Category: Fresno Bee Religion and Ethics Columns

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Perspective gained from the mountaintops

August 9, 2013

Summer trips to the mountains can open important vistas. The mountains provoke a sense of the sublime, offering hints of meaning that inspire reflection. Mountain vistas, oddly enough, provide a source for understanding human dignity.

It is important to occasionally observe the slow work of the glaciers, the relentless rush of waterfalls, and the immense temporal vistas of the starry night. It is edifying to lose yourself before the overpowering sublimity of the natural world. Our lifetimes are insignificant when considered from the vantage point of Half Dome. The length of human history is nothing at all when compared with the history of the planet, the solar system or the galaxy.

Romantic poets and philosophers celebrated the experience of the sublime in nature. It is sobering to know that from the standpoint of glacial time, nothing we do matters. But it is possible to be uplifted and inspired in the face of the relentless forces of nature.

Despite what the mountains tell us about our own insignificance, we know that the only thing that matters to us is this meager existence of ours. The glaciers may not care about our passions and ideas. But for each of us, present awareness is of infinite worth. The sublime contradiction between the fullness of consciousness and the fact of our own finitude is the source of deep wonder and thought.

I often ask students at the beginning of the semester whether they know the names of any of their great-great-grandparents. It is not surprising that, for the most part, they do not. The present generation has little need for remembrance that goes back beyond a few decades. We have too much to do today.

The past recedes quickly as we rush toward the edges of our lives. At some point in the not-too-distant future, we will each be forgotten. But the waterfalls will roar and the granite cliffs will silently endure, as the marks we’ve left behind are effaced by the erosion of time.

How does such an awareness of our insignificance and the experience of the sublime connect to our understanding of ethics?

One response to the sublime is to “seize the day.” A sense of your own finitude can drive you to want to live the present moment to the fullest. Time is short. So make the most of every second. But we ought to avoid nihilistic hedonism and egoistic preoccupation. An ethical approach to seizing the day teaches us to live aware and engaged, embracing the totality of experience, without narcissistic self-absorption.

Another response to our fragile mortal existence aims to develop reverence for the past and a sense of gratitude toward those who paved the way. This is a feature of many religious traditions which commemorate ancient stories about those who came before. An ethic of remembrance attempts to slow the onslaughts of time, insisting that the past has meaning.

Awareness of our own mortal frailty should also lead toward deep reverence for life. If this is the one and only opportunity for life that each of us gets, then we should work to make things better, especially for those whose lives are miserable and even shorter than our own.

The philosopher Immanuel Kant once suggested that two things filled him with awe and wonder: the starry skies above and the moral law within. The most amazing aspect of the experience of the sublime in nature is that we are able to conceive it. No other creature has a sense of the depths of time, understands the work of the glaciers or recognizes the movements of the planets. Human consciousness is a rare and precious gift in the vast and unconscious cosmos.

Likewise, no other creature is able to think about the meaning of existence and the questions of ethics. We are the only beings in the universe who conceive right and wrong, good and evil. That wonderful capacity for moral reflection is what imbues human life with dignity.

The mountains are majestic. The work of glaciers is awesome. The thundering waterfalls are inspiring. But there is nothing on earth comparable to the majestic and awesome thunder of the human mind that witnesses these wonders.

 

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Taking pity on the weak and defenseless

July 26, 2013

The National Institutes of Health is retiring most of its chimpanzees from research. The director of the NIH, Francis Collins, explained that although similarities between chimps and humans has made chimps valuable as research subjects, this very likeness shows the need for greater justification in using them in research. If they are like us in terms of cognitive, social, and emotional experience, it is difficult to justify using them in ways that we wouldn’t use human beings.

This leads to some deep questions about our supposed superiority to animals and the justification of using animals for our benefit. We are like animals in many ways — in physiology and genetic constitution, for example. We reproduce, enjoy basic pleasures, and live in social groups. We explore our environments and become attached to others. While those similarities help explain the usefulness of animal models in research, they also indicate the need to be judicious in using animals.

While animals and humans share many capacities, only human beings seem to be aware of our moral obligations to other species. Our superiority to animals — if there is such a thing — is found in our ability to reflect on morality and our ability to imagine ways to use tools and other species.

This idea has deep roots. Plato tells a creation story in which the Titan, Prometheus, distributed powers and talents to various animals. Some got fur. Others got wings. And so on. By the time Prometheus turned to human beings, all the gifts were given away. Human beings were weak and defenseless, without fur, claws or hooves. As Plato puts it, we were left naked, unshod and unarmed.

But Prometheus took pity on us and gave us gifts that he stole from the gods, knowledge of fire, other technologies and agriculture. The gods punished Prometheus for giving us these god-like capacities. Prometheus’ Titanic pity for humans is a symbolic example of the pity felt for a lower species that is weak and defenseless.

The idea of taking pity on weak and defenseless members of another species is an important one. Some ancient philosophers argued for vegetarianism and against animal cruelty along these lines. The followers of Pythagoras argued that animal cruelty makes us insensitive to suffering and that by pitying the beasts we develop compassion, which can help us develop compassion for human beings.

Most Western religion and philosophy didn’t follow Pythagoras toward his vegetarian conclusion. But the animal question returned occasionally. In the 10th century, for example, Muslim scholars in Baghdad produced a fascinating story in which animals and humans argue before the King of the Jinn. The animals complained that human beings had no pity on them — forcing them to work, stealing their babies and killing them.

The text is very sympathetic to the animals’ complaint. But it concludes that humans are superior to animals because only human beings become sages, saints and prophets. The text also notes that saints and sages often chose to live apart from other human beings — as hermits residing in the wilderness. The best human beings appear to recognize that animal company is often preferable to the corrupt company of cruel and vicious human beings. Furthermore, many of those saints and sages are remarkably kind to animals. The best humans may be those who do not lord their superiority over the beasts.

If we really are superior to animals, that superiority gives us greater responsibility to avoid being cruel to those who are at our mercy. It might be that the truly superior human being is the most modest and the most kindhearted, especially when it comes to the treatment of inferior, dependent and vulnerable animals.

The NIH’s chimp retirement plan recognizes that the suffering of members of other species matters. It is a good thing that we are developing a kind of Promethean pity for those animals who depend entirely upon our mercy. I hope the chimps enjoy their retirement.

But is compassion for animals enough? Pity for weak non-humans is wonderful. But we have even stronger obligations to pity weak and dependent humans, including children, the disabled and our own aged population. A truly superior human species would treat vulnerable members of our own species as well as we treat animals — and vice versa.

 

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Who can be trusted with our secrets?

July 12, 2013

The news about government surveillance and secrecy is alarming. But it is not surprising. Governments have always been interested in controlling information. But democratic governments should be limited in their ability to do so.

Managing information is the primary occupation of many people — in social networks, in business, in sports, in religion, and in politics. When information is scarce, the demand for it goes up. That’s why it’s possible to leverage information for profit — which explains blackmail, insider trading and treason.

Social life consists of a complex game of exchanging information. The best players have a knack for obtaining and revealing information in appropriate ways. And governments have an interest in controlling the process.

Secrets are valuable, and there is power in knowing them. We value those who can keep confidences. And we threaten and punish those who disclose them. But the urge to divulge is often as strong as the desire to know. The joy of the tattletale and the blabbermouth is complemented by the curiosity of the eavesdropper and Peeping Tom. Gossip is as much fun to tell as it is to hear.

There is also satisfaction in keeping a secret. We gain a sense of superiority from knowing something that others do not know. Community develops from the loyalty and trust found among those who keep each other’s confidences. There is solidarity among those who share secrets. We like to receive that sly wink or subtle nod from those “in the know.” No one wants to be left out of the loop.

But secretiveness can be dangerous. Cabals and cults indoctrinate members by revealing secret mysteries. Magical power supposedly flows from access to esoteric knowledge. People are often willing to pay dearly to see what is concealed.

The need for secrecy is often a sign of something rotten. Perverts lurk in the shadows. Criminals whisper conspiratorially. Con men and swindlers manipulate information. Delinquents conceal their misdeeds. And cheating lovers arrange clandestine meetings.

The great American philosopher Henry David Thoreau once wrote, “there must be some narrowness in the soul that compels one to keep secrets.” Good and virtuous things are not done surreptitiously. If we are proud of what we do and who we are, we should do it publicly.

A virtuous personality has no need to weave the tangled webs of deceit that cramp the soul. And a virtuous person has no need to pry into the private lives of others. Speak your mind. Be yourself. Leave others the privacy they deserve.

So much for individuals. But we often make exceptions for government spying and secrecy because we feel it is necessary for law and order. In order to uncover criminal conspiracies, the government may have to secretly surveil the bad guys. But one always wonders, who is watching the watchers.

The philosopher Plato solved that problem by maintaining that the rulers had to be wise and virtuous. Plato assumed that the majority of people were not virtuous enough to govern themselves. But he hoped that a wise and virtuous ruler could be empowered to manipulate and deceive us, for our own good.

Democrats, in the philosophical sense of that term, reject that idea. Democrats tend to think that governments ought to be transparent, because there is no good reason to believe that the watchers are wiser or more virtuous than we are. Democrats reject the idea that governments should be granted exceptional powers. And they believe that government should respect the liberty and privacy of individuals. As Thoreau put it, “that government is best which governs least.”

Individual privacy matters, from the point of view of democracy, because the freedom to keep and tell secrets is such an essential feature of our social lives. But governments ought not keep secrets. If we don’t know what the government is doing on our behalf, how can we claim to be governing ourselves?

Some fear that bad guys will exploit democratic liberty and transparency. They will want to empower the surveillance state as Plato did, for the good of the whole. But followers of Thoreau may suspect that growing state surveillance and secrecy indicates an undemocratic narrowing of the soul of the nation.

 

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Ethics of Brain Hacking

Brain hackers raise social questions about learning, understanding

June 28, 2013

 

Is it ethical to use “smart drugs” to improve cognitive function?

Legal concoctions of vitamins, herbs and nutrients are advertised as improving memory, focus and mental acuity. Some of these supplements claim they can produce lucid dream states and lessen the need for sleep. And prescription drugs are being used in illegal ways as mental stimulants, aimed at enhancing memory and concentration.

So-called “brain hackers” claim that cognitive function can be enhanced by sending mild electrical current through the brain. At least one company is marketing a trans-cranial electrical current device to video game players as an upgrade for the gamer’s brain.

Assuming that these things really work, one obvious ethical issue is health and safety. But if we assume that neuro-enhancers can be used safely, another ethical issue is fairness. It doesn’t seem fair for people to artificially enhance performance in school or in business, especially if these enhancements are not widely available to everyone.

One might also worry that the learning that occurs through brain hacking doesn’t really count. It seems like cheating. Of course, these products won’t do the learning for you. They help you focus and retain information better and faster. But you still have to do the studying. If it is acceptable to drink coffee during a cram session, is it also acceptable to use another, more powerful chemical that can help you focus even better?

If learning is primarily about creating pathways in the brain, resulting in new skills and abilities, then there is nothing inherently wrong with brain upgrades that help build those pathways more quickly. Flashcards help and so might a drug. Result-oriented learning will encourage the use of the most efficient tools. From a result-oriented standpoint, it doesn’t matter that you took a chemical shortcut so long as you actually end up knowing the thing you set out to learn.

But learning and thinking are not only a means to an end. They are also ends in themselves. Aristotle suggested this when he said that learning gives us the liveliest pleasure. One source of the pleasure of learning is the resultant mastery — the ability to perform or do something as a result of learning. But there is also pleasure in the very process of practicing and working at mastery. Is the road of learning enjoyable for its own sake; or is the point to achieve mastery as quickly as possible?

The brain-hackers want to shorten the process, perhaps underestimating the pleasures of practice and study. They are primarily focused on performance and achievement. If a short cut can be found, why not take it?

But Aristotle and others would argue that the road matters as much as the destination. Learning and thinking are also deeply social activities, which build connections with other people through the shared effort of the process. There is no mechanical or pharmaceutical shortcut to building community and developing relationships.

In a culture of high-stakes testing and dog-eat-dog economic struggle, it makes sense that people would want to hack their brains, looking for a competitive advantage.

In our culture, there are tangible rewards for those who can process and recall information quickly and accurately. Quick thinkers get better grades, bigger scholarships, and higher-paying jobs. Slow thinkers are left languishing in the dust.

But quick processing and recall skills are merely mechanical: machines can process and recall information much faster than we can.

Machines cannot, however, evaluate what is worth thinking about. The brain hackers are focused on the question of “how fast?” But they forget to ask “how come?”

There is no quick answer for the deeply human question of what matters and why it matters.

Existential questions require unhurried contemplation. But our caffeinated, video-game culture has no time for ruminating and mulling things over.

We spike our brains, filling them with images and words from dawn to dusk.

We are competitive thinkers, looking for an edge in a world that has little patience for the poets and dreamers who pause to wonder about the point of the hustle.

In the end, we may find that the faster we arrive at our destination, the less we understand why we wanted to get there in the first place.

 

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Dan Brown’s ‘Inferno’ raises ethical questions

Dan Brown’s ‘Inferno’ raises ethical questions, reminds us to appreciate the humanities

June 14, 2013

Would you be willing to destroy half of humanity in order to save the human species from going extinct? Would it be acceptable to involuntarily sterilize people in an effort to prevent overpopulation? Those are the central questions of Dan Brown’s new novel, “Inferno.”

Brown’s novel is fun summer reading that poses troubling ethical questions. It is also a reminder of the value of the humanities. The villains in Brown’s novels are zealots. In “The Da Vinci Code” the bad guys were religious fanatics. In this novel, the villains are mad scientists. The hero is a tweedy humanities professor who loves art and poetry.

While “Inferno” isn’t great literature, it inspires appreciation for art, poetry, philosophy and history. It celebrates the skills learned in the humanities: to learn to read carefully, to think broadly and deeply and to understand the symbols and cultural artifacts that surround us.

Brown’s villains are coldly inhumane: They think population control can be justified by simple mathematics. There are too many people, so something must be done. This idea is rooted in Machiavelli, the Renaissance theorist who warned that teeming population would inevitably be purged. Terrorists are often Machiavellian in thinking that the end justifies the means. Machiavellian idealists treat human beings as things to be manipulated and quantities to be calculated rather than as persons to be valued and loved.

Study in the humanities teaches us to be wary of Machiavellian schemes. Philosophers have long warned that nothing straight can be constructed from the crooked timber of humanity. We are not wise enough or virtuous enough to engineer reality or impose final solutions.

The humanities remind us that uncritical certainty is linked to hubris. Human beings achieve moments of profound insight and sparkling beauty. But these moments do not last forever. Indeed, they are often undone by the zealots and idealists who insist that they know how to save humankind from itself.

Brown’s novel is set in Italy. It celebrates the art of the Renaissance. Great art reminds us of the power of human genius. But history warns us against taking ourselves too seriously. Before the Renaissance, the Greeks and Romans also created luminous works of genius. The cycles repeat. Saviors come and go. Civilizations rise and fall. Each generation is plagued by its own narcissism, thinking that its creative genius is unique and unprecedented.

But historical awareness should make us wary of that sort of narcissism. A sense of history should make us modest in assessing the value of our own ideals. It should also inspire skepticism toward those who propound simple technological solutions to complex human problems.

So what can we do about the population problem? A solution requires something more than science and technology. Purely technical solutions — such as forced sterilization — would work on a population of rodents or insects. But human beings are not pests to be controlled. We inhabit a world of spirit and ideas. We hope, we dream; and we create art, literature and philosophy. We also love.

Brown’s “Inferno” borrows its title from Dante Alighieri’s famous poem about hell. Dante was a romantic whose poetry was inspired by Beatrice, a beautiful woman he loved from afar. Dante recounts that his love for Beatrice kindled a flame of charity that moved him to forgive everyone, including his enemies. Love transforms us, making us ethical and inspiring work of creative genius.

The population problem is driven by sex. Machiavellian technologists may argue that sex should be subjected to mathematical control. But the humane solution is to find a way to transform sex into love — to broaden and sublimate the sex drive in ways made possible by art, literature, religion and philosophy.

People need to be educated and empowered to control their own bodies and reproductive lives. But we also need to be reminded that there is more to life than mating and reproducing.

Technology without humanity can easily become heartless. The study of the humanities cures that sort of spiritual sterility. And it reminds us to beware of zealots offering quick fixes for deeply human problems. The humanities won’t save the world. But they remind us about those works of love, genius and beauty that make humankind worth saving.