Respect Part II

Posted on March 13, 2008
Filed Under Philosophy, Politics, Religion |

Lots of people are weighing in on the whole religion - respect discussion. I made most of my thoughts available yesterday. However Richard had up a particularly interesting and succinct post I wanted to comment on. (Check out Brandon’s response as well)

Here’s the key part of Richard’s post:

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[It seems] uncontroversial that false beliefs may be reasonably - and thus respectably - held. So I take it the real question is whether irrational beliefs can be inherently respectable.

Now Richard agrees with many of us that we don’t want to descend into positivism or scientism.

So let me ask. Can it be reasonably established that one should not respect non-rational beliefs?

Let me go one step further. Can any ethical stance be established rationally? By that I would include the justification for what justifies the good. So to say “murder is wrong” is true because of either an appeal to societal standards, evolutionary instinct, or utilitarianism can’t be made. That’s because one would first have to reasonably establish the truth of ones ethical grounding.

One might say they are useful for some aim. But then what justifies that aim?

The point is that reasons significantly underdetermine our values, actions, and much else. Given that, an appeal to reason to determine what is respectable or not seems highly problematic.

Now one might refine this model (as Richard appears to have done) and say that respectability is inversely proportional to how irrational an idea is. That is not how reasonable but how at odds with reason it is. This seems much more defensible. But then we run into a problem. Is religion irrational or merely a-rational? (Some religious claims might well be irrational but certainly not all are)

The move many (although hardly all) atheists make is to say it is reasonable to believe there is no God but it is not reasonable to believe there is. Therefore overall the belief is irrational. However the believer may point to private but not public experiences. But this means that what counts as reasonable is very situational specific. (As even folks like Dawkins seem willing to admit. He appears to accept that it would have been reasonable to believe in God in prior centuries.)

If reason is so situational specific then doesn’t that mean how we apply respectability is as well? I’m not going to speculate how to sort that out, but it appears to suggest at first glance that perhaps how we respect someone ought depend upon what circumstance they find themselves in and not based upon the stance from our circumstance.

Comments

2 Responses to “Respect Part II”

Are you asking in a sense if religion is inherently fideistic? Opposed to rationalism? (Of course, fideism could be broken down even further by saying religious claims are either independent of reason or downright adversarial to it). In other words, does faith have a particular jurisdiction in relation to reason?

Further, what do we mean by “respect?” If I am to respect another person’s religious beliefs do we mean that I respect that person qua person and merely assent to his/her right to hold and defend any kind of belief using whatever methodology, or is it a more “rational” respect which allows me to honor the “intelligence” or dishonor the “absurdity” of those beliefs?

I don’t think it has much to do with that. It’s more in general how we ought be acting towards others.

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