Respecting believers
18 March 2008 by The Uncredible Hallq
There’s been some discussion on the internets about a paper by Simon Blackburn, arguing against respecting religious believers. I first found out about it in a post by Harry Brighouse, a philosophy professor at Madison. It seems to have been kicked off at Regardant les Nuages. There’ve been good posts on it by Richard Chapell and Jason Rosenhouse, which I won’t be discussing here, so go read them.
The key passage, I think, is here:
We can respect, in the minimal sense of tolerating, those who hold false beliefs. We can pass by on the other side. We need not be concerned to change them, and in a liberal society we do not seek to suppress them or silence them. But once we are convinced that a belief is false, or even just that it is irrational, we cannot respect in any thicker sense those who hold it—not on account of their holding it. We may respect them for all sorts of other qualities, but not that one. We would prefer them to change their minds.
Though it is worth keeping in mind that this is not all there is to the paper. Blackburn deals, for example, with the idea of sincerity deserving respect, and discusses how people with false beliefs can be more or less at fault for those beliefs. (Incidental remark on the last point: Blackburn thinks cults and mainstream religions are very different, but what I’ve read about cults makes me think the psychology isn’t much different than that of mainstream religions.) There’s also material on liberal theology which nobody is discussing, but which is worth reading.
Okay, silliest criticism first: Mixing Memory argues that we shouldn’t worry too much about whether a belief is true, because hey, isn’t it all perception? What really matters, according to this post, is whether a belief lines up with the MM blogger’s political views. (Among other things, this objection runs aground on the question of whether the blogger’s political views are mere perception.
Brighouse deserves to be taken somewhat more seriously, as he is right to emphasize that truth is different from rationality. Blackburn acknowledges this, but failed to take the step of pointing out that there are occasionally rational false beliefs (perhaps the Babylonians were rational to think the Earth flat). Even Brighouse’s post, though, gets weird when he proposes that the key thing is realizing you’re not infallible even when very nearly certain–a point which could be used to argue for respect for any belief, and Brighouse admits there are beliefs he doesn’t respect. He accuses unnamed militant atheists of believing themselves infallible, and though I don’t know who he had in mind (why won’t he say?), applied to the best-known representatives of atheism to day it’s a silly, almost willful, misreading.
Chalk this up, I guess, as another example of a weird resistance to criticism of religion, even among those who you would expect to be thinking clearly.
18 March 2008, on 2:06 pm
It’s good to see that blatant comprehension problems, with respect to my post at least, aren’t limited to my comments section. Here are a few problems with your one paragraph response:
1.) I’m not saying we shouldn’t worry too much about whether a belief is true. We should, and I do, which is why I don’t believe things that I think are false. Instead, I’m arguing that when it comes to respecting a person’s beliefs, and a person for his or her beliefs, what matters is what they do with them.
2.) I’m not arguing that it’s just a matter of perception. I’m arguing that the fallibility of human reasoning (which is much greater, I suspect, than you are aware) makes judging the truth and falsity of things as complex as most theology incredibly difficult, if not impossible, from an objective standpoint. That doesn’t mean we can’t make judgments, it just means that as a condition for respect, it’s a pretty poor one. Perhaps that means, “It’s just perception to you,” but if that’s the case, you’re definitely in no position to be judging other people’s beliefs on their truth and falsity.
3.) Those aren’t my political views I’m talking about. They’re my basic moral values — my ethics. If you don’t believe we should judge people’s behavior based on our values, what do you suggest we judge them on? And since it’s people’s behavior that I think is important, that’s the way I’m going to assign respect.
18 March 2008, on 6:10 pm
“that the fallibility of human reasoning … makes judging the truth and falsity of things as complex as most theology incredibly difficult, if not impossible, from an objective standpoint”
Ah, the “Courtier’s Reply”
Sorry dude. The emperor has no clothes, and all the sophistry in the world won’t cahnge that.
18 March 2008, on 6:32 pm
My sense is that we no longer can tolerate willfull ignorance nor suffer fools lightly in a sense of tolerence and good will to man. The world is being torn assunder by the truimverate of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Each stemming from the same specious root. It is incumbent on those that have rejected religious dogma, brainwashing and fantasy existences to endeavor to confront with facts, logic and sanity those that initiate religious dialogue or wear their beliefs on their sleeves. Let them pray in a closet or suffer a lecture, rebuttal or cofrontation.
The Beast never stops and it must be enjoined, not, through tolerence or apathy, legitimized.
db
18 March 2008, on 6:53 pm
Let’s dissect something from your original post, Chris:
>And it’s also why I have so little respect for many religious people — their intolerance and lack of empathy for women, gays and lesbians, people of other cultures, etc. makes it damn near impossible for me to respect them or their beliefs.
How many religious people do you really know who are unsympathetic to women qua women? No, what you undoubtedly have in mind is certain behaviors some women engage in. Politically charged subjects like abortion. You may be right about them, indeed I suspect we’d mostly agree on these subjects, but are they really just basic ideas, arrived at without reflection? Reflection on questions like “did God really command this?” and “do embryos have souls?” As far as I can tell, the things you claim as your “basic moral values” are answers to questions that can only sensibly be arrived at by reflecting on a lot of truth claims–which isn’t to say that they couldn’t be senselessly arrived at by osmosing the beliefs of lefty friends.
And my question returns: whatever your beliefs, are you really going to stick to your professed conviction that you don’t really have any idea whether your beliefs or true? Honestly, I’d love to see you admit that it’s just not possible to figure out whether what you just said is false. Or that no matter how certain you feel about what you just said, you can’t be certain in any objective sense that it’s true. Or (and especially) that there are convincing lines of argument against what you just said. All that should come naturally to you if you really meant what you said in the linked post.
18 March 2008, on 9:32 pm
” … making judging … things as complex as most theology incredibly difficult …”
Naw, it’s the easiest thing in the world. Theology is pure bafflegab. It’s a multisyllabic veneer — intended to resemble thought — applied to religious superstition.
I’ve always liked Mencken’s observation: “We must respect the other fellow’s religion, but only in the sense and to the extent that we respect his theory that his wife is beautiful and his children smart”
19 March 2008, on 12:28 pm
Old Viking,
That Mencken quote is exactly what was going through my head while reading Simon Blackburn’s paper. Basically, his whole paper is summed up by that and that alone. Blackburn uses semantics and word invention to get his point across. This strategy is no more logically effective then his so called theological language concept.