... with the trade news breaking tonight.
Let me preface by saying that I am not a theological expert or a philosophy expert or a neuroscience expert. I dabble. I do consider myself a scientist, but I consider athiesm to be untennable. I apologize for the length and rambling nature but I know I will recieve valuable commentary which will help me hone my own thoughts.
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Now, I respect do Hitchens' well-read intellect, but I have never seen any of the new athiests address some of the unavoidable implications of their position.
Here's the problem with athiesm: while it is impossible, of course to prove the existence of God, assuming the nonexistence of of something outside of the natural world leads to conclusions that the vast majority of people would find unacceptable in the extreme. Without the notion of something outside of nature, something supernatural, there is no room for free will.
If we reject a concept like "God" then we would live in a purely naturalistic world, and we are forced to accept the fact that the universe is deterministic and materialistic. In such a case, all phenomena (physical or mental) follow the rules of physics. One of the most basic of which is that every effect has an antecedent cause and is determined by those causes. A purely naturalistic world is incompatible with any concept of free will because, in a deterministic world, our thoughts, "choices", and behaviors are all determined by antecedent causes, factors in our environment, (like our upbringing). Free will and choice would be an illusion. The compatibilist argument offers no hope here.
To believe in free will of any kind in a deterministic is necessarily to believe in something that is outside the laws of causality, the laws of physics. Outside the laws of nature. Something "magic", or extra-natural.
Because athiestic philosophers are purly naturalistic/materialistic, they are forced to radically reject any concept free will.
Without free will there can be no accountability or ethics. Moral ideas like "In this situation, I should do X" loose any meaning, because the underlying assumption is that you could have chosen something else... which is not possible if your behavior is determined. Hence "ethics" therefore would be an empty and meaningless term.
In a deterministic universe, does it really make sense to say one "ought" to act in a certain way? The word "ought" also implies that one could have acted in some other way, again something that does not make sense in a deterministic universe. The word "ought" therefore loses all meaning, as do words that refer to value of any kind, like "good" or "bad", "right" or "wrong".
Any concept of free will robust enough to generate accountability or give meaning to terms like "should" or "good" or moral code" therefore takes as an underlying assumption the existence of something that is not subject to deterministic laws, "an uncaused cause"... and therefore something outside of the natural world. Something supernatural.
In a naturalistic universe, would one act in a way determined by the environmental inputs one experiences. Where you grew up, the experiences, environmental inputs and moral training you received are necessarily arbitrary. Any set of values you purport to follow are merely the result of arbitrary programming you receive growing up. As a result it would be impossible to classify any set of ethical values as superior to any other (for the purposes of the discussion, we'll have to ignore the act that "superior" has no meaning in a deterministic universe).
Hence, athiestic philosophers, in embracing a purly naturalistic world, are not only forced to give up any concept of free will, but they would also be forced to give up any ethical system and embrace a radical value relativism. To my knowledge, none of them accept that. In fact Harris and Hitchens are quite the opposite.
It gets worse. If we do not have free will, then what are we? Are we not, in large part, composed of our choices in life? In a deterministic universe, because will is determined, and choices are necessarily an illusion, then the self is an illusion. In fact, its not really clear what individuals are in such a universe... just (very) complex epiphenomena? Does that word "individual" even have meaning? What then, of a concept like "individual rights"?
A naturalistic/deterministic universe presents some significant intellectual problems (and to my knowledge, the "new athiests" have not addressed them):
Epistemological Issues:
The conceptualization of free will is so immediate and central to our consciousness that it can be describes as the most obvious perception in our minds. Part of what makes us human.
If this central perception is no more than an illusion, then on what basis should we accept any other perception as real? Hunger, thirst, love, pain?
If there is no free will, then who or what makes decisions? Can we even speak that way anymore? Is it "no one"? If there is "no one" making decisions, then it can be accurately stated that there is no "I" nor "you". "I" and "you" are merely epiphenomenon, emerging from a background of antecedant phemomena... in an unbroked chain of causation etending... back to the Big Bang, I guess.
If you are going to decide (leave aside the fact you can't really do that in a deterministic universe) to question something as fundamental to human experience as free will, why do you stop questioning there?
Does it not immediately follow logically that if our most basic, ultimate and seemingly real perception (that of free will) is an illusion, we must call into question all other perceptions, regardless of how real they seem?
Determinists accept other thoughts and perceptions as real and legitimate, and yet reject the thought of free will. But there is no reason for this selectivity. Yes, you perceive the chair, the computer, the air. But that can not be a justification for accepting those perceptions as real.
Ontological issues:
There is significant overlap here with the epistemologic problems; however there are some distinctions.
What does it mean "to be" in a deterministic universe? What does it mean to be a human?
Are humans to be understood only as constantly fluctuating assemblage of fleeting mental states? As a complex system of reflexive interactions, an intricate computer program? Merely a more complicated mosquito?
If there is no "I" or "you"... no such thing as an "individual", then what of individual rights? Why would an individual matter, or have "worth" (a word that loses meaning in a deterministic universe... see below)?
Ethical issues:
As above, in a determinist universe, it does not make sense to use words like "should" or "ought". In order to say that someone should have done something in a certain situation, then it follows that she could have done something else instead. But in a deterministic universe, by definition, the person could not have done something else, because her actions, thoughts, and feelings were determined by the environment.
Second, in a deterministic universe, values are completely arbitrary. Any values we possess are by definition merely a result of our environmental programming.
In that situation, subjective/value terms lose their meanings, since their meanings are defined only by values, which are the result of arbitrary programming.
I have seen Sam Harris try to describe a system of values defined "rationally", and "logically", and "scientifically" but his efforts fail because of the reasons above. Science can only tell us what "is". It can not tell us what "ought" to be.
Critically, one can not look to "science" to provide suggestions for societal ethics and morality. Scientific inquiry is very powerful, but it does not give answers to questions like that.
What is "scientific" about any ethical guideline? For example, what is scientific about "do unto others as you would have them do unto you"? What scientific experiment could demonstrate the truth or falsity of this statement? What scientific experiment could demonstrate whether we should follow this proscription? What is the scientific answer to what is "right" in a given situation? What is the scientific answer to the question of what is "good"?
Scientific method can at best demonstrate how to implement ethical and moral principles practically. It can not, however, tell us what those principles will be, or should be.
Scientifically speaking, why should people have individual rights, for example? Why, scientifically, should people be treated equally? Especially if people are nothing more than a transient arrangement of mental (or energy) states that are mere epiphenomenon determined by the interplay of forces and particles through time in an inevitable sequence streaching to the beginning of time?