MODERN ERRORS #3: The Decline of Debate

Pretty scary stuff don't you suppose? Scientists are putting up posters announcing that the scientific debate is over. What could possibly be more unscientific than making such a claim? And the 'climate change' controversy is not the only arena of ideas where otherwise rational people demand an end to debate so we can 'move on'. Distribution of wealth, homosexual marriage, Sharia Law, abortion, death penalty, marijuana, and illegal immigrants all have their vociferous advocates, mostly from the political left, who actively try to suppress real debate on these opinion laden issues. How did a nation that once prided itself on a robust life of ideas expressed in the market-place devolve into a Tower of Babel?

Each semester when treating ethical and moral arguments in my Critical Thinking class there arises a perennial chorus of students who chant ‘Well…who’s to say what’s right and wrong.” My response has been the same for 48 years, “You are my cherub…you are…that’s why we study philosophy.” Eyes usually roll into the back of heads as we tackle the contours of ethical and moral reasoning. When we finally come to modern ethical theories in general, and ‘cultural relativism, in particular, eyes begin to focus and the new choir sings. “What the hell happened?”

Perhaps the best demonstration of the decline of real debate is the current row over 'climate change'. Formally known as 'global warming' this donnybrook rages without any semblance of true debate. In fact, one side insists, as their posters proclaim, the debate is over. This is strange for two reasons. First, this is supposed to be a 'scientific' debate where hypotheses are tested empirically and reliable predictions are supposed to be the result. Secondly, the so-called scientific predictions made by these advocates 17 years ago have failed to come true...not a one of them. How scientific is that? Add to this that the source of the draconian climate claims stem not from a scientific institute but rather from the United Nations, a concertedly political organization that cherry-picked their scientists that would manipulate their observations to arrive at a predetermined political conclusion. What's that conclusion? Human consumption of fossil fuels will bring catastrophic climate outcomes unless we form a socialist world government that regulates air, water, food and fuel used globally. "The debate is over" UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon, proclaims; "We have no time to loose. We must act now."

Between the two World Wars philosophy, and with it honest debate on fundamental human issues, simply declined. Now, all ideas are equally valid and sound. Rather than a sudden heart attack, serious debate on the fundamental philosophical issues of reality, truth, goodness and beauty declined from consumption. From Thales to Descartes philosophy exerted its energy reasoning about the objective world on the fundamental questions. After Descartes philosophy preoccupied itself questioning if it could reason about anything other than its own subjective mind. Philosophy that once looked at the world now contented itself with navel gazing. It’s easy to pin this sickness and decay on poor Descartes, a mathematician by trade and certainly not the measure of Plato or Aristotle. Only after WW I did anyone think seriously that there is no way out of our own minds because the only certainty is thinking. With the few exceptions such as Bertrand Russell, jailed for his pacifism and fired from his professorship, few British or German philosophers openly opposed the outbreak of a ‘Great War’ everyone knew was coming. Even advocates of the ‘new philosophy’ as Russell baptized it cheerily marched off the front line trenches to be beaten, shot, bayoneted, machine-gunned and gassed by the hundreds of thousands. In mechanized carnage of unimaginable proportions made possible by the application of modern technology to 18^th Century battle tactics, philosophy, and with it fundamental debate, wilted under the withering fire of the famous words (mis)attributed to Dostoevsky, "If God is dead, then everything is permitted.”.It became mainstream. Everything is permissible.” And ‘everything’ is exactly what happened without any restrictions by ethical principles or moral values. After all, we can only know with certainty our ‘subjective ‘thoughts about those things because we can’t get outside of our own minds to know them ‘objectively’.

But wait. Isn't fundamental debate exactly what did happen with the shift to an entirely subjective epistemology? Not exactly. The horrible aftermath of 37 million total causalities (estimated at 16 million deaths and 20 million wounded), made WW I the deadliest war in human history. There was no debate only numbed, shocked submission to the utter failure of the traditional ethical principles and moral values that kept human society glued together.

And therein, the fallacy is committed. Instead of blaming the humans that failed to live up to those traditional social codes, they blame the traditional codes themselves especially ethical ones. Instead of living your life according to principles, you adjust your principles to fit your living. Even a school child can obviously reason that blame is assigned to the criminal, not the crime. Should we blame Newton’s principles of gravity if an airplane falls from the sky? Is Euclid to be despised if a spacecraft misses its' rendezvous? Do we blame a time honored recipe when our pie turns out resembling swill? Of course not. Then why do we blame Kant’s Golden Rule when a monarch does not practice it? Why do we blame God when children are born without arms or legs? Why do we blame society for our own lack of industry and competence? Does it make any sense to blame our parents because we are poor? Amateur golfers blame the putter for missing putts. Why? Contemporary reasoning has it that only our subjective perceptions are real. There may be universals, but there are no absolute we are now told. Try telling that to astrophysicists and aeronautical engineers that landed something the size of as washing a machine on a comet. There are absolutes. There are brute facts as even a moment's observation will verify.

That leads to the core defect in contemporary thinking. The same rigidly empirically minded scientists who must operate using immutable physical laws about absolute brute facts in their experiments deny that there are absolute ethical and moral laws for good and evil behavior by individuals, families, societies and the human species itself. You can’t have it both. If everything that happens in the known the universe operates according to immutable laws, and if human morality is a thing that happens in the universe, then human morality operates according to immutable laws. There is no real debate in our present life of ideas because this syllogistic truth is denied. We are told to accept as absolute truth that only human morality is without undeniable principle. There is no such thing as absolute truth because humans are fallible. One supposes this applies to that claim itself. Hence, a contradiction exists at the very core of contemporary moral thinking. Result? Who’s to say?