tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15005476.post342978088465388399..comments2023-10-10T08:02:18.073-04:00Comments on Rationally Speaking: David Silverman and the scope of atheismUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger132125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15005476.post-58112822783660931892014-03-20T15:11:28.465-04:002014-03-20T15:11:28.465-04:00Ah, Massimo, what is it with the word "religi...Ah, Massimo, what is it with the word "religion" that drives you so far up a tree? Ethical Culture was a favorite of Einstein, as it is of mine. There is nothing oxymoronic about its concept of secular religion. Simply put, this is the pulling together of life's greatest concerns in a completely naturalistic way. The mere fact that theism has been a dominant feature of religion does not change or diminish the fact that the religious quest is broader than that: the attempt to understand all things as best we can, and bring it together as a coherent whole. When the primitive farmer first conceived of a god, his concern was to understand and control rainfall, so that his family would have enough food for the coming winter. His answer was theistic but his concerns were secular. There is no reason to divide our humanistic and naturalistic communities over this point. Paul LaClairhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02670835499103468017noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15005476.post-18498622015785466432014-03-17T12:29:22.910-04:002014-03-17T12:29:22.910-04:00PZ Meyers and Richard Carrier. That being said, I...PZ Meyers and Richard Carrier. That being said, I would be happy to level this criticism at any proponent of "Atheism +" and its relatives.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07959754966481123901noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15005476.post-51641659885087483632014-03-17T09:03:52.852-04:002014-03-17T09:03:52.852-04:00I pretty much agree with everything in Imad's ...I pretty much agree with everything in Imad's commentary. I have also put my own take on the issue of whether emotions are morally relevant in reply to Massimo in the post-script blog post.Jean-Nicolas Denonnehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00443566863833603342noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15005476.post-23912274846542743962014-03-17T07:12:50.820-04:002014-03-17T07:12:50.820-04:00"Edroso was quite clear in his email to me th..."Edroso was quite clear in his email to me that he reported the conversation accurately."<br /><br />That tells me almost nothing. Edroso could be utterly confident that he remembered correctly and still be mistaken. Human memory is like that. If he took notes or recorded the conversation, then I can have reasonable trust that he reported the conversation accurately. Otherwise, I'm going to have far more trust in the broad strokes than the details.J. J. Ramseyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00763792476799485687noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15005476.post-40868702077464930292014-03-17T06:28:11.743-04:002014-03-17T06:28:11.743-04:00This comment has been removed by the author.Jean-Nicolas Denonnehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00443566863833603342noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15005476.post-60138184611681559572014-03-17T06:28:02.400-04:002014-03-17T06:28:02.400-04:00This comment has been removed by the author.Jean-Nicolas Denonnehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00443566863833603342noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15005476.post-18235668502210479212014-03-17T02:58:33.899-04:002014-03-17T02:58:33.899-04:00I'm a libertarian-leaning agnostic atheist. I ...I'm a libertarian-leaning agnostic atheist. I read your blog post and then some post on Freethoughtblogs in reply to you, and they were so vile (and filled with contempt for anyone who doesn't value progressive ideals) that I returned here to thank you for writing this piece.<br /><br />1. I think that government should not reward some relationships with the "marriage" status or tax benefits. But if it does every state should decide for itself which relationships to reward.<br /><br />2. I am not a fundamentalist pro-choice person. I believe abortion is a complex issue and at least, late-term abortions should be outlawed. I acknowledge that there are two bodies/lives, not just the mother's that's relevant.<br /><br />3. I do not think businesses should be forced to serve someone they don't want to. I do not think Hobby Lobby should be forced to provide insurance it doesn't want to.<br /><br />4. I'm a vegan and believe in negative rights for animals (and humans).<br /><br />5. I do not believe in a right to healthcare as it's a positive right.<br /><br />6. I love Rand Paul and Justin Amash. I also like Tea Party people. I believe in individualism.<br /><br />There, I said it. I am not at all a progressive and yet an atheist. Thanks for acknowledging my existence and my views. People who pretend that progressivism is undetachable from atheism are the worst. Charles Cooke of the National Review said it best: that conservatism is what allows the most freedom of thought. (He's an atheist.)Arpithttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17842513683654079721noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15005476.post-69235688695259629732014-03-17T02:54:31.876-04:002014-03-17T02:54:31.876-04:00Edroso was quite clear in his email to me that he ...Edroso was quite clear in his email to me that he reported the conversation accurately. SocketRockshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11256679663031232516noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15005476.post-21885943287579505552014-03-17T02:33:36.224-04:002014-03-17T02:33:36.224-04:00"One can very consistently be an atheist and ...<i>"One can very consistently be an atheist and a progressive, anarchist or libertarian, and I would wager also a traditional conservative."</i><br /><br />I think the latter case is one where "in theory" runs up against facts on the ground. True, somebody could be traditional social conservative and at the same time an atheist, and I'm sure that there are some who fit that description out there. (In fact, they're definitely the kind of people that Silverman was trying to recruit.) But on the other hand, I think if there was a decline in religiosity in the US, one would also see a decline in traditional conservatism (though probably not libertarian conservatism), as in practice, social conservatism in the US is so often the political expression of strong religiosity, to the point where it's hard to separate the two.Iamcuriousbluehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10617001006322490293noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15005476.post-34784675829254053082014-03-17T02:08:20.772-04:002014-03-17T02:08:20.772-04:00Re: JJ Ramsey's post - I read GC's reply a...Re: JJ Ramsey's post - I read GC's reply as well, and also <a href="http://freethoughtblogs.com/almostdiamonds/2014/03/16/debate-is-not-inquiry/" rel="nofollow">Stephanie Zvan's</a>. "Nuanced" is not the word I'd used to describe it, but then I don't think Greta Christina has exactly been a nuanced thinker for the last several years now. Christina and Zvan rehash the basic "social justice warrior" talking point, that basically they're arguing from a position of being stakeholders in the issue (in this case, abortion) and that Massimo as a male is basically arguing from a kind of intellectual dilettantism. (And if you delve into the comments section, the rhetoric gets even more anti-intellectual than that.) For them, the party line that they lay down on the subject as women goes, and if you're a male, your only place as an "ally" is to repeat that line exactly. Otherwise, you're not an "ally", which is as good as being an enemy.<br /><br />The sad thing is, Greta Christina was once a more nuanced thinker, and I think her essay "<a href="http://freethoughtblogs.com/greta/2012/06/13/litmus-tests-skepticism-social-justice/" rel="nofollow">So-Called “Litmus Tests”: Skepticism and Social Justice</a>" is one of the better pieces of writing about the relationship between skepticism and political issues. Ironically, it was written write around the time she was transitioning to full-bore social justice warrior, and has since taken on a whole lot of thoughtless positions and rhetoric that are a 180 degrees from the spirit of that essay. She ought to go back and read her own writing.<br /><br />As to GC and Zvan's strawman, I think all Massimo has said is that there's a difference between atheist activism (which is a fairly narrow set of topics) and pro-choice activism. I don't think he said anywhere that they should drop pro-choice activism, nor even that they should make atheist activism their priority. Yet they're all too ready to rhetorically paint him as a mansplainer who's trying to tell them what their political priorities should be.<br /><br />But once these people have a "Witch of the Week" in their sights, there's seemingly no end to it. At least until they find another witch next week.Iamcuriousbluehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10617001006322490293noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15005476.post-38031437231197567552014-03-17T01:41:15.704-04:002014-03-17T01:41:15.704-04:00I had a serious falling out with those people a fe...I had a serious falling out with those people a few years ago, after some years of Greta Christina being one of my favorite bloggers (both on sex and atheist topics). But I absolutely could not get behind the increasing dogmatism of that movement, and the demand that you tow the line down to the letter on issues like anti-harassment policy, intersectional feminism, and much else. The crazy thing is, I'd say I'm in agreement with most of their politics and at the time was a proponent of New Atheism. (Though that's something these people have managed to sour men on.) But once I dared to openly question anything (in this case, some of the more prudish language in conference anti-harassment policies), I was met with outright hatred, piling on, and ostracism. The kind of mentality I saw at work is a recapitulation of exactly the mentality I don't like in religion, so at this point, I'll have nothing to do with that part of the atheist movement. Unfortunately, that burns bridges with some significant part of organized secularism, as I've seen groups like CFI increasingly towing the "A+" line, particularly in the light of the attacks on Ron Lindsay after he said some much-needed things on factionalism and dogmatism in the secular movement. (Ironically, David Silverman and American Atheists was a group they like to claim as being on their "side" as recently as last year, but the Plussers often "claim" anybody who they've ever had a friendly interaction with as one of their own, at least until they step our of line.) In any event, being politically homeless is something I've gotten used to over the years, with the atheist movement being the latest of many that I just can't quite hang with.Iamcuriousbluehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10617001006322490293noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15005476.post-25602677529718790852014-03-16T22:56:57.747-04:002014-03-16T22:56:57.747-04:00Admittedly I am not in a country nor a citizen of ...Admittedly I am not in a country nor a citizen of a country where that is really an issue, but I am given to understand that in many places in the USA it is pretty much career suicide to come out as an atheist. There may be some politicians who consider that situation okay to varying degrees and other politicians who don't.<br /><br />And ultimately, it is all a question of moving the Overton window. If you constantly vote a party dominated by obsessively religious people into power, the situation for out atheists will deteriorate. If you constantly vote a secular party into power, it will improve.Alex SLhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00801894164903608204noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15005476.post-51623335887664352962014-03-16T14:49:11.873-04:002014-03-16T14:49:11.873-04:00This comment has been removed by the author.J. J. Ramseyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00763792476799485687noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15005476.post-13170807003596751772014-03-16T14:06:31.449-04:002014-03-16T14:06:31.449-04:00Hear, hear. Many "schools" of atheism, l...Hear, hear. Many "schools" of atheism, like Plusers and Gnus, are as "tribalist" as the Religious Right.Gadflyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13075757287807731373noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15005476.post-37002029726047471112014-03-16T14:05:31.449-04:002014-03-16T14:05:31.449-04:00Also, there's a logical failure in your last s...Also, there's a logical failure in your last sentence. Just because arguments against abortion began with Christianity doesn't mean that secuarlists can't develop their own. I don't think knowledgable pro-life secularitists have made a claim to basing their stance on pre-Christian secular philosophical thoughts.Gadflyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13075757287807731373noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15005476.post-53142296004991011402014-03-16T14:03:43.080-04:002014-03-16T14:03:43.080-04:00Sure there's an secular ethical position again...Sure there's an secular ethical position against abortion. Or, against abortion after viability.<br /><br />And, to riff on a favorite theme of Massimo's, one could base it on Aristotelian flourishing.Gadflyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13075757287807731373noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15005476.post-29243731029429777992014-03-16T14:01:35.965-04:002014-03-16T14:01:35.965-04:00Well put on the pain issue and the many lives issu...Well put on the pain issue and the many lives issue. I, and others, argue the viability issue has the same ethical standing.Gadflyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13075757287807731373noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15005476.post-16935396302619820722014-03-16T13:27:16.199-04:002014-03-16T13:27:16.199-04:00"responds to stimuli and most importantly fee..."responds to stimuli and most importantly feels pain"<br /><br />Dr Pigliucci, This point has never seemed like a convincing argument against abortion as you could administer anaesthesia to the fetus prior to aborting it. Not only would anaesthesia abolish pain but it would also basically knock out the fetus and make it incapable of responding to any stimuli.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15005476.post-39540318350494130992014-03-16T12:23:55.572-04:002014-03-16T12:23:55.572-04:00>>>If you agree that we make normative ju...>>>If you agree that we make normative judgments about emotions all the time in everyday life, I would say that the burden is on you to explain why we *shouldn't* continue this practice. My guess is that your main argument is something like, "We can't control our emotions the way we can control our actions, so we shouldn't be held morally responsible for the emotions we feel." <<<<br /><br />I am guilty of making those normative judgments but again, I can’t really justify them so I don’t think I ought to make those judgments. Same way I still eat meat but think it’s morally wrong to kill and eat animals. I’m working on my own moral shortcoming in these areas.<br /><br /><br />>>>First, as everybody familiar with the free-will debate knows, it's going to be difficult to spell out the sense in which we 'have control' over our actions but not our emotions. If this is your argument against subjecting emotions to moral evaluation, then your argument for why actions *should* be subject to moral evaluation is going to be tied up in all kinds of tricky issues involving free-will. <<<<br /><br />Well in terms of free will, I’m a compatiblist so I do see different degrees of freedom that one can be held ”responsible” for, such as consciously controlling one’s actions. Here however I think the distinction is clear between choosing our actions and choosing our emotions, where the latter is not directly in our conscious control but the former is. Emotions are never directly changed by our conscious thoughts and there’s substantial psychological literature to support that.<br /><br />>>>You might try to avoid this problem by being a consequentialist and simply declaring that an action is right or wrong to the extent that it causes an increase or decrease in overall utility - thus ignoring issues involving free will. But emotions can also cause an increase or decrease in utility to the extent that they have a causal influence over behavior, so why not subject *them* to moral evaluation too? <<<<br /><br />I’m not a consequentialist but if it could be shown that emotions have causal influence over our actions, than I would agree that emotions should be judged as morally right or wrong. However, I don’t think the research supports the idea that emotions are causally related to our actions (see my example above regarding the patients) but I’m at least open to the idea if it were true. This again just points to the actions as the actual morally relevant factor, not the emotions themselves.<br /><br />>>>Second response: just as we don't have direct control over our emotional reactions, it appears that we don't have direct control over our beliefs (just look up the vast literature on 'doxastic voluntarism'). And yet this doesn't stop us from evaluating beliefs all the time ("That's irrational!" "You're stupid to believe that!" etc.), nor does it stop us from telling people what they should or shouldn't believe. So if we can make normative judgments about beliefs, even though we don't have direct control over our own beliefs, why can't we make normative judgments about emotions too?<<<<br /><br />I don’t think I would make normative judgments in the sense that people shouldn’t believe X or Y. I can tell them under certain conditions of rational inquiry, the belief X or Y don’t make the cut. Even in this example, I would go back to actions. If someone believes in creationism but that is a private belief, they don’t act on it by going to try to stop evolution from being taught or trying in act laws against evolution, than I don’t think there is anything wrong with that person holding that belief. Again, this wouldn’t be true unless we asked “Is that belief rationale” but that is separate from me pushing them to believe one way or the other. People are free to believe whatever they want but actions on the other hand will require public scrutiny.<br />Imadhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09956056366775230796noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15005476.post-64825814753426329992014-03-16T12:23:41.665-04:002014-03-16T12:23:41.665-04:00C, thanks for providing well thought out arguments...C, thanks for providing well thought out arguments. This is an interesting topic, let me see if I can clarify my position in response to the challenges your raise.<br /><br />>>>First, let me clarify my claim: I'm arguing that emotions can be *subject to moral evaluation*. This is just to say that it's appropriate to make normative judgments about the emotional reactions people have in various situations (e.g., "You laughed at seeing that dog get tortured? That's horrible!"). I assume this is what you mean when you talk about "telling people what emotion they ought to feel." <<<<br /><br />Intuitively I completely agree with you, I have a gut reaction that the person who laughs at dog torture is doing something morally off and repulsive. However, I have a hard time finding a rationale for why it’s wrong outside of referring back to the action of the individual. So for example, if this person who was laughing at the dog being tortured but was actively stopping the torture from happening and saving the dog, is this person doing something moral? I feel like there is a hidden assumption for the example of the person laughing at the dog and how he or she will also not help the dog. However, if we separate those two out (emotion from action), I don’t see what is morally wrong with the laughing or feelings of amusements, even though intuitively it doesn’t sit well with me.<br /><br />>>>Now, you said, "I think people's actions are far more important [than their emotions reactions]." Of course, the general fact that X is far more important than Y doesn't imply that Y isn't also important. <<<<br /><br />I was unclear here, I would restate it in the stronger form of “Actions are all that matter” so even though having the emotion that matches our actions would be nice, it’s not in anyway necessary nor is it immoral if you don’t have that emotion. <br /><br />>>>More importantly, though, I would say that emotional reactions *are* important, and that this is reflected in the fact that we make normative judgments about people's emotional reactions *all the time*. Like I mentioned above, the judgment that it's horrible to be amused by a dog being tortured seems pretty normal. If somebody admitted to me that he hates women, or Jews, or gays, etc., even though he carefully monitors his behavior and doesn't actively mistreat them (perhaps to avoid getting in any trouble) <<< <br /><br />Again intuitively I am with you but I still don’t see the necessity of having the corresponding emotion. I agree that the person who secretly hates women but won’t act on it is probably not a person I may like but from an ethical standpoint, I can’t see why I would see this person as immoral. I guess this goes to what meta-ethical stance we take, Massimo and virtue ethicists would say it is not building the appropriate virtues and character so it makes sense from a virtue ethics perspective to judge emotions but from my point of view (which is not virtue ethics but contractarian), there is nothing wrong with feeling one way and acting the other way. <br /><br />To give an example from my own work with emotional disorders, I often work with individuals that have overwhelming urges to harm others or themselves. We don’t try to tell these people that their emotions are right or wrong but they are just part of their conditioned history and biological make up and that they still can choose to act one way or the other. As such, we are able to help them separate out the idea that just because they are having this emotion, doesn’t mean they act on it. Moreover, we rarely get people to stop having those emotions but they go on to live their lives, having emotions that some might consider immoral, but still living as good moral citizens towards others. I find it very hard to see the justification to say they are morally culpable of having those emotions. Now if they acted on the emotions, that’s a different matter.<br />Imadhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09956056366775230796noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15005476.post-6033425790627195332014-03-16T11:31:35.248-04:002014-03-16T11:31:35.248-04:00Hi Jean-Nicolas,
>>I find it weird that a m...Hi Jean-Nicolas,<br /><br />>>I find it weird that a moral system would prescribe what emotions you should feel. You feel what you feel and you have no control over that...I agree that feelings and desire are the root cause of our actions but what is in the purview of morality is how we act on them. <br /><br />I gave a reply to exactly this kind of argument in response to Imad's post above. I would be interested in hearing your response (if you can find it).<br /><br />>>But don't you consider it is not correct to assign the same value to all suffering? If so, saying that a fetus can feel pain is not sufficient. Wouldn't you have to argue what weight we should give to it?<br /><br />It depends on the point that Massimo is trying to make. If Massimo were arguing against abortion, then it would be important to argue that the pain of the fetus outweighs the pain of the mother. But I don't think that's the point he's making - rather, he's just trying to point out why, even if an abortion is perfectly morally justified, it is not a decision to be made lightly.<br /><br />To use an analogy, think of any situation where you have to risk or sacrifice the lives of a few to save the lives of many. Take the famous trolley problem, for example. Everybody might agree that it's morally permissible to redirect the trolley so that it hits one person instead of five. But I think it would be weird if somebody made the choice without feeling any tinge of regret or remorse at all. Just because it's clear that saving the five people is the right thing to do, the fact that you need to kill one person should not be taken lightly. Indeed, the fact that doing the right thing requires killing an innocent person really sucks!<br /><br />So when Massimo points out the pain of the fetus, I think all he's saying is that killing the fetus isn't something that should be taken lightly. This is true even if the decision is clearly morally justified, as it is in the trolley problem.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15005476.post-64256873037805620462014-03-16T10:52:45.639-04:002014-03-16T10:52:45.639-04:00>>I actually agree that we should not tell p...>>I actually agree that we should not tell people what emotion they should or ought to be feel but I'm curious to see what the argument on the other side is. Personally, I think people's actions are far more important, even if we have a strong intuition that the emotion should follow. <br /><br />I'll give a crack at this.<br /><br />First, let me clarify my claim: I'm arguing that emotions can be *subject to moral evaluation*. This is just to say that it's appropriate to make normative judgments about the emotional reactions people have in various situations (e.g., "You laughed at seeing that dog get tortured? That's horrible!"). I assume this is what you mean when you talk about "telling people what emotion they ought to feel."<br /><br />Now, you said, "I think people's actions are far more important [than their emotions reactions]." Of course, the general fact that X is far more important than Y doesn't imply that Y isn't also important.<br /><br />More importantly, though, I would say that emotional reactions *are* important, and that this is reflected in the fact that we make normative judgments about people's emotional reactions *all the time*. Like I mentioned above, the judgment that it's horrible to be amused by a dog being tortured seems pretty normal. If somebody admitted to me that he hates women, or Jews, or gays, etc., even though he carefully monitors his behavior and doesn't actively mistreat them (perhaps to avoid getting in any trouble), I would say there's something wrong with his attitude towards those groups. If a man commits a murder and doesn't feel regret or remorse for committing that murder, then the lack of regret or remorse seems to me to be a moral failing *in addition* to the act of murder itself. (As stated above, we might agree that the actual murder is far more important than the lack of remorse, but that doesn't mean that there's nothing wrong with the lack of remorse.)<br /><br />If you agree that we make normative judgments about emotions all the time in everyday life, I would say that the burden is on you to explain why we *shouldn't* continue this practice. My guess is that your main argument is something like, "We can't control our emotions the way we can control our actions, so we shouldn't be held morally responsible for the emotions we feel."<br /><br />There are at least two responses to this. <br /><br />First, as everybody familiar with the free-will debate knows, it's going to be difficult to spell out the sense in which we 'have control' over our actions but not our emotions. If this is your argument against subjecting emotions to moral evaluation, then your argument for why actions *should* be subject to moral evaluation is going to be tied up in all kinds of tricky issues involving free-will. <br /><br />You might try to avoid this problem by being a consequentialist and simply declaring that an action is right or wrong to the extent that it causes an increase or decrease in overall utility - thus ignoring issues involving free will. But emotions can also cause an increase or decrease in utility to the extent that they have a causal influence over behavior, so why not subject *them* to moral evaluation too?<br /><br />Second response: just as we don't have direct control over our emotional reactions, it appears that we don't have direct control over our beliefs (just look up the vast literature on 'doxastic voluntarism'). And yet this doesn't stop us from evaluating beliefs all the time ("That's irrational!" "You're stupid to believe that!" etc.), nor does it stop us from telling people what they should or shouldn't believe. So if we can make normative judgments about beliefs, even though we don't have direct control over our own beliefs, why can't we make normative judgments about emotions too? Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15005476.post-7163523094312955242014-03-16T10:38:13.490-04:002014-03-16T10:38:13.490-04:00Thanks for this article Massimino. I am so sick o...Thanks for this article Massimino. I am so sick of the people on free thought blogs trying to turn atheism into a progressive political issue. Once PZ Meyers went so far as saying he wanted to run the Libertarians out of Atheism. No matter what one may think about Libertarian ideas in political philosophy it has nothing to do with atheism. In the cause of atheism we are all on the same side.<br /><br />All of this internal debate among atheists about who are "real" atheists reminds me of the doctrinal bickering of my youth in the church. The church I attended split into two different congregations over it. I'm sick of atheists who think they define atheism and think they can "excommunicate" other atheists because they don't agree with some political stance. The cause of atheism is being hurt by all this internecine warfare.<br /><br />If you want to tell someone they are full of crap about any of these political issues that is fine and proper. But it has nothing to do with atheism. Rat Race Traphttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16082619120214413156noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15005476.post-22746435072487793042014-03-16T10:02:11.855-04:002014-03-16T10:02:11.855-04:00"why did Silverman mischaracterize the conver..."why did Silverman mischaracterize the conversation on Secular Sunshine, claiming that Edroso brought up pro-life atheists first?"<br /><br />You mean <a href="http://secularsunshine.blogspot.com/2014/03/what-did-david-silverman-actually-say.html?showComment=1394422913433#c3685873599207764350" rel="nofollow">this</a>?: "I said that all of the social conservative agenda was religious in nature, to which the reporter eagerly countered that there was a secular argument for abortion. He clearly knew he was right, and so did I - there is a secular argument (one with which I firmly disagree) whose existence I cannot deny."<br /><br />I can think of a couple possibilities. One, things happened as Silverman said, and Edroso misremembered. How likely that is, of course, depends on whether Edroso took notes or recorded the conversation. Two, when Edroso pointed out the presence of Right-to-Lifers, Silverman <em>thought</em> Edroso was referring to secular anti-abortion advocates and responded accordingly. That certainly would readiliy make sense of Silverman saying that he "will <em>admit</em> there is a secular argument against abortion," as if he were conceding something to Edroso.<br /><br />Let me also point out that your question is a non sequitur anyway. If you are going to claim that Silverman was intending to put women's rights under the bus, then you need evidence that he was at least planning to talk to conservatives about such a thing. You've come nowhere near that.<br />J. J. Ramseyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00763792476799485687noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15005476.post-54881994989232282332014-03-16T09:37:40.791-04:002014-03-16T09:37:40.791-04:00>>This is very wrong. Feelings are not moral...>>This is very wrong. Feelings are not morally relevant. How you act on them is.<br /><br />Well, you're entitled to that opinion. And I think I understand your motivation for the position - it's natural to think that we can't help or control the way we react emotionally to things, so emotions shouldn't be subject to moral evaluation. However, you should realize that, in addition to disagreeing with many modern moral philosophers (such as Allan Gibbard and Tim Scanlon), you're also disagreeing with common sense (in everyday life, we constantly judging people for their emotional reactions. Somebody who laughs and takes pleasure in watching a video of a helpless kid getting bullied would probably be considered a jerk by most people). <br /><br />To reiterate, the claim that emotions shouldn't be subject to moral evaluation is a viable position to take, but that's a controversial claim that deserves to be supported by some kind of argument instead of just baldly asserted as if it's common sense. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com