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From: ellis@spar.UUCP (Michael Ellis)
Newsgroups: net.philosophy,net.religion,net.sci
Subject: Hitler: Why we need a Science of Morality
Message-ID: <237@spar.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 30-Apr-86 05:05:13 EDT
Article-I.D.: spar.237
Posted: Wed Apr 30 05:05:13 1986
Date-Received: Sat, 3-May-86 00:01:54 EDT
References: <576@umich.UUCP> <13042@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU>
Reply-To: ellis@spar.UUCP (Michael Ellis)
Organization: Schlumberger Palo Alto Research, CA
Lines: 83
Xref: watmath net.philosophy:5191 net.religion:10035 net.sci:777

>My fundamental example is Hitler's Germany. If more people had
>been trained to think logically, my theory is that Hitler's 
>irrational doctrines would not have had such an impact. [Tedrick]
  
    Of course, then Hitler would have been more logical, too.  Whether
    that would have made him more dangerous is another question. It is my
    contention that Hitler's Germany lacked morality, not logic.

    Many very logical people consider "self-interest" theories of morality
    to be the most rational ones. Presumably, it is in one's self-interest
    to avoid causing harm to others for fear of possible retaliation. But
    what if it appears to be in the majority's self-interest to suppress the
    minority and all possibility of their retaliation?

    Given Hitler's basic assumptions, his actions followed logically enough.
    And Germany has had relatively high standards of education for a long
    time. Personally, I do not think that Hitler's doctrines were vastly
    more irrational than those I prefer. For example, I believe:

	1: All people are equal    
        2: Only those points of view which advocate harming or suppressing
	   other people should be suppressed

    Clearly, (1) is ridiculous in any scientific sense. (2) is blatantly
    self contradictory. Yet I believe them, although I cannot support them
    rationally. 

    When I say that Hitler's Germany suffered from lack of morality,  it is
    not my intent to support authoritarian morality dictated by government or
    religious institutions. On the contrary, it is clear that a population
    whose morality is dictated by father figures is prone to Hitleresque abuse.

    Traditional religious morality is equivalent to a self-interest morality
    with an authoritarian God figure to mete out reward and punishment. My
    theory is that the Germans of the 1930's, an intelligent and highly
    authoritarian people for whom religion was rapidly becoming a thing of
    the past, were highly susceptible to total moral corruption.
    
    Tragically, one of the dominant philosophies of the day, logical
    positivism, encouraged disregard of `metaphysical' subjects like
    morality and ethics. Ironically, the logical positivists included many
    whose flight from the Nazi terror was largely responsible for the breakup
    of logical positivism. 

    I still find it peculiar to hear people speak of physics and math as
    "objective" while labeling morality and ethics as "subjective". I
    believe this is due to historical reasons -- the metaphysical carving up
    of human wisdom into spiritual and physical that occurred at about the
    time of Descartes. This post-Galilean truce between science and religion
    continued until Darwin unintentionally demolished what was commonly felt
    to be basis of religion. That done, there are now two attitudes towards 
    what were traditionally held to be spiritual concerns:

       1: Discard them as "non-objective"
       2: Decide that they merit serious study, thereby making them
          "objective".

    By my account, morality can be studied objectively, freed from all
    religious trappings.  One CAN "objectively" analyze moral theories and
    eliminate those which are contradictory, self defeating, not
    evolutionarily stable, or, most importantly, in violation of 
    deeply held moral axioms, such as the golden rule. 

    Derek Parfit, from "Reasons and Persons":

	Some people believe that there cannot be progress in ethics, since
	everything has already been said. Like Rawls and Nagel, I believe
	the opposite. How many people have made nonreligious ethics their
	life's work? .. Before the recent past, very few Atheists made
	Ethics their life's work. Buddha may be among the very few, as may
	be Confucius, and a few ancient Greeks and Romans. After more than
	1000 years, there were a few more between the 16th and 20th
	centuries.. Hume.. Sidgwick..  [Most of the others] did not do
	ethics, they did meta-ethics.  They did not ask which outcomes would
	be .. right and wrong. They asked.. only the meaning of moral
	language, and the question of objectivity.  Nonreligious ethics has
	been systematically studied, by many people, only since about 1960.
	Compared with the other sciences, nonreligious ethics is the
	youngest and the least advanced..

        Belief in God prevented the development of moral reasoning.

-michael