Last Question
LAST QUESTION (quoting me) I would welcome any comment you care to make along these lines.
How did I do?
It is a pleasure to exchange words with you. The ideas you are debating are ones very similar indeed to those I have debated before with others of your school of thought, but, unlike them, you refrained from the typical sneering, condescension, pretense of superiority, and personal attacks. If I meet enough honest and humble and rational liberals it will become a much easier chore for me to forgive and love them as I am commanded to do. This is indeed my basic besetting sin right now in my life, and so you are doing me a help.
The only questions you failed to answer when asked directly are two.
First, when it was shown beyond reasonable doubt that the Catholic moral teaching, especially in regards to the sanctity of marriage and the prohibition on divorce, contraception and abortion, is certain to lead to more offspring better cared-for, you did not revisit your belief in the Darwinian origins of morality.
In terms of passing along social norms, the Catholic code demands all her members be missionary to the heathen, and raise their children in the faith, and the Catholic tradition displays the longest and most consistent history in the world of investing in institutions of higher education.
The argument is bizarrely simple, and yet you dodged answering it. If morality is Darwinian, then the behaviors that lead to the greatest chance of the greatest number of surviving offspring following the prior generation’s norms that behavior is the successful ergo the good behavior. You refused even to contemplate switching allegiance to the successful behavior.
Actions speak louder than words. You do not believe that morality has Darwinian roots.
You would not, nor would any honest man, become a Catholic unless he thought Catholicism were true. Truth, not Darwinian efficiency, is what your conscience tells you is the standard.
You talk like a cad, who says that efficiency is better than truth; but when backed into a corner, you do not act like a cad, but like a man, who says truth is better than efficiency.
One must wonder why you have a moral code that is less moral than your real behavior. It is like seeing Achilles walk around telling recruits that a long life is better than a glorious one, or Socrates preaching that it is better to recant and agree with the people, lest they do you some harm.
It is not the way you act. Why do you tell other people you live by a lower standard than you do?
The second question you failed to answer was also a very simple one, as obvious as asking you if the sun is up at noon. You have moral intuitions that you know to be true, but you do not know why you know them to be true. You know what they are but know not whence they come, correct?
Instead of answering you laughed and accused me of trying to trick you. That is an insult to me, and admission of incompetence on your part, and demeans the conversation. If you are too craven a caitiff to answer the question manfully and honestly, then avaunt thee, and cast away from yourself the robe of a philosopher and shave your beard.
About John C Wright
John C. Wright is a practicing philosopher, a retired attorney, newspaperman, and newspaper editor, and a published author of science fiction. Once a Houyhnhnm, he was expelled from the august ranks of purely rational beings when he fell in love; but retains an honorary title.
