D. Hsieh on Explaining Atheism

[George H. Smith]

http://www.philosophyinaction.com/archive/2012-01-29-Q4.html

This podcast by Diana Hsieh is a good discussion of how to explain atheism. Of course, the fact that Hsieh plugs ATCAG had absolutely no influence on the objectivity of my judgment.

Ghs

[Peter]

Excellent podcast and congratulations to Ghs for being described as a modern paradigm shifter, along side Ayn Rand’s “Atlas Shrugged.” Wait! If George is loved by The Ayn Rand Institute, then . . . oh never mind. That can only mean something good.

Some of the key points in the podcast that I liked were:

Before you ever discuss atheism in your personal life consider: Context - What are the circumstances? - What is this person to you? Because, it is better to remain silent unless the person questions their faith.

The pirate theory. A pirate will steal if he can but trade if he must. Theists skilled in debate, blinked at some point in their lives and had to choose reason or faith. They chose faith and they will be like pirates; dishonest in their arguments. Theists will use faith if they can but reason if they must, and they will cheat with their best stuff from their past arguments with atheists.

Peter Taylor

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

George,

Hsieh is pretty good at explaining how to eat retarded people, too.

Seriously. See here.

A couple of quotes for your culinary delight:

It's important, I think, never to sugar-coat one's views. So if we're considering whether anencephalics have no rights, then we have to consider the very disturbing consequences of that, namely that they could be raised and slaughtered just like any other animal. And yes, that could mean seeing human flesh available for sale in the grocery store. That needs to be considered.

Of course, that's pretty horrifying when you think about it. Yet it's a very serious error to allow one's emotions to guide one's thinking in such cases.

. . .

... whatever my feelings toward mankind in general, the fact is that anencephalics aren't more than a human shell, and they don't have any of the value that even very stupid people have. So if I feel repugnance at the thought of eating them, then perhaps that's an emotion that I should overcome by focusing on the relevant facts, rather than just accepting.

This is what happens when you stop thinking of yourself as an individual human being, but instead think of yourself as an individual thingamajigger floating through time and space, totally cut off from the rest of the universe being-wise and limited by a temporal existence.

This is also what happens when you stop thinking about yourself has a rights-bearing human being and instead think of yourself as an innate rights premise.

I didn't listen to the atheism podcast, but I was glad to see ATCAG referenced and linked on the podcast page. Publicity is publicity. But I hope Hsieh did as good a job at explaining how to talk about atheism--and how good your book is--(without sugar-coating, of course) as she did about how to be a morally proper cannibal.

As for me, I'm glad she doesn't like me. I have nothing in common with that kind of thinking and I would find being endorsed by such a person repugnant.

Obviously, your mileage varies...

(Sorry. I just can't help being a smart-ass... )

Michael

[9thdoctor]

Hsieh is pretty good at explaining how to eat retarded people, too.

I don’t have any problem with people exploring the weirdest implications of their philosophical principles. Better to do it yourself ahead of time than be caught flat-footed in a debate with an opponent. I have heard about this "baby baby back ribs" thing, but haven’t looked into what she actually said, only what she’s reported to have said by her enemies. And, ugga-bugga, her demeanor.

Hey, here's an idea, how about human egg salad! Or even better, human roe!! Y'know, like caviar, only called roe, since that evokes Roe vs. Wade. Even the strictest anti-abortion types agree that the egg has to be fertilized before they'll start being concerned about it.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

I have heard about this "baby baby back ribs" thing, but haven’t looked into what she actually said, only what she’s reported to have said by her enemies.

Dennis,

I just quoted her. And linked to the rest if you want to check for accuracy and context.

Did you miss it?

Michael

[9thdoctor]

I just quoted her. And linked to the rest if you want to check for accuracy and context.

Did you miss it?

It's not that I missed it, it's that I can't stand listening to her talk, and don't like reading her either, so I'm restricting myself to what you've offered and also what the Checking Premises lunkheads put up. My comment approving of the practice of exploring weird implications is based only on that much evidence; I haven't and don't plan to check for accuracy and context. Maybe if I checked I'd ultimately decide that this isn't a good example, but based on what I've seen, it looks like it is.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Dennis,

I hear ya' about not wanting to listen to her.

(Still, I give her Brownie points for putting stuff out.)

About exploring weird implications, I have a premise that has stood me in good stead. But it has been harder than appears on the surface to practice.

I try to get my principles from observing the nature of things in action, and I try to avoid deducing their identification from principles as an epistemological fundament.

So while I have no problem exploring weird implications, I push myself to keep the context in mind and not just dismiss something that's right in front of me as appeal to "tradition" or "emotions" or whatever--like, for instance, universal repugnance of human cannibalism.

In my discussion I would mention that this aversion has been with mankind throughout all eras and all cultures with the exception of a few savage tribes, some isolated emergency situations and some deranged individuals. Maybe there's something else out there, but I am not aware of it.

And that if this is the case, aversion to cannibalism might be worth looking into as inherent in human beings even though that has not been covered by my principles. At least I would examine the possibility and adapt the principle if necessary. In my world, ethics and rights are for human beings, not for premises with feet (to use a cute phrase from Robert Bidinotto).

People who deduce human nature from principles they encounter and like don't think like this. They prefer to ignore the parts of human nature that don't fit their preconceptions and rationalize why they do so.

Michael

[Ellen Stuttle]

Dennis,

I just quoted her. And linked to the rest if you want to check for accuracy and context.

You quoted Diana, but you didn't correctly describe what she was talking about:

George,

Hsieh is pretty good at explaining how to eat retarded people, too.

She was talking about anencephalics, not retarded people.

Anencephalics are "born with no or only a partial brain." (Free Online Dictionary link)

Here's a description from Wikipedia:

Anencephaly is a cephalic disorder that results from a neural tube defect that occurs when the cephalic (head) end of the neural tube fails to close, usually between the 23rd and 26th day of pregnancy, resulting in the absence of a major portion of the brain, skull, and scalp.[1] Strictly speaking, the translation of the Greek term to English is "no brain" (that is, totally lacking), but it is accepted that children with this disorder are born without a forebrain, the largest part of the brain consisting mainly of the cerebral hemispheres, including the neocortex, which is responsible for higher-level cognition, i.e. thinking. The remaining brain tissue is often exposed — not covered by bone or skin.[2] Most babies with this genetic disorder do not survive birth; whether they are technically born (if no brain is present) is an ethical and legal issue.

If you Google "anencephalics," you can quickly see from the selections which come up that Diana is far from the only person to have pondered the issue of an anencephalic's rights status.

Here's a link to a blog piece by someone else who got into troubles talking. (I never heard of the author before finding the link on Google and haven't read the comments.)

http://wordinedgewise.org/?p=120

Anencephalics, Humanity, and Respect

July 28th, 2010

John Culhane

Ellen

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Gimme a friggen' break!

Let's go slowly...

D...

N...

A...

Human being.

Defective human being, maybe, but human being.

Dayaamm!

This is one of the ick thing I detest about Objectivism.

Michael

[Ellen Stuttle]

Defective human being, maybe, but human being.

"Human being" in a state from birth comparable to vegetative coma. Would you argue that the parents are obligated to foot the bill to keep an anencephalic alive?

(I wouldn't agree with selling the flesh for food, but I do think euthanasia is acceptable in cases where an anencephalic is born alive.)

Dayaamm!

This is one of the ick thing I detest about Objectivism.

Look at the Google results and you might see that it isn't Objectivists primarily who discuss the rights status of anencephalics.

Ellen

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Ellen,

We are talking about food.

Eating human beings. Hsieh was explicit enough.

That's the ick stuff.

I don't care what others say about it, either.

Eating human beings is icky and this is an ethical question--a species value question.

And it is disgusting to try to justify cannibalism it by appealing to moral principles and rights.

Once you stop discussing whether human beings should be eating human flesh or not, and start discussing what kinds of human beings are suitable for eating, you have crossed the line to cannibalism.

As to killing, it is complicated. But one thing I will never agree with. I will not agree to say these defective human beings are not human and that killing them is not killing.

Put all the big words and rationalizations you want on it. The topic is which human beings should or should not be killed.

Fancying it up to occult that meaning is propaganda and nothing more.

The government's role in this is a different topic. Which human beings the government should protect the rights of is a different question than which human beings should be killed.

Michael

[caroljane]

Defective human being, maybe, but human being.

"Human being" in a state from birth comparable to vegetative coma. Would you argue that the parents are obligated to foot the bill to keep an anencephalic alive?

(I wouldn't agree with selling the flesh for food, but I do think euthanasia is acceptable in cases where an anencephalic is born alive.)

Dayaamm!

This is one of the ick thing I detest about Objectivism.

Look at the Google results and you might see that it isn't Objectivists primarily who discuss the rights status of anencephalics.

Ellen

Ugh, ugh, ugh, ugh.

I am going out to gather roots and berries, and I think I will skip the bison roast tonight.

[Brant Gaede]

I guess it's compatible with Diana's paleo diet.

--Brant

[Selene]

I guess it's compatible with Diana's paleo diet.

--Brant

Is that where she only eats her pals?

[Brant Gaede]

I guess it's compatible with Diana's paleo diet.

--Brant

Is that where she only eats her pals?

It wouldn't be the first time.

--Brant

[Peter]

I remember reading that Neanderthals kept a boy alive who had spina bifida and could not walk, until his teens. He needed a support network to remain alive. With IQ’s estimated at averaging 60 the Neanderthals were dumb, but not brutes. The human bone wound evidence is that homo sapiens was murderous and brutish back then just as he can be now.

Euthanasia is morally repugnant. But allowing a being with no brain to not be fed so that it will die “naturally” is morally acceptable. However if there is a human consciousness inside more evaluation would be needed to determine a moral course of action. Many of Rand’s arguments against child bearing and for abortion apply in this case. What does that Life cost the caregivers? I think humans can and should take care of the physically less fortunate as well as Neanderthals.

Peter

[Selene]

Euthanasia is morally repugnant. But allowing a being with no brain to not be fed so that it will die “naturally” is morally acceptable.

Mr. Taylor:

The pain and suffering involved in "starving"[which involves dehydration] any living entity with substantial neural paths is incredibly cruel and is certainly morally repugnant.

Hell, they shoot horses don't they?

Adam

[Ellen Stuttle]

Michael, I'd like to be sure if you've understood that anencephalics are not "retarded people."

I agree that debating whether it's ok to eat anencephalics is "ick." On the other hand, your accusing Diana of "explaining how to eat retarded people" (post #3) is way inaccurate.

For speed of providing further details on anencephaly, I'll quote Wikipedia. This material also addresses Adam's comment in the above post.

Please, anyone reading who doesn't know what "anencephaly" is, click on the link and look at the pictures. Be prepared for an unpleasant sight.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anencephaly

Signs and symptoms

An anencephalic newborn

The National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) describes the presentation of this condition as follows: "A baby born with anencephaly is usually blind, deaf, unconscious, and unable to feel pain. Although some individuals with anencephaly may be born with a main brain stem, the lack of a functioning cerebrum permanently rules out the possibility of ever gaining consciousness. Reflex actions such as breathing and responses to sound or touch occur."[2]

Prognosis

This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (October 2011)

There is no cure or standard treatment for anencephaly and the prognosis for patients is death. Most anencephalic fetuses do not survive birth, accounting for 55% of non-aborted cases. If the infant is not stillborn, then he or she will usually die within a few hours or days after birth from cardiorespiratory arrest.[2][11] There are longer-surviving examples, namely Baby K, who lived for 2 years 174 days.

In almost all cases, anencephalic infants are not aggressively resuscitated because there is no chance of the infant ever achieving a conscious existence. Instead, the usual clinical practice is to offer hydration, nutrition, and comfort measures and to "let nature take its course". Artificial ventilation, surgery (to fix any co-existing congenital defects), and drug therapy (such as antibiotics) are usually regarded as futile efforts. Other clinicians and medical ethicists may view even the provision of nutrition and hydration as medically futile.[citation needed]

Epidemiology

In the United States, anencephaly occurs in about 1 out of every 10,000 births.[12] Research has suggested that, overall, female babies are more likely to be affected by the disorder.[13]

I wonder if the rate per birth in the "Epidemiology" section could possibly be right. The link is to a pubmedhealth source which does say, "Anencephaly occurs in about 1 out of 10,000 births." However, the next sentence says, "The exact number is unknown, because many of these pregnancies result in miscarriage." So possibly pregnancies which don't go to term are being included in the figure.

Ellen

[Selene]

Thank you Ellen.

This is humane, contrary to Mr. Taylor's suggestion.

In almost all cases, anencephalic infants are not aggressively resuscitated because there is no chance of the infant ever achieving a conscious existence. Instead, the usual clinical practice is to offer hydration, nutrition, and comfort measures and to "let nature take its course". Artificial ventilation, surgery (to fix any co-existing congenital defects), and drug therapy (such as antibiotics) are usually regarded as futile efforts. Other clinicians and medical ethicists may view even the provision of nutrition and hydration as medically futile.[citation needed]

Adam

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Michael, I'd like to be sure if you've understood that anencephalics are not "retarded people."

Ellen,

Let's see if you understand the term "hyperbole."

Obviously I know the difference between mentally impaired but functioning and human vegetable. (I am intimate with the distinction from real-life experience. Also, Kat always gets on my case for using the word "retard.")

I believe it is necessary to use exaggerated rhetoric when discussing things like cannibalism. I was not making a reasoned case against Hsieh. I was ridiculing her (as a way to give George a playful poke in the ribs).

The last turn-of-the century focus on eugenics was not blasted like that--but instead we got lots of high-brow conceited people like George Bernard Shaw, Margaret Sanger and others lecturing the common folks on wanting to be "sure they've understood," the poor things--and then we got Auschwitz.

To hell with that.

The jump from anencephaly to comatose happens by just a nudge once you start deciding which human beings you want to eat. and hell, when you think about it, any old cadaver at all will do. Have you noticed that cadavers no longer have brain activity? So why not save on burial costs?

Then, once that takes, it's time to start looking at purifying the human race all over again--and that will start with "retards."

You think that's a silly chain of rationalization on a slippery slope? Ask the eugenics luminaries of last century. The ones who wanted to make sure everybody understood. The ones who laughed at the silly idea that a cultured civilization with people like them in charge to explain it all to the common folks (like the intellectuals in Germany, for instance) would ever do anything bad with the noble cause of improving the human race by treating human beings as livestock.

That's just one reason it's got to be said and blasted. Cannibalism is evil and so is cultivating human beings in any state for later slaughter (which was also discussed--as a serious option--by Hsieh as one of her points in wishing to not "sugar-coat one's views" on how to apply Objectivism to living).

I stand by my hyperbole. Believing Objectivism can somehow justify cannibalism--even of human beings without brain activity--is boneheaded.

Michael

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Hell, since this is getting off-point, let's go ahead and throw the following into the mix:

‘Halfy’: Half-Headed Man Behind This Unbelieveable Mug Shot Explains His Injury

by Jonathon M. Seidl

The Blaze

February 16, 2012

Here's the photo and it is not Photoshopped:

I wonder what this guy tastes like. Maybe a little catchup would help...

Michael

[Selene]

And we actually wonder why Objectivism gets savaged by the left?

Hell, when our alleged spokespersons advocate rape in hotel rooms and sitting down to three course meal after the rape with an entrée of sautéd anencephalic, what the hell do you expect people to think!

And of course, we can wash down that delectable entrée with a warm glass of blood!

Completely indefensible...

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Adam,

If you run with philosophical cannibals, you never know who'll turn up for dinner...

And, if you must go, always go packin'...

Michael

[Brant Gaede]

George,

Hsieh is pretty good at explaining how to eat retarded people, too.

Seriously. See here.

A couple of quotes for your culinary delight:

It's important, I think, never to sugar-coat one's views. So if we're considering whether anencephalics have no rights, then we have to consider the very disturbing consequences of that, namely that they could be raised and slaughtered just like any other animal. And yes, that could mean seeing human flesh available for sale in the grocery store. That needs to be considered.

Of course, that's pretty horrifying when you think about it. Yet it's a very serious error to allow one's emotions to guide one's thinking in such cases.

. . .

... whatever my feelings toward mankind in general, the fact is that anencephalics aren't more than a human shell, and they don't have any of the value that even very stupid people have. So if I feel repugnance at the thought of eating them, then perhaps that's an emotion that I should overcome by focusing on the relevant facts, rather than just accepting.

This is what happens when you stop thinking of yourself as an individual human being, but instead think of yourself as an individual thingamajigger floating through time and space, totally cut off from the rest of the universe being-wise and limited by a temporal existence.

This is also what happens when you stop thinking about yourself has a rights-bearing human being and instead think of yourself as an innate rights premise.

I didn't listen to the atheism podcast, but I was glad to see ATCAG referenced and linked on the podcast page. Publicity is publicity. But I hope Hsieh did as good a job at explaining how to talk about atheism--and how good your book is--(without sugar-coating, of course) as she did about how to be a morally proper cannibal.

As for me, I'm glad she doesn't like me. I have nothing in common with that kind of thinking and I would find being endorsed by such a person repugnant.

Obviously, your mileage varies...

(Sorry. I just can't help being a smart-ass... )

Michael

Rationally, eating human flesh would come under "ethics of emergencies" and anthropology. Irrationally, anywhere else. Culturally it was found in a few primitive tribes. It's hardly tolerable regardless. Consider some examples much better encompassing human adaptability to diet: eating Kosher, eating pork and eating horse meat. For me the idea eating horse flesh is repugnant. I understand it's much more acceptable to the French. Our brains get hardwired certain ways as we grow and mature and learn. Americans don't generally know that there are some Chinese restaurants with two menus: one for them and one for Chinese. Use your imagination.

Diana's position, as rendered here, merely illustrates a mind ignorant of psychological consequences to philosophical nonsense. Without considering the psychology involved you get ideas divorced from human reality thus ideas justifying themselves in an "if-then" sequence.

When I realized there were only two rational Objectivists, I stopped calling myself one. Now there is only one.

--Brant

that person must remain anonymous for there is a club that specializes in eating the last survivor of a species as depicted in the Marlon Brando film The Freshman.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Brant,

To me it's more than psychological.

Just as knowledge is hierarchical, so are human beings. We organize knowledge that way because it reflects something deeper--we are that way. We are hierarchical beings. We always organize ourselves large scale in hierarchies.

Once you allow strangers to have the power to kill people (or eat people) in your morality, sooner or later a bad guy gets power in a hierarchy, even if temporarily, and look what happens. He thinks it's a great idea. And he acts on it. Boy does he act on it--as much as he can get away with.

People who seek power just luuuuuuuv holding the choice of life and death over others in their hands. Any old excuse will do, too. And a moral sanction? Hell, that's not just a perfect fit for their dastardly designs, it's a recipe.

We already have a few restricted cases like the death penalty and look at what a mess that sometimes causes. Notice you can kill a man on "circumstantial evidence" and the criteria gets flimsier with each passing day (albeit the growing swamp of legal technicalities does serve as a half-assed check and balance, but that is an inconvenience, not a stop to the arbitrariness).

Michael

EDIT: The logical error involved in ignoring the bad guy who eventually comes to power is the same as that illustrated in Atlas Shrugged, the story of the Twentieth Century Motor Company. Everybody was so interested in what they could take from the ones above them they forgot to look at the ones below them.

In the case of power, people who argue for morally acceptable killing of strangers want the power to resolve certain problems in their own lives, but they forget that they could be (and often are) considered as--and even defined as--such a "problem" in the life of an evil power-monger. So off with their heads and they don't have a clue as to how that happened.

Maybe they don't deserve it (like Rand judged and portrayed regarding the people on the train-in-the-tunnel scene in AS), but reality does not forgive ignoring it. Once you establish power for a good guy, it's always possible for a bad guy to get his hands on that same power when he gets into the good guy's power position.