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Atheism, Christianity, metaethics, morality, philosophy, religion
After suggesting moral anti-realists live a life based on make believe, I was asked what I mean by “make believe.” I would say something is “make believe” when it is the product of our minds that is not dictated or constrained by objective reality.
I would say Star Wars is make believe. Yes the author chose to have some things, like gravity, seem to work in similar ways to objective reality but he didn’t have to. He could have done it different and so objective reality did not dictate or constrain him.
Just like the moral anti-realist might say well suffering (or whatever they want to say) is part of reality and I am basing “my morality” on that. But they are just choosing to base it on that. There is nothing about objective reality that dictates or constrains their choice. If you do think objective reality dictates or constrains a rational view that something is moral, or not, then you are a moral realist – as I understand the term.
If you just say it is based on my desires and they are real. Well the author of Star Wars desired to write Star Wars but it is still make believe. Simply desiring that things should be a certain way does not make it so, nor does it say anything about the world beyond your mental construction of how it should be. Those mental constructions (not dictated by objective reality) are what we call make believe. And if you are choosing to live your life based on them, I think a more rational alternative is available.
One might say that I am living my life based on make believe. And I would say that might be. Even Paul seemed to acknowledge that was possible when he said “And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith.” 1 Corinthians 15:17. But the key word for Paul myself and all Christians is the “if.” At least we are living our life based on something that we think has a chance of being true. Some Christians might place that chance very high. Others may place it very low. But none of them, that I know, are saying they know it is all make believe because they themselves are making it up as they go. Even if they were, they would be no different than many atheists who take an anti-realist position when it comes to morality. Because both are openly admitting they are making it all up.
I think that is an irrational choice in the face of uncertainty. The Christian God has a chance of being true. Why live your life based on something you know is just make believe?
This is why I think it is simply incorrect to say the Christians are the ones fooling themselves. They are not the ones pretending there is purpose to make them feel better. They may very well realize that there might be no purpose and our faith may be in vain. But they also correctly see there is another possibility, we may, after all, have a purpose. So we walk the path that most likely will lead to real meaning instead of just making one up and pretending that is the way.
True and Reasonable 
If I boil this down, it seems to be essentially saying that it is unsatisfactory to be both a foundationalist and a moral anti-realist. I think that might be a fair assessment, but then you have to also argue for the primacy of foundationalism.
I am not sure what you mean. Plantinga made arguments against Classical Foundationalism in the epistemic sense in the early 80s. I think other forms have come about and even his own view of epistimology might even be considered foundationalist now.
But my claim is that it is irrational to live our lives based on what we know to be make believe. I would think many people who reject foundationalism might agree with my claim. Or at least I am not sure how rejecting foundationalism would seem to require a commitment to the believing that it is rational to live our life based on make believe.
But I am honestly not up to speed on all the different ways foundationalism is understood so maybe you have a specific view of it that ties in.
Or
Are you thinking of a certain sort of epistemic approach where living your life based on make believe would not be a problem?
Joe,
I read you as saying that “make believe” = not grounded in objective reality, and that objective reality = mind-independent. So any moral framework that can’t ultimately be traced to some mind-independent moral foundation is “make believe”. But if somebody is a coherentist or pragmatist then they don’t believe that the truth of the matter relies on locating a foundation such as this.
Hi Travis
There are coherentist views of what is true – as contrasted against the correspondence view of truth. And I would agree with you that if you hold to certain coherentist views of truth this argument may not be an issue.
There are also certain coherentist views of justification and I think that is what you are referring to as they are usually contrasted with foundationalist views. Again I agree that certain views may not have an issue here, but sometimes they try to avoid certain problems of coherentist views of truth that may cause some difficulty.
But on the whole yes I think you are correct there may be some ways of viewing truth or justification where it is allowed to live a life based on make believe so long as that make believe does not contradict itself.
Of course this argument would also not effect non-christians including atheists who are moral realists.
So you are correct this argument does not effect every philosophical view.
Joe,
This response fails to acknowledge that your concept of “make believe” doesn’t even apply to these non-foundationalist views. It’s a category error to say that these views allow living a “life based on make believe” while still defining “make believe” as you have.
Travis:
“This response fails to acknowledge that your concept of “make believe” doesn’t even apply to these non-foundationalist views.”
Joe:
Travis I am not trying to apply my concept of make believe to non-foundationalist views. I believe you are. But you haven’t explained how you think they apply.
At this point I am still not 100% sure what type of coherentism you are referring to. Are you referring to coherentism about truth or coherentism about justification?”
Travis:
“It’s a category error to say that these views allow living a “life based on make believe” while still defining “make believe” as you have.”
You are referring to “these views” as if we both understand what you are referring to. I really don’t know what views you are talking about nor how they apply to the point of my blog.
Is there a particular view of truth or justification that you endorse and think is immune to the point of this blog? Can you explain in what way? I’m really at a loss as to what you are saying.
OK. It seemed to me like you were doing this in your response when you said that “there may be some ways of viewing truth or justification where it is allowed to live a life based on make believe”. Maybe your intent was something more like “there may be some ways of viewing truth or justification where it is allowed to live a life based on make believe from a foundationalist perspective“?
I’m talking about non-foundationalist epistemological frameworks as a whole (e.g., coherentism or pragmatism). Particular theories of truth and justification tend to just be pieces within a larger framework.
I find myself blending pragmatic and coherentist theories. I think coherentism is good at describing how our beliefs relate to each other, and pragmatism is good at describing how our beliefs relate to the external world. In either case, your post does not apply because these frameworks define truth in a way that is at least partially mind-dependent and you seem to be requiring a foundation that is absent of subjectivity. I prefer these frameworks in part because I think that’s an impossible requirement to meet.
Thanks for the information Travis.
Coherentists as to truth say as long as my views are coherent – non contradictory they are true. So they are defining truth differently than those who take a correspondence theory of truth. Correspondence theory of truth is the view that a proposition is true if and only if it corresponds with reality.
The correspondence theory is the classic theory of truth. Coherentists have sort of a problem. The problem is you may have a set of beliefs that are all coherent and I may also have a set of beliefs that are all coherent. So according to coherentist view of truth both are true. The problem is those two people might have views that contradict eachother. So I may have beliefs that are internally consistent that include the belief that Jesus is divine. You have beliefs that are internally consistent that include the belief that Jesus is not divine. To say they are both true seems to violate the logical law of non-contradiction.
Some pragmatists in a scientific sense sort of redefine truth this way as well. They say if this theory of quantum mechanics works then it is true even if we can’t understand how it relates to reality or have no real model of reality.
Again I think most philosophers tend to agree to some sort of correspondence theory of truth.
Then we have the various views of how beliefs are *justified.* So even beliefs that are false might be justified.
Coherence theory of justification can and I think usually does adopt a correspondence view of truth. But it says we are justified in beliefs if they are internally consistent.
Pragmatism says we are justified in beliefs for reasons beyond just evidence. I talk about this in my blog about theoretical versus practical rationality.
https://trueandreasonable.co/2014/06/30/practical-versus-theoretical-rationality/
It is also addressed in literature on pragmatic encroachment theories of knowledge.
Foundationalism is justifications which build on other beliefs. But there are many different views on this. And the lines are not always clear. Moreover I am not an well versed in all the different views other than knowing a few and that there are many approaches.
So yes I agree that someone could likely take some sort of view about justification or truth that would allow for this. But that view may have some other problems. We would really have to spell out how a view of truth or justification could accommodate living a life based on make believe before I would say that is a good way to go.
In general as you know I am a proponent of pragmatic rationality. Meaning I do think pragmatic reasons are legitimate justifications to believe something. Indeed I think this very blog post is a sort of pragmatic justification. This blog post does not present affirmative evidence that Jesus is divine or that objectively real morality is true. Rather I argue that to the extent people want to do what is really right – if such a thing exists – then they would not simply adopt a relativist view. So to some extent this argument is pragmatic. But I think pragmatic reasons can fit in a foundationalist view of justification. So I don’t think they are necessarily mutually exclusive.
Does what I am saying square with your understanding of the terminology and does it make sense?
Joe,
I don’t want to try and defend a specific epistemology here. I just want to clarify what you mean by “make believe” and how it applies to different epistemologies. In this response you again said that “a view of truth or justification could accommodate living a life based on make believe” without any qualification. Do you mean that “a view of truth or justification could accommodate living a life based on make believe from a foundationalist perspective“? If an epistemology allows subjectivity to participate in defining or justifying truths, then that element of subjectivity doesn’t translate as “make believe” from within the framework. It is part of the reality. To say that such a view is “based on make believe” is imposing the foundationalist epistemology on a non-foundationalist framework.
Travis:
“I don’t want to try and defend a specific epistemology here. I just want to clarify what you mean by “make believe” and how it applies to different epistemologies. In this response you again said that “a view of truth or justification could accommodate living a life based on make believe” without any qualification. Do you mean that “a view of truth or justification could accommodate living a life based on make believe from a foundationalist perspective“? If an epistemology allows subjectivity to participate in defining or justifying truths, then that element of subjectivity doesn’t translate as “make believe” from within the framework. It is part of the reality. To say that such a view is “based on make believe” is imposing the foundationalist epistemology on a non-foundationalist framework.”
I don’t think I am imposing any sort of epistemology. I specifically explained what I mean by “make believe” and I tried to define it a way that truly captures what we mean when we use the term “make believe.” That is it is a mental construction not constrained or dictated by objective reality.
A truth coherentist (that believes any beliefs you hold that are internally consistent are true) might say there is no problem with living a life on “make believe” because “make believe” as I define it can be true. (at least according to their definition of truth and whether that is a good way to define truth will be a discussion for another day)
In essence what I am saying is that this is how I would define make believe. If you think that is a bad definition because it misses something critical or includes something that doesn’t belong then I am interested.
I have no reason to think that someone who does not adopt a foundationalist epistemology would define “make believe” differently. Of course they may not think living a life based on make believe is wrong or improper or epistemicly deficient. And that could be an interesting discussion. But I have no reason right now to think anyone (regardless of their philosophical epistemology) would mean something other than what I defined when they say something is “make believe.”
How do you think a non-foundationalist would define make believe?
A belief that is knowingly inconsistent with a full accounting of our experience. I say “knowingly” because the ‘make’ of ‘make believe’ implies intentionality. If you changed it to “wrong believe” then you can scratch “knowingly” from the definition.
I think make involves making or manufacture or construction. I think your definition would rule out Star Wars, Disney movies, and all fiction. Make believe is not always knowingly inconsistent with other beliefs. I could make up that my neighbor played baseball in high school. Now it’s possible he did. So make believe does not always involve something false or inconsistent. It is just that it is not constrained or dictated by being consistent with our other beliefs.
I’ll preface this by admitting that you can find professional philosophers on the internet, each telling the other what the other thinks as a realist or anti-realist.
That said, I think you may be making too much of the realist/anti-realist divide.
It may be helpful to think of it like the difference between a curling match and a pumpkin contest.
In the pumpkin contest there are determinative facts, within the context of the competition. In fact, it is fair to say that those facts constitute the competition.
In the curling match, there are facts about the match – scores, measurements, rules – but the facts do not constitute curling. It doesn’t even make sense to ask, “What is the curling fact?”, anymore than it makes sense to ask, “What is the thinking fact?”.
The best answer that you are going to get from any of those questions is a sort of post hoc analysis of the associated history.
Sounds suspiciously like the is/ought problem, doesn’t it?
Observations like Hume’s, with the is/ought problem and its sequelae, and Moore’s, with the open question, have led some, over time, to conclude that our moralizing is like curling, in principle, rather than like a big pumpkin contest, in principle.
That’s all.
“his is why I think it is simply incorrect to say the Christians are the ones fooling themselves. They are not the ones pretending there is purpose to make them feel better. They may very well realize that there might be no purpose and our faith may be in vain. But they also correctly see there is another possibility, we may, after all, have a purpose. So we walk the path that most likely will lead to real meaning instead of just making one up and pretending that is the way.”
Christians are pretending that there is purpose to make themselves feel better, they claim that this god gives them that purpose they have no evidence for their god or against others. Christians have been desperate for evidence for thousands of years but they still have found nothing, so claims of possibility are nil. There is nothing “most likely” about your religion than anyone else’s. You are indeed making up a purpose and pretending it has “real meaning”.
And really, Joe, you’re going back to the nonsense that many Christians spew that all atheists are nihilists with no purpose? I don’t need to make up anything at all to have meaning and purpose in my life. My fellow humans are enough.
Vel there is evidence and we have already discussed that. Here is the blog so we don’t have to repeat the same stuff here:
https://trueandreasonable.co/2014/12/23/no-evidence/
And no I am not saying all atheists are nihilists. This really a blog about anti-realist positions in morality – except nihilists/ error theorists.
It also doesn’t apply to athiests who are moral realists. It does apply to those atheists who think we can make our own morality – relativists/subjectivists/constructivism generally.
so where is the evidence that miracles occurred, Joe? Just saying “Therefore these miracles are evidence of God.” isn’t evidence. the bible is the claim, not evidence that something really happened. If I said that Spiderman saved someone in New York City, would you accept my words as evidence or would you expect something else? what is the ““Relevant evidence” means evidence having any tendency to make the existence of any fact that is of consequence to the determination of the action more probable or less probable than it would be without the evidence.” in this case?
I apologize, you didn’ t claim atheists as nihilists, you claimed that atheists make up things to have purpose.
Vel
We went through that in the blog I linked to.
https://trueandreasonable.co/2014/12/23/no-evidence/#comments
It was over 4.5 years ago but my responses will likely be the same. You can save yourself some time as well and cut right to the chase. But it would be best to post in that blog as opposed to this one. That blog does discuss evidence of God this one really doesn’t. I am not someone who minds discussing older blogs. You and I agree the issues have been around for centuries so its not like they are only topical for a week or so.
so, if I post there you’ll show the evidence that miracles have occurred? OK.
By the way, you should really change your setting for the comment nesting to 3 or fewer levels. I know it’s stupid that WordPress hides the Reply link by default once that threshold is hit, but that’s still better than comments with two words per line. People can still use the app, or email link, or URL parameters to reply in line.
Thanks it is done. I hope all the comments survive.
I was just watching the Joseph Campbell special on netflix. He is friends with George Lucas and was analyzing the key points of successful myths, contemplative purpose, the hero’s return, the temptation, overcoming, triumph—all cultures are full of the same story. Rites of passage, initiation, etc. One of the reasons the film was so successful is it touches on all the standard myth very well. The 40 days in the wilderness, temptations of Christ for power, triumphant return, overcoming all odds. There’s more examples in it, but the key points touch it all. It’s not a Christian phenomenon, but a desire in each of us. Interestingly when he finally knew his father was a tyrant, he refused him. Sort of the way of the Bible god. The emperor was surrounded by yes men who feared him. Sound familiar?
Hi Jim
Thanks for commenting here.
I am not familiar with the show you are referring to. But it seems to me a good example of how evidence is subjective. That is certain facts are claimed to be true but then the question is how do we interpret them in light of a question we are trying to answer.
So what are the facts this show claims? (and at least for purposes of argument I will by an large not dispute the facts they claim)
They seem to claim that people have had certain ideals for humans across cultures. And many of the made up stories involve heroes that live up to these ideals.
So what do we do with those facts? Do we say that any story we hear where people seem to live according to these ideals are therefore not true? So the White Rose Society
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/the-secret-student-group-stood-up-nazis-180962250/
and Martin Luther King are myths?
Or do we say well sometimes people do actually live up to those ideals? And would a Christian not say if God came wouldn’t he encapsulate all those ideals so isn’t this proof that Jesus is God?
I personally do not look at these 2 facts as being strong evidence either way on Christianity. I do think Jesus obviously lived up to certain ideals but not all of them that we see in myths.
Many mythical male heroes have great strength and fighting ability. They tend not in their last hours to fall down unable to lift a cross only to have someone else help them carry it and be comforted by women. It seems indeed many Jewish people are expecting the hero to have these sorts of traits. (edit: traits of strength or at least military strength)
I am not saying you could not reasonably find these facts to be evidence against Christianity, or a Christian could reasonably find this to be evidence of God. I think reasonable people can look at the same facts differently. But I do think confirmation bias plays a role on how we look at the world and all facts.
After all, isn’t that just what an evil witch would do? Deny she is an evil witch!
Edit: I thought you were commenting on your own blog so I deleted the first statement I made and posted on yours.
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