This is my last post for the Patheos Atheist Portal

[rug]

June 18, 2012
By leahlibresco

For several years, a lot of my friends have been telling me I had an inconsistent and unsustainable philosophy. ”A virtue ethicist atheist whose transhumanism seems to be rooted in dualism? Who won’t shut up about moral lapses as wounds to the soul and keeps trying to convince us it’s better to be sinned against than sinning? Who has started talking about mortifying her pride and keeps pulling out Lewis and Chesterton quotes? C’mon, convert already.”

I could see where they were coming from, but I stayed put. I was ready to admit that there were parts of Christianity and Catholicism that seemed like a pretty good match for the bits of my moral system that I was most sure of, while meanwhile my own philosophy was pretty kludged together and not particularly satisfactory. But I couldn’t pick consistency over my construction project as long as I didn’t believe it was true.

While I kept working, I tried to keep my eyes open for ways I could test which world I was in, but a lot of the evidence for Christianity was only compelling to me if I at least presupposed Deism. Meanwhile, on the other side, I kept running into moral philosophers who seemed really helpful, until I discovered that their study of virtue ethics has led them to take a tumble into the Tiber. (I’m looking at you, MacIntyre!).

Then, the night before Palm Sunday (I have excellent liturgical timing), I was up at my alma mater for an alumni debate. I had another round of translating a lot of principles out of Catholic in order to use them in my speech, which prompted the now traditional heckling from my friends. After the debate, I buttonholed a Christian friend for another argument. During the discussion, he prodded me on where I thought moral law came from in my metaphysics. I talked about morality as though it were some kind of Platonic form, remote from the plane that humans existed on. He wanted to know where the connection was.

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/unequallyyoked/2012/06/this-is-my-last-post-for-the-patheos-atheist-portal.html

[cbayer]

1. Another good argument for why simplistic labels are problematic.

As was said by another member yesterday, it sometimes seems that one must pick a label in order to be recognized and accepted by one *team* or another. That's ok if you see this as a win/lose game, but really not necessary if you don't.

But for many, these labels are suffocating, restrictive and way too static.

It is the recognition that we all see and experience the world differently that makes life so fascinating.

I love the quote at the end of her piece:

It makes me so happy… A door like this has cracked open five or six times since we got up on our hind legs. It’s the best possible time to be alive, when almost everything you thought you knew is wrong.

[daaron]

2. Reads to me as if leahlibresco -->

simply gave up trying to understand morality from an intellectual POV, and decided to just anthropomorphize it, instead. I'm unsure how to take this other than, well that seems premature, if not lazy. Surely she doesn't believe that she's actually exhausted the problem? She has merely decided that it's not worth the pursuit, to her. That's fine, but then she shouldn't try to mean something extra - as if extra meaning can be drawn from her decision to be a big old quitter.

[eqfan592]

11. +1 (Nt)

[rug]

12. Yeah, she's an intellectually lazy big old quitter.

It's a wonder she was able to graduate from Yale.

[daaron]

15. I couched. I said, "if not lazy."

Just because there's bait on the hook doesn't mean anyfish should nibble it. I'm not dismissing her entire experience, just that I think there is much to be gained intellectually by considering the problems of morals and ethics in a dispassionate way. I did call her a big old quitter, but it's nothing personal. She can quit if she wants to.

I read the article - thought that if she had a really good reason for ending her career in secular academia with the anguished conclusion that "Morality" loves her, she would have provided it upfront. What I read was that she felt it was a "Person," and the capitalization makes clear her Subtext. I think we little well enough understand the problem, intellectually, to be drawing conclusions now. It's like asking the world to stop researching quantum mechanics and relativity, now, here's the Theory of Everything: God did it. How seriously are we supposed to take the so-called scholar that comes to us with this argument? In physics, not at all. But in philosophy and ethics? Apparently we're supposed to remain credulous. I have difficulty with that, here. That's all. I'm not saying she's intellectually lazy, but I am saying she's a quitter.

[laconicsax]

16. Not all Yale graduates are the cream of the crop...

For example, this guy is a Yale alumnus

[Silent3]

13. I don't know if I'd call it lazy. That much pseudo-intellectualizing looks like some pretty...

heaving lifting. It just seems to me that this person couldn't handle much deep doubt, she couldn't handle the idea that we can only understand so much before we reach a point where we only know that things are as they are for reasons (at least for a time, but possibly forever) beyond our reach.

I'm perfectly comfortable with the idea that my morality is nothing more than a product of evolution as a social creature overlaid with some cultural conditioning, that my morality isn't and doesn't have to be resting on some firm, utterly unassailable base.

[dimbear]

3. People feel a draw from the religion of their childhood.

Hindus, Muslims, Christians, Jews, all feel that draw the same.

Which of them are just homesick?

[cbayer]

4. What's wrong with home?

Perhaps the religions and religious groups from their childhood gave them something important, something they can't seem to replace?

While some have no trouble leaving their old religions and many others find plenty to embrace when they do so, others may not.

[dimbear]

5. Nothing wrong with home, if it's not abusive.

My point is that the phenomenon isn't sectarian, it's just human nature. Not probitive in any way.

[cbayer]

6. Good points.

I think many who have left the religions of their childhood are looking for other alternatives as well.

[laconicsax]

7. That's a big difference from what you said just two days ago. n/t

[rug]

8. I know she was a Jeopardy semifinalist but I don't know if she was raised Catholic.

[citysyde]

9. Did you read the article? You posted it without reading it?

Strange!
Was there a point you wanted to make without fully reading each and every word and contemplating upon it?

Strange that anyone would do that for any OTHER purpose than a political reason.

Can I ask you why you posted an article without fully reading and appreciating the meaning and implications of her words?

A smart young woman flirts with understanding the world in a framework other than Catholicism, and fails to find a way, so returns to Catholicism, this is somehow important?

[rug]

10. I did. Show me where she says she was raised Catholic.

While you're at it, show me where you think there are politics in this story.

[cbayer]

14. Poor citysyde, we hardly knew ye!