The Human Dignity Conspiracy by Peter Augustine Lawler (via Brothers Judd):

The thoughtful evolutionary scientist Daniel Dennett, in his very positive contribution to the Council volume, says that human beings are different enough from the other animals to need morality, and he adds, contrary to Pinker, that we even need confidence in our equal dignity. He agrees with Pinker that claims for dignity have been basically Christian, and that these claims have been refuted by the scientific discovery that everything we think and do has a material cause. Our beliefs in dignity and the soul have the same status as the discredited belief in mermaids. It is no sillier to believe in a half-woman/half-fish that no one has seen than to believe in a half-body/half-soul that no one has seen.[15]

Dennett, however, has a scientific explanation for why we need the scientifically discredited belief in dignity. We are social animals who have brains big enough to conceive of projects that will enable us to live purposeful lives, but there is no scientific basis for the freedom at the foundation of human conceptions of purpose. So we cannot live well without useful illusions—free will, love, dignity, etc. Even the idea that any particular human life matters at all is merely a fiction—but a fiction worth maintaining. We have seen that nihilism has all sorts of undesirable social consequences; therefore, we need to sustain these illusions in the face of what we know about our accidental, material, and evolutionary existences.

Dennett’s ingenious solution to the incompatibility between scientific truth and our need for dignified belief is that we should justify our allegiance to the useful fiction of equal dignity by acknowledging the good life it makes possible. It is indispensable for the habits and trust needed to perpetuate social and political institutions. We can stop all this pointless obsessing over whether the belief is actually true by just admitting that it is not, but science can still explain why we need to believe it anyway.

Dennett’s pragmatic hope that we can stop caring about whether our belief in dignity is actually true is not shared by any other author in the Council’s book. In fact, the pragmatic philosopher Richard Rorty had a simpler idea: let’s call true whatever belief makes us happy. Rorty, of course, never called his approach dignified. Dennett himself is too dignified to deny the truth of what he thinks he knows, and there is some dignity, too, in his humane intention to spare us the consequences of a dignity-free world. It seems he denies the reality of the dignity he himself displays only because to do otherwise would require admitting that human beings are mysteriously free from nature or materialistic causation. Yet in Dennett’s well-­intentioned confusion, he remains stuck with acknowledging that, in some way, we are the only species that can be held responsible for perpetuating both human nature and the very conditions of life on our planet. Is there really no dignity in that?

Very interesting. The attempt to find an account of ethics based in materialism is not one to which I am sympathetic: it seems to me quite clearly doomed, and also unnecessary, since materialism is false. Still, I am surprised that Dennett concedes as much as Lawler seems to be saying that he does. I would have expected him to insist that materialism can be embraced without such a high cost in terms of the tenability of our ordinary moral intuitions and values.

Free will is foundational: we know it by introspection, with certainty. By contrast, Descartes and Hume and Popper and the skeptics are right that all scientific knowledge, i.e., knowledge derived by induction from patterns in sense-experience, is conjectural. To reject free will in favor of "science" is, at best, to reject better evidence in favor of worse. Actually, it is not even that, for the conceit that "everything" is determined by materialistic laws is fallaciously to transpose a working assumption of science into a conclusion of science, though this is not the sort of thing that science could ever validly conclude. Without free will there can be no ethics because you can't be blamed for what you can't help doing. The converse is not true, however: there could be free will without ethics, although we might not be so intensely aware that we have free will if we didn't have morality to give us a strong reason to resist our inclinations. But what an odd world Dennett conceives of, in which humans have a need to live purposeful lives, though there is no purpose in anything and "even the idea that any particular human life matters at all is a fiction!"

Comments

[nato]

I have not read the original on which Lawler comments, but Lawler's summary conflicts* with other positions Dennett has taken regarding the ontology of free will and the intersubjective status of ethics. It is possible that Dennett has changed his mind or said something additional that adds an unexpected wrinkle in his position, but I suspect not, considering how consistent Dennett has been between the early 80s and the mid 2000s. Instead, I think that Lawler is badly misrepresenting Dennett's beliefs. I don't think this is intentional, but is due to unfamiliarity. After all, Lawler describes Dennett as an "evolutionary scientist," which he is not in any respect. He is a philosopher not a scientist, and even as a philosopher his greatest contributions have been to philosophy of mind, not of science or biology. Thus, I take leave to more or less ignore Lawler's assessment of Dennett's position. After all, people have interpreted Dennett as claiming that thermostats have beliefs and people do not.

That said, I would like to read Dennett's actual contribution to find out what it was he did say. When I do, I'm not sure I'll agree.

*I originally typed "seem to conflict," but then thought about it some more, and there just doesn't seem to be two ways about it: Lawler's account of Dennett's position *does* conflict.

[nato]

So I read the original essay:
http://ase.tufts.edu/cogstud/papers/dignityscience3.pdf

It confirms that Lawler did indeed seriously misunderstand Dennett's position. Put shortly, Dennet would describe himself as believing in both free will and human dignity, and his argument here is about the dangers of discarding 'mythical' justifications for these concepts in favor of scientifically-sound alternatives. He tries to take seriously the risks posed by even considering changing ideas we hold sacred, and in fact lends support to the idea of holding things sacred in the sense of being beyond consideration of whether they are actually true*. At the same time, he says that 'mythical' supports for critical beliefs are too brittle and we need a more robust replacement.

Dennett's proposed 'equilibrium' mentions the effect of liability laws for doctors that cause them to err on the side of extreme caution. He mentions this right after a discussion of legalized torture, and is intended, I think, to support the idea of strong laws against things that are *potentially* outrages against human dignity even if we're not sure. In his discussion, this is not only to prevent such outrages directly, but also to help maintain the belief environment that supports that dignity in the first place.

And, while we are policing those borders of behavior and policy to keep action from straying near the traditionally forbidden, we nevertheless strive to demonstrate in intersubjective ways the virtues of human dignity**, in much the same way we've demonstrated the virtues of democracy and a free society.

*Not because we don't care about truth, or because the truth might conflict, but because in many cases considering the details of the truth tends to obscure the 'bright lines' we need for moral guidance. This relates to Dennett's criticisms of utilitarianism (expressed elsewhere).

**Dennett brackets any actual justifications for free will and human dignity for this essay, both of which he just assumes as true. Note his implied rejection of Davies' claim to have discovered the "awful truth" about free will.

[vigilon reviews]

Lastly, when you move into a new house or apartment, have the locks changed or re-keyed.