people who are so closely in touch with God that they are authorized to speak for Him. By looking to writings/people such as the Bible, the Koran, or the Holy Catholic Church, or even a combination of sources, we can know how we ought to live. For example, according to the Bible, when God wrote the Ten Commandments in the tablets of stone on Mt. Sinai, He made it clear to us that we should not worship idols or covet our neighbors property, among other things. Anyone who does these things is violating the Will of God and is behaving immorally. However, such rules can change or be modified pending new dictates from God Himself.
Plato gave an objection against Divine Command Theory which has troubled many people. Since God is the owner and sets all the standards for morality, there seems to be a strange paradox or dilemma which the Divine Command Theory advocate finds himself caught in. On the one hand, whatever God says is right. Therefore, presumably, if God were to say it is good to rape, it would be. That seems to be a rather unpleasant conclusion. On the other hand, perhaps God cannot say it is okay to rape because there are certain principles in the universe which are independent of God that even He cannot break. If this is the case, then we should be looking for those principles rather than and regardless of God’s Will. We seem to either run the risk of not knowing anything for sure from day to day (since God could change His mind tomorrow) or else God becomes superfluous to the theory. Plato posed the question as, “Are things good because the gods command them, or do the gods command them because they are good?” Either answer seems problematic.
1-6. Answer the questions from above.
7. Does Plato’s objection compel us to discard Divine Command Theory as a serious option?
8. With so many conflicting religions in the world, is Divine Command Theory a useful theory?
Part 2: Natural Law Theory
Natural Law Theory has arisen primarily within the Catholic tradition as a response to Plato’s objections to Divine Command Theory. Natural Law Theory says that God made the universe with certain rules. Many of these rules can be discerned by scientific experiment through experience because they deal with the physical universe. Gravity and Conservation of Mass/Energy are two simple examples. Unlike physical rules, moral rules are not so easily tested. However, they are every bit as real as the physical rules and they, too, were created by God when He fashioned the universe. Since they are not so easy to discover, God has revealed them to us, again, through some combination of people and writings over time. Once God has said that something is wrong, He is bound by His own character not to change His Word. Therefore, since the Ten Commandments say murder is wrong, it is. Just as there are no exceptions to the law of gravity, there are no genuine exceptions to Natural Law Theory because all the rules are already there to establish what is right and wrong. When rules come into conflict with each other, there is a hierarchy to decide which to follow. Things fly not because gravity is not there. They fly because other laws of the physical universe overcome gravity. Similarly, things that seem like exceptions are merely the result of applying the most important or relevant Natural Law but then seeing that this appears to violate some other, less important or less relevant, Natural Law. Unlike Divine Command Theory, Natural Law Theory says that morality is entirely a matter of being in accord with God’s unchanging rules. Even an atheist might be moral, just as an atheist might understand the law of gravity, regardless of his beliefs about Who put it there. Thus, Natural Law Theory has the unique appeal of allowing for God (as Source of the rules) but does not necessarily require talking about Him.
1-6. Answer the questions from above.
7. Can God work miracles which violate the very rules of the physical universe He created?
8. Is there such a thing as a moral miracle?
9. Can God change His mind about something without compromising His Character or Integrity?
Note on Ethical Theories: Choosing Your Own Ethical Theory
You have now read and we have discussed many of the traditional theories of ethics. After having done this, what conclusions have you drawn about what theory is the correct one? How do you decide right from wrong? Are your ethical conclusions binding on other people? On what foundation do you base moral criticisms of other people or cultures? Does morality change over time? When you are doing these criteria, you should consider these questions. You should also consider which theory is the right one and does the best job of explaining right and wrong. Do not simply choose a theory which “fits your ethical prejudices best.” Try to pick the one that makes the most sense and really works the best, even if it challenges some of your other beliefs. Also, you need to be specific about your theory. For instance, which version of Divine Command Theory might you follow specifically? There are many different ones, after all. The purpose of studying all of these theories is not so that you can simply become “more aware” of the options, but so that you may choose one and make at least a presumptive or provisional commitment to live your life by it.
Monday, August 31, 2009
Ethics Experiment 2—Quietness
After doing this for seven days, write me a short summary of what you did and what you learned from it for two points. Due 9/9.
One of the great laments of our time is the busy-ness of our modern lives. Although many complain about how labor-saving devices seem to have only led us to having even less quiet than we had before, they rarely do anything about it. Every major religious tradition is adamant about endorsing solitude, quietness, meditation, prayer, and reflection. Even many non-religious thinkers have had high praise for the practice of making and enjoying quiet time every day. This week, I want you to find fifteen minutes a day to simply be quiet and alone. My favorite way to do this is by sitting on my back porch watching the trees and listening to the sounds of the wind blowing and the animals. (We live on the edge between town and country.) There are several components to effective quiet time.
Location: I highly recommend some location which has natural beauty and a low level of societal noise (traffic, machines, television, people, music). A park, a fountain, a forest, a large yard. These are best. If you are unable to have access to anything like this, do your best to find or create a place where you can at least be alone without any interruptions and without any distracting noises. A church, library, your car (no radio), basement, etc.
Time: Part of the value of this exercise is to learn that your life is really something you control, rather than something which others are in control of. We do so much to avoid being quiet and to give up real control of our lives to others. Also, consistency is easiest when you use a regular schedule. Therefore, I strongly recommend you try doing this at the same time each day. Morning is far superior to evening because it sets the tone for the entire day. I like to get up, get dressed, and then spend some quiet time before I even eat breakfast.
Activity: It is crucial for this experiment that you do absolutely nothing in the way of activity during this time. The whole purpose is to not be accomplishing anything else. Some people (my father) like to take their quiet time while walking, but I find it all too easy to be distracted by the walking itself and not be contemplative. I strongly encourage you to simply sit somewhere during this time and not be doing anything except considering the world, your life, nature, God, or whatever object you prefer. Although this may seem strange to some of you, I also encourage you to not pray during this time. At least, don’t pray the entire time. Emphasize listening more than you talk if you do choose to pray. Praying can be a pretty intense activity which distracts you from being quiet as much as any other. I have nothing against a cup of coffee or a cigarette during this time if these are things you enjoy.
Concentration: You will probably find it very difficult to do nothing for 15 minutes continuously. The pace of modern life is quite addictive. Once again, I suggest you consider the difficulty of the task part of its value. This is time for you to deliberately consider things you ordinarily don’t need to think about. Essentially, you are trying to get your mind off the daily routine and hustle and bustle. Instead, you are wanting to become aware of more important, more grand, more eternal things which we habitually ignore because they do not call us on the phone.
Notes: When you are alone, I recommend you have a note pad so you can write down anything you think of or feel you are hearing. Try not to let this become the focal point of the activity, where you are writing lists and deliberately thinking about problems in your life. Once again, this would be a form of activity which is contrary to the main purpose. If you think of things, write them down so you don’t have to occupy your mind with them and you can focus again on simply being quiet.
Note for those who already do this: The idea of these experiments is to target things in the average person’s life which are missing. Hence, I expect most people to find the experiment itself valuable. Clearly, some of you already are going to be doing the things I suggest, and for you the challenge is a little different. Instead of simply doing what you already do during your quiet time, you might try making the time longer or adding a new practice such as prayer if you are quiet, quiet if you pray, reading, listening, or something else in the spirit of the experiment for one week.
For the write-up: Pay attention to yourself this week and other people. There are at least two direct benefits of deliberately setting aside time for being quiet. One is that you actually get more done because you tend to have a better perspective on what is important and what is not. The second is that you tend to be less easily disturbed throughout the day by things that ordinarily would upset you. This is not a miracle cure, by any means, but you will probably notice a change in your attitude and how people treat you. Also, I know for some of you this is going to be a very difficult exercise because you are already quite stressed out or because being quiet is so completely alien to you. Once again, I encourage you to consider that the harder this is for you to do, the more you really need to do it. Have fun, and remember this is just an experiment for one week of your life. Of course, you may discover the benefit of doing this and decide to continue the practice.
One of the great laments of our time is the busy-ness of our modern lives. Although many complain about how labor-saving devices seem to have only led us to having even less quiet than we had before, they rarely do anything about it. Every major religious tradition is adamant about endorsing solitude, quietness, meditation, prayer, and reflection. Even many non-religious thinkers have had high praise for the practice of making and enjoying quiet time every day. This week, I want you to find fifteen minutes a day to simply be quiet and alone. My favorite way to do this is by sitting on my back porch watching the trees and listening to the sounds of the wind blowing and the animals. (We live on the edge between town and country.) There are several components to effective quiet time.
Location: I highly recommend some location which has natural beauty and a low level of societal noise (traffic, machines, television, people, music). A park, a fountain, a forest, a large yard. These are best. If you are unable to have access to anything like this, do your best to find or create a place where you can at least be alone without any interruptions and without any distracting noises. A church, library, your car (no radio), basement, etc.
Time: Part of the value of this exercise is to learn that your life is really something you control, rather than something which others are in control of. We do so much to avoid being quiet and to give up real control of our lives to others. Also, consistency is easiest when you use a regular schedule. Therefore, I strongly recommend you try doing this at the same time each day. Morning is far superior to evening because it sets the tone for the entire day. I like to get up, get dressed, and then spend some quiet time before I even eat breakfast.
Activity: It is crucial for this experiment that you do absolutely nothing in the way of activity during this time. The whole purpose is to not be accomplishing anything else. Some people (my father) like to take their quiet time while walking, but I find it all too easy to be distracted by the walking itself and not be contemplative. I strongly encourage you to simply sit somewhere during this time and not be doing anything except considering the world, your life, nature, God, or whatever object you prefer. Although this may seem strange to some of you, I also encourage you to not pray during this time. At least, don’t pray the entire time. Emphasize listening more than you talk if you do choose to pray. Praying can be a pretty intense activity which distracts you from being quiet as much as any other. I have nothing against a cup of coffee or a cigarette during this time if these are things you enjoy.
Concentration: You will probably find it very difficult to do nothing for 15 minutes continuously. The pace of modern life is quite addictive. Once again, I suggest you consider the difficulty of the task part of its value. This is time for you to deliberately consider things you ordinarily don’t need to think about. Essentially, you are trying to get your mind off the daily routine and hustle and bustle. Instead, you are wanting to become aware of more important, more grand, more eternal things which we habitually ignore because they do not call us on the phone.
Notes: When you are alone, I recommend you have a note pad so you can write down anything you think of or feel you are hearing. Try not to let this become the focal point of the activity, where you are writing lists and deliberately thinking about problems in your life. Once again, this would be a form of activity which is contrary to the main purpose. If you think of things, write them down so you don’t have to occupy your mind with them and you can focus again on simply being quiet.
Note for those who already do this: The idea of these experiments is to target things in the average person’s life which are missing. Hence, I expect most people to find the experiment itself valuable. Clearly, some of you already are going to be doing the things I suggest, and for you the challenge is a little different. Instead of simply doing what you already do during your quiet time, you might try making the time longer or adding a new practice such as prayer if you are quiet, quiet if you pray, reading, listening, or something else in the spirit of the experiment for one week.
For the write-up: Pay attention to yourself this week and other people. There are at least two direct benefits of deliberately setting aside time for being quiet. One is that you actually get more done because you tend to have a better perspective on what is important and what is not. The second is that you tend to be less easily disturbed throughout the day by things that ordinarily would upset you. This is not a miracle cure, by any means, but you will probably notice a change in your attitude and how people treat you. Also, I know for some of you this is going to be a very difficult exercise because you are already quite stressed out or because being quiet is so completely alien to you. Once again, I encourage you to consider that the harder this is for you to do, the more you really need to do it. Have fun, and remember this is just an experiment for one week of your life. Of course, you may discover the benefit of doing this and decide to continue the practice.
Thursday, August 20, 2009
Homework 10 (Due 8/24/09 by 5:00 PM) (Two points)
Part 1: Virtue Theory
Virtue Theory is an ancient theory of ethics which comes largely from Aristotle. Aristotle started with the idea that all things are virtuous when they fulfill their proper function or design. A hammer is virtuous if it hits nails in well. Aristotle believed humans were designed to reason, and this meant exerting ruler-ship over the bodily appetites. The proper application of reason to bodily appetites over time produces the human moral virtue of excellence. This may sound rather complex, but in essence the idea is quite simple.
In order to know what is right or wrong in any given situation, simply ask someone who is very virtuous. A virtuous person will know what to do because he has developed the kind of character which is naturally capable of determining right from wrong. If you have a group of virtuous people, they will all pretty much agree about what is moral and immoral. This is a very aristocratic notion of ethics in the sense that the “best” people are the ones who get to decide. But, of course, part of the idea about being the “best” is that you can be trusted not to abuse the power given to you to set the moral compass of the society.
Who, then, is a virtuous person? Someone who has developed many or all of the important character virtues to a great depth. There are many such virtues, but generally people recognize honesty, kindness, generosity, charity, patience, respect, love, wisdom, responsibility, loyalty, courage, perseverance, integrity, and (in America) self-reliance. The Boy Scouts are one good example of an organization which tries to emphasize character virtues through its oaths and activities. The idea of the organization is that the habits of character are built slowly and steadily over time so that when moral dilemmas or temptations arise, the person will have a solid character foundation on which to base his decision. The primary instruction of Virtue Theory is to develop virtues in ourselves and when we are unsure what to do, ask someone much more virtuous than ourselves. Thus, we should practice being good by developing virtuous habits and then when a big moral choice comes along, we should ask a mentor what to do. Specific moral questions become less important than the idea of being a good person. “Is abortion immoral?” What do all the virtuous people think, and how will this act impact the person’s character?
Another key component of Aristotle’s Virtue Theory is that each virtue is a mean or midway point between two extremes, each of which is undesirable. Appropriateness is thus the real key to wisdom and proper application of virtue for Aristotle. Brazenness (speaking your mind no matter what the consequences) is just as foolish as lying, whereas honesty is knowing when to say what is true and how to say it effectively.
1-6. Answer the questions from above. 7. List between 6 and 12 virtues you think are the most important to make a good person and define them in one sentence or less.
Virtue Theory is an ancient theory of ethics which comes largely from Aristotle. Aristotle started with the idea that all things are virtuous when they fulfill their proper function or design. A hammer is virtuous if it hits nails in well. Aristotle believed humans were designed to reason, and this meant exerting ruler-ship over the bodily appetites. The proper application of reason to bodily appetites over time produces the human moral virtue of excellence. This may sound rather complex, but in essence the idea is quite simple.
In order to know what is right or wrong in any given situation, simply ask someone who is very virtuous. A virtuous person will know what to do because he has developed the kind of character which is naturally capable of determining right from wrong. If you have a group of virtuous people, they will all pretty much agree about what is moral and immoral. This is a very aristocratic notion of ethics in the sense that the “best” people are the ones who get to decide. But, of course, part of the idea about being the “best” is that you can be trusted not to abuse the power given to you to set the moral compass of the society.
Who, then, is a virtuous person? Someone who has developed many or all of the important character virtues to a great depth. There are many such virtues, but generally people recognize honesty, kindness, generosity, charity, patience, respect, love, wisdom, responsibility, loyalty, courage, perseverance, integrity, and (in America) self-reliance. The Boy Scouts are one good example of an organization which tries to emphasize character virtues through its oaths and activities. The idea of the organization is that the habits of character are built slowly and steadily over time so that when moral dilemmas or temptations arise, the person will have a solid character foundation on which to base his decision. The primary instruction of Virtue Theory is to develop virtues in ourselves and when we are unsure what to do, ask someone much more virtuous than ourselves. Thus, we should practice being good by developing virtuous habits and then when a big moral choice comes along, we should ask a mentor what to do. Specific moral questions become less important than the idea of being a good person. “Is abortion immoral?” What do all the virtuous people think, and how will this act impact the person’s character?
Another key component of Aristotle’s Virtue Theory is that each virtue is a mean or midway point between two extremes, each of which is undesirable. Appropriateness is thus the real key to wisdom and proper application of virtue for Aristotle. Brazenness (speaking your mind no matter what the consequences) is just as foolish as lying, whereas honesty is knowing when to say what is true and how to say it effectively.
1-6. Answer the questions from above. 7. List between 6 and 12 virtues you think are the most important to make a good person and define them in one sentence or less.
Monday, August 17, 2009
Ethics Experiment #1—Obedience
After doing this for seven days, write me a short summary of what you did and what you learned from it for two points. Due 8/26.
During this week, the focus is going to be on developing the ability to be happily obedient. Most people have the capacity to be obedient if they must, but they usually resent doing so, and this resentment will almost always come out later in some form or another. What I want you to try for one week is to obey those in authority and the law, but to do so happily as well. Grudging obedience is better than not at all. But happy obedience is even better. If it helps, take pride in the fact that you are simply doing something you choose to do to change your own life. Most likely you will find this very difficult to do, and that in itself should raise the level of pride you can take when you are able to obey though you dislike doing so. The goal here is not that you become a perfectly obedient person overnight. That won’t happen. The idea is to take a few areas of your life that you currently practice rebellion in and instead try to be obedient in them. Here are some suggestions:
1. Obeying the law:
1A. Try obeying the traffic laws. Almost all people obey them when there is a police car near by. Disobeying simply because you won’t be caught is exactly what the common criminal does. This week, drive whatever the posted speed limit is and no more. Obey construction zones, come to a full stop at stop signs and when turning right on red, use your turn signal when turning or when changing lanes, and stop for yellow lights instead of going faster to slip through them. For most of you, this will require leaving a bit earlier than you are used to. However, I suspect that one of the odd things you will discover is that you really don’t get there much if any quicker when you speed and break the law. While you are doing this, observe yourself. Are you more calm because you aren’t worried about getting caught? Are you less tense? Because you have left with enough time to arrive, are you more relaxed in getting there? Are you more worried about all the crazy fast drivers all around you? I predict most of you will find this rather small task extremely difficult to do and to enjoy. That in itself should be an indication of how much you actually aren’t in control of your own lives, but I’ll leave such analysis to you.
1B. Report all of your tips. If you work in a tipped industry, you know for a fact that very few people do this. Try it for a week, just to see how it makes you feel to know you have nothing to hide from the IRS or from anyone who is in a position to punish you.
1C. Drinking, smoking, drugs. Obviously, there are some rather restrictive laws regarding these things. Whatever age you are, if you consume these items, simply try obeying the relevant laws for one week. No drugs. Smoking only if you are over 18. Drinking only if you are over 21. It’s only a week, after all, and if you can’t even restrain yourself for one week, what does that say about your control of your own life?
1D. Littering. It is illegal to litter, including cigarette butts. Simply avoid doing this for one week.
1E. Stealing. Obviously, ordinary theft is unlawful, but this includes any form of deception or taking advantage when whoever rightfully owns the property would not want it to be done.
2. Obeying your parents
Most of you live with your parents or at least still have regular contact with them. For one week, simply try obeying them without argument and without delay. If there are things you know they expect of you, do them. If there are particular things they ask you to do (or tell you to do J) do them without arguing. If nothing else, you’ll probably shock them more than if you picked purple as your new hair color. If your parents say something you don’t like, try agreeing with them instead of arguing with them, just for an experiment. The way you talk to those in authority over you is also a measure of obedience. If you are married, try obeying your spouse for one week.
3. Obeying your teachers
Some of you are in school. Some things that represent obedience to teachers include doing all assignments, not talking in class, showing up on time, and being honest in all work (not cheating in any way). Just for one week, try treating all your teachers as people who exercise legitimate authority over you and you are willing to obey concerning such things.
4. Obeying your boss
Many of you have jobs. Every job has a boss who will occasionally (or often) ask/tell you to do things you do not want to do or disagree with. For one week, practice obeying your boss and doing whatever he/she asks without dispute or grumbling. This mean not slacking off just because the boss isn’t watching or because you think you won’t get caught. Practice behaving how you would if your boss were watching you the entire time.
Obviously, some of you will have more on this list to attempt than others. I recommend that you pick the things you think you can best manage and try doing the same items for a week. It may be overwhelming for some of you to try to do all of this at once, especially if you have really developed the habit of widespread rebellion against authority. Remember, obedience does not mean you agree. It simply means you act as if the person making the rule has the authority to tell you what to do, whether you like it or not. Have fun, and remember, part of the point of this exercise is to find out if you even have the capacity to obey or not, and to develop it more whether you already do or not.
During this week, the focus is going to be on developing the ability to be happily obedient. Most people have the capacity to be obedient if they must, but they usually resent doing so, and this resentment will almost always come out later in some form or another. What I want you to try for one week is to obey those in authority and the law, but to do so happily as well. Grudging obedience is better than not at all. But happy obedience is even better. If it helps, take pride in the fact that you are simply doing something you choose to do to change your own life. Most likely you will find this very difficult to do, and that in itself should raise the level of pride you can take when you are able to obey though you dislike doing so. The goal here is not that you become a perfectly obedient person overnight. That won’t happen. The idea is to take a few areas of your life that you currently practice rebellion in and instead try to be obedient in them. Here are some suggestions:
1. Obeying the law:
1A. Try obeying the traffic laws. Almost all people obey them when there is a police car near by. Disobeying simply because you won’t be caught is exactly what the common criminal does. This week, drive whatever the posted speed limit is and no more. Obey construction zones, come to a full stop at stop signs and when turning right on red, use your turn signal when turning or when changing lanes, and stop for yellow lights instead of going faster to slip through them. For most of you, this will require leaving a bit earlier than you are used to. However, I suspect that one of the odd things you will discover is that you really don’t get there much if any quicker when you speed and break the law. While you are doing this, observe yourself. Are you more calm because you aren’t worried about getting caught? Are you less tense? Because you have left with enough time to arrive, are you more relaxed in getting there? Are you more worried about all the crazy fast drivers all around you? I predict most of you will find this rather small task extremely difficult to do and to enjoy. That in itself should be an indication of how much you actually aren’t in control of your own lives, but I’ll leave such analysis to you.
1B. Report all of your tips. If you work in a tipped industry, you know for a fact that very few people do this. Try it for a week, just to see how it makes you feel to know you have nothing to hide from the IRS or from anyone who is in a position to punish you.
1C. Drinking, smoking, drugs. Obviously, there are some rather restrictive laws regarding these things. Whatever age you are, if you consume these items, simply try obeying the relevant laws for one week. No drugs. Smoking only if you are over 18. Drinking only if you are over 21. It’s only a week, after all, and if you can’t even restrain yourself for one week, what does that say about your control of your own life?
1D. Littering. It is illegal to litter, including cigarette butts. Simply avoid doing this for one week.
1E. Stealing. Obviously, ordinary theft is unlawful, but this includes any form of deception or taking advantage when whoever rightfully owns the property would not want it to be done.
2. Obeying your parents
Most of you live with your parents or at least still have regular contact with them. For one week, simply try obeying them without argument and without delay. If there are things you know they expect of you, do them. If there are particular things they ask you to do (or tell you to do J) do them without arguing. If nothing else, you’ll probably shock them more than if you picked purple as your new hair color. If your parents say something you don’t like, try agreeing with them instead of arguing with them, just for an experiment. The way you talk to those in authority over you is also a measure of obedience. If you are married, try obeying your spouse for one week.
3. Obeying your teachers
Some of you are in school. Some things that represent obedience to teachers include doing all assignments, not talking in class, showing up on time, and being honest in all work (not cheating in any way). Just for one week, try treating all your teachers as people who exercise legitimate authority over you and you are willing to obey concerning such things.
4. Obeying your boss
Many of you have jobs. Every job has a boss who will occasionally (or often) ask/tell you to do things you do not want to do or disagree with. For one week, practice obeying your boss and doing whatever he/she asks without dispute or grumbling. This mean not slacking off just because the boss isn’t watching or because you think you won’t get caught. Practice behaving how you would if your boss were watching you the entire time.
Obviously, some of you will have more on this list to attempt than others. I recommend that you pick the things you think you can best manage and try doing the same items for a week. It may be overwhelming for some of you to try to do all of this at once, especially if you have really developed the habit of widespread rebellion against authority. Remember, obedience does not mean you agree. It simply means you act as if the person making the rule has the authority to tell you what to do, whether you like it or not. Have fun, and remember, part of the point of this exercise is to find out if you even have the capacity to obey or not, and to develop it more whether you already do or not.
Friday, August 14, 2009
Homework 9 (Due 8/17 by 5:00 PM) (Four points)
First, an apology. I realize that posting this on Friday puts a big burden on those of you taking the class to try to do it in a much smaller time frame than normal. For that, I'm very sorry. It's only my own negligence to blame. As with all assignments, this is, of course, optional and meant to help you prepare for the material. I'll try not to let this happen again.
Part 1: Kantianism
Kantianism is a deontological theory credited to German philosopher Immanuel Kant. In Kant’s theory, consequences do not matter because the world is dirty and imperfect and difficult to manage, although he probably wouldn’t say it that way. Instead, morality comes from our ability to reason because only reason is pure and untainted. Using our reason we can discern a universal principle of ethics and by applying this perfect idea into the world we can know what to do at any moment. The thing that makes an act good is the fact that we do it because it is derived from this universal principle, not because we want to do it. Only in doing the opposite of what we want can we do anything good. There, of course, will be times where we happen to want to do the thing which is actually right, but our carnal desires in such a situation corrupt the virtue of the act and make it amoral (having no moral value at all) even though it is still the best thing to do.
Every act is a representative of some (perhaps more than one) principle. The idea is to take the perfect moral principle and then only perform acts which are representatives of that principle. In Kantianism, the intention is everything. No matter what actually happens, every act is either good or bad to the extent that a person did it intentionally as an application of the universal principle contrary to his own desires. The universal principle, which Kant called a “categorical imperative,” comes in two formulations.
1. “Do only those things which you can at the same time will that everyone else would do in a similar situation.” This is the principle of universality which says that we should only follow rules which we would also want everyone else to follow. For instance, you shouldn’t lie because even liars prefer people to tell the truth. In fact, lying is incoherent to Kant since lying actually requires that most people will tell the truth. If everyone lied, then no one would take anyone else’s speech seriously, and lying would lose it’s power.
2. “Treat other people as ends and not as means only.” In ordinary language, “Don’t use people.” They are people too, and their lives are not just tools to be used for our own ends. We must respect their wishes too. Many people have likened this second version to the Golden Rule which says, “Do unto other people as you would want them to do unto you.”
This theory, like Utilitarianism, carries an important consideration for the wants and lives of other people. Since we must universalize anything, the best way to keep this principle before us is to remember that other people also have a will, and they matter. When you lie to someone, you are treating him as if his desire to know the truth does not matter, and you are violating the prescription to respect other people as ends not as means only.
1-6. Answer the questions from above.
7. How does this theory deal with moral dilemmas caused by conflict between principles or behavior categories?
8. We tend to think of a person who naturally wants to do good as a good person. Does Kant agree?
Part 2: Social Contract Theory
Social Contract Theory is a deontological theory which has been formulated over time by Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and (in it’s modern form) John Rawls. Social Contract Theory begins with two basic concepts. Each human is rational and self-interested, and our promises are binding on us. Because we are rational, we recognize that it is better to live in a society with all the benefits and protections that society brings us than to live on our own in the wild struggling for survival and food with our teeth and nails every day. When an outsider comes to live in a new society, he generally must both demonstrate a basic understanding of the ideas and beliefs of that society and also give his formal pledge that he will live in accordance with the rules and ideal of it. Thus, a new citizen sees the benefit of entering society, and he formally promises to live by the rules of that society. Because of this promise, we have every reason to expect him to do so and feel perfectly justified in holding him accountable if he does not. He has made a “social contract” with the rest of the citizens of that society.
Most people, however, are simply born into a society and they never have to demonstrate such knowledge or give any such formal pledge. Yet, at a certain rather vague point in each person’s life we simply assume that the person has tacitly given his word to behave properly as a citizen just as the naturalized citizen does overtly. If he does not intend to have this assumed about him, he should leave the society. Since he stays, we assume he agrees to the contract as well. If he does not agree, at the very least he owes some measure of obedience back to the society which raised and nurtured him all this time, even if he didn’t ask for it.
Thus all people are thought to be part of this social contract of proper behavior. In essence, the points of this contract are all the rules which a rational, self-interested person would agree to obey in order to gain the benefits of society in return. For example, in the “state of nature” outside of society, one’s life is constantly at risk from all manner of things. In order to gain the security of safe living, a rational person would promise to not kill his fellow citizens in order for a similar promise from them and also the understanding that they would commonly defend each other against foreign aggressors. Thus, it is immoral to kill because people would presumably not let you in their society unless you promised not to do so. Anything which a rational, self-interested person can be assumed to have agreed to in the state of nature as a price of admission into society is part of the moral code of that society. In order to get the protections of life, liberty, and property, we would all agree to give up some freedom so that other people could also enjoy an equal level of personal freedom. In essence, morality is the minimum admission price of anyone wanting to enter civilization and enjoy the benefits of leaving the unpleasant state of nature.
1-6. Answer the questions from above.
7. What is it that makes a real contract binding on someone?
Part 1: Kantianism
Kantianism is a deontological theory credited to German philosopher Immanuel Kant. In Kant’s theory, consequences do not matter because the world is dirty and imperfect and difficult to manage, although he probably wouldn’t say it that way. Instead, morality comes from our ability to reason because only reason is pure and untainted. Using our reason we can discern a universal principle of ethics and by applying this perfect idea into the world we can know what to do at any moment. The thing that makes an act good is the fact that we do it because it is derived from this universal principle, not because we want to do it. Only in doing the opposite of what we want can we do anything good. There, of course, will be times where we happen to want to do the thing which is actually right, but our carnal desires in such a situation corrupt the virtue of the act and make it amoral (having no moral value at all) even though it is still the best thing to do.
Every act is a representative of some (perhaps more than one) principle. The idea is to take the perfect moral principle and then only perform acts which are representatives of that principle. In Kantianism, the intention is everything. No matter what actually happens, every act is either good or bad to the extent that a person did it intentionally as an application of the universal principle contrary to his own desires. The universal principle, which Kant called a “categorical imperative,” comes in two formulations.
1. “Do only those things which you can at the same time will that everyone else would do in a similar situation.” This is the principle of universality which says that we should only follow rules which we would also want everyone else to follow. For instance, you shouldn’t lie because even liars prefer people to tell the truth. In fact, lying is incoherent to Kant since lying actually requires that most people will tell the truth. If everyone lied, then no one would take anyone else’s speech seriously, and lying would lose it’s power.
2. “Treat other people as ends and not as means only.” In ordinary language, “Don’t use people.” They are people too, and their lives are not just tools to be used for our own ends. We must respect their wishes too. Many people have likened this second version to the Golden Rule which says, “Do unto other people as you would want them to do unto you.”
This theory, like Utilitarianism, carries an important consideration for the wants and lives of other people. Since we must universalize anything, the best way to keep this principle before us is to remember that other people also have a will, and they matter. When you lie to someone, you are treating him as if his desire to know the truth does not matter, and you are violating the prescription to respect other people as ends not as means only.
1-6. Answer the questions from above.
7. How does this theory deal with moral dilemmas caused by conflict between principles or behavior categories?
8. We tend to think of a person who naturally wants to do good as a good person. Does Kant agree?
Part 2: Social Contract Theory
Social Contract Theory is a deontological theory which has been formulated over time by Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and (in it’s modern form) John Rawls. Social Contract Theory begins with two basic concepts. Each human is rational and self-interested, and our promises are binding on us. Because we are rational, we recognize that it is better to live in a society with all the benefits and protections that society brings us than to live on our own in the wild struggling for survival and food with our teeth and nails every day. When an outsider comes to live in a new society, he generally must both demonstrate a basic understanding of the ideas and beliefs of that society and also give his formal pledge that he will live in accordance with the rules and ideal of it. Thus, a new citizen sees the benefit of entering society, and he formally promises to live by the rules of that society. Because of this promise, we have every reason to expect him to do so and feel perfectly justified in holding him accountable if he does not. He has made a “social contract” with the rest of the citizens of that society.
Most people, however, are simply born into a society and they never have to demonstrate such knowledge or give any such formal pledge. Yet, at a certain rather vague point in each person’s life we simply assume that the person has tacitly given his word to behave properly as a citizen just as the naturalized citizen does overtly. If he does not intend to have this assumed about him, he should leave the society. Since he stays, we assume he agrees to the contract as well. If he does not agree, at the very least he owes some measure of obedience back to the society which raised and nurtured him all this time, even if he didn’t ask for it.
Thus all people are thought to be part of this social contract of proper behavior. In essence, the points of this contract are all the rules which a rational, self-interested person would agree to obey in order to gain the benefits of society in return. For example, in the “state of nature” outside of society, one’s life is constantly at risk from all manner of things. In order to gain the security of safe living, a rational person would promise to not kill his fellow citizens in order for a similar promise from them and also the understanding that they would commonly defend each other against foreign aggressors. Thus, it is immoral to kill because people would presumably not let you in their society unless you promised not to do so. Anything which a rational, self-interested person can be assumed to have agreed to in the state of nature as a price of admission into society is part of the moral code of that society. In order to get the protections of life, liberty, and property, we would all agree to give up some freedom so that other people could also enjoy an equal level of personal freedom. In essence, morality is the minimum admission price of anyone wanting to enter civilization and enjoy the benefits of leaving the unpleasant state of nature.
1-6. Answer the questions from above.
7. What is it that makes a real contract binding on someone?
43-44. Utilitarianism
I've made a serious blunder. I neglected to post the homework version of Utilitarianism before the show, mostly because I didn't realize we'd get through two theories in one night. So, although you can't do it for credit, here at least is what should have been included in the previous homework assignment.
Part 1: Utilitarianism
Utilitarianism is a consequentialist theory credited mostly to a British philosopher named John Stuart Mill. Utilitarianism defines good acts as ones which bring people pleasure and bad acts as ones which bring people pain. We should always be trying to increase or maximize pleasure in the world and decrease or minimize pain. The other key component of Utilitarianism is that each and every person in the world counts equally in our evaluations of pain and pleasure. For instance, if some act brings moderate pleasure to two people and brings moderate pain to only one other person, then that is a good act because it has created more pleasure than pain. Because Utilitarianism takes other people’s pains and pleasures into consideration, it is much more appealing than mere Egoism. It becomes especially appealing when the pain or work or effort is going to come from us and the pleasure is going to be gained by a lot of other people. That seems like nothing more than putting the needs of others before our own and being generous with our lives, which looks like a good idea.
Historically, one of the strengths of Utilitarianism is that it helps us deal with situations that seem to offer no hope of resolution because principles are seriously in conflict. For instance, when the US dropped the bomb on Hiroshima, the claim was that killing 50,000 (arguably) innocent people would save the lives of 500,000 soldiers. Thus, the death of some was less than the death of many, and we went ahead. If every single human life is infinitely precious and cannot ever be outweighed by greater goods, then our response to evil seems to be quite hindered by the very principles which we use to condemn evil. If it will take deadly force to stop the Nazis, but one must never kill, then what can we do but lay down and die? Utilitarianism tries to answer to such problems. Some of you may have seen Star Trek 2, where Spock says, “The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.” This is an excellent Utilitarian phrase.
As we will discuss, the distinctions between actual consequences and intended consequences and between whether each individual act should be analyzed on its own or whether it is the consequences generally found to follow from following a rule of behavior are certainly relevant questions for Utilitarian to address.
1-6. Answer questions from above.
7. Do the needs of the one ever outweigh the needs of the many?
8. Would you sacrifice a loved one to save the lives of two strangers? Should a person want to?
9. How do you count pleasure and pain?
Part 1: Utilitarianism
Utilitarianism is a consequentialist theory credited mostly to a British philosopher named John Stuart Mill. Utilitarianism defines good acts as ones which bring people pleasure and bad acts as ones which bring people pain. We should always be trying to increase or maximize pleasure in the world and decrease or minimize pain. The other key component of Utilitarianism is that each and every person in the world counts equally in our evaluations of pain and pleasure. For instance, if some act brings moderate pleasure to two people and brings moderate pain to only one other person, then that is a good act because it has created more pleasure than pain. Because Utilitarianism takes other people’s pains and pleasures into consideration, it is much more appealing than mere Egoism. It becomes especially appealing when the pain or work or effort is going to come from us and the pleasure is going to be gained by a lot of other people. That seems like nothing more than putting the needs of others before our own and being generous with our lives, which looks like a good idea.
Historically, one of the strengths of Utilitarianism is that it helps us deal with situations that seem to offer no hope of resolution because principles are seriously in conflict. For instance, when the US dropped the bomb on Hiroshima, the claim was that killing 50,000 (arguably) innocent people would save the lives of 500,000 soldiers. Thus, the death of some was less than the death of many, and we went ahead. If every single human life is infinitely precious and cannot ever be outweighed by greater goods, then our response to evil seems to be quite hindered by the very principles which we use to condemn evil. If it will take deadly force to stop the Nazis, but one must never kill, then what can we do but lay down and die? Utilitarianism tries to answer to such problems. Some of you may have seen Star Trek 2, where Spock says, “The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.” This is an excellent Utilitarian phrase.
As we will discuss, the distinctions between actual consequences and intended consequences and between whether each individual act should be analyzed on its own or whether it is the consequences generally found to follow from following a rule of behavior are certainly relevant questions for Utilitarian to address.
1-6. Answer questions from above.
7. Do the needs of the one ever outweigh the needs of the many?
8. Would you sacrifice a loved one to save the lives of two strangers? Should a person want to?
9. How do you count pleasure and pain?
Monday, August 3, 2009
Homework 8 (Due 8/10 by 5:00 PM) (4 points)
Instructions
For the next few weeks, we are going to be discussing several different traditional theories of ethics. If you want more information about any of these theories, I encourage you to check out just about any general textbook on ethics or any of the resources on the web. You should be able to find a discussion of egoism, utilitarianism, Kant, etc. in any general introduction to ethics textbook and certainly on many good websites (Stanford Philosophy, Wikipedia, e.g.) For each of these theories, I want you to read the explanation I give, and then do each of the following things for homework:
1. Formulate two questions about the theory.
2. Make a short list of three advantages to this theory.
3. Make a short list of three problems you see for it.
4. Try to think of a situation where you think this theory would give the right answer morally.
5. Try to also think of a situation where you think this theory would give the wrong answer morally.
6. What would the world look like if everyone followed this theory?
7+· Answer any questions I attach at the end of the explanation.
Note: In order to earn credit on the Criteria when you do them, I expect you to show me you understand the theory without simply copying over the words from this sheet. Then I want to see you discuss the merits and problems of the theory along with an example to show me you know how it applies to reality.
Part 1: Relativism
Relativism is essentially the idea that morality is not something fixed for all people either by theory or consequences or absolute principles. Instead, morality changes depending on the culture or the individual. Cultural relativism is the idea that the right thing to do is whatever a group of people or society believe is the right thing to do. “When in Rome, do as a Roman,” is a typical cultural relativist proclamation. The individual relativist (sometimes called subjectivism) takes this one step further. He says that morality is nothing more than whatever any particular individual wants to do. The cultural relativist would say that owning slaves is acceptable as long as the entire culture approves of such a practice. Likewise, if the culture rejects slavery, then one should not own slaves. The same is true of religious belief, sexual practice, or even whether something like honesty is virtuous. Every moral dictate is defined by whatever the cultural traditions of the people in the region accept. The individual relativist would say that practices such as slavery, abortion, sexual behavior, etc. are nothing more than individual preferences which cannot be urged on a person from the outside.
The argument for cultural relativism usually goes like this:
1. If there were any firm or universal moral principles, we should expect to see them in every culture we observe.
2. When we look at various cultures, we find absolutely no agreement about anything at all morally.
3. Therefore, there must not be any firm or universal moral principles.
4. Lacking firm or universal moral principles, the right thing to do is to simply obey the instructions of a local culture.
The argument for individual relativism goes one step farther in saying that even a culture does not completely agree about very much, therefore moral truth must simply be a matter of individual opinion. Even things as seemingly absolute as rape or murder or honesty do not interest a real individual relativist. He will observe that certainly a group of people might succeed in inflicting physical punishment on a rapist, but that does not mean that rape is morally wrong. It only means that they were stronger than the rapist, just as the rapist was stronger than his victim. Such strength in no way implies any moral superiority, and ultimately everything moral is simply a matter of taste and strength to pursue that taste. In America today, individual relativism is extremely popular when it comes to questions aside from those behaviors which put other people’s interests at risk. “As long as we do not hurt other people, anything we do is okay.” This position is actually a mixture of ethical theories, but it is probably the closest to individual relativism that most ordinary people ever come.
Questions for Egoism
1-6. Answer questions from above.
7. Can both Psychological Egoism and Ethical Egoism be true?
8. Do you think people can be truly generous (also called being altruistic)?
For the next few weeks, we are going to be discussing several different traditional theories of ethics. If you want more information about any of these theories, I encourage you to check out just about any general textbook on ethics or any of the resources on the web. You should be able to find a discussion of egoism, utilitarianism, Kant, etc. in any general introduction to ethics textbook and certainly on many good websites (Stanford Philosophy, Wikipedia, e.g.) For each of these theories, I want you to read the explanation I give, and then do each of the following things for homework:
1. Formulate two questions about the theory.
2. Make a short list of three advantages to this theory.
3. Make a short list of three problems you see for it.
4. Try to think of a situation where you think this theory would give the right answer morally.
5. Try to also think of a situation where you think this theory would give the wrong answer morally.
6. What would the world look like if everyone followed this theory?
7+· Answer any questions I attach at the end of the explanation.
Note: In order to earn credit on the Criteria when you do them, I expect you to show me you understand the theory without simply copying over the words from this sheet. Then I want to see you discuss the merits and problems of the theory along with an example to show me you know how it applies to reality.
Part 1: Relativism
Relativism is essentially the idea that morality is not something fixed for all people either by theory or consequences or absolute principles. Instead, morality changes depending on the culture or the individual. Cultural relativism is the idea that the right thing to do is whatever a group of people or society believe is the right thing to do. “When in Rome, do as a Roman,” is a typical cultural relativist proclamation. The individual relativist (sometimes called subjectivism) takes this one step further. He says that morality is nothing more than whatever any particular individual wants to do. The cultural relativist would say that owning slaves is acceptable as long as the entire culture approves of such a practice. Likewise, if the culture rejects slavery, then one should not own slaves. The same is true of religious belief, sexual practice, or even whether something like honesty is virtuous. Every moral dictate is defined by whatever the cultural traditions of the people in the region accept. The individual relativist would say that practices such as slavery, abortion, sexual behavior, etc. are nothing more than individual preferences which cannot be urged on a person from the outside.
The argument for cultural relativism usually goes like this:
1. If there were any firm or universal moral principles, we should expect to see them in every culture we observe.
2. When we look at various cultures, we find absolutely no agreement about anything at all morally.
3. Therefore, there must not be any firm or universal moral principles.
4. Lacking firm or universal moral principles, the right thing to do is to simply obey the instructions of a local culture.
The argument for individual relativism goes one step farther in saying that even a culture does not completely agree about very much, therefore moral truth must simply be a matter of individual opinion. Even things as seemingly absolute as rape or murder or honesty do not interest a real individual relativist. He will observe that certainly a group of people might succeed in inflicting physical punishment on a rapist, but that does not mean that rape is morally wrong. It only means that they were stronger than the rapist, just as the rapist was stronger than his victim. Such strength in no way implies any moral superiority, and ultimately everything moral is simply a matter of taste and strength to pursue that taste. In America today, individual relativism is extremely popular when it comes to questions aside from those behaviors which put other people’s interests at risk. “As long as we do not hurt other people, anything we do is okay.” This position is actually a mixture of ethical theories, but it is probably the closest to individual relativism that most ordinary people ever come.
Questions for Relativism
1-6. Answer questions from above.
7. If someone wanted to know what were the ethical rules he should follow in a country like America, how would you go about evaluating our culture for an answer?
8. Does a gang count as a culture within which the ethics of the gang are right and binding on members?
9. If someone really believed in individual relativism, would you want to live near him?
10. If I intentionally spill a cup of coffee on an individual relativist, should he get upset at me?
Part 2: Egoism
Ethical Egoism is a consequentialist theory which says that the right thing to do is whatever will benefit you personally the most. As long as it is good for you, it is good to do. Essentially, this theory has one moral principle which says, “Be selfish.” For instance, if you are confronted by a beggar, you should not give him money because it is not in your self-interest to do so. That money will better serve your needs if you buy lunch with it or pay for new socks for your own children. Charity only teaches people to be dependent on others and it discourages people from making things of value because you choose to give it away for nothing rather than purchasing a product which someone has worked to make. In many ways, capitalism as an economic system is premised on the idea that people usually will act in their own self-interest. This is called being a “rational agent.” If everyone does this, people will tend to prosper because everyone is individually getting ahead. Although this theory may sound silly at first, there are certainly times where it is best to be selfish because someone who never takes care of his own needs at all is never going to be in any position to really care for the needs of others (of course an egoist is not usually looking at it from this perspective, since other people are not of any real concern.)
Questions for Egoism
1-6. Answer questions from above.
7. Can both Psychological Egoism and Ethical Egoism be true?
8. Do you think people can be truly generous (also called being altruistic)?
Ethics Theories Overview
Non-Cognitivist Theories
1. Intuitionism
2. Emotivism Emotionalism
3. Existentialism
4. Relativism
----a. Cultural Relativism
----b. Individual Relativism
Cognitivist Theories
---Consequentialist
5. Egoism
6. Hedonism
7. Utilitarianism
8. Racism
9. Egalitarianism
10. Socialism
11. Environmentalism
---Deontological
------Principle based
12. Kantianism
13. Social Contract Theory
14. Virtue Theory
15. Rights Theory
------Religious
16. Divine Command Theory
17. Natural Law Theory
18. Divine imitation Theory
1. Intuitionism
2. Emotivism Emotionalism
3. Existentialism
4. Relativism
----a. Cultural Relativism
----b. Individual Relativism
Cognitivist Theories
---Consequentialist
5. Egoism
6. Hedonism
7. Utilitarianism
8. Racism
9. Egalitarianism
10. Socialism
11. Environmentalism
---Deontological
------Principle based
12. Kantianism
13. Social Contract Theory
14. Virtue Theory
15. Rights Theory
------Religious
16. Divine Command Theory
17. Natural Law Theory
18. Divine imitation Theory
36. Why moral theories matter
How to evalutate moral theories
1. Valid/Accurate
Does the theory yield the right answers as principles on temptations?
Does the theory give the right answers in the easy cases?
Does the theory validate certain key principles we believe in: life, liberty, property, equality, freedom.
It should condemn obvious evil and applaud obvious good.
2. Simple
Does it simplify things or make them more complicated? Is it practical and can children learn it?
Is the theory decisive or does it lend itself to multiple interpretations? Experts necessary?
How many exceptions does the theory seem to have, and how hard do we have to work to find them? But does it also allow for them to exist? What kind of explanatory power does it have?
As a theory allows for exceptions, it becomes unsimple. But having no room for exceptions means it is too simple.
3. Practical/Useful
What will a society of people who follow this theory look like, and is it desirable?
What if no one except me follows this theory? Will it still make the world a better place.
Will the theory work with real people in the real world?
Has the theory stood the test of time?
Does the theory help persuade other people?
Does the theory resolve difficult cases to opponent’s satisfaction?
4. Mature/Sophisticated/Complete
Tell us what is moral and immoral and also why. An explanation of moral authority.
Does the theory recognize dilemmas, and resolve them without discounting any important considerations? Without oversimplifying or forgetting that it is a dilemma in the first place.
Does the theory encourage excellence? Support what makes us most human and does it help us grow?
Is it elegant? Does it sometimes have the "Aha!" effect on people?
Does it allow us both to applaud some and also to deplore/criticize others?
5. Rational/Logical
What worldview of moral truth does this theory fit into?
Does the theory contradict itself or is it coherent?
Is it theoretically consistent with itself?
What origin story fits with this theory.
1. Valid/Accurate
Does the theory yield the right answers as principles on temptations?
Does the theory give the right answers in the easy cases?
Does the theory validate certain key principles we believe in: life, liberty, property, equality, freedom.
It should condemn obvious evil and applaud obvious good.
2. Simple
Does it simplify things or make them more complicated? Is it practical and can children learn it?
Is the theory decisive or does it lend itself to multiple interpretations? Experts necessary?
How many exceptions does the theory seem to have, and how hard do we have to work to find them? But does it also allow for them to exist? What kind of explanatory power does it have?
As a theory allows for exceptions, it becomes unsimple. But having no room for exceptions means it is too simple.
3. Practical/Useful
What will a society of people who follow this theory look like, and is it desirable?
What if no one except me follows this theory? Will it still make the world a better place.
Will the theory work with real people in the real world?
Has the theory stood the test of time?
Does the theory help persuade other people?
Does the theory resolve difficult cases to opponent’s satisfaction?
4. Mature/Sophisticated/Complete
Tell us what is moral and immoral and also why. An explanation of moral authority.
Does the theory recognize dilemmas, and resolve them without discounting any important considerations? Without oversimplifying or forgetting that it is a dilemma in the first place.
Does the theory encourage excellence? Support what makes us most human and does it help us grow?
Is it elegant? Does it sometimes have the "Aha!" effect on people?
Does it allow us both to applaud some and also to deplore/criticize others?
5. Rational/Logical
What worldview of moral truth does this theory fit into?
Does the theory contradict itself or is it coherent?
Is it theoretically consistent with itself?
What origin story fits with this theory.
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
31. Tallman’s Theory
The questions
1. What would I do if there were no privacy? What if it would be printed on tomorrow’s front page? If you knew you’d get caught? If all your friends would find out?
2. What would my parents, grandparents, mentor, role model, hero say to do?
3. What would Jesus do?
4. What is the most difficult thing to do?
5. What if I knew I would have to tell my children, grandchildren about this?
6. What would I tell my children or best friend to do in this situation?
7. What will I be most proud of having done? The pain of discipline is always less than the pain of regret.
8. What if I wait a day or a month or a year, will it still be a good decision? The bigger or more permanent the decision, the more you should wait.
9. What kind of person would be most likely to do this thing? Are they people you are wanting to be like? What would a despicable person do? Do the opposite. How would the person you are trying to become do it?
10. If the people this act will affect were my own best friends and loved ones, would I do it?
11. What is the most loving thing to do?
12. What if she were your sister, mother, daughter…? Would you be proud to tell the 15 year old son of your current girlfriend 25 years from now every aspect of your relationship and how you treated his mom before she met his dad?
13. What will make your soul the most beautiful?
1. What would I do if there were no privacy? What if it would be printed on tomorrow’s front page? If you knew you’d get caught? If all your friends would find out?
2. What would my parents, grandparents, mentor, role model, hero say to do?
3. What would Jesus do?
4. What is the most difficult thing to do?
5. What if I knew I would have to tell my children, grandchildren about this?
6. What would I tell my children or best friend to do in this situation?
7. What will I be most proud of having done? The pain of discipline is always less than the pain of regret.
8. What if I wait a day or a month or a year, will it still be a good decision? The bigger or more permanent the decision, the more you should wait.
9. What kind of person would be most likely to do this thing? Are they people you are wanting to be like? What would a despicable person do? Do the opposite. How would the person you are trying to become do it?
10. If the people this act will affect were my own best friends and loved ones, would I do it?
11. What is the most loving thing to do?
12. What if she were your sister, mother, daughter…? Would you be proud to tell the 15 year old son of your current girlfriend 25 years from now every aspect of your relationship and how you treated his mom before she met his dad?
13. What will make your soul the most beautiful?
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
Why origins views matter
Note: As you read this side-by-side comparison, keep this very important caveat in mind. Most people in this country believe quite strongly in the moral conclusions which flow from a Creation view. Many of them also believe in Evolution. The point of this comparison is that holding Evolution as a historical view of the origin of human life most naturally leads to a set of moral conclusions which are radically different from and incompatible with those which lead naturally from a Biblical Creation view. Rather than having a debate about the factual merits of either claim in a historical sense, I think it's very useful to look at it from the standpoint of implications. If we really embrace Evolution and then are willing to follow that through to its moral and political conclusions, we find ourselves arriving at an abominal conclusion. For this reason alone, I believe we should embrace a Creation view. What most Americans do here is straddle the fence, embracing Evolution as a factual theory but then embracing (most) of the Creation moral system. But if the conceptual foundation for that far more desirable moral system evaporates, then it's no longer intellectually honest to keep those conclusions.
To give one example, there is a rather infamous article (Why Men Rape, published by the New York Academy of Sciences in 2000) in which rape is explained and justified as an evolutionary adaptation that not only isn't wrong but actually makes sense from a gene-propagation viewpoint. Now the article's authors (and every other person I've ever met who believes in evolution) deplore rape, and the article's intent is to clarify the origins of rape-inclincation so that it can properly be treated and prevented. But a more natural observation is that they are right and there isn't really any good reason for us to abhor rape, except that we embraced a religious perspective which condemned it. So, we have three choices on this particular issue:
1. Fully embrace Evolution by applying it consistently to our ethics by endorsing rape,
2. Partially embrace Evolution and yet refuse to apply it consistently to our ethics by remaining opposed to rape without a logical ground for that objection.
3. Embrace Creation and oppose rape as a violation of God's Will and the dignity of women made in His image.
People who oppose religion regularly try to put us in the position of having to accept the most unappealing implications of our other intellectual commitments. I think it's only fair to require the same thing of those who offer an alternative worldview to religion. Do most ordinary people who believe in Evolution accept its moral implications? Of course not. Not even core of ardent academic advocates for Evolution do so? Why not? Because the conclusions are abominable. But this dogmatic refusal turns out to be one of the very best reasons to reject Evolution in the first place.
One other observation. When the implications of Evolution are presented this way, the theory's defenders scoff and offer theories about how Evolution might actually work to create the current morality we enjoy. What they never seem willing to notice is that the morality we all want to believe in is inseparable from the religious backstory given to justify it. If religious morality is an Evolutionary adaptation to benefit society, then religion itself is an Evolutionary adaptation to benefit people. But it's not enough to believe this half-heartedly the way someone who views it AS an adaptation would. For these things to work, we have to REALLY believe them deeply AS IF they are real. Hence, Evolutionary theorists should pretty much just stop proclaiming their theory (which underminse the beneficial impact of religious thinking on ethics) and let our beneficial religious adaptations do their thing. There's just no clean way of keeping their theory and also keeping the real benefits of Biblical Creation morality.
With these notes in mind, here are the two theories compared concerning their most natural ethical implications.
Evolution view of the nature of human life
1. Animals with reason (degree/kind)
2. Random, accidental
3. Value by skills, strength
4. Some are worth more than others
5. Genetics, environment, programming
6. No purpose
7. Improving over time (Cavemen)
8. Can’t have knowledge
1. Entirely separate, soul, morality, God’s image
2. Designed, planned
3. Infinite individual value regardless of skills
4. All are equal
5. Free will
6. Purpose
7. Getting worse over time (Early men were smart)
8. Can have knowledge
Comparing Evolution and Creation on a variety of concepts.
Human Rights
Evolution—Myths, there’s only strength
Creation—Real things, protect the weak from strong
Life
Evolution—Common, not special
Creation—Unique and precious
Marriage
Evolution—Social arrangement, myth
Creation—God’s designed purpose for us
Family Structure
Evolution—No formal structure
Creation—Parental authority, nuclear family = building block of society
Clothing
Evolution—For warmth, only functional
Creation—To cover nudity, why we’re against pornography
7 Day week
Evolution—Why not something other than this?
Creation—Essential. It’s the foundation of time, beneficial
Knowledge
Evolution—Still guessing
Creation—God defines Truth, revealed despite our limitations
Government
Evolution—Control animals, do good
Creation—Limited, with authority in certain areas, prevent evil
Population
Evolution—Scarcity, Zero-Population-Growth is a goal
Creation—Abundance, be fruitful and multiply
Purpose of life
Evolution—Nothing, live and die
Creation—To glorify God, there is a purpose to everything
Sex
Evolution—As much as possible, no rules, anything goes
Creation—A blessing within marriage for a purpose
Morality
Evolution—At best, no rules at all, at worst, being vicious is good, might makes right.
Creation—Give, serve, be kind, follow rules and principles
Environment
Evolution— Animal rights, environmentalism, they are as precious as we are, ironically not at all, also.
Creation— We have dominion with responsibility
Science
Evolution—Just a silly game we play
Creation—Discovering the rules God built into the universe
Soul
Evolution—Nope
Creation—Real, the actual basis of human identity
Afterlife
Evolution—Nope, enjoy life now
Creation—Accountability, Eternal destiny
Races
Evolution—Each race is different, and racism makes perfect sense
Creation—All equal because all from Noah. No races.
Who has really taken the ideas of Darwin seriously?
Pol Pot, Stalin, Lenin, Castro. Foundation for communism. People are animals.
Hitler--Kill off inferior races
Malthus, Jacues Cousteau and Ted Turner—abortion, cut down reproduction, scarce resources
Education
Either it doesn’t matter and we shouldn’t teach it or it does matter and we should discuss how so.
If you teach kids they are animals and then they act like animals, should you be surprised?
"Why not teach them both theories and let them decide for themselves?" They're kids! Plus, the prior question is whether it really matters, back to the dilemma above.
What if they started teaching that Jesus never lived or wasn’t resurrected as a scientific fact in school?
“That to compel a man to furnish funds for the propagation of opinions which he considers abhorrent is tyranny.” Thomas Jefferson
Implications for Christianity
Creator, Accountability, Sin, Death, Blood sacrifice, Cross, resurrection
If not created perfect, don’t need atonement
Paul, Jesus were fools for believing in Genesis.
Authority of Scripture, Bible is a lie, no need for Jesus to die
God—stupid, incompetent, vicious, liar.
Why would you want to believe in this theory? Advocated by people who hate religion.
“Makes atheism respectable.” Icthus bumper stickers.
How do you separate the mythology from the hyper-accurate detail in Genesis?Education and parental obligation—introduce to God.
A Scriptural analysis of the Theory of Evolution
Biblical problems with evolution
~Jesus said in Matthew 19:4 and Mark 10:6 that the creation of Adam and Eve was the beginning. If it was not the beginning, then Jesus is a liar. Also look at Luke 17:26-29, Luke 20:37, Luke 24:25-27 and 44, John 1:3. Jesus also says “It is written” 39 times and “Have ye not read?” 9 times in the gospel. He clearly believed and taught that the Old Testament was historical and reliable.
~John 5:45-47—“if you don’t believe Moses and the prophets, you won’t believe me.” Moses was the author of the Pentateuch, particularly Genesis. Jesus is affirming both the authorship and the authority of those books.
~Exodus 20:11—The version of the ten commandments written in the stone by the finger of God. Many try to discount Genesis, but they have much more trouble with this one. After all, if anything in the Old Testament can be taken literally, it’s got to be these commandments. (See Exodus 31:18)
~1 Corinthians 15:45 and Romans 5: 12-14 Paul bases his whole theology of salvation on the sin of Adam and our option to enter into the second Adam: Jesus. A myth is not a good foundation for a true theology.
~John 1:36 and Exodus 12 and Genesis 3:21 Jesus is the Lamb of God, which is meaningless without the historical exodus from Egypt and Passover which can only be understood in the context of blood sacrifice stemming from Genesis. If we were not made perfect and then sinned, we did not need a blood sacrifice for our sins. Then, Jesus did not need to die. (See also Matthew 26:28 and Hebrews 9:22)
~2 Peter 3:3-6—Three things people don’t understand when they mock the Bible: Creation, Water, and Flood. Also, they mock because they do not want to accept the moral restrictions God brings.
~Romans 1:20—Conscience, Evidence of world, Word. We can see God in His creation.
Why it matters conceptually for a Christian:
There are five essential features of Christian salvation theology: Creator, Accountability, Sin, Death, Redemption. The entire Christian faith rests on these five things. Otherwise, there is no need for Christ to die. If we don’t stand in need of redemption, then Christ did not have to die, and He died in vain as a fool. After all, He even prayed to the Father to “take away this cup from me, nevertheless not what I will, but what thou wilt.” Jesus was clearly convinced it was the direct Will of the Father that He be crucified. But if He did not need to die in order to redeem us from sin (because the world was created sinful with death included) then why would the Father command Jesus to go to the cross? And if the Father did not so command Jesus, then Jesus is not the messiah and certainly not divine. Either possibility is unacceptable. In other words, if there were millions of years of death before Adam, then there were millions of years of sin before Adam (since death comes from sin, Romans 6:23) and the Creation was never created perfect and in need of a redeemer. The whole concept of blood sacrifice which eventually culminated in the Cross goes away.
How do you expect to convert people if you don’t even take your own “Holy” book seriously? The biggest stumbling block to Christianity is Christians who cannot answer questions which intelligent new converts ask them, and the majority of these questions come from the very first book in the Bible, often because they haven’t even read the whole thing.
Implications of theistic evolution for our concept of God.
~God is too stupid to know what He really wants. He had to wait and see how it evolved.
~God is incapable of doing what He wants in one short period of time as it says in Genesis.
~God is vicious, creating a carnage-infested world on purpose. Is that really God’s best?
~God is a liar. When He pronounced everything very good in Genesis 1:31, He was wrong.
The real issue is whether we are going to trust God and His Word and start from there or whether we are going to trust our eyes and our minds and start with what we see rather than what we are told by God. Are we going to take the words of a perfect God who was there or the words of fallible men who weren’t there? Hebrews 11:1 “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” 2 Corinthians 5:7 “For we walk by faith, not by sight.”
There is no reason for a Christian to compromise on this issue, and the implications of compromise are devastating for theology. What possible motive could there be to do so other than putting the theory of men above the Word of God?
Miscellaneous Issues
1 Objection: This is just a divisive issue. Don’t stir up the pot.
Answer: What issues are worth fighting over among us? When does heresy become serious enough? The truth is divisive. (Luke 12:49-53) “One should not judge a method or message on the basis of whether it is divisive or not, but on the basis of whether it is truth and based on the Bible.” Ken Ham
2 Objection: You should worry about saving people, not disputing peripheral stuff.
Answer: That’s how we got in this mess: by failing to teach the relevance of the Old Testament to people, the foundation of the New Testament erodes. If we fail to address the source of the problem, we will continue to reap failure in the end results. You cannot fix a problem that developed from the foundations up by repairing the symptoms. You must fix the problem at the source. Besides, evolution is the number one stumbling block to people receiving the message of Christianity with an open mind. It’s amazing how many people will at least listen once they come to recognize just how shaky the idea of evolution is.
“What I am saying is this: issues such as abortion are just symptoms of the foundational change. Thus, one can’t change the culture back to a Christian philosophy just by attacking the issues. Christian morality can’t ultimately and consistently stand on the wrong foundation of evolution. If the approach is merely to try to get politicians to change the laws about abortion, homosexual behavior, and the like, it won’t work in the long run. Even if some laws were changed to be more consistent with Christian thinking, what happens if new legislators who don’t accept Christianity get voted in? They’ll just change the laws back again. You can’t change a system from the top down when it has changed from the foundation up. Fighting the issues may bring these things to people’s attention. And it may stimulate much discussion and debate. But in the long run, this approach will not change society.” Ken Ham
3 Objection: It’s not clear what a day means in Genesis.
Answer: The Hebrew word “Yom” can mean either an ordinary day or an indeterminate period of time. However, the key to textual interpretation is to let the text interpret itself. Every time the word, “Yom” is used in the Old Testament along with a number (1st, tenth, etc) it always means an ordinary day. When it means a period of time, it is always used without a number. Besides, if a “day” is actually a period of time, then what in the world does it mean to say “And the evening and the morning were the Xth day.”? Also, where does the Sabbath come from?
4 Objection: Time is different for God, look at 2 Peter 3:8, “one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.”
Answer: Ignore the fact that this is telling us that God lives outside of time not that time cannot be measured, and consider the implications of this way of interpreting such a passage. This means that every reference to time in the Bible becomes unreliable. Any mention of time could be thousands of times off in duration. Besides, simply observe that this is just after Peter has just told us how absolutely crucial the creation, waters, and flood are in verses 5-6. Why would Peter soundly affirm the creation story and then write about time in a way which completely undermines the creation story? But okay, if a day is a thousand years, then when the Bible says that Adam lived to be 930 years old, that must mean he really lived to be 930 x 365 x 1000 years = way too old! There is no fundamental need to mention units of time in the accounts given, why not leave them out entirely unless they have some meaning and accuracy? The earmarkings of a genuine historical account are that it includes information which can be falsified and which is not necessary to the main point. If “wise men” really wrote the Bible all on their own, why would they put in things like names dates and incredible life-spans. This just isn’t the way people write fables.
5 Objection: Maybe there’s a gap of time between Genesis 1:2 and Genesis 1:3.
Answer: Same as above, why not just tell the whole story? Also, Genesis 2:1 says “thus” indicating this is the complete story. Besides, if there is a big gap, then what did God mean when He said in Exodus 20:11 “For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day, and hallowed it.” Are we really to understand that when God carved in the tablets of stone with His finger that He really meant “For in six days (after billions of years) the Lord…”?
6 Objection: But most of the Old Testament is just fables and tales to explain what we didn’t understand.
Answer: But all around this supposedly embellished or invented account are all sorts of names, dates, places, and measurements, none of which have been invalidated and most of which have been affirmed by modern archaeology. How do you find a razor so thin as to cut out and save the parts which are literally accurate from the parts which are fables? Why didn’t or why couldn’t God just tell us the truth in the Bible? Genesis is in the history section of the Old Testament, clearly not poetry or prophecy.
7 Objection: Couldn’t there have been people, time, or anything before Adam and Eve?
Answer: Jesus calling Adam and Eve the beginning. This means either He was confused or lying, neither of which is a particularly acceptable conclusion.
8 Objection: Don’t Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 contradict each other?
Answer: Sure they do if you read them as different accounts of the same period of time, but that’s not what they are. Genesis 2 is an expanded description of the events of day 6, which were glossed over by Genesis 1. You can’t read Hebrew texts like it’s a Western text, they don’t always read in chronological order like that. Besides, let’s consider the possibility that these two chapters were just written by men as differing accounts of creation. What kind of colossal fools would these men have to have been to then place them side by side in the very first pages of the book for anyone to compare and see the contradiction? Perhaps the words are accurate since it seems at best uncharitable to assume that the “great and wise scholars” who are thought to have written the Bible were so ignorant they didn’t see this problem. Think of it like this, when someone invents something, he usually designs it to not look contradictory, but this error seems so blatant that it either must be right or they were complete idiots. The rest of the Bible is too brilliant to have been composed by idiots, so…they must have been right.
9 Objection: Creation is religion and evolution is science.
Answer: The Christian religion is a religion based entirely on a factual history which requires certain things to be factually true or else it is false. If Jesus did not really life, die, become resurrected, and ascend, then Christianity is all a big mistake. Even Paul says so. (1 Cor 15:17) If this world developed all on its own by natural processes, then there is no creator. If there is no creator, then God is just something we invented to make ourselves feel better. Evolution is not science any more than Creationism is. Both are historical, since they deal with unique, unobservable, unduplicateable phenomena.
Educational issues
~“It were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he cast into the sea, than that he should offend one of these little ones.” Luke 17:1-2
~Education is a parent’s responsibility, not the government. And the primary purpose of education is to introduce a child to God by teaching him His commands and nature. Deut 6:4-6
~“Let me control the textbooks and I will control the state.” Adolf Hitler
~“The universities only ought to turn out men who are experts in the Holy Scriptures, men who can become bishops and priests, and stand in the front and all the world. But where do you find that? I greatly fear that the universities, unless they teach the Holy Scritures diligently and impress them on the young students, are wide gates to hell….I would advise no one to send his child where the Holy Scriptures are not supreme. Every institution that does not unceasingly pursue the study of God’s Word becomes corrupt. Because of this we can see what kind of people they become in the universities and what they are like now.” Martin Luther
~Remember, this is a historical issue, not a scientific one. In the schools, this issue is presented as historical fact, but yet it directly contradicts the clearest reading of the Bible. If someone were to teach that Jesus never existed as a matter of historical fact, or that He was never resurrected as a matter of medical or scientific fact, surely this would be an unacceptable State sponsorship of anti-religion. Evolution in the public schools is no different. It is a historical claim with anti-religious implications.
Other thoughts
Keep this in mind. The ideas in this handout are taken specifically from the perspective of whether evolution can be squared with the Bible or with Christianity. Can someone be a Christian and believe in evolution? Sure. Because being a Christian doesn’t mean you know everything or live perfectly. It’s a beginning. Salvation is dependent on grace, not on works, even mental works. The problem is that eventually as you understand what it means to believe in Christ as a Redeemer, you understand that the two ideas are truly incompatible. From the very beginning, shedding of blood has been the only way to atone for the sins of man and bring man into a right relationship with God. Even following the expulsion from Eden, God finds the leaves Adam and Eve use to cover themselves insufficient and He slaughters an animal and makes “coats of skins” for them to wear. Genesis 3:22. This means blood had to be shed. Eventually this need for blood is what made the Cross so necessary. If there was death and sin before Adam, then the whole foundation for needing a Redeemer in Jesus falls apart.
Many people want to mythologize Genesis and claim that those things never really happened. They are just some kind of “useful story” to help us understand things. Why can’t God have chosen to use True events to help us understand things? The idea here is that you can only explain the Truth by using lies and fictional stories. How does that make any sense? Besides, there are a whole lot of very important concepts which come directly from Genesis such as the commands to procreate, live in marriage, wear clothing, work or labor, not murder, rest one day in seven and so on. Such concepts do not have much intellectual vigor if they are understood as coming completely out of mythology.
The Icthus (A Greek Acronym for Jesus Christ, Son of God, Savior, which, when spelled in Greek, the first letters of this phrase also spell out the word for fish.) has long been a symbol which Christians have used to identify themselves, both because of the linguistic ties and for the “fishers of men” concept. You can see these symbols on many cars in America today. In response to the Icthus bumper signs, atheists contemptuously place similar looking symbols on their cars only with little legs and feet added (to look like an amphibian, which is evolving into a “better” way of thinking) and the word “Darwin” printed inside the body of the fish/reptile. If evolution is really a non-religious or religion-neutral idea, then why would people who believe in it take this approach? Why would they replace an acronym for “Jesus Christ, Son of God, Savior” with Charles Darwin’s name? Think about it, why on earth would a Christian want to compromise and reconcile himself with people who would use the theory of evolution as a way to mock and ridicule Christianity? If you really think there is no incompatibility between the two, then ask someone with such a bumper sign on his car if he agrees. Even atheists seem to get this point of incompatibility better than many Christians:
Quotes
“Christianity is—must be—totally committed to the special creation as described in Genesis, and Christianity must fight with all its full might, fair or foul, against the theory of evolution….It becomes clear now that the whole justification of Jesus’ life and death is predicated on the existence of Adam and the forbidden fruit he and Eve ate. Without the original sin, who needs to be redeemed? Without Adam’s fall into al life of constant sin terminated by death, what purpose is there to Christianity? None.” G. Richard Bozarth in The American Atheist, Sept 1978, p 19.
“Selection is the blindest, and most cruel way of evolving new species, and more complex and refined organisms…the more cruel because it is a process of elimination, of destruction. The struggle for life and the elimination of the weakest is a horrible process, against which our whole modern ethic revolts. An ideal society is a non-selective society, it is one where the weak are protected; which is exactly the reverse of the so-called natural law. I am surprised that a Christian would defend the idea that this is the process which God more or less set up in order to have evolution.” Jacques Monod—biologist and philosopher
I believe it was Richard Dawkins (Possibly one of the Huxleys) who said, “Darwinism has made atheism respectable.”
“I came to the conclusion that there were two factors which destroyed Christianity in Western Europe. One was the theory of evolution, and the other, liberal theology….Liberal theology is just evolution applied to the Bible and our faith.” Josef Ton, pastor of the largest Baptist Church in Romania now living in exile in the U.S.
Finally, consider this.
The original lie told to Eve by Satan in the Garden of Eden went through three stages.
1. Questioning God’s Words. (Genesis 3:1)
2. Outright denial of God’s Words. (Genesis 3:4)
3. A promise to develop into more evolved beings (gods) (Genesis 3:5)
The theory of evolution says the same three things in the same order.
1. Couldn’t the Earth be extremely old? (Question the Bible)
2. Adam and Eve never existed, nor was the world created by God, perfect, in six days. (Deny the Bible)
3. If you wait around, people will evolve into something better. (You will be as gods.)
There isn’t anything new in this idea of evolution. It’s just the same old original lie spruced up with some brand new bells and whistles to distract us from the real message it contains.
~Jesus said in Matthew 19:4 and Mark 10:6 that the creation of Adam and Eve was the beginning. If it was not the beginning, then Jesus is a liar. Also look at Luke 17:26-29, Luke 20:37, Luke 24:25-27 and 44, John 1:3. Jesus also says “It is written” 39 times and “Have ye not read?” 9 times in the gospel. He clearly believed and taught that the Old Testament was historical and reliable.
~John 5:45-47—“if you don’t believe Moses and the prophets, you won’t believe me.” Moses was the author of the Pentateuch, particularly Genesis. Jesus is affirming both the authorship and the authority of those books.
~Exodus 20:11—The version of the ten commandments written in the stone by the finger of God. Many try to discount Genesis, but they have much more trouble with this one. After all, if anything in the Old Testament can be taken literally, it’s got to be these commandments. (See Exodus 31:18)
~1 Corinthians 15:45 and Romans 5: 12-14 Paul bases his whole theology of salvation on the sin of Adam and our option to enter into the second Adam: Jesus. A myth is not a good foundation for a true theology.
~John 1:36 and Exodus 12 and Genesis 3:21 Jesus is the Lamb of God, which is meaningless without the historical exodus from Egypt and Passover which can only be understood in the context of blood sacrifice stemming from Genesis. If we were not made perfect and then sinned, we did not need a blood sacrifice for our sins. Then, Jesus did not need to die. (See also Matthew 26:28 and Hebrews 9:22)
~2 Peter 3:3-6—Three things people don’t understand when they mock the Bible: Creation, Water, and Flood. Also, they mock because they do not want to accept the moral restrictions God brings.
~Romans 1:20—Conscience, Evidence of world, Word. We can see God in His creation.
Why it matters conceptually for a Christian:
There are five essential features of Christian salvation theology: Creator, Accountability, Sin, Death, Redemption. The entire Christian faith rests on these five things. Otherwise, there is no need for Christ to die. If we don’t stand in need of redemption, then Christ did not have to die, and He died in vain as a fool. After all, He even prayed to the Father to “take away this cup from me, nevertheless not what I will, but what thou wilt.” Jesus was clearly convinced it was the direct Will of the Father that He be crucified. But if He did not need to die in order to redeem us from sin (because the world was created sinful with death included) then why would the Father command Jesus to go to the cross? And if the Father did not so command Jesus, then Jesus is not the messiah and certainly not divine. Either possibility is unacceptable. In other words, if there were millions of years of death before Adam, then there were millions of years of sin before Adam (since death comes from sin, Romans 6:23) and the Creation was never created perfect and in need of a redeemer. The whole concept of blood sacrifice which eventually culminated in the Cross goes away.
How do you expect to convert people if you don’t even take your own “Holy” book seriously? The biggest stumbling block to Christianity is Christians who cannot answer questions which intelligent new converts ask them, and the majority of these questions come from the very first book in the Bible, often because they haven’t even read the whole thing.
Implications of theistic evolution for our concept of God.
~God is too stupid to know what He really wants. He had to wait and see how it evolved.
~God is incapable of doing what He wants in one short period of time as it says in Genesis.
~God is vicious, creating a carnage-infested world on purpose. Is that really God’s best?
~God is a liar. When He pronounced everything very good in Genesis 1:31, He was wrong.
The real issue is whether we are going to trust God and His Word and start from there or whether we are going to trust our eyes and our minds and start with what we see rather than what we are told by God. Are we going to take the words of a perfect God who was there or the words of fallible men who weren’t there? Hebrews 11:1 “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” 2 Corinthians 5:7 “For we walk by faith, not by sight.”
There is no reason for a Christian to compromise on this issue, and the implications of compromise are devastating for theology. What possible motive could there be to do so other than putting the theory of men above the Word of God?
Miscellaneous Issues
1 Objection: This is just a divisive issue. Don’t stir up the pot.
Answer: What issues are worth fighting over among us? When does heresy become serious enough? The truth is divisive. (Luke 12:49-53) “One should not judge a method or message on the basis of whether it is divisive or not, but on the basis of whether it is truth and based on the Bible.” Ken Ham
2 Objection: You should worry about saving people, not disputing peripheral stuff.
Answer: That’s how we got in this mess: by failing to teach the relevance of the Old Testament to people, the foundation of the New Testament erodes. If we fail to address the source of the problem, we will continue to reap failure in the end results. You cannot fix a problem that developed from the foundations up by repairing the symptoms. You must fix the problem at the source. Besides, evolution is the number one stumbling block to people receiving the message of Christianity with an open mind. It’s amazing how many people will at least listen once they come to recognize just how shaky the idea of evolution is.
“What I am saying is this: issues such as abortion are just symptoms of the foundational change. Thus, one can’t change the culture back to a Christian philosophy just by attacking the issues. Christian morality can’t ultimately and consistently stand on the wrong foundation of evolution. If the approach is merely to try to get politicians to change the laws about abortion, homosexual behavior, and the like, it won’t work in the long run. Even if some laws were changed to be more consistent with Christian thinking, what happens if new legislators who don’t accept Christianity get voted in? They’ll just change the laws back again. You can’t change a system from the top down when it has changed from the foundation up. Fighting the issues may bring these things to people’s attention. And it may stimulate much discussion and debate. But in the long run, this approach will not change society.” Ken Ham
3 Objection: It’s not clear what a day means in Genesis.
Answer: The Hebrew word “Yom” can mean either an ordinary day or an indeterminate period of time. However, the key to textual interpretation is to let the text interpret itself. Every time the word, “Yom” is used in the Old Testament along with a number (1st, tenth, etc) it always means an ordinary day. When it means a period of time, it is always used without a number. Besides, if a “day” is actually a period of time, then what in the world does it mean to say “And the evening and the morning were the Xth day.”? Also, where does the Sabbath come from?
4 Objection: Time is different for God, look at 2 Peter 3:8, “one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.”
Answer: Ignore the fact that this is telling us that God lives outside of time not that time cannot be measured, and consider the implications of this way of interpreting such a passage. This means that every reference to time in the Bible becomes unreliable. Any mention of time could be thousands of times off in duration. Besides, simply observe that this is just after Peter has just told us how absolutely crucial the creation, waters, and flood are in verses 5-6. Why would Peter soundly affirm the creation story and then write about time in a way which completely undermines the creation story? But okay, if a day is a thousand years, then when the Bible says that Adam lived to be 930 years old, that must mean he really lived to be 930 x 365 x 1000 years = way too old! There is no fundamental need to mention units of time in the accounts given, why not leave them out entirely unless they have some meaning and accuracy? The earmarkings of a genuine historical account are that it includes information which can be falsified and which is not necessary to the main point. If “wise men” really wrote the Bible all on their own, why would they put in things like names dates and incredible life-spans. This just isn’t the way people write fables.
5 Objection: Maybe there’s a gap of time between Genesis 1:2 and Genesis 1:3.
Answer: Same as above, why not just tell the whole story? Also, Genesis 2:1 says “thus” indicating this is the complete story. Besides, if there is a big gap, then what did God mean when He said in Exodus 20:11 “For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day, and hallowed it.” Are we really to understand that when God carved in the tablets of stone with His finger that He really meant “For in six days (after billions of years) the Lord…”?
6 Objection: But most of the Old Testament is just fables and tales to explain what we didn’t understand.
Answer: But all around this supposedly embellished or invented account are all sorts of names, dates, places, and measurements, none of which have been invalidated and most of which have been affirmed by modern archaeology. How do you find a razor so thin as to cut out and save the parts which are literally accurate from the parts which are fables? Why didn’t or why couldn’t God just tell us the truth in the Bible? Genesis is in the history section of the Old Testament, clearly not poetry or prophecy.
7 Objection: Couldn’t there have been people, time, or anything before Adam and Eve?
Answer: Jesus calling Adam and Eve the beginning. This means either He was confused or lying, neither of which is a particularly acceptable conclusion.
8 Objection: Don’t Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 contradict each other?
Answer: Sure they do if you read them as different accounts of the same period of time, but that’s not what they are. Genesis 2 is an expanded description of the events of day 6, which were glossed over by Genesis 1. You can’t read Hebrew texts like it’s a Western text, they don’t always read in chronological order like that. Besides, let’s consider the possibility that these two chapters were just written by men as differing accounts of creation. What kind of colossal fools would these men have to have been to then place them side by side in the very first pages of the book for anyone to compare and see the contradiction? Perhaps the words are accurate since it seems at best uncharitable to assume that the “great and wise scholars” who are thought to have written the Bible were so ignorant they didn’t see this problem. Think of it like this, when someone invents something, he usually designs it to not look contradictory, but this error seems so blatant that it either must be right or they were complete idiots. The rest of the Bible is too brilliant to have been composed by idiots, so…they must have been right.
9 Objection: Creation is religion and evolution is science.
Answer: The Christian religion is a religion based entirely on a factual history which requires certain things to be factually true or else it is false. If Jesus did not really life, die, become resurrected, and ascend, then Christianity is all a big mistake. Even Paul says so. (1 Cor 15:17) If this world developed all on its own by natural processes, then there is no creator. If there is no creator, then God is just something we invented to make ourselves feel better. Evolution is not science any more than Creationism is. Both are historical, since they deal with unique, unobservable, unduplicateable phenomena.
Educational issues
~“It were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he cast into the sea, than that he should offend one of these little ones.” Luke 17:1-2
~Education is a parent’s responsibility, not the government. And the primary purpose of education is to introduce a child to God by teaching him His commands and nature. Deut 6:4-6
~“Let me control the textbooks and I will control the state.” Adolf Hitler
~“The universities only ought to turn out men who are experts in the Holy Scriptures, men who can become bishops and priests, and stand in the front and all the world. But where do you find that? I greatly fear that the universities, unless they teach the Holy Scritures diligently and impress them on the young students, are wide gates to hell….I would advise no one to send his child where the Holy Scriptures are not supreme. Every institution that does not unceasingly pursue the study of God’s Word becomes corrupt. Because of this we can see what kind of people they become in the universities and what they are like now.” Martin Luther
~Remember, this is a historical issue, not a scientific one. In the schools, this issue is presented as historical fact, but yet it directly contradicts the clearest reading of the Bible. If someone were to teach that Jesus never existed as a matter of historical fact, or that He was never resurrected as a matter of medical or scientific fact, surely this would be an unacceptable State sponsorship of anti-religion. Evolution in the public schools is no different. It is a historical claim with anti-religious implications.
Other thoughts
Keep this in mind. The ideas in this handout are taken specifically from the perspective of whether evolution can be squared with the Bible or with Christianity. Can someone be a Christian and believe in evolution? Sure. Because being a Christian doesn’t mean you know everything or live perfectly. It’s a beginning. Salvation is dependent on grace, not on works, even mental works. The problem is that eventually as you understand what it means to believe in Christ as a Redeemer, you understand that the two ideas are truly incompatible. From the very beginning, shedding of blood has been the only way to atone for the sins of man and bring man into a right relationship with God. Even following the expulsion from Eden, God finds the leaves Adam and Eve use to cover themselves insufficient and He slaughters an animal and makes “coats of skins” for them to wear. Genesis 3:22. This means blood had to be shed. Eventually this need for blood is what made the Cross so necessary. If there was death and sin before Adam, then the whole foundation for needing a Redeemer in Jesus falls apart.
Many people want to mythologize Genesis and claim that those things never really happened. They are just some kind of “useful story” to help us understand things. Why can’t God have chosen to use True events to help us understand things? The idea here is that you can only explain the Truth by using lies and fictional stories. How does that make any sense? Besides, there are a whole lot of very important concepts which come directly from Genesis such as the commands to procreate, live in marriage, wear clothing, work or labor, not murder, rest one day in seven and so on. Such concepts do not have much intellectual vigor if they are understood as coming completely out of mythology.
The Icthus (A Greek Acronym for Jesus Christ, Son of God, Savior, which, when spelled in Greek, the first letters of this phrase also spell out the word for fish.) has long been a symbol which Christians have used to identify themselves, both because of the linguistic ties and for the “fishers of men” concept. You can see these symbols on many cars in America today. In response to the Icthus bumper signs, atheists contemptuously place similar looking symbols on their cars only with little legs and feet added (to look like an amphibian, which is evolving into a “better” way of thinking) and the word “Darwin” printed inside the body of the fish/reptile. If evolution is really a non-religious or religion-neutral idea, then why would people who believe in it take this approach? Why would they replace an acronym for “Jesus Christ, Son of God, Savior” with Charles Darwin’s name? Think about it, why on earth would a Christian want to compromise and reconcile himself with people who would use the theory of evolution as a way to mock and ridicule Christianity? If you really think there is no incompatibility between the two, then ask someone with such a bumper sign on his car if he agrees. Even atheists seem to get this point of incompatibility better than many Christians:
Quotes
“Christianity is—must be—totally committed to the special creation as described in Genesis, and Christianity must fight with all its full might, fair or foul, against the theory of evolution….It becomes clear now that the whole justification of Jesus’ life and death is predicated on the existence of Adam and the forbidden fruit he and Eve ate. Without the original sin, who needs to be redeemed? Without Adam’s fall into al life of constant sin terminated by death, what purpose is there to Christianity? None.” G. Richard Bozarth in The American Atheist, Sept 1978, p 19.
“Selection is the blindest, and most cruel way of evolving new species, and more complex and refined organisms…the more cruel because it is a process of elimination, of destruction. The struggle for life and the elimination of the weakest is a horrible process, against which our whole modern ethic revolts. An ideal society is a non-selective society, it is one where the weak are protected; which is exactly the reverse of the so-called natural law. I am surprised that a Christian would defend the idea that this is the process which God more or less set up in order to have evolution.” Jacques Monod—biologist and philosopher
I believe it was Richard Dawkins (Possibly one of the Huxleys) who said, “Darwinism has made atheism respectable.”
“I came to the conclusion that there were two factors which destroyed Christianity in Western Europe. One was the theory of evolution, and the other, liberal theology….Liberal theology is just evolution applied to the Bible and our faith.” Josef Ton, pastor of the largest Baptist Church in Romania now living in exile in the U.S.
Finally, consider this.
The original lie told to Eve by Satan in the Garden of Eden went through three stages.
1. Questioning God’s Words. (Genesis 3:1)
2. Outright denial of God’s Words. (Genesis 3:4)
3. A promise to develop into more evolved beings (gods) (Genesis 3:5)
The theory of evolution says the same three things in the same order.
1. Couldn’t the Earth be extremely old? (Question the Bible)
2. Adam and Eve never existed, nor was the world created by God, perfect, in six days. (Deny the Bible)
3. If you wait around, people will evolve into something better. (You will be as gods.)
There isn’t anything new in this idea of evolution. It’s just the same old original lie spruced up with some brand new bells and whistles to distract us from the real message it contains.
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