[M]y daughter Katie and I were watching a nature program on television. We saw baby rodents, more ugly even than baby rats, under the desert sand of Saudi Arabia. ‘Look at that,’ I said to Katie. ‘Aren’t they awful.’ With little hesitation, she replied that they were also God’s creatures.
I was humbled by her response, ashamed, in fact, that such simple words should show up the grossness of my attitude. I could think of no words that could express better and at the same time so simply this wonderful acceptance of all living creatures.Gaita goes on to explain that it is nothing about theism as a metaphysical thesis (or the "God of the philosophers") that underwrites his response to Katie's remark, for he does not himself believe in God. I think I understand the idea that "God-talk" can be appropriate and meaningful even when not, as it were, "literal," but then I wonder about what the normative force is of the figurative God.
The idea that animals are all God's creatures would seem to express at least the following two ideas: (1) that there is goodness in the life of every creature (in Genesis, everything that God makes is found by God to be good) and (2) that animals are not "ours"--they do not belong to us.
Now it might be asked whether this "goodness" is non-instrumental or only instrumental (Genesis does not tell us), and what the practical implications of human non-ownership of animals are. But it might also be asked whether we have any reason to accept the overall picture of (1) + (2) if we are only able to speak figuratively--if we are able to speak at all--about God.
Those familiar with Gaita's (Wittgensteinian) approach to questions of normative grounding will know that he will ultimately accept that fundamental values are groundless but are at the same time bound up intimately with our particular form of life. Accepting the picture--and making use of the words--above is less (if at all) a matter of reason, but instead a question of one's fundamental attitude toward the world: say, whether one accepts the world as good and (as he discusses) whether one sees life as a gift for which to feel gratitude.
But I have found myself wondering still about the normative force of figurative (or some might say, "fictionalist") expressions invoking the divine, particularly in the context of animal and environmental ethics.
One might, for example, think of the idea of God as the idea of an "ideal observer" and adopt a dispositionalist theory of moral truth (or correctness) such that it doesn't matter whether there actually is an ideal observer (or a God). Rather, what matters is what judgment an ideal observer (a God) would make if there were one. (Firth [1952] is the place to start looking into this idea.)
But before we even get to what judgments the ideal observer would make or how we could have epistemic access to this information, it seems like one might ask why we should care at all about the judgments that flow (or would flow) from an uninstantiated point of view. I suppose the response is these judgments would be the correct ones, and if we don't care about what the correct judgment is in ethical matters, then the conversation is simply over. (There are other worries about the coherence of the idea of an ideal observer, or similarly, the idea of God, but let that pass.)
The differences between the ideal observer and God the creator might matter here. For the ideal observer is not a creator (or an owner) of anything--only a judge. And if animals (and everything else) were not really created by God, then we cannot say that they (and everything else) belong to God. But this might emphasize the notion of ownership too strongly. "All God's creatures" might mean (A) that animals are all God's property, but it might instead mean (B) something roughly equivalent to the thought that we are all God's children. True, some will point out that only humans were "made in God's image," but then we would have to ask what it would take to live up to our divine lineage when it comes to our dealings with animals. And if the emphasis of "all God's creatures" should be fixed not on the notion of divine ownership, but rather of divine authorship, then we have to take into account the idea that animals (and everything else) was fashioned by divine hands. (Abusing and mistreating animals would be like defacing the ceilings of the Sistine Chapel.)
But then we run into the problem that if God is not really the author/creator of all creatures, which in fact evolved somewhat willy-nilly, there is no true divine origin that imbues the lives of animals (etc.) with the special significance that a work acquires when it is the work of a true master.
What now? Well, here's one thought: if we are so impressed that evolution led to us humans, then why should we not be as impressed by its other results, its other "innovations", etc.? (Some of them are harmful to us, but that was true on the other picture, too. Many of them are absolutely amazing and beautiful.) Those "awful" baby rodents are "also God's creatures" insofar as they sprang from the same primordial process as we did, whether that source is God or not.
(Obviously, these are all new thoughts on which I'm working, trying in part to figure out where the center is...)
I would like to defend figurative language:
ReplyDeleteYou say: “But it might also be asked whether we have any reason to accept the overall picture of (1) + (2) if we are only able to speak figuratively--if we are able to speak at all--about God.” And earlier you say: “I think I understand the idea that "God-talk" can be appropriate and meaningful even when not, as it were, "literal," but then I wonder about what the normative force is of the figurative God.”
In response, I want to say that it’s not a figurative God that has the normative force here. Rather, whatever it is that has the normative force here can be figuratively described has having the force of God. One thing that seems to be implicit in what you say is that figurative talk is not enough somehow: If expressing ourselves figuratively is all we are capable of (I think that is implicit in what you say), then we are somehow failing, and this failure is akin to that of the alchemist or to someone who believes in ghosts and fairies—the failure of someone who lives in a dream-world instead of the real world. A similar claim would be to say that the normative force of a figurative claim depends on one’s ability to “translate” the claim into some non-figurative form. In the same spirit, you say: “what matters is what judgment an ideal observer (a God) would make if there were one.” – With this I disagree.
One thing that seems questionable to me is the idea that we must have a clear notion of an ideal observer if we are to express ourselves using this term. It seems to me more plausible that that phrase-- “ideal observer”--is what Cora Diamond would call “a riddle-phrase”: a phrase which has a promissory meaning, not a meaning we already take ourselves to know. (Like the phrase “A thing there is whose voice is one; Whose feet are four and two and three.” from the Sphinx’s riddle to Oedipus.) That is, people who talk of ideal observers don’t in fact have a clear notion what they are talking about (even if they don’t fully recognize this). They don’t typically, for instance, feel they need to answer questions like: “Can one ideal observer keep a secret from another such observer?” – That is, the grammar of the term is not settled. And the point is that we can use the notion without settling that. The grammar of “God” opens itself up for even more unclarities than that of “ideal observer,” but the same goes for it.
Cont.
Another thing that I think is questionable is the idea that if we can express ourselves at all—if we have something to express—then it should be possible (at least in theory) to express ourselves non-figuratively. This seems to me false. There is, for instance, no way to express non-figuratively what Chesterton has in mind when he says: “Having a nose is more comic even than having a Norman nose,” or what Wittgenstein has in mind when he says that he is inclined to say that Wednesday was fat and Tuesday lean. Sometimes the ONLY way we have to express ourselves is figurative.
ReplyDeleteThe indispensability of figurative forms of expression can be demonstrated with relation to another thing you say. You seem to take for granted is that God’s judgment, or the ideal observer’s judgment, is uninstantiated. That is, you seem to take it for granted that this is part of the grammar of “God” and “ideal observer.” – Perhaps this is how the notion of the ideal observer has been used. But I’m less sure about God. Anyway, rather than say that talk of God and ideal observes is talk of uninstantiated things, I would say that such talk is often part of an ineliminably figurative attempt to locate oneself in a position to make a moral judgement.
In general, in making a judgment—about moral issues, or other issues—we often abstract from what we take to be irrelevant considerations. We do so as part of a practice of judgment. But we don’t thereby become uninstantiated, or think that our judgment is therefore made “from nowhere.” Rather, this is one thing that we do when trying to find the right place from which to make a judgment. Appeals to God often serve a related purpose: one of imagining the right place from which to make a judgment—one of figuratively occupying such a place, which also expresses a sort of recognition how difficult it is to do so, and a confidence that such a place exists. Especially with moral problems, it is often part of the problem that we have to figure out where we should solve them from. And at least one notion of God—a riddle-notion, a figurative notion—thereby becomes useful.
I want to say that it’s not a figurative God that has the normative force here. Rather, whatever it is that has the normative force here can be figuratively described has having the force of God.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Reshef, for your thoughtful response. I like the way you've put the idea above, and I should be clear that much of my post is me trying out ideas and/or just airing possible thoughts and responses. I think the ideal observer (IO) notion is supposed to have that kind of force. The business about the IO being uninstantiated come from Firth: the idea is that there doesn't have to be an actual IO in order for the judgments that an IO would make if it existed to indicate what is true in the case. (It's subjunctive reasoning.) I think you have to be careful about saying that God-talk "is often part of an ineliminably figurative attempt to locate oneself in a position to make a moral judgment." That's true for some people, but not for "literalists." And I've seen literalists speak very forcefully (if misguidedly in my own view) against philosophers of religion who try to suggest that God-talk is best understood as figurative. You do say "often"; just don't forget about the literalist! What you do say would of course be true of someone who, like Gaita, seems willing to see God-talk as useful, instructive, and meaningful, even though he has no "literal" belief in God.
Especially with moral problems, it is often part of the problem that we have to figure out where we should solve them from. And at least one notion of God—a riddle-notion, a figurative notion—thereby becomes useful.
I find myself somewhat sympathetic (at least I would not discount) the worry that the less clear the notion is, the less clear how it's supposed to help. Unless it is supposed to help us by showing that the issue we are trying to resolve has no crystal-clear solution.
I'm not at any rate worried about figurative language in general, but rather figurative use of "God," and even more specifically about its normative force in moral judgment (in this particular case about animals). But I don't even know if "figurative" is quite right; as I suggest, my concerns might be more along the lines of whether fictionalist accounts (e.g. of God, normativity, etc.) "work." I think they could, and so I'm wondering about what to make of the thought that animals are "all God's creatures" if one doesn't "literally" (or actually, etc.) believe in God. Can that thought still function as a reason? Is it just a poetic way of expressing (or re-stating) the idea that all living things are worthy of some amount of consideration and respect? (In that case it would have no more or less moral force than the less poetic statement. And some would then want an argument in support of the claim, etc. I know, of course, that reasons run out somewhere...)
I apologize for the scattered nature of this response.
Thanks Matt.
ReplyDelete(a) Literalism:
I am confused by the literalist. I know that most God talk is literal, or at least it attempts to be. This is true both of those who say God exists, and those who deny it. Many discussions that mention God treat God as if he was a natural object that’s really hard to discover—a faraway galaxy, or a really small particle; other discussions treat Him as an obscure persona. At the end of the day, I think, this doesn’t make sense. (Mainly, it is not really sensitive to why we call upon the notion of God in the first place; it would not allow us to express what we want.) And this sends me searching for what would make sense, for how to talk about God. Ultimately, I think I want to say that there is no such thing as talking about God literally. There is no such thing as ‘to literally believe in God.’ I would even say: If you can talk about it literally, it is not God. God is the object of figurative thought and talk par-excellence. That’s part of the grammar of “God.”
The two main reasons I have for that are (a) the grammar of “God” is not settled. “God” is a riddle word. And (b) when we try to clarify the grammar of “God,” we typically end up bending language (“His presence appears like absence.” “He is a single individual, but He is in all of us.”)
Nevertheless, I think, the literalist has a point in insisting that God-talk is not figurative. They are right to insist that such talk cannot be MERELY metaphorical, that it cannot be “translated” into literal language. I agree with the literalist about this. The way we differ is that whereas they think that it can’t be so translated because it is already literal, I think it is because it is irremediably figurative.
It is a result of my view that there is a sense in which it is impossible to believe in God: to the extent that the grammar of God is forever and essentially a riddle, and to the extent that in order to believe in God we at least have to have a notion WHAT we believe in.
(b) Fictionalism
If this is right, then saying that God-talk is figurative is not at all the same as endorsing a fictionalist account of God. The way that talk about God is figurative—at least some God-talk—is very different from the way in which talk about literary fictional characters is. I tend to think of Fictionalism, as one kind of attempt to clarify the grammar of “God,” or at least part of that grammar, and treat Him as (having the grammar of) a character in a novel. But there are other parts in the grammar of “God” that are not thus accounted for. This does not answer your question (I think it’s your question) whether a fictional character may have any normative force. But it does suggest that even if “God” has to some extent the grammar of a fictional character, His normative force may still not come from that.
cont.
(c) Ideal observer
ReplyDeleteBy the way, I am suspicious of talk of ideal observers. I understand it as a kind of replacement for talk about God. But first, I think it will not solve the grammatical unclarity, and second, the grammatical unclarity here is not something that needs solving in the first place. Talk of ideal observers instead of God also tries to rid itself of traditional baggage, which treats a condition for the discussion as an obstacle.
(d)
Possibly, God-talk can just be an ornament. Or it can be unreflective. People may use the word “God,” or some God-phrase, and not be able to say very much about what they want to do by that. And perhaps if we ask them they will ultimately find a way to say what they want without using God-language, or perhaps they will not be able to say what they meant. But to the extent that this language functions for them somehow, to the extent that it is important to them that their intentions can be verbalized in this way, and I take it that this is what you are assuming and this is the kind of case you are interested in, then we need some account of the grammar “God” has for them. What I’m suggesting is that there is a way of thinking about the grammar of “God” that resists literalism and fictionalism—a way that in some way involves not believing in God, but still involves taking the notion of “God” seriously.