As it concerns Aikin and Talisse, somebody who has a considerable form of intellectual impairment is automatically exonerated on that very basis. Contempt for the expressions of the mentally disabled is simply absurd. So far I concur. However, they go on to argue that:
To see religious believers as proper objects of contempt, then, is to see them as people who should know better than to believe as they do. It is hence to see them as wrong but, importantly, not stupid..
Notwithstanding a variety of nuanced -and I believe highly discrepant- notions of freewill, what exactly spurs and drives our beliefs and thus our behavior? -We may wonder. Two things: our genes and our environment. So, if this restricted twofold engine of human ability is the sole root that gives rise to beliefs (whether correct, equivocal or flat out delusional) then there really is no room for free will, is there? And so it follows that the mentally handicap and those who had the misfortune of growing up in intense and oppressive ambient religiosity or unreason, stand on the same moral ground. In other words, because neither of them chose what spurred their delusions, neither of the two deserve our contempt.
But then, Russel would perhaps retort that, taken to its logical conclusions, this elaborate semi-syllogistic argument would undermine as a corollary all feelings of admiration. And he would be right. In a way -and as a parenthetical note- this is why we need the illusion of free will.
On a similar note I find it interesting that no explicit mention of intention surfaced on Russel's review, but for for a small mention of intellectual honesty. Intention, by my lights, merits much more attention and consideration when before we chastise somebody with our expressed contempt/disdain/hate on the basis of their views. I wouldn't feel contempt for anybody who didn't intend to harm me in any way. I might deem them wrong, benighted, misled and hardheaded but never worthy of disgrace.
Thanks for taking the trouble to comment on this. As you'll have seen, I take a fairly robust view on this. I.e., I don't look for responsibility all the way down.
ReplyDeleteThere may be extra strands to the story, but I think that the starting point is that we find such traits as intelligence, courage, honesty, etc., admirable, while we find such traits as stupidity, cowardice, dishonesty, etc., the opposite. Generally speaking that's rational, as someone with the former traits will usually be better to have around as a friend, fellow citizen, etc.
We don't generally care all that much how someone got these various traits, though we might admire someone more if we find out that she got the admirable ones partly through pre-existing good traits like self-discipline, industriousness, etc. But even those traits have a causal origin that's ultimately beyond her power.
Likewise, there might be some mitigation of our disdain if there's a special story about how someone came to have the contemptible traits - they can't be blamed on some pre-existent bad traits she had, such as some sort of laxity or laziness, so much as some unusual external influence that might have made her turn out that way even if she started with normal levels of self-discipline and so on.
Well, thank you for taking the time to stop by my blog and straighten things up a little bit. Given your public notoriety throughout the blogosphere, it's always a great pleasure to receive the largesse of your opinion.
ReplyDeleteYou have merely pointed out when it is that emotions like 'contempt' and 'admiration' are evident in our psychology. I assumed from your original post that you were trying to be prescriptive and indicate when you thought we ought to feel contempt/admiration for a given individual; hence my insistence upon the elusive concept of free will.