dmcanzi@watdcsu.UUCP (David Canzi) (03/10/86)
History in the making: This is probably the first article ever to be
cross-posted to net.philosophy and net.women, and is actually relevant
to both groups. It's also posted to net.religion and net.politics,
since the subject matter seems to be relevant there too. Because this
article is so heavily cross-posted, I've sabotaged the "Followup-To:"
line so that nobody can respond without specifying which newsgroups
they want to respond in. This is to prevent further unintentional
cross-posting.
You might ask, looking back at the title, what language has to do with
truth and morality. And you may ask, looking at the summary line, what
I mean by "the separation of truth and morality". And since this is
mainly a philosophical article, you may wonder what it has to do with
women, religion, or politics.
I'll start with the language angle. Many people in net.women, and
probably a lot of the net.philosophy regulars, agree that language
strongly influences the way we think. That's why the subject of
non-gender-specific pronouns comes up so frequently in net.women. Most
of our knowledge about the world comes to us in the form of written or
spoken language. If it is difficult for us to express some beliefs in
a non-gender-specific form, we will not usually make the effort, so
gender-specific assumptions will be built into much of what we hear and
read. If we fall into the mistake of believing that our language is
neutral, we will not be on guard against these implicit assumptions,
and we will come to accept these beliefs without examining them.
I noticed another odd feature of the English language last year,
when I was trying to figure out how to state a fact... er... *alleged*
fact... without it being twisted into a moral judgement. (The subject
was rape, and every time I said something about it I was accused of
"blaming the victim".)
Many words in the English language have multiple meanings, so that the
English language almost appears to be designed for the purpose of
supporting bad arguments based on the "fallacy of equivocation". An
example of this fallacy would be the creationist who, early last year,
was supporting the Bible as superior to science, because the Bible
contains fewer "paradoxes" than science. He wrote letter after letter
to the local newspaper pointing out some seemingly contradictory
scientific beliefs and screaming "PARADOX!" I checked a dictionary,
and found that the word paradox has two meanings: (1) an apparent
contradiction between beliefs that are true and, (2) a contradiction.
By calling both kinds of paradox by the same name, he could fool almost
everybody into giving paradoxes of type (1) the same weight as
paradoxes of type (2) in judging the credibility of belief systems.
It appears to me that almost every word that refers to truth in the
English language has an alternate *moral* meaning. For example:
Right, wrong: moral, immoral.
Correct, incorrect: proper, improper.
(Especially in the expression "politically correct".)
True, false: honest, dishonest; or faithful, unfaithful.
Also, if you "expect" somebody to do something, it could mean either
that you think that's what the person *will* do, or you think that
that's what the person *should* do. When somebody says you may or can
do something, they may mean it's possible, or they may mean it's
morally permissible. For that matter, *should* and *ought* aren't
unambiguously moral terms. Eg, "If you aim the telescope there, you
should see the comet." or "The train ought to be here soon."
Our language makes it extraordinarily difficult to express our beliefs
about facts in a sufficiently unambiguous manner that they can't be
taken as moral judgements. In effect, our language makes it difficult
to separate truth from morality. What effect do you suppose this has
on the way we think?
I think it blurs the distinction between the moral and the factual so
that it is difficult for most people to see that there *is* such a
distinction.
Examples abound. Whether the universe was created or whether it
evolved is a question of fact. Creationists act as if it is a moral
matter, and that belief in "evil-lution" is, well, evil. Whether there
is a god or not is a question of fact. Those who have experienced the
"joy" of a religious upbringing and managed to become atheists or
agnostics in spite of it (as I have) may remember that they were made
to feel guilty for doubting. Disbelief is, according to the religous
viewpoint, *immoral*. Faith is *moral*. This point of view makes
gullibility a virtue. Organized Objectivists have made belief in
objective reality a moral matter. Such unobjective thinking. Whether
SDI (aka "Star Wars") can work or not is a question of fact.
Right-wingers disapprove of the belief that it *can't* work.
Left-wingers disapprove of the view that it *can* work. To both of
them, a factual matter has become a moral matter. Many feminists
believe that *nothing* a woman can do influences her likelihood of
being raped, and they believe it LOUDLY. It is a question of fact
which has become a moral matter. The question "Are blacks, on the
average, born with less intellectual capacity?" is a question of fact,
though one that as far as I know, is impossible to determine the answer
to. So the rational answer to the question is "dunno". The
politically correct answer is "certainly not!" Evidence? Who
needs it, when we know that we're *right*?
The scientific way of forming one's beliefs is to allow one's beliefs
to be caused by the facts they refer to. This has the effect that
mistaken beliefs tend to be corrected (non-moral sense) eventually.
On the other hand, if you've acquired a belief by being morally
pressured into believing, your belief has been formed independently of
whether it's true (non-moral sense) or not, and if it should (non-moral
sense) happen to be wrong (non-moral sense) it is not subject
to correc... er... *amendment*. Thus the human habit of choosing
beliefs on moral grounds virtually guarantees the propagation and
perpetuation of error.
I used the following quote as my signature line once. Probably,
nobody understood what I meant by it. Now I repeat it, and I think
everybody will understand this time.
If you want to get the plain truth,
Be not concerned with right and wrong.
The conflict between right and wrong
Is the sickness of the mind.
Seng-Ts'an (as quoted by God, a character
in a dialogue written by Raymond Smullyan)
--
David Canzi