People can and do claim all kinds of freedoms from society's constraints (liberty rights) and material assistance from society (welfare rights) as human rights. My favorite example is the claim by rural members of our civil parish who claimed they had a right to bury garbage on their property and not to be required to have it picked up. To have a right recognized by others requires advancing an argument as to why that particular freedom or assistance qualifies as a right. A simple way to do this is to show that it is essential to a human being's dignity and self-worth. This can be done by example or empirical evidence of what people experience when denied this freedom or assistance. What happens to people denied an education, a job, or the other rights listed in the U.N.Declaration? Rights are a recognition of the worth of humans and if the audience does not recognize that worth, no argument will convince them. There are many freedoms and kinds of assistance that people want but others will not recognize them as a right unless I can show how important they are to living the kind of life that a human (or an animal or historical object) deserves. See www.ethicsops.com for a recipe for making that kind of argument and two case examples, along with other ethical principles translated into language that fits comfortably in business and professional as well as personal settings.

He's not correct if you can find a secular basis within which to ground human dignity. In my view a Kantian approach is the most likely candidate. Consider:

“Now morality is the condition under which alone a rational being can be an end in himself, for only thereby can he be a legislating member in the kingdom of ends. Hence morality and humanity, insofar as it is capable of morality, alone have dignity” (Ak. 4:435).

I have written a bit myself on this subject.

The lessons of Immanuel Kant in the text Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals can answer this question. The formulations of the categorical imperative answer this question.

I think Kantianism offers a basis for universal human rights, but my understanding is that the UN declaration goes way beyond what Kant would probably endorse, such as rights to education and health care. Kant argued that we have an imperfect duty to help others but I don't think he would say that others have a right to our help, which is implied by claiming there is a right to education or health care.

Maybe "sanctity" does not have a secure home outside of the religious context, but the sanctity of human rights is grounded in the laws of most democratic nations. For me, it is sufficient for law to deal with the inequities of power in a given society where these inequities lead to infringement on the human rights and dignity of some of the members of that society. Of course, I approach these concepts from the standpoint of a lawyer with a healthy respect for the rule of law, a somewhat limited background in philosophy, and an almost childish impatience with abstract ideas.

If you seek a secular basis for human rights, you could easily find evidence that people and collectives are more productive when they experience fairness and inclusion and justice etc. however, that argument presupposes that the collective good is preferable to what may be good for a particular individual or subgroup. There are individuals who benefit from unjust and/or corrupt systems, and they of course resist the alternative.

If you're interested to read more on the topic, Waldron's "Dignity, Rank, and Rights" would be a good place to start.

I doubt religion(s) can provide any firmer ground that does not ultimately involve a whistling in the dark trying to make secure to sacredness what it cannot underwrite. Both ultimately rely on a sort of faith or better intuition but in ultimately very different things.

I appreciate the comments about Kant, but I have a sneaking suspicion that he has not played by his own rules. When we declare that human beings are "ends in themselves and never means only" we are making a statement that seems to only hold if one can know something of the "ding an sich" - the thing in itself. How do you underwrite the notion that humans are always ends without having access to knowledge which Kant has previously declared to be Noumenal in nature?

Additionally, if we ground such rights in a nation's positive law or in casuistry (rightly so-called, not the pejorative use of the word) of some sort then the rights only hold in the area where such law holds sway, and thus they are not universal. Tony's remarks highlight this unfortunate reality.

Roger I am not sure I follow what you mean. Could you expand your answer a bit?

Pico della Mirandola conjectured in his oration 'De Dignitae Hominis' that the distinctiveness of man lies in notion that humans, and humans alone, do not simply fulfill a preordained role - we choose our own destiny. While his perspective was a religious one, I see no reason that it need be so. I personally suspect there's something to the idea that self-conscious introspection and the uniquely human ability to contemplate the suffering of others play a fundamental role in our concept of human dignity – a phrase very poorly defined in the literature. See also, Rosen, M. (2012). Dignity: Its History and Meaning. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

Jim it would seem that this understanding dovetails somewhat with Merleau-Ponty's claim that it is our nature not to have a nature, and with Sartre's idea that existence precedes essence. Is della Mirandola's emphasis on latency or on autonomy?

Bill,

Rougly speaking della Mirandola proposed that dignity is tied to man's capacity for self-determinationation. So I would say it emphasizes autonomy. Of course a number of commentators (most famously Ruth Macklin in (2003) Dignity is a useless concept. British Medical Journal, 327, 1419-1420) have argued that dignity is merely another term that describes autonomy. I personally feel that her argument reaches too far.

In our present-day situation, theory of liberal democracy hosts secular concepts of human rights. However, our ideas of human rights are pitted against the 'valuation of humans' as determined through the transcendence of economic theory in society. As long as so-called free-market mechanisms and thought, essentially determine the value of human beings, the cries for human rights are indeed, like 'whistling in the dark.'

Unfortunately, present-day economic disparity between rich and poor, seems to highlight rather primitive tendencies in some people with power, to not only accept the existence of social-under-classes, but to use their existence as a foundation to further bolster political-economic structures. This can be seen for instance, in the conventional morality that supports the herding of 'mis-behaving alcoholics or substance abusers' into prisons, with claims such as, "they deserve to be in jail and get roughed up a little - what else do they expect?!" In another example, the use of conventional morality (derived from economics) that blames and derides humans for "over-consumption," in order to excuse fundamental financial-market failings, also creates and uses an 'underclass' of people who are told; "You and your children deserve to suffer now because of bad decision-making of the past!" This may be seen for example, in the housing market crash in the US, or in austerity programs imposed on people in Greece and in other developing nations.

The current state of liberal political and economic theory fails to directly tie human rights to these sorts of claims that ultimately end up harming people. Certainly, such problems underline the importance of re-visiting philosophical, theoretical definitions and boundaries that are begging for change!

Alan Gewirth's theory of rights in his Reason and Morality (1978) and the sequel The Community of Rights (1998) offers a compelling argument , the Argument for the Principle of Generic Consistency (PGC) that supports both universal rights as well as dignity. In my book, Ethics Within Reason: a Neo-Gewirthian Approach (2006) I defend his argument and expand it to argue for absolute rights (freedom and wellbeing) with regard to dignity.

Gewirth is interesting and, in some ways, similar to Habermas. I found much of his argumentation in Reason and Morality to be compelling. How have you further developed his thought Edward? What would you especially stress as new or different about your approach?

Human Rights is linked to morality which is linked to the ethical feelings created by the emotions. The attempt to make solutions absolute such as rights based laws, is therefore dependent on the emotional agreement among a number of people, evidence is that emotions tend to be somewhat subjective and therefore that there is little agreement as to what level of rights should be the absolute minimum.

Graeme has captured something here. In the Taxonomy found at http://thee-online.com, "rights" are a form of ethical rule (PH"6L4) that emerges from people agreeing what is owed to you or due from you. "Human Rights Principles" are a combination of Rights and Tenets (Tenets-L3 are the rule version of beliefs that necessarily activate emotions) and they are found in all communities. According to the nature of society, killing of female children or female genital mutilation might well be a "human right principle". So in the spirit of this question, we have to add an additional component—(spiritual) goodness. This abstract goodness stems from upholding principles like empathy and helpfulness (rather than convention or custom of societal morality). Religions (but commonly not their minions) have been the traditional guardians, and they do not appeal to reason.

In modern times, it seems we must follow Buddha's example. He was aware that reason will not do the trick, but that mindfulness will. So the only basis for 'inalienable' rights/duties is for each person, individually, to look into themselves and discover the essence of goodness. Depending on an 'ism' or a great philosopher or UN Charters or legislation will not do the trick—these formulations can, at best, only assist in the self-searching process. Sanctity has a home in oneself: and only there. At present, our leaders (political, religious, financial) set examples of hypocrisy, corruption and violence; and that makes it hard for most people to think straight.

I have offered formulations of the taxonomic elements involved in producing goodness here: http://www.thee-online.com/frameworks/your-better-self/RRsH-Producing-Goodness.aspx

(free access, but simple registration required). But note that mine is an academic exercise—each person has to think through every single aspect for themselves.

Decided to check back and see how this discussion is progressing. It seems to me that it has gotten more and more abstract. Sigh.....

I think that Raimond Gaita is partially correct. In a sense, it is imposible to deny the core of sanctity, related to a religious feeling, that is present in the idea of dignity as an intrinsic value that every person has. However, this does not mean that ethical theories such as utilitarianism or deontologism cannot think the concept of dignity -as an intrinsic value- in such a way that it is coherent with their philosophical, secular premises, and thus, it may be conceived independently of the religious ground that gave the concept, historically speaking, its deep sense of sacredness.

Marek is this available in English? It sounds very interesting. Like yourself, I am very appreciative of the work of Aquinas.

Gwendolyn - I remember your mention of impatience with abstraction earlier. When you spoke in your first response here of positive law I did give a short response to that answer. In this discussion it would seem that for yourself, as a lawyer, that, in the wake of the Nuremburg Trials and the Nazi claim that they were being tried ex post facto by laws which did not obtain in their country during the war, the notion of some sort of a grounding of human rights and dignity which transcends the laws of particular countries is not as abstract as it may at first appear. Please bear with the meanderings of the conversation, as I believe this discussion needs what you, with your legal mind, have to contribute.

Francisco - I agree with you regarding the business of conceiving of dignity goes. The issue though, is how do we underwrite that value? How do we give it weight? How can it have what Anscombe called "a law conception of ethics" instilled into it?

Graeme and Warren - as with Kung's Global Ethic, and Rushworth Kidder's Global Ethics, I respect what you have to say but I have some concerns as well. This approach has a deficit of content, it contains no compelling basis in ontology. The person who is told of these sorts of principles has nothing other than the weight of his/her own convictions and the opinions of other people to make them binding upon conscience. I don't believe this a strong enough basis for real world morality. It sounds reasonable and perhaps even compelling when everyone is getting along, but I believe it will be easily dismissed when conflict arises. If it becomes inconvenient and costly to hold to values grounded in this manner, they can be easily dismissed as either arbitrary or too idealistic. If there is no visible “isness” to which an ethical system appeals, then the only real pull upon the intellect, passions, and will is a subjective and personal one. It is one to which the adherent of that system voluntarily chooses to submit. That does not make for a sufficient grounding or a weightiness. Ideally you are right, and if humans always acted out of character and rationality this would be how to approach things, but I am looking for a deeper, more compelling grounding.

Touché, Bill!

Gwen

Thank you Bill; maybe the problem lies in the way we want to deal with the value of dignity. Why we want to conceive a value which is the source of value? Why dont we take, for instance, the notion of dignity as a value that is not intrinsic to human nature but dependent of acting according to excellence, as Cicero took it on his work De Officiis? If we want to avoid the problem of taking into account religious discourse when we are dealing with the notion of dignity, then we will be better off without the idea that something has to have intrinsic worth.

Bill, I can understand your perspective but you are looking for something that cannot be found. You cannot escape subjectivity: it tells you what is objective! The 'isness' you seek cannot be provided outside the mind that creates it.

However, my proposition is that there is a goodness structure in the mind that is accessible to everyone and is essentially part of the human condition. People can turn against that structure in the same way that they turn from the pain of reality and seek solace in drugs, alcohol, violence and sexuality.

It is in the nature of goodness to be soft and even weak. It is in the nature of cruelty and violation to be hard and crushing. So of course ethical disagreements about rights are usually unhappy affairs when egotism is in play and peaceful coexistence is rejected. But don't expect a solution to come from some legal structure: just look at the way laws are manipulated and used by those with the power to do so--disagree with them and you may find you have an unfortunate accident or end up in jail.

Gwendolyn: how less abstract can you get than reflection on the nature of your own existence? Your own existence and experiences are the most concrete thing you can hang on to. Everything else is a mirage. Arguments in social life tend to be battles of mirages in which genuineness is hidden.

Warren you have given me food for thought. I will have to "chew" on this for a while.

Just some speculations. Human societies are collective entities, are living together. Many type of animals and in particular mammals lives in groups. For that to be possible, their nervous systems have to be equiped for it. Lets call this equipment: the extended self. Human being seem to have a highly developed extended self because our nervous system has a high ability to rewire itself based on inculturation. Maybe what Jung described as the collective unconscious is just one aspect of the human extended self. Maybe our love emotion is the signal from this extended self. When you have a child , your protective instinct act as if your children is almost part of you. This is a clear signal of an extended self. Nations are large scale extended self that has to exist in our nervous system as part of this extended self. Prophets of the past have talk to our extended self, the part of us that will not dye because it is already collective. And some dark prophets have found ways to call upon it in order to promote genocide.

I'm responding to the above discussion, particularly Bill's desire for a "compelling basis in ontology" for ethics. I agree with Warren's reply, that is, you might say that an ethical rule (eg Thou shalt not kill) is grounded in the absolute. But in a human community, what that means in practice is that person A claims that God delivered this rule. If all the people in the community agree with this, it may look like God underpins ethics. The truth is, the rule is grounded in people's shared belief in the basis for the rule.

A test of this is when beliefs change over time. In some societies, at a given point in time, it was believed that it was acceptable to keep slaves. Today, I don't know of any societies that assert that belief (not to say it doesn't happen). People may have appealed to God in arguing that slavery was wrong, but that doesn't make belief in God necessary to the argument (especially when the slave owners were often God-believers too).

I like Bishop Spong's take on the Bible. Put crudely, he says that you don't go to the Bible and say, people in the Bible killed people (for whatever reason), therefore it's okay to kill people. Rather, he says, you decide, before you pick the Bible up, what's right and wrong about how you treat other humans, and then interpret the Bible accordingly. Not the other way round.

But I also wanted to say something about the desire to have certain actions proscribed definitively (eg don't kill people). The argument says that otherwise values sound too vague, relative and movable. My view is that there are two conversations about ethics, and we mix up the two, so we get confusion.

First conversation is, what do we agree on, as a society, as the rules? This is mostly about what people must not do. And we make laws to enforce these rules. (Notice, I don't talk about rights. They can be inferred from my arguments if you want, but let's not make rights the focus.) These are foundation ethics, if you like.

Second conversation is, what's the best way for me to live? This is about higher values, high-quality relationships and personal identity (who I want to be in the world).

Now, with some people, you are wasting your time trying to have the second conversation. Just be clear about the first conversation - these are the rules. And we may all be trying, in our own way, to develop the higher values.

There are many developmental models that recognise the distinctions that need to be made in ethics conversations - Richard Barrett, Brian Hall, Paul Chippendale and my books. In parallel, there are many writers who discuss common values across cultures, eg Rushworth Kidder, Sisela Bok, Haidt & Bjorklund to name a few. I think it is worthwhile to seek to further the universal values. It doesn't mean that the foundation values are not necessary also.

I forgot to say that Albert Schweitzer argued that you can't derive ethics from nature. He said it's a waste of time to try and prove ethics from natural events and conditions. He says ethics is an assertion that humans make. This assertion is a quintessential aspect of humans. Later writers would call this an existentialist claim. I know this makes some people uncomfortable.

Okay Warren - I have had some time to think. I do not believe that the human mind “creates” the objective. I do, however, believe that it influences our perception of reality, and that our means of “apperception” are, as Kant has said, always and everywhere the same. Which is not to say that we all perceive things the same way, but that we all work with the same input or data from our senses and process it with a brain that has the same categories, and that consequently reality, as we perceive it, conforms to the mind.

When you speak of a “goodness structure” to the mind you sound to me as though you are speaking of something like unto Natural Law. When you say we can turn against that structure you remind me of the notion of the “akratic” or weak-willed tendency within human beings. I have no problem with either of those concepts. They are tenable to my way of thinking, as long as we do not make too much of the former and do not excuse the latter as being something over which we have no latent control.

I disagree that it is in the nature of goodness to be soft and weak. I am not sure where that is coming from. It sounds like it may have a yin/yang basis or something of that sort. I think the good is ultimately far more strong and enduring than the cruel or the evil.

I am not looking to a legal structure at all, but I am searching for that which will restore to societal, national, and international ethics what Elizabeth Anscombe called “a law-conception of ethics.” Which is to say I am in pursuit of a factor which would once again make ethics weighty and which would reduce the notion of banality often associated with the study of good and evil which we see in the contemporary world.

Glenn, Regarding Schweitzer's statement about nature you may want to look at a different question I have posted here and the conversation about that question:

https://www.researchgate.net/post/Does_the_ban_on_deriving_values_from_facts_oughts_from_ises_still_obtain_as_strongly_as_it_did_in_the_20th_Century

The matter of subjective and objective sources for understanding was handled by Alan Gewirth: Did he not provide a rational foundation for human rights by demonstrating how both objective and subjective dimensions need to be integrated in discussion of human rights?

The problem that remains is that we have not managed to integrate Gewirth's rational foundation into the realm of economic theory. Therefore humanity hobbles along, subject to calculations of value that preside over discussion of human suffering. See for example, recent headlines on global warming; http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/story/2013/07/24/business-arctic-melting-cost.html - We all know that millions of people have already suffered from global warming, yet the harm seems to count for more when it is in terms of economic calculation of costs! The cost of taking care of the material damage counts more, in economics, than human rights! The underlying, subjective ideas that drive forth this perspective need change.

Bill: "I do not believe that the human mind “creates” the objective."

Warren: Nor do I. The human mind creates the notion or property of objectivity.

Bill: "we all work with the same input or data from our senses and process it with a brain that has the same categories"

Warren: I disagree: the input and processing of data depends on the use of language. Language creates reality. I have identified 7 ways of using language leading to 28 levels of creation. The proof of this structure lies in the work people do. Work aims to change reality. Each person chooses the sort of work that accords with the reality they can structure via language and therefore manipulate effectively.

Bill:" I think the good is ultimately far more strong and enduring than the cruel or the evil."

Warren: The key word here is "ultimately". It's a bit like making money in the futures market. If you can survive long enough, you are right—but typically you can't.

NOW TO YOUR QUEST:

Bill: "I am searching for that which will restore to societal, national, and international ethics what Elizabeth Anscombe called “a law-conception of ethics.....I am in pursuit of a factor which would once again make ethics weighty and which would reduce the notion of banality”

Warren: I think EA must mean "a rule-conception of ethics". Laws normally refer to a special type of ethical rule sanctioned by a government (legislature &/or judiciary): PH'6L6 in the Taxonomy. It is therefore unreasonable and self-contradictory to think of laws that apply to all of humanity. However, it is possible to think of a type of ethical rule that might so apply. That type is named in the Taxonomy "an absolute" (PH'6-L7). There are 7 types of ethical rule and they form a taxonomic hierarchy.

The various types of ethical rule spontaneously combine in a set of 5 to form a civilized society's three great frames of reference for making ethical judgements. In practice, the frames function simultaneously but independently. There is the ethical teaching (moral doctrine) (L"7-L"3), the law (L"6-L"2), and the custom (L"5-L"1). The formulae reveal the overlap. The law mediates between the doctrine (which is taken to be intrinsically good and right due to its incorporation of absolutes-L"7) and the custom (which is intrinsically degraded due to its basis in past bad habits and undesirable prescriptive requirements-L"1 -- think female genital mutilation). The more that the law listens to custom (which would include politics), the more unsatisfactory it is. However, it does so through embracing moral conventions (L"2). The more that the law includes doctrine, the more unpalatable it is to most majorities.

The issue that has to be faced is whether there are absolute rules (L'7) that have weight and can reasonably apply to humanity and be used by all in any society. From decades of research and consulting, I believe that these rules do exist. It is noteworthy that they are taxonomically distant from societies' ethical codes and natural moral institutions (as described above). I must leave it to you (and anyone) to judge whether the framework of these taxonomic rules "remove banality" and/or make "ethics weighty". That requires examining the framework (in the «Your Better Self» satellite on thee-online.com), reflecting and judging as you go.

As to "the factor" you pursue: I believe the only "factor" that can produce the result you desire is "responsible reflective awareness".

Warren, You wrote, "Language creates reality. I have identified 7 ways of using language leading to 28 levels of creation. The proof of this structure lies in the work people do. Work aims to change reality. Each person chooses the sort of work that accords with the reality they can structure via language and therefore manipulate effectively." I must confess that I have no idea what you mean. I do not believe that language "creates" reality. I would be willing to entertain the concept that language structures our perception of reality, but to say it "creates" reality sounds as if you are speaking from sort of a spiritual understanding.

Anscombe did indeed mean law conception She was saying that the loss of a Christian worldview had removed the idea of Divine Law which undergirded Western Society for centuries, and that we were illicitly still using a vocabulary that no longer meant what it used to mean. See Alisdair MacIntyre's After Virtue for the most comprehensive popular treatment of this idea.

Hang in there, Bill! You will inject some realism into this discussion sooner or later. It amazes me that you have the tenacity and the time to devote to this endeavor. Gwen

Bill: " I must confess that I have no idea what you mean. I do not believe that language "creates" reality."

Warren: Sorry. I thought I had unequivocally agreed with you in my opening comment about the existence of reality outside ourselves. The issue in that phrase relates to how you engage with that "objective" reality. The answer is that you create a "subjective" reality that you regard as objective. You find that when you do suitable work, your views are confirmed. Things happen as you expect. People listen to you--they may even employ you.

Of course, if you try to do a different (more complex) sort of work, you will find that the subjective reality that you create is unsatisfactory: so you either are not confident about what to do and if you pretend confidence, you cannot explain to others in a way that they accept. As a result, you cannot manage or influence them. Furthermore things don't work out as you want, so you get fired—assuming anyone was foolish enough to take you on in the first place. You soon learn only to do work where your construction of reality permits you to make changes to it given due effort. (If you do a different and simpler sort of work, you find that the activity is unsatisfactory for a different reason and you can't stick at it.)

In the hopes of moving this discussion away from the metaphysical and BACK TO THE INITIAL INQUIRY regarding a secular grounding for human rights arguments, I offer quotes from Dag Hammarskjöld (the second Secretary-General of the UN, so someone who knows of what he speaks) and David Little (speaking in the seminal work on a common morality, Gene Outka and John Reeder, Jr.’s Prospects for a Common Morality):

(1) “Attempts are made to link the development of human rights exclusively to the liberal ideas which broke through to predominance in the Age of Enlightenment. However, to do so means to me to overlook the historical background of those ideas. It means also cutting our ties to a source of strength that we need in order to carry the work for human rights to fruition and to give those rights, when established, their fitting spiritual content.” Dag Hammarskjöld, “Human Rights and the Work for Peace,” Address to American Jewish Committee on 10 April 1957.

(2) “First, there should be no controversy over whether human rights language is moral language. In the face of article One of the Universal Declaration – that ‘all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and conscience and should act toward one another in a spirit of brotherhood,’ … there can be no reasonable doubt that these statements meet the standard criteria of morality. They are warrants for prescribing authoritative action, or action that takes priority and is regarded as legitimate, in part for considering the welfare of others.” David Little, “The Nature and Basis of Human Rights,” Prospects for a Common Morality, Reeder and Outka, eds., p. 75.

Hello Warren,

It sounds as if our difficulty is with semantics. You are using "create" in a way I have not previously seen it used. I would speak of my own, fallible and limited perception of reality. As over against Direct Realism, with Locke, Kant, and a host of others, I believe that I have a perception of reality, but that I do not have, through the sense datum which I perceive, direct access to what objectively exists. It sounds as you are saying the same thing but using the term "create" in a manner that is unfamiliar to me. If you said "form a perception or view" it would harmonize better with my thought process, and I am going to assume that such is your meaning. The fact that you use the phrase "your construction of reality" seems to warrant my doing so.

Gwen,

I have a real appreciation for Hammarskjöld. I read his Markings when I was much younger and found it to be excellent. It was much like Pascal's Pensées in that one had to really contemplate some of the things he wrote and take time to mentally "digest" them. I should really go back and read it again.

Prospects for a Common Morality looks to be of interest. I am going to get a hold of a copy and look it over.

Thank you,

Bill

Filippo, Would you be willing to work with the term "inalienable" if it were understood as a bare minimum of what any right for a human being must be? I mean by this that if we are in the business of acknowledging human rights, unless we want to help multiply the bases on which human beings practice discrimination we seemingly must speak of general human rights as being "inalienable". If an accident or a deficiency or some act that I have participated in can alienate me from a right that others have then am I not being discriminated against? It seems that the loss of the term "inalienable" in the discussion of rights would immediately create groups of human beings whom we say it is permissible to discriminate against. Even if inalienable rights are, as you say, an artifact of "socialization acting on evolved instinct" aren't they a bare minimum of how me must treat rights if we are going to work against discrimination?

Bill, while you are at the library getting the Reeder and Outka book, you may want to pick up Emile Durkheim’s Moral Education. Durkheim is one of the greatest minds of all time to struggle with finding a basis for morality outside of organized religion (in France, this meant outside of Catholicism). Moral Education contains lectures he gave at the Sorbonne in 1902-3 and 1906-7. At the time, the French public education system was trying to rid itself of religion-influenced education (i.e., to retire the Christian Bible as the main text in primary schools). Of course, parents worried that sending their children to the newly secularized public schools would result in raising children with no moral gravitas. Consequently, families on the French countryside shunned the public schools and continued sending their children to schools run by the Catholic Church. Hence, the Government’s motivation to commission Durkheim’s lectures on “moral education.” Here is a segment from one of Durkheim’s lectures:

“It was enough, so they said, to teach the old morality of our fathers, while avoiding recourse to any religious notion. In reality, the task was much more complex. … Of course, if religious symbols were simply overlaid upon moral reality, there would indeed be nothing to do but lift them off, thus finding in a state of purity and isolation a self-sufficient rational morality. But the fact is that these two systems of beliefs and practices have been too inextricably bound together in history; for centuries they have been too interfaced for their connections possibly to be so external and superficial and for the separation to be so easily consummated.” Emile Durkheim, Moral Education: A Study in the Theory & Application of the Sociology of Education, ed. Everett K. Wilson, trans. Everett K. Wilson and Herman Schnurer (New York: The Free Press, 1961), p. 8.

Bill, Can I offer an alternative, if limited but pragmatic approach. It comes from the health care field. Essentially the practice of medicine and much of its technology are for practical purposes globalised. Medicine is powerful, invasive and widely present in many parts of the world. To be sustainable, it must work out of an ethic that is broadly acceptable throughout the world and not dependent on culture or religion. A system meeting these requirements has been taught for a generation and is easily accessible in a textbook by Beauchapps and Childress on Principles of Biomedical Ethics. See a nice introduction at:

http://blogs.biomedcentral.com/bmcseriesblog/2012/07/13/measuring-the-four-principles-of-beauchamp-and-childress/

Their system is based on four principles, which are:

1. Individual Autonomy

2. Beneficence – Essentially doing good, particularly to the "other".

3. Non-maleficence – "Above all, do no harm," (the Hippocratic Oath).

4. Justice – Fairness and equality.

These four principles seem to be able to provide much of the basis for a culture independent ethical system for medicine. This does not fully answer your question, but nevertheless in a very large field of human activity offer a surprising level of support.

Thank you Jim - I will check this out. Its principles are certainly appealing.

This is similar to a comment I posted earlier, but from a different source (r.e. what gives humanity a unique claim to dignity - but that still does not rely on the 'created in God's image' argument):

"...But the human being is the only being that is aware of the ephemeral character of its own existence” (Dastur 2012, p. 1)

So...does this awareness confer upon us a unique claim to dignity? The obvious part about this is evolution of faculties that allow us to extrapolate that others must have this same awareness.

Dastur, F. (2012). How Are We to Confront Death (R. Vallier, Trans.). New York: Fordham University Press.

Hi Filippo,

Thank you for the response - and I agree that other animals (elephants for example) have been shown to mourn the loss of one of their own. But can they anticipate their own inevitable death or that of another of their own species? There seems to be something uniquely human about this existential angst...the need to make sense of ourselves in the universe.

If one looks at the non-derogable articles of the human rights treaties, one discovers that those articles are related to the survival instinct. They guarantee our survival, extension of our lives and satisfaction of fundamental biological and psychological needs. For instance, nobody wants to be killed, tortured, enslaved, discriminated, convicted without a fair trial.

Now look at the question from a typical secular social contract. Adapt for instance Rawls' original position in a thought experiment, called the heaven position:

Imagine that you are a smart spirit, and you are going to be born soon, but you have no knowledge of where. You are in a debating room and you debate and negotiate with the other future inhabitants of the world. Which laws should there be? In this position you sign a social contract that binds everybody.

Just as in John Rawls's experiment, you have no knowledge as to what particular properties you will have in the actual world. You don't know which person you will be. Rawls would also say that you have no knowledge of your future conception of good.

What you certainly will know about the future is that everybody's capacity to know the truth will be limited. Again, as in Rawls' experiment, you are allowed to have any general knowledge you might want. You know something about human psychology, about group dynamics and about how politics works.

You know that most humans value life either above all other values, or as a necessary precondition to satisfying one's conception of good, since death would prevent most of us from realizing our plans. But we value life because we have a survival instinct.

Besides life, we have fundamental biological and psychological needs (biopsyx).

For instance we need physical freedom in order to find food, shelter and sexual partners. We would suffer unbearably if we were tied to a table for the rest of our lives, even if our hostage taker would make our lives longer than normal, by technological means. (That means that we strive for longer lives in combination with a minimal satisfaction of certain needs.)

Just keep imagining what rules should govern the world and you will at least discover the non-derogable articles of the human rights treaties. Thus you can rationally ground human rights in secularism.

Mihai this is an interesting usage of the "veil of ignorance". I did not recall the person in the thought experiment having "no knowledge of their future conception of good". That makes the experiment even more interesting. It seems to require that they formulate a notion of flourishing even as they are trying to conceptualize the most equal and just society. You went on to speak of the fact that we value life and need to meet certain needs if we are to preserve our lives. It appears that you are tying the rules which should govern the world to human survival and human needs. H.L.A. Hart speaks as you do here in The Concept of Law:

"It will be rightly observed that what makes sense of this mode of thought and expression is something entirely obvious: it is the tacit assumption that the proper end of human activity is survival, and this rests on the simple contingent fact that most men most of the time wish to continue in existence. The actions which we speak of as those which are naturally good to do, are those which are required for survival; the notions of a human need, of harm, and of the function of bodily organs or changes rests on the same simple fact."

Hart says that Hobbes and Hume have both “…seen in the modest aim of survival the central indisputable element which gives empirical good sense to the terminology of Natural Law.” He goes on to show how indispensable this concept is for language, law, and ethics:

"For it is not merely that an overwhelming majority of men do wish to live, even at the cost of hideous misery, but that this is reflected in whole structures of our thought and language, in terms of which we describe the world and each other. We could not subtract the general wish to live and leave intact concepts like danger and safety, harm and benefit, need and function, disease and cure; for these are ways of simultaneously describing and appraising things by reference to the contribution they make to survival which is accepted as an aim."

Hart says that we must assume regarding our fellow human beings that their aim, “generally speaking, is to live.” Thus, the drive towards survival and the implicit understanding that survival is a telos or goal at which human intention naturally aims is inescapable. It is but a short step from there to the recognition and approval of that same intention in others.

This is moving toward the place which I have concluded is where we must ground such rights, but I want to say that survival is too minimalistic a goal for my taste. I have something more like Aristotle's eudemonia in mind as I think about this. Why must we settle for minimums? Is not the universal desire for survival and for having our human needs met a good warrant for pushing the whole matter one step further and moving beyond mere survival to flourishing?

No. There is no compelling secular justification for DHR. "Secular" = "of this age". Humann rights can only be convincingly justified in an eschatological framework.

Durkheim is very good, but is dated now.. Apart from anything else he is situated between Vatican 1 and Vatican 2 (the Roman Church Councils). Of course he was trying to escape the Roman fist! (He also predated Schweitzer's important book which again drew attention to eschatology.)

Bill,

Philosophy is about finding rational explanations; it corresponds to our rational side. But sacredness, the value we attribute for example to a innocent child, it not founded in our rational side but it cries its existence thrrough our feelings that are deeply rooted in our nature. The religious traditions have given different expressions to what our deep feelings have identified as sacred without in most cases provided a rational for it. Unless we undertand the foundations of the evolution of the cosmos and the place that intelligent life has in it, we will not know the rational explanations of our deepest feeling pointing to the sacredness.

Louis,

I am glad you joined in here. I think you are right to characterise philosophy as being about "finding rational explanations". But I think that you fall into the materialist fallacy when you say, "Unless we understand the foundations of the evolution of the cosmos and the place that intelligent life has in it, we will not know the rational explanations of our deepest feeling pointing to the sacredness." You are equating "rational explanation" with "material explanation"!

You are also right to point to "sacredness". Can we speak rationally about "value"? I have asserted here and elsewhere that indeed we can, but we have to use supernatural language, using "supernatural" as before in my pedantic and literal way to mean "that which cannot be expressed in terms of the natural law we are aware of".

Putting this another way, to speak of value we have to use synthetic language, not the analytical language that cannot avoid the logical limitation that follows from Gödel's theorem. In this forum it should be readily acknowledged that Christian thought has specialised in this sort of language, and as a consequence has underpinned the development of analytical thought. Science is a Christian activity (and this in no way minimises the huge contribution the Muslim world made!). Christian thought does provide a rationale for the sacred realm.

Value is necessarily supernatural, and we can speak about it rationally.

Chris:"Value is necessarily supernatural, ..."

Value is necessarily Emotional, Damasio's work on the orbital prefrontal cortex suggests that without a connection to emotion, the ethical rationality falls away, and what is left is irrational aquisitiveness.

Reply to: “Durkheim is very good, but is dated now... Apart from anything else he is situated between Vatican 1 and Vatican 2 (the Roman Church Councils). Of course he was trying to escape the Roman fist! (He also predated Schweitzer's important book which again drew attention to eschatology.)” Chris Jeynes

Gwen:

Chris, it is unfair to declare Durkheim outdated and to “establish” his relevance by reference to (a) historical religious events (Vatican 1 and Vatican 2) or (b) by reference to other disciplines and theorists (Schweitzer). Such unequivocal and judgmental proclamations can result in interdisciplinary warfare as many sociologists will take your comment personally and feel insulted given that Durkheim (1855-1917) and August Comte (1798-1857) are deemed to be the founding fathers of Sociology. It has been said that, “Sociology is rooted in the scholarly work of European intellectuals who tilled the soil of the Enlightenment for an antidote to religion” (Alexis, 2003, p. 71). Assuming this statement is true (and let’s assume that for the sake of argument), it makes anything written by the great minds of the discipline (e.g., Comte, Durkheim, Max Weber [1864-1920], and –YES – Karl Marx [1818-1883]) relevant to Bill’s original inquiry regarding a non-religious grounding for Human Rights and human dignity advocacy). Indeed, I venture to say that the thinking of sociologists is just as relevant as the less lofty meanderings of those trained in the legal profession like myself.

In short, even though it is perfectly acceptable to discount my input on Bill’s inquiry (given that my input is generally emotionally charged and always pedestrian), it is downright sacrilegious and foolhardy to ignore the developed thought of those who applied the critical eye of the sociologist to the study of religion such as Durkheim (The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life, 1915) and Max Weber (The Sociology of Religion, 1922).

Work Cited:

Gwendolyn Yvonne Alexis, (2003 dissertation), “LEGISLATIVE TERRORISM: A Primer for the Non-Islamic State; Secularism and Different Believers.”

Chris,

I do not see myself as a materialism because as long as someone is guided by his/her spiritual feeling that person is not materialist and since we have an intelligence, it is our nature to try to understand ourself and our world, this quest is utterly spiritual in spirit.

I agree that philosophy and science are not advance enough and will probably never be advance enough to answer the fundamental question of our life but sine immemorial time we have our instincts and our spiritual instinct does not need a ready made explanation. I do not like the expression ‘’supernatural’’ because all that exist is natural although we will never completely know what this statement means.

I agree that Christian, Muslim, Budhism, Indisus, Janism, Chamanism, etc, etc provides a language for discussing human values and the acred realm.

I agree: use of the term 'supernatural' is counter-productive.

There may be a useful comparison to material reality here. Think of the inert or noble gases (argon, xenon etc). They exist but do not appear in any materials. Of course, they have uses. We don't ignore them because they do not react like most elements.

The same applies to the realm of values and spirit. They must be taxonomically identified and accepted as 'natural' and therefore as 'real'. The value of the periodic table was that it showed how (and later why) the inert elements related to normal chemical elements. So the value of my Taxonomy is that it shows how (and perhaps one day it will show why) spiritual elements relate to more concrete elements like our emotions, information, observation, adjustments, movements etc.

Macintyre ends "After Virtue" with a reference to the need for a modern St Benedict. Benedict developed the Benedictine Rule after the fall of Rome. It was the basis for the foundation of the monasteries that preserved learning through the Dark Ages. The Rule allowed those who desired to form moral communities. What I find striking about the Rule is that it was eminently firm and practical, it was not hyper-religious or ascetic, it involved democratic choice, it valued work and learning, it recognized the need to be pragmatic. The Rule was not 4 supreme values or a focused charter: how could that possibly support a living ethic then or now? It was rather explained in over 70 Chapters. The original document was repeatedly copied and used in the subsequent Centuries

Bottom Line: Any future for human beings to respect each other's rights and live together in dignity must be built on a comprehensive view of human nature.

Hello Louis,

I am not being oppositional here - rather, I want to make a few distinctions about issues that I think you have omitted from how you phrased things above.

You wrote: "The religious traditions have given different expressions to what our deep feelings have identified as sacred without in most cases provided a rational for it." I don't think that is accurate. I think they may not have given what you personally count to be a compelling rationale for it, but most faiths of which I am aware have given a rational for what makes the sacred sacred. It sounds as though you desire a scientific explanation for the sacred. Quite honestly, had such an explanation been given when the major faiths were being formed, there would have been no understanding it. Technology did indeed exist in the ancient world, but science proper dates to much more recent times. In a pre-scientific world there is not really a way to frame things in scientific terms. Some today object that the Scriptures of the major faiths describe the phenomena they observe in terms of how they appear (e.g. "the sun went down"). What would an ancient Semite or dweller in the Indus Valley have made of the statement that "the earth rotated on its axis away from the sun and things grew dark"? Where would they put such a claim? Or think of trying of describe germs, viruses, and bacteria to people living in pre-scientific times. If you made the effort, it seem as though they would simply say, "Yeah - little malignant things living inside me - demons!"

I would take a step back from what you have said (not a step away) and say that since the advent of the sciences as we know them, which began strongly in the 16th Century, we have been given new lenses through which to view the sacred. These lenses bring a whole new important dimension to our understanding.

What do you think?

Hello Graeme,

I think you are using "value" differently than Chris is using it. I too appreciate Damasio's work (and his wife's work as well), but I think Chris isn't speaking of value in terms of emotional judgments, but value as regards ethical values which have some sort of foundation or basis that anchors them.

Thanks Bill for making my point for me. Graeme, I actually bought Damasio's book recently and greatly appreciated it - and even cited it in my book on the Psalms!

Gwendolyn Alexis: I am pleased you were provoked into a response! I do rather think you overstate your case though. I merely said, “Durkheim is very good, but is dated now...", which you called an "unequivocal and judgmental proclamation"! I hardly think you need to be too protective of a scholar from over a century ago.

Please note that you also speak loosely (and inaccurately). My statement was carefully equivocal, contrary to your claim. And the very purpose of fora like this is to make and compare judgements. So to say I was "judgemental" is really beside the point.

I really appreciated the book of Durkheim that I read (many years ago), and you are quite right to make approving noises about Marx too - he revolutionised multiple fields : his was an amazing contribution. However, all these 19th century scholars remain 19th century. They were not entirely correct in their own time (who is?), and times have changed dramatically. In particular, the 20th century revolution in the knowledge of rationality (in both maths and physics) made large swathes of previous thought redundant or suspect. And this applies with dramatic force to both Weber and Durkheim on religion! Approximating grossly, it was Schweitzer who started to give a different perspective on Christianity from the Tübingen school, and his "school" is vastly different today. And note that his book was more or less contemporary with Weber's and Durkheim's books that you cite - they did not take his view sufficiently into account (and his view was wrong anyway ...). As I said, the old scholars are dated (they almost always are!).

Bill,

'' but most faiths of which I am aware have given a rational for what makes the sacred sacred. It sounds as though you desire a scientific explanation for the sacred. ''

I do not beleive that the sacred will ever be understood and will ever be in the realm of being felt. Quantum mechanics the most advance of all of the science is the most humble one in the sense that it admits limit to knowledge. I think that all the science will eventually become humble in this way. That being said, what you call the rational of the religious tradition is more of a narrative poetic mythic type of rational. It carries wisdom not by explaining it but by emotionally pointing the direction. This is fine but it is not what we in modern time call a rational. We now need a cosmological rational, a rational rooted in all aspect of nature. We need a new cosmic story where we can fit in. The ancients did it in a majestic ways and we can also do it in a majestic modern way. The sacred is not at all treathen by such endeavor but our new way to point in his direction will be beautifull as well. I was inspired to think in this way when I was 14 years old and I read Theilard de Chardin.

Bill,

I think you missed the point, all ethics is, is value laden judgements, whether there is a theoretical basis for them or not. The value comes from emotion, without emotion nobody would be attracted to the ethical decisions and so the theoretical basis for the values would be null and void.

Response to: “I am pleased you were provoked into a response! I do rather think you overstate your case though.” Chris Jeynes

Gwen:

Chris, were you really trying to provoke me? Shame on you! God doesn’t like intellectual bullies :>)

Gwen: of course I wasn't trying to provoke you - I don't know you from Eve! And I am not trying to bully anyone. I try to make fair points fairly. But I do try to say things clearly as well. I thought we were interested in definite and defensible judgements on this forum. But if the substance of the thread encourages participation that must be good. So I was happy you contributed.

By the way, why don't you upload your 2003 dissertation to RG? You appear not to have published it so presumably you still have the copyright.

Louis, when you say "Quantum mechanics, as the most advanced of all of the sciences, is the most humble" I think you hit the nail on the head! I have thought this myself for some time. And you are also right when you say "I do not believe that the sacred will ever be understood" (provided you mean "completely understood"). However, when you go on to say that the sacred will always "be in the realm of being felt" I think you are only half right. Of course, feelings are essential, and as Graeme (and Bill) correctly pointed out, they are also essential to both knowledge and knowing. But the sacred can also be articulated. This is a type of knowing with a different discipline from the disciplines of the physical sciences. But it does not thereby stop being a true knowledge. Bit pressed now - I'll return in a day or so.

Graeme,

In the words of Ricky Nelson (albeit out of context and differently applied), If all that ethics is is value laden judgments, when it comes to teaching ethics (my subject) "I'd rather drive a truck." You are correct as regards how ethics, at first glance, presents itself to our perception, but I believe if you dig more deeply you'll find more than mere value laden judgments. In so saying I believe Hume agrees with me. That may seem a stretch, but hear me out.

I believe that Hume is merely saying what Aristotle said long before him, "Thought alone moves nothing." (NE, 1139a, 35) This is a line of thought which is being justified by the work of Damasio and others.

Here is Hume:

It appears, therefore, that all virtuous actions derive their merit only from virtuous motives, and are consider'd merely as signs of those motives. From this principle I conclude, that the first virtuous motive, which bestows a merit on any action, can never be a regard to the virtue of that action, but must be some other natural motive or principle. To suppose, that the mere regard to the virtue of the action may be the first motive, which produc'd the action, and render'd it virtuous, is to reason in a circle. Before we can have such a regard, the action must be really virtuous; and this virtue must be deriv'd from some virtuous motive: And consequently the virtuous motive must be different from the regard to the virtue of the action. A virtuous motive is requisite to render an action virtuous. An action must be virtuous, before we can have a regard to its virtue. Some virtuous motive, therefore, must be antecedent to that regard. (Treatise, 3.1.2.1).

Notice his words here: "An action must be virtuous before we can have regard to its virtue." He is speaking in terms of "isness" of something ontologically real. Here he is again a little further on in the Treatise:

Wherein consists this honesty and justice, which you find in restoring a loan, and abstaining from the property of others? It does not surely lie in the external action. It must, therefore be plac'd in the motive, from which the external action is deriv'd. This motive can never be a regard to the honesty of the action. For `tis a plain fallacy to say, that a virtuous motive is requisite to render an action honest, and at the same time that a regard to the honesty is the motive of the action. We can never have a regard to the virtue of an action, unless the action be antecedently virtuous. No action can be virtuous, but so far as it proceeds from a virtuous motive. A virtuous motive, therefore, must precede the regard to the virtue, and `tis impossible, that the virtuous motive and the regard to the virtue can be the same. (Treatise, 3.2.1.9)

For an action to be antecedently virtuous is for it to have something about it ontologically speaking which makes it virtuous. In reality Hume did not say that it is impossible to reason from facts to values, but rather that it is impossible to do so without the interplay of desire or sentiment. He stated that the significance of facts vis-à-vis motivation is responded to by means of reasoning eliciting sentiment; sentiment then moves the will to act. In reality, Hume never did refute the ability of facts to motivate; rather, he merely asserted (I think rightly) his own skepticism about unaided reason’s ability to respond to facts in order to motivate the will. Further, in Hume’s thought, it is the affective which drives the volitional. Rather than declaring that one cannot reason from facts to values, he is actually declaring how to properly reason from ‘is’ to ‘ought.’ We make the move from the descriptive to the prescriptive by means of value laden judgments, but there is, necessarily, an ontologically significant state of affairs which makes it possible for us to do so.

Damasio states that cognitions always have some sort of a mental component and that “Well-targeted and well-deployed emotion seems to be a support system without which the edifice of reason cannot operate properly.” Pinker states this:

"The emotions are mechanisms that set the brain’s highest-level goals. Once triggered by a propitious moment, an emotion triggers the cascade of subgoals and sub-subgoals that we call thinking and acting…. No sharp line divides thinking from feeling, nor does thinking inevitably precede feeling or vice versa."

I believe that reason responding to fact is inextricably bound up with emotion in all of our thinking. To say that emotional judgments are a necessary aspect of ethics is then acceptable, but to say that "all ethics is is emotional judgments" is an extreme reduction of the real picture of what is happening when we make an ethical choice.

Louis,

I agree with most of what you wrote above, and appreciate your emphasis on the fact that the contemporary way of pointing toward the sacred will be beautiful. This is especially so in higher order mathematics. What I do take exception to is this:

"I do not believe that the sacred will ever be understood and will ever be in the realm of being felt."

I would say that I do not believe that it will ever be "fully understood", but I am especially unwilling to accept that it will ever be in the realm of "being felt". Feelings are transient. They come and they go. They are sometimes accurate and sometimes inaccurate. I agree with Robert Solomon (Not Passion's Slave) that they are, in actuality, judgments. If all the numinous or the holy (speaking in terms of Rudolph Otto's Das Helige) is is a matter of feelings, then I can find those sorts of feelings elsewhere. I can find them by means of mind altering substances, listening to majestic music, and by reading good fiction. However, if there is something real behind our sense of the numinous or the sacred, then I am unwilling to accept that it will ever and always be in the realm of feelings. Unless there is something real back of or behind our sense of the sacred I have no use for it. Such an entity would be comparable to Santa Claus to a child and of equal value. That in this lifetime the sacred should remain mysterious is not reason for me to resign myself to its being locked up somewhere in my affective perceptions. The sehnsucht which I experience when I believe I brush up against the sacred is to me more than merely an emotional thing. I believe that it has something real and objective behind it.

In the words of William James: "For the philosophy which is so important in each of us is not a technical matter; it is our more or less dumb sense of what life honestly and deeply means. It is only partly got from books; it is our individual way of just seeing and feeling the total push and pressure of the cosmos." I am not saying that my way of "seeing the push and pressure of the cosmos" is the right way and that you must embrace it as such. I am simply saying that this is my own perception of the sacred. James says that in reality temperament, rather than logic, determines one’s conclusions far more than objective premises do. I suppose my temperament is one that is prone to believe there is something more than what I can see and comprehend. Credulity does not, as some are inclined to claim, necessarily attach to the thought processes of those who see a purposive universe. I am admittedly a believer in a sacred that exists beyond the realm of feeling.

Admittedly I may have been guilty of over emphasis there, but I believe that the level of emotional drive involved in ethical decisions is vastly under-rated.

When exactly did emotion become verbotten and thought get reified to the point where we bridle at the fact that emotion takes a major role in our ethical thought?

Bill,

You seem to distrust feelings and not rely on them. But for Jesus, the primary value was a feeling: Love. What is this feeling he was talking about? Is it real? When you look at a child and you find him/her beautiful in all aspects, what is this feeling? Can it be trusted? When looking at a sunrise from a mountain top, what is this feeling of beauty? Is’nt it related to the sacred? A two thousand year old giant tree, would you without hesitation cut it? Feelings are the inner voice. It sees thousand time further than reason. It is the beacon of our life. If you distrust them I do not know what you can trust?

Graeme Smith: "When exactly did emotion become verboten and thought get reified to the point where we bridle at the fact that emotion takes a major role in our ethical thought?"

Nicely put question! But it is not a matter of "bridling" - after all, things are what they are, and emotion is central to being human (as I think all current participants agree). I Emotion is central both to forming any sort of argument (including ethical ones) and to having the motivation to form them. But the arguments themselves are not (necessarily) emotional. I think actually that Damasio makes this point rather well. We should reify neither (rational) thought nor emotion, but acknowledge that reality is such that both faculties are needed to grasp it.

Ditto to: "When exactly did emotion become verboten and thought get reified to the point where we bridle at the fact that emotion takes a major role in our ethical thought?" Graeme Smith

Gwen:

As Smokey Robinson says, “I second that emotion”!

Graeme, Louis, and Gwen,

Perhaps I have not expressed myself well. I have no problem with emotions playing their part in all of our thought and decision making. I took issue with Graeme's statement "I think you missed the point, all ethics is, is value laden judgements, whether there is a theoretical basis for them or not."

I do not think that all ethics is is value laden judgments. Damasio doesn't think so either. Emotions are one integral component of the whole, without which the process of thought and decision making is unable to move past intertia. Facts are, in a sense, inert, and it is emotion which connects facts with motivation and action. That is Hume's point and Damasio's as well. If ethics were merely a matter of emotions then, quite frankly, I have better things to do with my time than spend it in a domain that is entirely subjective. Ethics as simply the expression of emotions is especially the thought process of A.J. Ayer and others who, by their meta-ethical gyrations reduce all ethical statements down to "Boo!" and "Hurrah!" They say that nothing cognitive is going on when we make a moral judgment, we are simply expressing our preferences.

"For Ayer, ethical or aesthetic judgments are subjective rather than objective, and cannot be demonstrated to be true or false. Ethical or aesthetic judgments express feelings, not propositions, and have no objective validity. "

This is not only Ayer but also Stevenson and a number of other Meta-Ethicists. If I believed this I would not bother with ethics. It is a waste of time and it is radically relative to the individual. That is my point. I think something real is going on when we make ethical judgments. I think our actions either accord with or are out of harmony with something real.

J.L. Mackie took this line of thought to its logical conclusion, when he stated that "there are no objective moral values" in his famous essay which opens his Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong, entitled "The Subjectivity of Values". I am an ethical realist as opposed to Ayers, Stevenson, Mackie, and a number of other ethical anti-realists. If all that ethics is is value laden judgments then the anti-realists are right and I am out of here.

That was my point. I am not a stoic, I am very fond of emotions, and would, together with Simon Blackburn (a philosopher who is worlds apart from me in his thought) speak of the "moral defect of indifference to things that merit passion". In fact my thesis speaks about right passion and the need for it in our moral judgments. I am simply unwilling to concede that ethics reduces down to them and them alone. I hope that helps clarify what I was saying.

Louis -

I agree with the spirit of what you have written, but I do not think that love is merely a feeling. My feelings rise and fall, wax and wane. I have been married to my wife for 35 years. If my love for her, or hers for me, were predicated on feelings alone, then we would have separated long ago. I believe that love is much more complex than feelings of love, and worthy of a description which includes the intellect, the will, and the passions. Part of my other vocation includes a lot of counseling. I must tell you that from life experience of counseling human beings for the better part of 30 years, peoples' feelings are often out of synch with reality. I do not despise feelings, but I think they need to be judged right and wrong, accurate and inaccurate. As I mentioned above, I would take my stance with the philosopher Robert Solomon in his book Not Passion's Slave, when he says that emotions are, in part anyway, judgments. Like other judgments they can be right or wrong.

Human right will be nothing without bioethics. Autonomy or self determination is foundation of human right and will give benefit if guided by bioethics. Bio means all living matter and the most life or source of life also included i.e THE GOD. Bio that excluded the God will create exploitation one living matter by another living matter

People can and do claim all kinds of freedoms from society's constraints (liberty rights) and material assistance from society (welfare rights) as human rights. My favorite example is the claim by rural members of our civil parish who claimed they had a right to bury garbage on their property and not to be required to have it picked up. To have a right recognized by others requires advancing an argument as to why that particular freedom or assistance qualifies as a right. A simple way to do this is to show that it is essential to a human being's dignity and self-worth. This can be done by example or empirical evidence of what people experience when denied this freedom or assistance. What happens to people denied an education, a job, or the other rights listed in the U.N.Declaration? Rights are a recognition of the worth of humans and if the audience does not recognize that worth, no argument will convince them. There are many freedoms and kinds of assistance that people want but others will not recognize them as a right unless I can show how important they are to living the kind of life that a human (or an animal or historical object) deserves. See www.ethicsops.com for a recipe for making that kind of argument and two case examples, along with other ethical principles translated into language that fits comfortably in business and professional as well as personal settings.

Interesting James - I especially like the simple statement that "rights are a recognition of the worth of humans" and your statement that if the audience doesn't recognize that worth then no argument will persuade them regarding their rights. This is the most basic starting point isn't it? How do we ground this apart from the religious? Autonomy, certain levels of cognitive function, self-awareness, and emotions are some of the bases that have been suggested above. How about yourself - how do you answer this question: Why are humans and their rights valuable? - or - Why should human beings be treated as having intrinsic worth and dignity?

The code of hammurabi is a secular code of laws that regulate the living together in the Babilonean societies. The rulers edicted the code and enforced it. Human rights in this society is established by this code. It shows rules, and punishments if those rules are broken, on a variety of matters, including women's rights, men's rights, children's rights and slave rights.

There were no justification of the code. It was simply brutally enforced.

Filippo -

This is a good explanation of the why in terms of what drives it. I am looking for a grounding that can produce some sense of normativity, as in "We OUGHT to treat other human beings as having intrinsic dignity and worth." My purview is especially pedagogy as regards teaching virtue or character to children. How do we move from the idea that we see intrinsic worth and dignity in others because of the outworking of instinct, to "You, as a human being, ought to value the life and wellbeing of your fellow human beings"?

Louis -

The discovery of Hammurabi's Code totally disrupted the presuppositions of many archaeologists and historians of the ancient world regarding how highly advanced law was at that point in history. Now, knowing what I have seen from you on here previously there is more to your mentioning this than the mere comment regarding the brutal enforcement of the code. You have a reason for raising this, of that I am certain, but I am not certain of why you have brought it up. Are you contrasting the raw enforcement of positive law with the voluntary obedience of citizens who see a grounding of their laws in the nature of the world around them?

Fiippo,

It seems to me that you pile speculation upon speculation. You presume that ethics evolved because you admit no other explanation. It is interesting that you are not especially satisfied by this either! The problem is that we change our interpretation of our observations every generation (at least), so that this sort of explanation becomes subject to fashion. Another problem is that this sort of explanation is useless for public persuasion - people simply don't believe it, at least, not enough to make any difference to their behaviour.

In my view the scientific ("natural") question of how to account for the existence of ethics (or religion, or indeed cultural artefacts of all types in general) does not inform the normative question of how we ought to behave. Science does not address value, and it is values that are in view here. Indeed, science can only be done in the context of a prior assessment of value (at the most crass level, the first thing to do is to persuade the funders to stump up the money!).

Bill,

''I am in pursuit of a factor which would once again make ethics weighty''

I see two ways to make ethic weighty: punishment and conviction.

Our parents used both ways. They convinced us not through reason but through our adhesion to religious narratives that call a whole range of emotions.

If you have children you probably employed the same methods but under a more modern clothing. The method of emotional narrative for conveying values is also used in books. movies and good political discourses. In such discourse, reason is on the surface but what move people is the poetic substrat of the discourse.

Filippo:

The Question of this thread is :- "Is there a compelling secular way to underwrite claims of human rights and dignity such as we find in the UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights?" You say, "Science does not address value, sure. So what?" So UDHR is specifically about value - that is, this thread is about the justification of value. Your belief is perfectly fine, but does not address the current question.

So you don't care about public persuasion? Have you tried to get funding for your scientific projects? This is the simplest way to demonstrate that science is based on estimations of value! But of course this is a deep philosophical point as well.

Entertainingly, you also claim that "interpretation" is not part of science! Have you seen Michael Polanyi's discussion of the Michaelson & Morley experiment (in "Personal Knowledge")? He cites chapter and verse to show that the presentation of this was pure interpretation from beginning to end. This is a very general point. If you have ever tried to construct a properly critical Uncertainty Budget you will see how much interpretation underlies even the simplest analysis. I have done this in my 2012 Analytical Chemistry paper, and we are about to submit an update of this that goes through that Uncertainty Budget with a toothcomb and presents a complete revision. We are amazed at how equivocal even apparently unequivocal measurements are.

But when I was speaking about "fashion" I did not have these simple physics applications in mind. When we have sorted these they will stay sorted! (They are not interesting enough for anything else!) But deep questions of the interpretation of biological observations are something else. Especially if they are at all contentious. I am thinking of the interesting paper on "Adaptive Mutation" of McFadden & al-Khalili in Biosystems (50, 1999, 203-211; dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0303-2647(99)00004-0). The experiments they cite look unequivocal, but they have been interpreted many different ways. It turns out that very little is unequivocal, and nothing interesting is! Science is much more subject to fashion than we would like to think.

Louis -

Of the two ways which you mention above, conviction is the one which interests me most. Punishment seems historically, both in Eastern ethics and in Western ethics, to be the answer of those with a low view of human nature. My view of human nature eliminates punishment as an acceptable motivator for ethical behavior. As you are likely aware, Hobbes has a view of the power/punishment variety. In Leviathan he states:

"During the time men live without a common power to keep them all in awe, they are in that conditions called war; and such a war, as if of every man, against every man."

"To this war of every man against every man, this also in consequent; that nothing can be unjust. The notions of right and wrong, justice and injustice have there no place. Where there is no common power, there is no law, where no law, no injustice..."

"No arts; no letters; no society; and which is worst of all, continual fear, and danger of violent death: and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short."

I think Hobbes gets some things right, but the power/punishment solution to the issue of human misbehavior seems to radically lessen the dignity and worth of human life, both individually and collectively.

The nature of the question I have posed here (on RG) is essentially, "How do we get the conviction of which you speak, without making use of religious narratives?" This remains a tall order.

Bill: You cite Hobbes, very correctly. It seems to me that Hobbes was addressing essentially the same point addressed by Machiavelli 150 years earlier. The existence of justice itself in any society depends on the exercise of power to underpin the judgements. Both Hobbes and Machiavelli were impressed enough by the lawlessness of their times to comment on this - war is the greatest evil.

I think actually that from a Biblical perspective Louis was on the right track to mention both punishment and conviction. The ethical dimension of power is concerned specifically with its authority. Is the king entitled to rule? One can present the history of England for most of the last millennium as the interaction of various stories accounting for the present (or future) king's authority.

All societies must insist that their citizens cede at least some of their autonomy to a central power, and we can view this Question as a debate about how this power is justified.

You say :-

The nature of the question I have posed here (on RG) is essentially, "How do we get the conviction of which you speak, without making use of religious narratives?"

Why do we have to exclude "religious narratives"? I would say that every conviction is underpinned by a narrative of some sort, and any coherent narrative will do. There is no reason to exclude any type a priori. I would also say that: consequently, all such narratives function as religious narratives!

Everyone necessarily has a point of view. At this level, every such point of view necessarily functions as a "religion" (interpreted broadly).

Coming back to my Biblical perspective, "justice and judgement" were the prime requirements of God from his kings, and his King is the embodiment of justice and judgement. The Day of Judgement is specifically a day of release of God's people from all oppression (not a day of terror for them). But you see how it works: the people love the King because he brings freedom (that is, judgement of the oppressor), and because of their love they do his commands (hence ethics).

Now, it is down to all participants in our society to say where their ethics come from. I don't really approve of market language, but if everyone tells their stories about the origins of their ethics we will have a marketplace for the undecided to choose which story they find persuasive. One thing is clear. We cannot unequivocally establish an abstract ethic without an underlying narrative. This is really seeking the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. But the rainbow has no end ...

Chris,

>

You took the words out of my mouth.

Article1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights declares:

All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed

with reason and conscien ce and should act towards one another in a spirit o f

brotherhood.

This is a major theme and remnant of the French revolution.

We all know that laws, including charters of rights are human conventions. This article seem to try to justify this convention on the basis that we are born with these rights, that we are born with equal dignity etc... There is also in this article a christian principle: ``should act towards one another in a spirit o f

brotherhood.`` The first part talk to logic and reason, and this part talk to our feeling of love and brotherly feeling. The first part talk to logic and reason only superficially because it leave undefined what is dignity although it claims it to be a natural characteristic of human being.

All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. We should add with value those who are the best person whose the best in ethics and behavior.

Marek - I appreciate what you have made available here about Plato and I hope you will pursue making the whole document available in English. This is excellent and (I think) potentially very helpful regarding this issue. I am not a Platonist. I favor Aristotle, but this is excellent. You might enjoy some of the work of Heather Widdows, the head of U. Birmingham, UK's Global Ethics Department. She is a Platonist and a very accessible author. Global ethics is her emphasis and she has recently written/edited an excellent primer in Global Ethics.

Bill,

Through our education and most likely from our natural predisposition to value human life in most circumstance but not in all circumstance we get an intuitive sense of the meaning of . But so far I have not read a rational explanation on the nature of human dignity. What I read here and there is just an encouragement to value human life, to act in respectfull manner toward other human beings, etc. and the concept of human dignity is a kind of justification or reason why we should behave that way. Could you provide me with one or two explanations on the nature of human dignity?

It is really too bad that men cannot personally experience childbirth; I mean the whole 9 months of carrying another human being inside one's body. I am sure that if they could, they wouldn't have to ponder questions such as "the nature of human dignity"; they could feel it. Gwen

Guendolyn,

I am father of four children and I can feel human dignity but it has to be defended into the realm of the discourse and there arguments on the nature of human dignity, the nature of any feeling you may have for your child have to be found. If this battle of words in not fougth, it will be lost by default with tremendous consequences for human dignity.

Right now most scientists studying the neuro-sciences and all the physical aspects of the human beings are treating their subject as car mechanic do; if the nature of human dignity is not even thought about then scientifically a human being will just be a complex mechanic, a thing, an object without any intrinsic dignity.

Louis, the awe of life begetting life (such as is felt with the first stirring of morning sickness) has only a slight -- so slight as to be remote -- resemblance to a parent's feelings about his own flesh and blood. The former speaks to the times in life when one says: "Oh, now I get it!" The latter is run-of-the-mill ego -- something that can easily be experienced by catching one's reflection in a standing body of water or in a mirror. Gwen

Louis, eu penso que dá para definir a natureza da dignidade de forma racional sim. A dignidade que se dá entre os seres humanos se dá em primeiro lugar através da capacidade do homem de cognição, de saber que sabe. No estado de natureza eu sou capaz de aprendizado, mas eu não sei o que o outro pensa, como ele vai agir, mas eu sei que se não há limites, ele pode querer me dominar. Então, a partir do momento em que há comunicação entre as pessoas, a partir do momento em que as pessoas expõem suas necessidades e desejos, elas conseguem se entender.

Entendo que a natureza da dignidade humana está na alteridade, na inclusão do outro, em considerar o outro como igual a mim, e não como um objeto que eu utilizo apenas como meio para atingir às finalidades que interessam apenas a mim. É claro que não somos santos, não somos totalmente bons nem totalmente maus por natureza. Somos apenas humanos. Erramos, mas a razão e os ideais devem servir de parâmetro para criticarmos nossas ações reais, algo que devemos tentar alcançar.

Andre,

If I understand you correctly.

We are all humans and since we are conscious we naturally value ourself and since we can naturally recognize that all other human beings are like ourself then there are equally valuable. Althoug we know that we know, we know that we do not know what we truly are. But the valuation of our nature does not depend on that, it is intrinsic in our nature.

Louis, inicialmente me desculpe por escrever em português. Entendo que a valorização do outro depende da capacidade que temos de atribuir valor às coisas e às pessoas. E essa capacidade é racional.

André ,

Is it really rational?