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Secular Faith

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

Annette Baier
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Extract

Both in ethics and in epistemology one source of scepticism in its contemporary version is the realization, often belated, of the full consequences of atheism. Modern non-moral philosophy looks back to Descartes as its father figure, but disowns the Third Meditation. But if God does not underwrite one's cognitive powers, what does? The largely unknown evolution of them, which is just a version of Descartes’ unreliable demon? “Let us … grant that all that is here said of God is a fable, nevertheless in whatever way they suppose that I have arived at the state of being that I have reached, whether they attribute it to fate or to accident, or make out that it is by a continual succession of antecedents, or by some other method — since to err and deceive oneself is a defect, it is clear that the greater will be the probability of my being so imperfect as to deceive myself ever, as is the Author to whom they assign my being the less powerful” (Meditation I, Haldane and Ross, tr.).

Type
Research Article
Information
Canadian Journal of Philosophy , Volume 10 , Issue 1 , March 1980 , pp. 131 - 148
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 1980

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References

1 “Why Ought One Obey God, Reflections on Hobbes and Locke,” CanadianJournal of Philosophy 7 (1977), pp. 425-46.

2 G. E. M. Anscombe, in “Modern Moral Philsophy,” (Philosophy, 1958, pp. 1-18, reprinted in The Definition of Morality, ed. Wallace and Walker, London) 1970 claimed that all deontological moral concepts are empty words unless there is a divine lawgiver and duty-determiner. Gauthier's thesis concerns not all moral laws and duties, but only those involving “moral convention,” where mutual benefits depend upon general observance. I accept his assumption that all moral duties require some rational basis, that we do not simply intuit moral absolutes.

3 Throughout this paper I use ‘his’ to mean ‘his or her’ and sometimes use ‘man' to mean ‘person'. This is especially regrettable in a paper about Justice, but needed allusions to the words of Hobbes and other sexists dictated my usage. I am not, it seems, willing to make the sacrifices in communication needed to help gain as much currency for ‘the one Just woman’ as already gained for the one Just man.

4 Gauthier, op.cit., p. 428.

5 James, William “The Will to Believe,” in The Will to Believe and Other Essays inPopular Philosophy (New York and London, 1897).Google Scholar In this paper I am really saying no more than James said about moral faith. I suppose the Justification for saying it again, and adapting it to a Hobbesian context, is the perennial character of the issue. I have benefited from discussion with Richard Gale on James’ position, and from his comments on an earlier version of this paper.

6 It is not an easy matter to formulate an acceptable criterion of the equitable, but I have assumed that we can get a stronger test for Justice than that provided by Hobbes- “What all men have accepted, no man can call unjust.” If we cannot, then maybe only the fool says in his heart that there is more to Justice than fidelity to possibly forced agreement. If the ideal of the equitable or fair is empty or incoherent, then the more inclusive ideal of Justice in a strong sense, which I am invoking, will also be empty or incoherent.

7 As has been pointed out by a reader for this Journal, coherence could be pre· served by letting one test apply on some occasions, the other on others, whenever the two tests would give conflicting decisions if both were applied. This would preserve only a weak formal coherence, unless some dear principle could be formulated which selects which test is applicable, and unless this principle itself expressed some component element in our hazy intuitive idea of Justice.

8 Although in what follows I try to depart as little as possible from the hedonism of Hobbes and Locke (not because I agree with it, but because of the context of the present discussion), I do however depart very significantly from Hobbes in accepting, as rational motivation, not only self preservation of the natural man, or “nature's preservation” but also preservation, not of Leviathan, but of a moral community, and of the very idea of such a community. A special ‘pleasure of the mind’ would have to be added to Hobbes’ list to accommodate such Kantian motivation.

9 Baier, Kurt “Rationality and Morality,” Erkenntnis 11 (1977), p. 197,CrossRefGoogle Scholar where the 'isolation', ‘coordination', and ‘assurance’ problems are distinguished.

10 I have not discussed the question, raised by Gauthier's example of unilateral abstention from preemptive nuclear strike, of what should be done when the decision taken may commit others besides the decision-maker to the higher pleasures of martyrdom for a good cause. This is the really difficult question.

11 I have tried, throughout this paper, to evoke some Biblical echoes, to show how the secular faith I describe parallels its theological forerunners. The effort to speak both the language of Hobbes and that of the King James Bible has resulted in a style which some readers have found obscure. This I regret, but I do want to keep, for those in a position to recognize them, allusions to, e.g., St. Paul's Epistle to the Hebrews chaps. 1 0 and 11.