What Skinner (correctly) rejected was the mind/psyche as the uncaused cause of behavior. He didn’t reject the inner life at all but presented alternate explanations that are major breakthroughs.

First, the “interview” was ridiculous. Tom Ashbrook kept asking the same point of the author, ad nauseum. “Wow…So you’re tough on conservatives [i.e., they're evil and vile], but you’re also tough on liberals [i.e., they don't use the right language].” How about actually CHALLENGING an author’s point for once?!! Or at least raising something new?!! This was lazy work.

Second, people who just enjoy hearing from people who agree with them that the other side is evil might’ve enjoyed this program, but I didn’t. Lost was ANY conception that people can come to conclusions different from us and still be moral. Mr. Beatty’s point about abortions was a good example. He failed to understand that, if you actually believe that abortion kills a human being, then limiting them is not evil, but the height of morality, at least as they see it. I just fail to understand how people can talk about morality in such a self-righteous way.

Lastly, Ms. Neiman’s absolute worship of Obama seemed so absolute as to prevent her from making any criticism of him, or as seeing any of his rhetoric as just that–rhetoric. His abdication of “morality,” as she would define it, on issues of capital punishment and gay rights (I would imagine that she would be pro gay marriage, which Obama is not) are blamed on the Republicans! (i.e., They would attack him on those things, therfore he had to cave.) Please…

There is probably an argument that that type of behavior is the mild end of a spectrum with wife abuse at the other end. But it doesn’t mean all these guys are evil, wife-beating monsters.

In part what I am arguing is strategy and tatics–you pick your battles and move forward from commonalities and mutual respect–

We can hope. A few days ago I was in North Carolina to attend a wedding involving the southern branch of my family. Pretty much every southern-gothic horror story you can think of applies to that branch who mainly come from western North Carolina near the Tennessee border.

Because the groom was in the Army it was a military-style wedding and included the “arch of swords”. In this custom, after the couple have said their vows and exchanged rings they walk back from the altar between two rows of soldiers in full dress uniforms holding swords over the aisle forming an arch the couple pass under.

Except that the soldiers at the head of the aisle lower their swords to stop the couple and the soldier behind the bride whacks the bride on her derriere with his sworde and says “Welcome to the Army!”

This is the standard tradition and if you Google it you’ll find thousands of hits – there’s nothing arcane or obscure about it, but most liberal, Obama-voting, Volvo-driving NPR-listeners have never heard of it. And here’s the thing: my wife and I think it’s sexist and demeaning (there’s no equivalent custom for men) but everyone there loved it, and when I followed the links in Google I couldn’t find even one single objection raised by anyone.

FIRST: this is not a spelling flame even though it may seem like one.

I was fascinated by your spelling of hypocrisy (”hypocracy”) in the context of this discussion, because in the Greek, “hypo” means “under” or “below” and “-cracy” means “rule”, just as it does in “democracy”.

Thus your accidentally made-up-word “hypocracy” has an apropos meaning, namely, “rule from below” or “rule from underneath”, which could be a way of saying “ruled by our emotions” or “ruled by our animal instincts”. Fascinating.

The two most appalling instances when this happened are

1. When she talked about the Book of Virtues implying that it was a political book when in fact it seeks to find the sort of common ground she supposedly espouses. Within that statement she also referred to ‘good’ progressive people implying that if you are not progressive you are somehow less of a person.

2. When she referred to the republican convention as primarily trying to divide people. The implication aside which is that the Democrats are somehow trying to unite people,and while even as a Republican I am not proud of the campaign that McCain has run I don’t see how anyone could look at the speeches of Joe Lieberman and John McCain and say that they were being divisive.

If this nonsense is moral clarity I want none of it.

Remember we are a democracy–if you want some country where everyone believes and acts within your ideas of right and wrong–then go start your own community or society somewhere–if you are looking for models where everyone dances to the same tune–look to ants–or North Korea.

In the United States if we are going to succeed as a society we will have to learn to get along even though we disagree–and this isn’t a bad thing–the competition of ideas and practices is a good thing. I work on several town boards–sometimes it is discouraging and I think we are doomed–I believe too many people have too little understanding of the interrelatedness of environmental and social systems. But we have learned how to work together even though we have different ideas about policies.

I don’t see any other road out other than engagement–not vilification.

The strength of our convinctions comes from positive engagement in the public realm both with our friends and our opponents. This is the light side of the force.

Of course we don’t discount anyone’s positive contribution. We need as many of them as we can get. You referred to Ghandi as a truly compassionate man and I just wanted to flesh out the matter. There is a danger in over-idealizing our idols.

More to the point, the danger of a person wittingly or unwittingly using a belief system (like religion) to sanction their own unsavory acts and vile notions ties in with the discussion here. It’s a familiar human susceptibility that can be seen in a Ghandi and in a Republican pleb.

Erikson’s critique was not the whole story? Perhaps not, but he hardly held an inelaborate view of Ghandi; saw him from many different angles and lavished much praise on him.

The red states. Good people with different notions than I about what should and shouldn’t be? Or vile, narrow-minded people enjoying twisted delusions of superiority and embracing notions of white supremacy and religious supremacy? If we could hear their private conversations, what would we hear?

Ha! Most Americans are listening to the Howard Stern Show this morning.

We are a select group. Mostly drawn from that so-called educated elite that the GOP derided Obama for being apart of since he – how dare he – studied at the Harvard Law School and worked so phenomenally hard that he was elected to serve as the first black president of the Harvard Law Review. Graduating magna cum laude.

Way to support education, Republicans!

Funny that it was the newly formed Republican party that prevented the South from seceding. Now look at them. They are nothing without the South.

On another point, after reading this thread I think not all is lost for the USA. Very impressive discussion. How is it that the US population comes across as narrow minded, self-absorbed and arrogant if you look at it from the outside?

I still don’t know how to solve the problem of the red states.

We should have let the South succeed back when.

I’m not saying that you can build a scientically-dependant moral system. I’m saying that no moral system will work if it’s not based on an accurate understanding of our neurophysiology and sociobiology. Put another way: all moral systems make assumptions about the nature of the underlying human. The more accurate those assumptions are the better the moral system will work.

To imply that all new scientific findings lead to hard determinism isn’t true.

Obviously, but quantum mechanics doesn’t lead to conceptual model of free will, either.

“The mind has the power to act back on the brain…This makes the notion that mind is strictly determined by the movements of atoms and electrons [false].”

This assumes there is such a thing as a “mind” that is distinct from the brain.

I follow this research pretty closely and there have been major strides and startling discoveries in recent years. But just as most Americans couldn’t find places like Turkmenistan or Uzbekistan on a map before 9/11 (and many still probably can’t), most people are totally unaware of the discoveries in neuroscience and their implications. Like quantum mechanics it defies our intuitive sense of how things really are, but after we’ve had another generation of science students and researchers living with these ideas it will start to shake our moral and legal concepts to their very roots.

“If think the strongest moral system is the one that actually works in achieving what its moral goals are.”

Right, which is why I argued that an over-reliance on a morality argued from scientific hypothesizing isn’t the course to take – cause it won’t work. It is too logical and rational. Too cut and dry. It speaks to the already converted. It can be used to bolster both side’s argument. It won’t achieve it’s moral goals. Better to co-opt the emotions if your going to try and break people’s emotional attachment to one set of beliefs and convert them to a better one. Better to shame them, guilt them, cause them to develop an emotional hatred of Republican ideas, just as the GOP fuels emotional hatred of Democrats ideas.

“Probably the most alarming from a moral standpoint is the growing evidence that conscious “free will” is just an epiphenomenon.”
“What does it mean to countervail biology? The universe, with its laws, is what it is. You can’t countervail it – you have to function within its framework.”

Moral systems are built on the assumption of self-regulation, self-control, self-creating, choosing, making a conscious effort, changing oneself, bettering oneself. Do you really advise building a moral system that, as a starting point, selects certain scientific hypotheses and adapts a hard determinist’s worldview? How do you authentically appeal to people to change themselves? After all, they are determined machines.

In science everything is a hypothesis. Nothing is proven. That is the correct scientific attitude. What may seem true today can easily be refuted, further developed, taken apart and absorbed into more complex and nuanced ideas later. One should approach science with caution and humbleness. Not with an ‘I’ve just been to the mountain and received the commandments’ certaintude. Injudicious.

Most issues in science are far from decided and the scientific community is not of one mind. So, which group of scientists with which ideas will you select in developing your scientically-dependant moral system? Why are other scientists in an opposing school not selected? Does your whole artifice collapse when the next journal article is released next month?

To imply that all new scientific findings lead to hard determinism isn’t true.

Quantum mechanics:

“We know that quantum uncertainty exists in the world and so there have been unpredictable and uncaused events that have broken the causal chain of strict determinism.”

“Chance is closely related to the ideas of uncertainty and indeterminacy. Uncertainty today is best known from Werner Heisenberg’s principle in quantum mechanics. It states that the exact position and momentum of an atomic particle can only be known within certain limits. .. This irreducible randomness in physical processes established the existence of chance and indeterminism in the world.”

Neuroplasticity:

“The mind has the power to act back on the brain…This makes the notion that mind is strictly determined by the movements of atoms and electrons [false].”

Mark –

“Gandhi …as an example, but why not–I would call him a truly compassionate man”

Erick Erikson’s (psychoanalyst) famous biography of Gandhi honored the compassionate side and great works of Gandhi, while revealing his cruel side. For example, using the excuse of religious proscription to be quite harsh and strict with his children. Same dynamic with Republicans and their religious right clothing their nonsense in something supposedly good – religion. I know you don’t want to vilify the other side but at some point it is necessary to look at the dark side of human nature square in the face and at least fully account for it in one’s analysis.

What does it mean to countervail biology? The universe, with its laws, is what it is. You can’t countervail it – you have to function within its framework. This is also true with other areas of philosophy, e.g., metaphysics or logic or epistemology.

We can create artificial universes with their own laws and assumptions as academic exercises, as long was we don’t lose sight of their artificiality. The recent melt-down in the financial industry reveals the peril of that – free-market philosophy was based on the wholly artificial idea that human beings are rational utility optimizers. Recent advances in behavioral economics give the lie to the whole underpinning of free-market efficiency and rationality. Let’s not make the same mistake with morality – we need to understand homo sapiens AS HE IS, not as some idealized version, if we want our moral systems (like our economic systems) to work.

Politics at its root is about structuring power relations in a society, and disagreements about political issues are, at their root, disagreements about moral values. “Moral issues” are not simply things that the religious right claims they are – god, gays, abortion, and the like. They include the abysmal bankruptcy bill that was passed in the last few years, decisions to underfund the FDA or to deregulate the financial and other industries. They include our decisions about foreign relations and funding schools. One of the interesting things about Obama is that he has tried to reclaim this larger and more fundamental sense of morality in politics. When he talks about the recent storms in the Gulf Coast and urges people to contribute to aid victims (which probably fits with a conventional definition of a moral act) he also reminds people that there are thousands of “quiet storms” all across America – suggesting that these smaller problems that affect one or a few people at a time should be moral issues for us as well and that the purpose of politics is to try to put a morality into action.

It’s time we reclaim the language of morality, of “values” from the so-called “values voters.” The narrow definition of “values” that they push only serves to perpetuate gross inequalities of power, serving those whose moralities say that it is okay for a few to thrive on the backs of the many.

Peter: While astute, I don’t think your point about biological determinism is really an answer to JSR’s point about the disconnect between philosophy and biology. Ok, ok, not “biological determinism.” And, ok, ok, not “disconnect.” It just seems to me that philosophy is most useful when it not only takes account of biology, but countervails it.