Religion In The Public Square: Legal and Judicial Arguments with Dr. Francis J. Beckwith

Dr. Francis J. Beckwith discusses the value of religious arguments for the public sphere, especially in the legal and judicial arenas.

Show Notes

In this episode of the Chasing Leviathan podcast, PJ and Dr. Francis J. Beckwith discuss the assumptions that underlie our moral intuitions, how to have meaningful dialogue across worldview differences, and ways for society to approach the nuances of religious pluralism.

For a deep dive into Dr. Beckwith's work, check out these publications:
Taking Rites Seriously: Law, Politics, and the Reasonableness of Faith 👉 https://amzn.to/3JaXIaQ
Never Doubt Thomas: The Catholic Aquinas as Evangelical and Protestant 👉 https://amzn.to/3xbAyPv
To Everyone an Answer: A Case for the Christian Worldview 👉 https://amzn.to/3NTf7sq
Relativism: Feet Firmly Planted in Mid-Air 👉 https://amzn.to/3xdw3nc
Politics for Christians: Statecraft as Soulcraft 👉 https://amzn.to/3r3uBQO 

Check out our blog on www.candidgoatproductions.com

Who thinks that they can subdue Leviathan? Strength resides in its neck; dismay goes before it. When it rises up, the mighty are terrified. Nothing on earth is its equal. It is without fear. It looks down on all who are haughty; it is king over all who are proud.

These words inspired PJ Wehry to create Chasing Leviathan. Chasing Leviathan was born out of two ideals: that truth is worth pursuing but will never be subjugated, and the discipline of listening is one of the most important habits anyone can develop.

Every episode is a dialogue, a journey into the depths of a meaningful question explored through the lens of personal experience or professional expertise.

What is Chasing Leviathan?

Who thinks that they can subdue Leviathan? Strength resides in its neck; dismay goes before it. It is without fear. It looks down on all who are haughty; it is king over all who are proud. These words inspired PJ Wehry to create Chasing Leviathan. Chasing Leviathan was born out of two ideals: that truth is worth pursuing but will never be subjugated, and the discipline of listening is one of the most important habits anyone can develop. Every episode is a dialogue, a journey into the depths of a meaningful question explored through the lens of personal experience or professional expertise.

[Unknown2]: hello and welcome to chasing leviathan i'm your host pj weary and i'm here today

[Unknown2]: with dr francis j beckwith he is a philosopher who publishes and teaches in the

[Unknown2]: areas of religion jurisprudence politics and ethics he's the professor of

[Unknown2]: philosophy and church

[Unknown1]: that's

[Unknown2]: state studies at baylor university where he also serves as associate director of

[Unknown2]: the graduate program in philosophy and affiliate professor of political science dr

[Unknown2]: beckwith wonderful to have you here today

[Unknown1]: thank you for having me it's great to be here

[Unknown2]: and so today we are going to talk about how religious beliefs should be properly

[Unknown2]: used in the public square especially in the arenas of legal judicial purposes and

[Unknown2]: that's working off your book taking right seriously which

[Unknown2]: fair warning

[Unknown2]: is really good but also very heavy so it's like it's it's not lined by line

[Unknown2]: argumentation but i'd say it's paragraph by paragraph and i think you do a really

[Unknown2]: good job of walking through that's you know for our listeners but walking through

[Unknown2]: and just making your points clearly and definitively so how did you get interested

[Unknown2]: in this topic to begin with

[Unknown1]: well it's a long story i

[Unknown1]: began being interested in legal questions concerning religion right after graduate

[Unknown1]: school so i did my doctorate at fordham university in new york city late eighties

[Unknown1]: graduated in nineteen eighty nine and i done most of my work in law school and not

[Unknown1]: law school graduate school uh in the area of philosophy of

[Unknown2]: hm

[Unknown1]: religion my doctorate dissertation was on david hume's argument against miracles i

[Unknown1]: had an interest in faith and reason questions

[Unknown1]: from the very early days of my time

[Unknown1]: in school when i was in elementary school i was always asking questions about god

[Unknown1]: and morality these you know i was a kind of annoying kid in catholic school

[Unknown1]: and

[Unknown1]: and so but but it it sort of gravitated to that

[Unknown1]: academically well right after graduating from forum i was hired at the university

[Unknown1]: of nevada las vegas where i grew up

[Unknown2]: hey

[Unknown1]: i grew up in vegas and so it was great to be back home to be able to teach at the

[Unknown1]: local university and the chairman of the philosophy department asked if i'd begin

[Unknown1]: teaching courses in political and legal

[Unknown2]: he

[Unknown1]: philosophy and ethics even i had some interest in that but not a lot and so i

[Unknown1]: began teaching in that area and that uh

[Unknown1]: i began

[Unknown1]: encountering especially on controversial questions uh what i thought were

[Unknown2]: yes

[Unknown1]: deficits in the way in which people

[Unknown1]: assessed the claims of religious citizens

[Unknown2]: hm

[Unknown1]: and so that led me to think about issues that sort of the big especially the

[Unknown1]: abortion question

[Unknown2]: he

[Unknown1]: that was the first one that i began uh thinking about published some early work in

[Unknown1]: that area in academic journals and then in the late nineties

[Unknown1]: decided to go to law school

[Unknown1]: and i went to washington university in st louis and in those days they had a

[Unknown1]: degree program a graduate degree program in law

[Unknown1]: called a master of juridical

[Unknown2]: no

[Unknown1]: studies and it was no longer offered anymore but it was a special degree for

[Unknown1]: people that were

[Unknown1]: scholars in other fields that were interested in the law but didn't want to

[Unknown2]: what a cool idea

[Unknown1]: practice so i went to yeah it was a so i went to wash took virtually all the first

[Unknown1]: year law courses that everyone takes and then some electives and i had to write a

[Unknown1]: dissertation as part of the degree which is not what typical law students do and

[Unknown1]: it was on the debate

[Unknown2]: i

[Unknown1]: about teaching intelligent design in public

[Unknown2]: hey

[Unknown1]: schools and it was a topic that interested me because it kind of

[Unknown1]: dovetailed all my interest there was philosophy of religion constitutional law

[Unknown2]: yes

[Unknown1]: philosophy of science

[Unknown1]: you know politics and religion and the issue kind of had all of these in one and

[Unknown1]: so i published this book as a result of the dissertation called law darwinism and

[Unknown1]: public education

[Unknown1]: and i parcelled out portions of the dissertation as law review

[Unknown2]: hm

[Unknown1]: articles and it was soon after that that i was hired by baylor to be the associate

[Unknown1]: director of their church state studies institute and then a couple of years after

[Unknown1]: that moved to the philosophy department which is my more natural discipline

[Unknown2]: yeah

[Unknown1]: so that that would th those are the things that kind of drew me to these questions

[Unknown1]: and

[Unknown1]: and as i say in taking right seriously i've kind of changed my mind about a few

[Unknown2]: hm

[Unknown1]: things so when i first

[Unknown1]: began having an interest in the intelligent design debate

[Unknown2]: why you say

[Unknown1]: i would say that i was very sympathetic to intelligent design as a view

[Unknown1]: i've kind of drifted away from that

[Unknown1]: i don't agree with the view

[Unknown2]: hm

[Unknown1]: anymore i thought that i really ever agreed with it but i just thought it was one

[Unknown1]: of those tantalizing

[Unknown1]: theories that kind of broke the mold and so it was mostly defended by people that

[Unknown1]: were overtly

[Unknown2]: hm

[Unknown1]: religious but it was a view that was defended by secular reasons so it was kind of

[Unknown1]: it did not kind of fit

[Unknown1]: you know the the idea of you know advancing religious

[Unknown2]: hey

[Unknown1]: views but over the years as i began

[Unknown1]: thinking about the intelligent design as a view

[Unknown2]: so

[Unknown1]: itself i became more skeptical about it

[Unknown2]: three

[Unknown1]: and so in in taking right seriously i have a whole chapter explaining why i've

[Unknown1]: grown more negative about about the view as a view that's different from the legal

[Unknown1]: question

[Unknown2]: right right

[Unknown1]: and i make that distinction in the in the book

[Unknown2]: yeah

[Unknown2]: so a couple of questions that come out uh of that first one can you tell me a

[Unknown2]: little bit more about the church state in institute what is that

[Unknown1]: oh okay

[Unknown1]: so baylor started back way back in the nineteen fifties the church state studies

[Unknown1]: institute it was eventually named after one of its most famous alum alumnus alumni

[Unknown1]: joseph martin dawson or j m dawson and so it was called the jam dawson institute

[Unknown1]: of church state studies it started originally as a kind of think tank a place

[Unknown1]: where professors at the university who teach in other departments can sort of

[Unknown1]: publish their works maybe

[Unknown1]: sponsor conferences and things of that sort and then eventually in i think in the

[Unknown1]: sixty seconds and seventies maybe in the seventy seconds not a historian of the

[Unknown2]: right right

[Unknown1]: institute but there was a master's degree program offered and then in the late

[Unknown1]: eighties early ninety seconds they began offering a doctoral program

[Unknown1]: and the institute still exist but about

[Unknown1]: seven eight years ago maybe ten years ago they the university decided to end the

[Unknown1]: degree programs

[Unknown1]: mostly because baylor began offering doctoral programs

[Unknown1]: in political science philosophy

[Unknown1]: sociology and so what eventually happened is a lot of those students that would

[Unknown1]: have applied to the church day study institute began for strategic career reasons

[Unknown1]: to gravitate towards the more conventional disciplines and so

[Unknown1]: i moved to philosophy which is a better fit for me

[Unknown2]: yeah

[Unknown1]: given my own interests but so that's the story of the institute it still exists it

[Unknown1]: still publishes the journal of church state studies which is a very important

[Unknown1]: journal in the area of law and religion

[Unknown2]: yeah that's really fascinating sorry it was just i didn't have any categories for

[Unknown2]: how that fit so that definitely stuck out to me

[Unknown2]: so

[Unknown2]: just starting kind of uh in that the introductory chapter for our listeners can

[Unknown2]: you talk through your critique of scientific materialism and how that affects our

[Unknown2]: perception of religious knowledge and beliefs

[Unknown1]: yeah so imagine

[Unknown1]: uh actually i'll tell the story

[Unknown2]: sure

[Unknown1]: i the beginning of the book i tell the story of speaking at texas tech university

[Unknown1]: i was invited by the law school to actually talk about my book on darwinism and

[Unknown1]: public education and

[Unknown1]: the purpose of the talk was to simply talk about the legal questions and there was

[Unknown1]: a gentleman in the audience who raised his hand at the end and he said all you've

[Unknown1]: given us are religious arguments which technically wasn't true i was actually

[Unknown1]: giving legal arguments but

[Unknown1]: he was from one of the science departments and he rightfully i think was skeptical

[Unknown1]: of some of the the arguments for intelligent design so you know i don't disagree

[Unknown1]: with with that

[Unknown2]: what

[Unknown1]: but

[Unknown1]: i immediately answered

[Unknown1]: and said

[Unknown1]: actually pause for a moment and collected my thoughts and i said oh i i

[Unknown1]: uh i i i thought you were gonna make i thought you were gonna say they were bad

[Unknown1]: arguments

[Unknown2]: right

[Unknown1]: you know i'm relieved i thought you were gonna and and so there was a moment there

[Unknown1]: was actually a moment where i realized

[Unknown1]: that in many ways

[Unknown1]: the way in which people deal with arguments that are sort of motivated by religion

[Unknown1]: is to sort of categorize them as sort of outside the realm of reason

[Unknown2]: yeah

[Unknown1]: and and so and the audience laughed and we actually wound up talking for quite a

[Unknown1]: while after

[Unknown2]: yeah

[Unknown1]: words he was there with some friends and you know he said well what did you mean

[Unknown1]: by that i said well look arguments are either sound or unsound

[Unknown1]: labelling them religious in and of itself doesn't tell you about the quality of

[Unknown1]: the argument

[Unknown2]: right

[Unknown1]: and so there was a kind of smuggling in of this idea that the only

[Unknown1]: arguments that or points of view that are legitimate are those that can be tightly

[Unknown1]: tethered to a kind of scientific materialism

[Unknown1]: and what i was suggesting was that

[Unknown1]: you don't get to win that easy

[Unknown2]: right right

[Unknown1]: you know by just simply simply redefining what counts as legitimate discourse

[Unknown1]: having said that though i mean clearly i have a burden as well right i mean i have

[Unknown1]: to show that in fact

[Unknown1]: if i hold to views that challenge his i obviously have some obligation to give him

[Unknown1]: reasons why i hold the views that i do

[Unknown2]: yeah

[Unknown1]: but i don't think

[Unknown1]: this way of thinking on his part

[Unknown1]: you know does

[Unknown1]: adequate it doesn't adequately account for

[Unknown1]: why people hold views that may very well seem kind of weird or odd

[Unknown1]: given the dominance of a kind of scientific materialism in the academy

[Unknown2]: they should be taken at the value of their judgments not by just how they're

[Unknown2]: characterized

[Unknown1]: yes so you know an example i i

[Unknown1]: i've used

[Unknown1]: in class and

[Unknown1]: it's one that um you know i i don't think it proves my position but it it shows

[Unknown1]: why people

[Unknown1]: at least philosophers are sort of interested in these questions so i asked my

[Unknown1]: students

[Unknown1]: what is mathematics

[Unknown1]: you know what is it i mean when we talk about things like

[Unknown1]: let's say computers and lamps and dogs and

[Unknown2]: hm

[Unknown1]: cats we can sort of talk about what are these things right and we can talk about

[Unknown1]: artifacts and natural objects and organisms but abstract objects are really

[Unknown1]: difficult

[Unknown1]: to figure out what they are

[Unknown2]: yeah

[Unknown1]: right i mean in a sense they're not anywhere and yet in some sense they're more

[Unknown1]: real

[Unknown2]: hm

[Unknown1]: right so if i say

[Unknown1]: let's say circumference equals two pi radius

[Unknown1]: right or

[Unknown1]: they i know what triangular is

[Unknown1]: it's really not i mean i i can't really find in the physical world a perfect

[Unknown2]: right

[Unknown1]: triangle right and yet i kind of know what it is

[Unknown1]: so if the physical world ceased to exist

[Unknown1]: would it still be necessarily true that circumference equals two pi ras

[Unknown2]: yeah and it's

[Unknown1]: i

[Unknown2]: just always and universally true and on the other side

[Unknown1]: yeah

[Unknown2]: you know we want to say these things that we hold and that we see like lamps and

[Unknown2]: stuff like that are

[Unknown1]: yeah

[Unknown2]: more are more real right and what you said was that

[Unknown1]: yeah

[Unknown2]: the abstract might be more real but you look at something like a mug if you have a

[Unknown2]: big deep mug sometimes it turns into a bowl right

[Unknown1]: yeah

[Unknown2]: and you're like wait what is

[Unknown1]: yeah

[Unknown2]: this thing and i think i know what it is and then but you can't argue two plus two

[Unknown2]: equals four right

[Unknown1]: yeah

[Unknown2]: like you can't that it

[Unknown2]: like you can't that it

[Unknown1]: that that that's right so i mean i think that you know the whole point of the

[Unknown2]: yeah

[Unknown1]: exercise is to get the students to see that there's this whole the whole bunch of

[Unknown1]: stuff that we take for

[Unknown2]: hm

[Unknown1]: granted that doesn't quite fit the scientific materialist world view

[Unknown2]: hm

[Unknown1]: so the easier sometimes the easier examples are moral

[Unknown2]: okay

[Unknown1]: examples like if i say it's wrong to torture children for fun and i said how many

[Unknown1]: of you think that's

[Unknown1]: a correct statement it's wrong and you know everybody raises their hand

[Unknown2]: right

[Unknown1]: right well how do you prove that right i mean

[Unknown2]: have you okay i have to ask have you ever had a smart alex student have you ever

[Unknown2]: had

[Unknown1]: i've always had i've had many

[Unknown2]: so that you

[Unknown1]: so so

[Unknown1]: well about twenty five years ago

[Unknown2]: yeah

[Unknown1]: i had a student in class who who asked me why i thought that she she said why is

[Unknown1]: the truth important and i asked her do you want thee answer or the false one

[Unknown1]: and so you know there's a

[Unknown2]: oh

[Unknown1]: and that was the point of that

[Unknown2]: yeah

[Unknown1]: was to say that sometimes

[Unknown1]: the answer isn't the result of an argument it's actually the starting point of an

[Unknown2]: hm

[Unknown1]: argument that is it something you

[Unknown1]: presupposed and you sort of can't live without

[Unknown2]: yeah

[Unknown2]: like torturing children for fun right like y

[Unknown1]: yeah i mean i i mean and then then there's like

[Unknown2]: the way i just said that after you said things you can't live

[Unknown1]: yeah

[Unknown2]: without didn't quite fit let me play to that not

[Unknown1]: yeah

[Unknown2]: torturing children for fun is something that i like yeah that i have to have that

[Unknown2]: as a fundamental

[Unknown1]: yeah and so i do think these are i mean these are the sorts of things that

[Unknown1]: animated

[Unknown1]: that animate people

[Unknown1]: who have animated people for generations

[Unknown2]: hey

[Unknown1]: right why why people become philosophy majors right uh or why is it that

[Unknown1]: you know plato and aristotle were

[Unknown1]: you know kind of dumbfounded by

[Unknown1]: what seems to be

[Unknown1]: things that we know that just aren't directly accessible to our senses

[Unknown2]: hm

[Unknown1]: so a question i asked actually asked my students yesterday in class we were we

[Unknown1]: were just going over we just completed a discussion of martin luther king junior's

[Unknown1]: letter from a birmingham jail where he makes a case for civil disobedience and i

[Unknown1]: asked my students what do you think is is more important

[Unknown1]: the physical world or the the non physical and they automatically go to the

[Unknown1]: physical world and i said okay would you rather have your arm broken or your heart

[Unknown1]: and nobody picked

[Unknown1]: the heart they all picked they'd rather have their arm broken and so i said

[Unknown1]: doesn't that show you that there is

[Unknown1]: you know

[Unknown1]: something about you as a human being

[Unknown1]: that is far more important

[Unknown1]: than know what is physically apparent it' not doesn't mean that the physical world

[Unknown1]: is unimportant clearly

[Unknown2]: right right

[Unknown1]: it is i mean we have to live and survive and eat and drink and so forth but but

[Unknown1]: there is something about us and king recognizes this when he talks about laws that

[Unknown1]: undermine human

[Unknown1]: personality right he's just not

[Unknown2]: yeah

[Unknown1]: he doesn't think that the way the success of the civil rights movement is

[Unknown1]: contingent upon african american citizens just

[Unknown1]: having their physical needs met it' it's part it's also what needs to be addressed

[Unknown1]: is how they're treated as fellow

[Unknown2]: hey

[Unknown1]: citizens right the dignity and respect that they're entitled to

[Unknown2]: let's see

[Unknown1]: and so this is why you know i raised this point in class is that

[Unknown1]: going to work is not just merely about doing something to make money it's also

[Unknown1]: having a kind of fulfillment so

[Unknown1]: yeah obviously it is about you know people do work

[Unknown2]: mm hm

[Unknown1]: for for to help you know provide for themselves and their families but there's

[Unknown1]: also this sense of inner fulfilment that is more than just getting that financial

[Unknown1]: reward

[Unknown2]: right

[Unknown1]: right and and so there's there's more to us than just

[Unknown1]: you know meeting our physical needs

[Unknown2]: yeah yeah and i mean and there are different conceptions of what that might be and

[Unknown2]: we have to figure out a way to find common ground but uh you know i think that's

[Unknown2]: really

[Unknown2]: a big part of what my own philosophical study i got a masters in philosophy of

[Unknown2]: religion from trinity in chicago but the

[Unknown1]: oh the deer field

[Unknown2]: yeah yes yeah yeah

[Unknown1]: oh yeah so i i taught for trinity in the nineties

[Unknown2]: oh awesome very cool

[Unknown1]: yeah the southern california campus and i used to fly i one semester i i don't

[Unknown1]: know you probably before your time there was a professor named paul feinberg

[Unknown2]: yes

[Unknown1]: who uh he had ret you retired he passed away i think about a decade ago but paul

[Unknown1]: was on research leave and so i flew in they had me fly in every monday night and i

[Unknown1]: taught every other

[Unknown1]: i've go drive to lax fly into chicago on a red eye

[Unknown1]: take a sleep for like six or seven hours and teach in the afternoon and evening

[Unknown2]: i'm tired just hearing it yeah no it's crazy

[Unknown1]: and then f

[Unknown1]: so i so i was a lot younger

[Unknown2]: yeah

[Unknown1]: then and i could do that and i tat i taghut seminar in modern philosophy

[Unknown2]: oh that's awesome

[Unknown1]: so we went we went from i think day card through kant

[Unknown2]: yeah

[Unknown1]: so that was my yeah so i be i i you know i was a faculty member there but i lived

[Unknown1]: in california and did most of my teaching there at the extension campus

[Unknown2]: oh that's really cool yeah i

[Unknown1]: yeah

[Unknown2]: i actually

[Unknown2]: studied under

[Unknown2]: john feinberg cause he is the yeah

[Unknown1]: i know john yeah and harold harold netlink too's

[Unknown2]: yes yeah yeah i took classes with him and then with uh dr yan dell who

[Unknown1]: oh okay

[Unknown2]: yeah but

[Unknown2]: so

[Unknown2]: anyways like my study was in hermits and

[Unknown2]: really a lot of what i've focused on

[Unknown2]: is how surprising it is to me

[Unknown2]: to find truth in different places and in different ways of knowing different modes

[Unknown2]: of knowing so i found that those parts especially interesting to me when you're

[Unknown2]: talking about like religion

[Unknown2]: as a source of knowledge right for me that's largely been focused on art but also

[Unknown2]: recognizing

[Unknown1]: sh

[Unknown2]: that sort of thing

[Unknown2]: that sort of thing

[Unknown2]: do you see

[Unknown2]: what is the value of religion as a source of knowledge how would you what do you

[Unknown2]: think is the appropriate way to

[Unknown2]: appropriate that for

[Unknown2]: just as a at a knowledge level and then obviously you know all throughout we're

[Unknown2]: talking about how we take that knowledge and and use it in the common way

[Unknown1]: yeah that's a very big question

[Unknown2]: yes

[Unknown1]: i mean there are obv i mean there's there's lots of there's lots of religions uh

[Unknown2]: hmm

[Unknown1]: and

[Unknown1]: there are a lot of faith traditions so

[Unknown1]: you know

[Unknown1]: i think that i mean the way that i t i think i've changed on on this question to a

[Unknown1]: certain extent when i was in my early twenties uh late twenties i was deeply

[Unknown1]: influenced by a way of thinking about faith and reason that had

[Unknown1]: been connected to a evangelical theologian named john warrick montgomery i don't

[Unknown1]: know if you know i've heard

[Unknown1]: montgomery montgomery was actually a

[Unknown2]: i i

[Unknown2]: good

[Unknown1]: montgomery was a professor of mine and

[Unknown1]: he had this very kind of empirically oriented way of looking at christian faith he

[Unknown1]: would say you know so the kind of scientific materialist would say you know you

[Unknown1]: need to prove everything through you know

[Unknown1]: scientific and historical arguments and and montgomery would say well we can do

[Unknown1]: that

[Unknown2]: yes

[Unknown1]: right and so his answer to that wasn't to challenge the assumptions of scientific

[Unknown1]: materialism but to simply say we can meet that challenge and this was something

[Unknown1]: that was part of kind of you think of of early american

[Unknown1]: uh kind of evangelical

[Unknown1]: thinking was deeply influenced by a scottish common sense

[Unknown2]: hm

[Unknown1]: philosophy thomas reed and others which was kind of the way that most early

[Unknown1]: americans thought going all the way back to american founding and so if you go

[Unknown1]: back and read people like let's say bb warfield and jay gracie machen and these

[Unknown1]: guys they tend to accept that way of looking at things now montgomery is a kind of

[Unknown1]: extreme example he just you know basically

[Unknown1]: uh

[Unknown1]: didn't wasn't at all sympathetic to pt ism or what he would call piot ism but

[Unknown1]: ironically montgomery was also very much drawn to people like toking

[Unknown1]: and and lewis

[Unknown1]: and and fiction

[Unknown1]: writers and i always wondered whether that was kind of his way of

[Unknown2]: hm

[Unknown1]: expressing that part of us that artistic part of us that can't be cabin by

[Unknown2]: right

[Unknown1]: that that that rationalism so but as i've gotten as i've gotten older and and my

[Unknown1]: reading has has expanded i i was became more and more influenced by certain

[Unknown1]: catholic

[Unknown2]: hey

[Unknown1]: thinkers in fact wind up returning to the catholic church i grown up catholic left

[Unknown1]: and then returned uh fifteen years ago the work of thomas

[Unknown1]: aquinas influenced me and one of the things aquinas talks about is

[Unknown2]: hey

[Unknown1]: what we can know as a consequence of our reason

[Unknown1]: about god and what we can know only as a result of special revelation so

[Unknown1]: we can know certain things as aquinas

[Unknown1]: in terms of at least here i'm talking within the christian

[Unknown2]: sure

[Unknown1]: tradition i will say a few things about

[Unknown1]: you know mystical experience

[Unknown1]: which can be had obviously by people of different religious

[Unknown1]: traditions

[Unknown2]: hm

[Unknown1]: but what aquinas says is that

[Unknown1]: that you know very few people can sort of

[Unknown1]: come up with and evaluate arguments for god's existence but most people just come

[Unknown1]: to believe these things uh because they just seem to be right and

[Unknown1]: that's not irrational

[Unknown2]: yeah

[Unknown1]: that's just the way in which human beings respond to the world that's out there

[Unknown1]: and

[Unknown1]: the kinds of things that i think

[Unknown1]: i don't think quiet obviously but supposing you are

[Unknown1]: visiting the grand canyon and you look at the majestic beauty of the grand canyon

[Unknown1]: and you just have a sense of the presence of god

[Unknown1]: uh to me

[Unknown1]: that is a perfectly human way to respond to beauty

[Unknown2]: no

[Unknown1]: right there's something transcendent about that they can't be reducible to let's

[Unknown1]: say a geologists analysis of the grand canyon you know imagine walked into the

[Unknown1]: louvre you for the first time you saw in person of the mona

[Unknown2]: yeah

[Unknown1]: lisa which i i did see twenty one years ago when my wife and i were in paris and i

[Unknown1]: was actually overwhelmed by it

[Unknown2]: hm

[Unknown1]: and i'm not an art guy and so i just was sort of blown away at how art actually

[Unknown1]: affected me

[Unknown1]: and

[Unknown1]: and what if one of my friends who was a chemist says it's nothing but canvas and

[Unknown1]: paint you know that would be kind of

[Unknown1]: that would be that wouldn't be

[Unknown2]: yeah

[Unknown1]: accurate right there's something more to what i'm observing and so

[Unknown2]: with that

[Unknown1]: i do think there's a sense in which we can know things that can't be reducible

[Unknown1]: to

[Unknown1]: you know a formulation or even

[Unknown1]: propositions

[Unknown2]: yeah and that question's very interesting uh to me uh

[Unknown1]: me

[Unknown2]: particularly

[Unknown2]: grew up evangelical

[Unknown1]: you

[Unknown2]: very similar to it was actually grew up in even joule group independent

[Unknown2]: fundamental baptist and

[Unknown2]: became evangelical moved kind of past even that but the uh

[Unknown2]: the

[Unknown1]: hm

[Unknown2]: to your for your if you your chemist's

[Unknown1]: yeah

[Unknown2]: friend said that you know um and this was my experience as a kid reading

[Unknown2]: literature and trying to piece it together with the theology and the little

[Unknown2]: philosophy i was taught was like well you're not wrong right like he says it's

[Unknown2]: paper and but you're not right either and that was the experience that

[Unknown1]: dear

[Unknown2]: i i continually had of like

[Unknown2]: of the irreducibility and how it was like we weren't capturing something right

[Unknown2]: like we'd had this very narrow logic and i think that's really i think it's really

[Unknown2]: important that we account for everything

[Unknown2]: which i think is big part of your argument in many ways

[Unknown2]: so i even oh go ahead sorry you you sound the cat some

[Unknown1]: yeah i was gonna say that i think there's a lot going on when people

[Unknown1]: hold

[Unknown1]: beliefs right so there there's a you know we we we we seek out reasons right for

[Unknown2]: hey

[Unknown1]: why we believe things

[Unknown1]: but there's a kind of core sometimes of what we believe

[Unknown1]: that it is almost inconceivable we can't conceive of actually stumbling upon

[Unknown1]: something that would that would actually show that it's wrong

[Unknown2]: hm

[Unknown1]: so and i'm am not sure that's irrational

[Unknown2]: yeah

[Unknown1]: right so if if let's say going back to the torturing children for fun

[Unknown1]: i'm so convinced that it's wrong to torture children for fun

[Unknown1]: that in fact i'm more convinced of that than i am of einstein's second theory of

[Unknown1]: relativity and so i use this example in class to tell my students you know you're

[Unknown1]: more can you actually are more sure of a lot of moral

[Unknown2]: yeah

[Unknown1]: propositions than you are of science even though science is presented to us as

[Unknown1]: sort of the definitive avenue by which we know things

[Unknown2]: i love absurd and and graphic examples in philosophy so that i'm sorry it just

[Unknown2]: always gets me when you say that like yeah like yeah i think everyone's like

[Unknown1]: sweets

[Unknown2]: okay yeah no and it it is interesting to notice how some people in conversation

[Unknown2]: will want to hurry past that because they don't even if they're so sure of it that

[Unknown2]: they don't even want to dwell on your argument because they don't want to talk

[Unknown2]: about it cause it bothers them so much right do you know what i'm

[Unknown1]: yeah it's what the jonathan height the moral psychologist calls dumbfounded

[Unknown2]: yes

[Unknown1]: so

[Unknown2]: i've never heard that i love that

[Unknown1]: so and and and he say the reason why it happens it happens mostly to what he calls

[Unknown1]: weird people what he means by weird is western

[Unknown1]: educated

[Unknown1]: i forget what the eye is

[Unknown1]: uh

[Unknown1]: uh western educated

[Unknown2]: like

[Unknown1]: whatever i re rich

[Unknown1]: whatever i re rich

[Unknown1]: democrats and what he means by democrats what he means by democrats is sort of you

[Unknown1]: know liberal

[Unknown1]: democracy it's not referring to the political party

[Unknown2]: yes

[Unknown2]: oh okay

[Unknown1]: and and so what he says is that people who have you know grown up with this view

[Unknown1]: of

[Unknown1]: culture and society think of the at least moral questions as being reducible to

[Unknown1]: matters of kind of consent

[Unknown2]: h

[Unknown1]: right so the problem is when you bring up these kind of counter examples right

[Unknown1]: that that seem to

[Unknown1]: touch on things that people believe or wrong but since they can't be fully

[Unknown1]: captured by the weird

[Unknown1]: way of looking at things

[Unknown1]: uh

[Unknown1]: that they don't know what to do and so you know i don't want to give you all you

[Unknown1]: know he comes up with some pretty graphic

[Unknown2]: sure sure

[Unknown1]: examples uh so one is the the case of the um

[Unknown1]: the guy in germany who puts an ad in the paper for somebody

[Unknown1]: that he can cannibalize

[Unknown1]: and and the guy answers the ad and he shows up and he actually goes through with

[Unknown1]: it

[Unknown2]: wow

[Unknown1]: and so

[Unknown2]: wait was that real

[Unknown1]: and so and so

[Unknown1]: it's a real

[Unknown2]: oh

[Unknown1]: case yeah you can look

[Unknown2]: yeah

[Unknown1]: it up and so so he you know

[Unknown1]: when this question is is brought to the attention of college students that he's

[Unknown1]: interviewing

[Unknown1]: they try to come up with some way

[Unknown1]: to account well he didn't really consent maybe he was insane you know or

[Unknown2]: i don't know

[Unknown1]: they try to find some way to and just know he was perfectly sane and he decided to

[Unknown1]: do this

[Unknown2]: go

[Unknown1]: and

[Unknown2]: oh we

[Unknown1]: and so so what what height says is that the reason why people from more

[Unknown1]: traditional

[Unknown2]: hm

[Unknown1]: cultures don't find it problematic to say that's wrong is they also have they

[Unknown1]: bring to bear on this not only the the ideas of fairness and justice and consent

[Unknown1]: but also ideas of sacredness and

[Unknown1]: dignity

[Unknown2]: h

[Unknown1]: that an honor that in western societies we tend to diminish a little bit

[Unknown2]: yeah

[Unknown1]: not that we don't not that they're part of our moral palate but they we don't we

[Unknown1]: tend to accentuate the consent and contractual aspect of our moral lives and so

[Unknown1]: uh by doing that though we sometimes play down something that's really important

[Unknown2]: hm

[Unknown1]: right and so

[Unknown1]: i highly recommend heights a book

[Unknown1]: the righteous mind where he talks about this in great

[Unknown2]: hm

[Unknown1]: detail and explains why

[Unknown1]: uh we sometimes diff have difficulty talking to each other

[Unknown1]: politically is that

[Unknown1]: we

[Unknown2]: hm

[Unknown1]: have a

[Unknown1]: we just have

[Unknown1]: generally liberals and conservatives have different taste buds or what the or not

[Unknown1]: not not not that we have different taste was that we have we tend to accentuate

[Unknown1]: some of them more than others and so the example that i've used in is the debate

[Unknown1]: about colleague kaper

[Unknown2]: hm

[Unknown1]: and his

[Unknown1]: you know wanting to kneel before the american flag as a protest against police

[Unknown1]: brutality

[Unknown1]: and so people that are tend to be more

[Unknown2]: yes

[Unknown1]: conservative we see that as dishonor the flag

[Unknown1]: right and so those that are more let's say progressive say no

[Unknown1]: he's standing for justice and it's not that conservatives don't believe in justice

[Unknown1]: and and it's not that liberals or progressives don't believe in honoring the

[Unknown1]: country

[Unknown1]: but they just they just put them in kind of different hierarchical order

[Unknown2]: yeah hm

[Unknown1]: right so it's like

[Unknown1]: so you know conservatives see the relationship between a citizen and his nation

[Unknown1]: as similar to the relationship between parents and children that is you don't sort

[Unknown1]: of you may criticize your parents privately but you don't do it in public

[Unknown1]: right whereas whereas uh you know progressives may see it more as like no it's a

[Unknown1]: question of

[Unknown2]: right

[Unknown1]: justice if your parents have wronged you you know so it's uh you know and and

[Unknown1]: again it's not a question of that that either side totally rejects

[Unknown1]: the

[Unknown2]: yeah

[Unknown1]: principles it's just kind of where they place them and so i think

[Unknown2]: it's more a question of decorum almost than it is

[Unknown1]: yeah

[Unknown2]: about uh yeah that's really interesting

[Unknown2]: y

[Unknown2]: the uh sorry do you do you have something you want to finish with or

[Unknown1]: no so it just it just helped me to understand why i have certain

[Unknown1]: you know moral reflexes things that sort of get under my skin like instantly ah so

[Unknown1]: one of the i think one of my flaws

[Unknown2]: yeah

[Unknown1]: is that

[Unknown1]: is that i will sometimes gravitate to positions because

[Unknown1]: the wrong people hold the other one or the opposite one and so it's something i

[Unknown1]: have to sort of wrestle with and and sort of question myself am

[Unknown1]: am i gravitating to this view

[Unknown1]: because

[Unknown1]: the wrong people hold the opposite view

[Unknown1]: and i think it's a temptation i mean i think maybe everybody

[Unknown2]: hm

[Unknown1]: has

[Unknown1]: you know some people are better at resisting this than others i kind of admire

[Unknown1]: the

[Unknown1]: the the person that can resist it i i i try i try to be as you know i try to

[Unknown1]: separate myself but it's it's tough and

[Unknown1]: and i think part of it has to do with

[Unknown1]: the idea of honor and

[Unknown1]: and you know showing respect for your friends

[Unknown2]: hey

[Unknown1]: and i think that's generally it's a good thing to hold right so

[Unknown1]: i will not

[Unknown1]: let's say publicly criticized my university

[Unknown1]: even though i may disagree with let's say once in a while a thing or two said by

[Unknown1]: the president

[Unknown1]: and if i have any disagreements i'll privately make them known i don't think and

[Unknown1]: and i don't know again sir friends of mine would say that's a character flaw in me

[Unknown1]: that i should

[Unknown1]: but i i don't know i think that you know in terms of weighing other goods uh

[Unknown1]: you know it may be you know the more prudent thing to do

[Unknown2]: are there are cultural values at play here um it's interesting to me

[Unknown2]: so my wife uh comes from rural alabama and i come from

[Unknown1]: hm

[Unknown2]: we moved around a lot when i was a kid but originally my whole family is kind of

[Unknown2]: from new england and so when we deal with conflict right it's

[Unknown2]: it's like it's like alright this is the problem we're dealing with the problem

[Unknown2]: we're done and my wife wants

[Unknown1]: yeah

[Unknown2]: to like walk through the whole thing and just because we like talked about it

[Unknown2]: doesn't mean it's done and

[Unknown1]: yeah

[Unknown2]: you know so there's good to being done with things and putting it behind you and

[Unknown2]: then there's also some time where sitting with it a little bit longer being a

[Unknown2]: little more patient is really important and so

[Unknown1]: yeah

[Unknown2]: even at the cultural societal level you can have values that can lead lean ah to

[Unknown2]: help in one way and hurt in others

[Unknown1]: yeah

[Unknown1]: yeah i mean you know vi just this morning when you know i mentioned earlier the

[Unknown1]: prospectus defense that i that i was chairing

[Unknown1]: there was a part of our discussion with the student

[Unknown1]: one of my colleagues brought up he goes we should have

[Unknown1]: just culture war theory so you if you you know there's just war theory and i just

[Unknown1]: thought that's really clever i i turned to my colleague i said that's an article i

[Unknown1]: think i may steal that idea

[Unknown2]: yeah

[Unknown1]: that's a so his thinking was this that in just war theory you know aggression

[Unknown1]: against a

[Unknown1]: adversary is is only justified if

[Unknown1]: the only type of response you can make is proportionate

[Unknown1]: response so you know somebody attacks you you can resist the attack or the

[Unknown2]: hm

[Unknown1]: invasion but you can't like go to that other country and start killing innocent

[Unknown1]: people because that's

[Unknown1]: disproportionate that's a kind of simple example

[Unknown2]: hm

[Unknown1]: that's part of just war theory but think about the way in which let's say somebody

[Unknown1]: let's say says something awkwardly on twitter and a hundred thousand people want

[Unknown1]: the guy fired from for his job

[Unknown2]: right

[Unknown1]: now that's disproportionate right so so you so the so i thought you know when my

[Unknown1]: colleague brought this up i thought that's really a that's a great that's a that's

[Unknown1]: an article right there i mean kind of saying maybe we should you know apply just

[Unknown1]: wary right to how we handle each other on social media right right right so

[Unknown1]: somebody let's say you know says something like slightly off color

[Unknown2]: yeah

[Unknown1]: they didn't mean it they just you know they only have so many characters and so

[Unknown1]: they try to shorten it up and it comes across maybe a slightly offensive and the

[Unknown1]: person apologizes okay then

[Unknown2]: what

[Unknown1]: proportionate it's been resolved we should just move on right on the other hand if

[Unknown1]: somebody let's say gets on social media and defames somebody

[Unknown1]: and they apologize maybe some kind of legal action is justified maybe because the

[Unknown1]: reputation has been

[Unknown2]: yeah

[Unknown1]: harmed so proportionate response there would be a

[Unknown1]: lawsuit

[Unknown2]: right

[Unknown1]: so maybe we should you know

[Unknown1]: kind of inculcate people in uh

[Unknown1]: you

[Unknown1]: know a kind of that's right so j just culture war

[Unknown2]: appropriate response to yes

[Unknown2]: yeah

[Unknown1]: theory uh

[Unknown2]: sorry the

[Unknown1]: so a professor let's say a

[Unknown2]: yeah

[Unknown1]: professor tweets something that

[Unknown1]: is critical of

[Unknown2]: that city

[Unknown1]: let's say

[Unknown1]: you know trans theory or critical race theory and uh you know you know three

[Unknown1]: hundred students call for the professor to be to resign or be punished that's

[Unknown1]: disproportionate right he's a professor or she's a professor that's consistent

[Unknown1]: with academic freedom voice your disagreement and then that's it right i mean so

[Unknown2]: yeah

[Unknown1]: proportionate response would be just voicing your disagreement and maybe

[Unknown1]: having a panel discussion at the university

[Unknown1]: but it shouldn't be

[Unknown2]: hm

[Unknown1]: firing the person right that's disproportionate right given the n

[Unknown2]: and yet like if yet for that example you have ah cause these arguments need to

[Unknown2]: happen right you have someone taking an argumentative stance versus someone making

[Unknown2]: personal attacks against somebody who's part of that and then they double down on

[Unknown2]: that and then you're like well yeah okay

[Unknown1]: any

[Unknown2]: like you didn't you didn't apologize you like

[Unknown1]: yeah

[Unknown2]: you're like you this has nothing to do with academic freedom you're just attacking

[Unknown2]: you're like you this has nothing to do with academic freedom you're just attacking

[Unknown2]: this person right and that's where yeah

[Unknown2]: this person right and that's where yeah

[Unknown1]: yeah yeah personal yeah personal tacks are different

[Unknown2]: right

[Unknown1]: yeah i mean even even then if somebody uh so i've had a couple of i had one tweet

[Unknown1]: uh that i do i can't tell you what it was but i deleted it within one second and

[Unknown1]: i'm so glad i did

[Unknown1]: uh it was i i shared the idea with one of my colleagues he said that is like the

[Unknown1]: greatest tweet ever but you can't tweet it i go yeah you're right uh and it was a

[Unknown1]: personal attack and it was extremely funny but i i'm glad i didn't tweet it

[Unknown2]: that is the problem with twitter right it's so easy

[Unknown1]: yeah

[Unknown2]: to reach so many people

[Unknown2]: so

[Unknown1]: well

[Unknown2]: so quickly yeah

[Unknown1]: there was one uh the the that i've i've since i delete i haven't been on twitter

[Unknown1]: for a month i've actually quit social media since the beginning of january

[Unknown1]: because i've got a lot of work and i'm i'm it's great uh but but there was

[Unknown1]: during in the middle of covid uh the comedian amy schumer sent out a tweet saying

[Unknown1]: or her her publicist sent out a tweet that said that about a new comedy she was

[Unknown1]: doing that she was she had comedy nineteen

[Unknown1]: and so i retweeted it and said yeah but she's asymptomatic

[Unknown1]: and

[Unknown1]: and and it got like i think got retreated like ten thousand times it was like

[Unknown2]: oh man

[Unknown1]: by far my

[Unknown1]: and so that was one of those ones yeah that was kind of playing it was fun

[Unknown2]: right

[Unknown1]: you know it was playful you

[Unknown2]: right

[Unknown1]: know kind of thing

[Unknown2]: yeah i i mean yeah and that's also the and the interesting thing about social

[Unknown2]: media is the way that

[Unknown2]: academic statements

[Unknown2]: humor for fun and personal attacks get all kind of blended in and there's no tone

[Unknown2]: and it's so short right like i think like your example is obviously like in fun

[Unknown2]: and that's funny like even if

[Unknown1]: yeah

[Unknown2]: it is a bit biting but it's like

[Unknown2]: it's so interesting to see how like something that said with this specific

[Unknown2]: audience in mind just travels so quickly over here and become something totally

[Unknown2]: different

[Unknown2]: but that's yeah that's really

[Unknown1]: like

[Unknown2]: fascinating before we get too far out

[Unknown2]: i

[Unknown1]: yes

[Unknown2]: did want to come back and i i would love to hear you kind of give uh a basic

[Unknown2]: breakdown

[Unknown1]: thank you great

[Unknown2]: for our listeners

[Unknown2]: of your disagreement with stephen pink' with stephen pinner on human dignity

[Unknown2]: because i think that

[Unknown1]: okay

[Unknown2]: was a really good example of what you're talking about you know even as we talk

[Unknown2]: about irreducibility and i think most people will see your argument because most

[Unknown2]: people just inherently in our culture you know you want to talk about like that

[Unknown2]: they agree with human dignity right that's kind of a bedrock of our society so

[Unknown2]: it's you know i just use the word

[Unknown1]: it

[Unknown2]: squishy and bedrock at the same time but it's a squishy bedrock we'll go with that

[Unknown2]: if you could walk me through that i'd love that

[Unknown1]: sure yes so in two thousand and eight stephen pinker published this article in the

[Unknown1]: new republic called the stupidity of dignity and by the way stephen pinky harvard

[Unknown1]: university psychologist who is a kind of public intellectual i actually enjoy

[Unknown1]: listening

[Unknown2]: hey

[Unknown1]: to him he's you know i probably he's one of these thinkers that i'll tell my

[Unknown1]: students i agree with him forty six percent of the time you know he's like not

[Unknown1]: somebody i totally

[Unknown1]: disagree with

[Unknown2]: right

[Unknown1]: but i just i like i really like people like him in the sense that he's willing to

[Unknown1]: just say stuff

[Unknown2]: yes

[Unknown1]: and get get the conversation going

[Unknown2]: right

[Unknown1]: and i think society is better for having people like stephen

[Unknown1]: pinker

[Unknown2]: yeah

[Unknown1]: but having said that though he writes this piece called the stupidity of dignity

[Unknown1]: and it's a critical analysis of the president's bioethics

[Unknown2]: h

[Unknown1]: commission that had been chaired by leon cast leon cast recently retired

[Unknown2]: success

[Unknown1]: professor at the university of chicago he's an md who has written some really

[Unknown1]: wonderful work on medical

[Unknown2]: hey

[Unknown1]: ethics and

[Unknown1]: published a couple years ago a commentary in the book of genesis uh he's just one

[Unknown1]: of these guys that

[Unknown1]: is just you know he's he he gets his graduate degree in one area but then he just

[Unknown1]: got this um

[Unknown1]: what's the right term

[Unknown1]: incredibly ravenous intellect

[Unknown2]: yeah yeah

[Unknown1]: you know he just he just loves learning and so he's

[Unknown2]: some people would say tolerance for pain but yes ravenous intellect

[Unknown1]: that's right i mean just just you know he's just hungry and

[Unknown2]: yeah

[Unknown1]: he's just and you can tell he's also got away with words and so his whole

[Unknown1]: his whole thing when he was

[Unknown1]: appointed by president george w bush was to advance the idea of human dignity as

[Unknown2]: hm

[Unknown1]: central to medical ethics and it is different from

[Unknown1]: the more kind of mainstream

[Unknown1]: view which is sometimes called principal ism that medical ethics is

[Unknown1]: when we're engaging in medical ethical judgments we have to appeal to four

[Unknown1]: basic principles autonomy beneficence non malfeasance and

[Unknown2]: hm

[Unknown1]: justice that's sort of central and there's a kind of

[Unknown1]: almost legalistic way of looking at medical ethics and

[Unknown2]: that

[Unknown1]: cast doesn't think that that is wrong necessarily but what he's saying is that

[Unknown1]: that patients could actually make autonomous choices

[Unknown2]: that's

[Unknown1]: that violate human dignity

[Unknown2]: hm

[Unknown1]: you know supposing you know a patient walks into a doctor's office and says you

[Unknown1]: know i just want both my arms

[Unknown1]: amputated and replaced with prosthetics why because i don't think that i should

[Unknown1]: have arms

[Unknown1]: and this is actually things like this have happened you know and and so

[Unknown2]: right well that's it goes back to the cannibal

[Unknown1]: that's right uh

[Unknown1]: that's right uh

[Unknown2]: yes yeah

[Unknown1]: so if if let's say

[Unknown1]: you just want to reduce

[Unknown1]: you know the the role of physician is a kind of

[Unknown1]: technician that is there to simply meet the subjective needs of patients rather

[Unknown1]: than thinking of medicine as a profession at a particular end to it

[Unknown1]: you know you have to sort of resist this this principal ism

[Unknown1]: by the way the term principal ism comes from a book called the principles of

[Unknown1]: biomedical ethics that was authored by

[Unknown1]: two

[Unknown1]: phil mob she one philosopher one religious studies professor tom beecham and

[Unknown1]: james childrens university of virginia and beacham was at georgetown and it's a

[Unknown1]: highly influential book in medical ethics i think there's a lot of good in it i've

[Unknown1]: been critical of it as cass has i do think there's there's many wonderful things

[Unknown1]: in the book i think that beacham and chris were instrumental in getting us to

[Unknown1]: think about medical ethics in ways that no one had even envisioned prior to that

[Unknown1]: book but cass yep

[Unknown2]: sorry to interrupt i just wanted to make sure who what was the name of the

[Unknown2]: gentleman who was appointed by george w bush

[Unknown1]: oh leon cass k a s s

[Unknown1]: so so

[Unknown1]: pinker testified before

[Unknown2]: i

[Unknown1]: the bioethics commission or committee i forget the exact title

[Unknown1]: and apparently he and the members of the committee had a

[Unknown1]: uh less than amiable exchange

[Unknown1]: and so it was soon after that that ca that pinker publishes his piece in the new

[Unknown1]: republic and he goes after the idea of human dignity says it's squishy it's

[Unknown1]: subjective

[Unknown1]: we don't need dignity all we need is

[Unknown1]: autonomy

[Unknown2]: yeah

[Unknown1]: that's it you know patient autonomy and so in my chapter

[Unknown1]: in taking right seriously

[Unknown1]: i i'm critical of a pinker and what i say is that

[Unknown2]: how

[Unknown1]: that

[Unknown1]: there are many problems with reducing

[Unknown1]: uh patient

[Unknown1]: choices to mere autonomy and

[Unknown1]: and one example i've already alluded to this idea that

[Unknown1]: that a patient could actually choose things that are not

[Unknown1]: consistent with their own dignity

[Unknown2]: no

[Unknown1]: right now you know going all the way back to common law patients do have the

[Unknown1]: choice to reject uh medical treatment if they so choose and that

[Unknown2]: oh

[Unknown1]: has to do with just a fundamental right that people have to not be

[Unknown1]: assaulted right so so that but that's different from thinking of the role of the

[Unknown2]: right

[Unknown1]: physician is simply to meet the needs or the desires of whatever a patient wants

[Unknown1]: and so one of the illustrations i use in the article is you know imagine if we had

[Unknown1]: discovered that that there was a group

[Unknown1]: of let's say people that were victims of the

[Unknown2]: hm

[Unknown1]: holocaust that actually

[Unknown1]: chose it

[Unknown2]: hm

[Unknown1]: i mean we wouldn't think and supposing they they came to for some bizarre reason

[Unknown1]: to believe hitler's rhetoric about themselves and they said yeah hitler was right

[Unknown1]: and so they willingly walked to the gas chambers i mean we would we would think

[Unknown1]: that that was we

[Unknown2]: so

[Unknown1]: wouldn't say well that were just they were just exercising their autonomy we would

[Unknown1]: say that

[Unknown1]: that they just their beliefs about themselves

[Unknown1]: was was undignified

[Unknown2]: hm

[Unknown1]: right i mean we may want to tell a different story and say that they maybe were

[Unknown1]: brainwashed or something but we would we would at some point have to come to the

[Unknown1]: conclusion that

[Unknown1]: people can make mistakes about their own value and

[Unknown2]: yeah

[Unknown1]: worth that medicine whether it's psychiatry or some other specialty in medicine

[Unknown2]: mm

[Unknown1]: has a role to try to work with people to see themselves in a better light

[Unknown2]: well and forgive me for interrupting here but it definitely brings to mind

[Unknown2]: some of fu's point in history of madness that uh you know over time what our

[Unknown2]: culture looks at you know like people

[Unknown1]: teacher

[Unknown2]: thought vann go was crazy now they think he's ah now they think he's a genius

[Unknown2]: right and so we see like the you know he talks in terms of geniuses and how that

[Unknown2]: flirts with madness because they see things that our culture doesn't see but this

[Unknown2]: has happened with medical stuff all the time where we're literally arguing and

[Unknown2]: it's a cop out i think to say well if someone is violating you know it's like if

[Unknown2]: it doesn't fit under autonomy that's because and it's wrong that's because they're

[Unknown2]: insane right and that's what ends up

[Unknown1]: yeah

[Unknown2]: happening is you have people who just have mistaken beliefs and we just want to

[Unknown2]: lump that under insanity just as a way of like it

[Unknown1]: with that way

[Unknown2]: we're reducing to the point where like things are spilling out of the boxes we're

[Unknown2]: putting them in if that makes sense

[Unknown1]: yeah that that's exact yeah that's right so

[Unknown1]: yeah in a sense i mean i think pinker is not entirely wrong that the dignity the

[Unknown1]: idea of human dignity can't be precisely defined and so a point that i make in the

[Unknown1]: chapter is that i don't think you can isolate human dignity from a moral tradition

[Unknown2]: hm

[Unknown1]: so i think the idea of human dignity that that sort of is generally held by

[Unknown1]: thinkers it's not a coincidence

[Unknown2]: wow

[Unknown1]: that you'll find

[Unknown1]: most of the folks that embrace this idea

[Unknown2]: gosh

[Unknown1]: of human dignity as central medical ethics are either serious jews or

[Unknown2]: hey

[Unknown1]: christians or muslims or let's say secular thinkers that have a that aren't sort

[Unknown1]: of strict materialists so someone like the late ronald darkan

[Unknown1]: would be among them

[Unknown1]: and darkin's last book called religion without god

[Unknown1]: wants to distance himself from the kind of richard dawkins types

[Unknown1]: he himself was an atheist but he thinks that this kind of reductionism doesn't

[Unknown1]: truly capture the way our lives actually are conducted

[Unknown1]: so

[Unknown1]: so yeah there's

[Unknown1]: yeah so i do think

[Unknown2]: uh

[Unknown1]: that

[Unknown1]: that you can't have

[Unknown1]: the idea of human dignity unless it's in some way connected to

[Unknown1]: a philosophical theological

[Unknown2]: hm

[Unknown1]: tradition that is thick

[Unknown2]: yeah yeah

[Unknown1]: so for christians

[Unknown1]: and jews it's the image of god right uh

[Unknown2]: what

[Unknown1]: for

[Unknown1]: if you you know read for example some medieval thinkers when they're talking about

[Unknown1]: what distinguishes human beings from other creatures it's our capacity to be

[Unknown1]: rational but that doesn't mean it in a kind of technical

[Unknown1]: kind of calculating sense it means our ability to actually encounter the

[Unknown1]: transcendent

[Unknown2]: that's something

[Unknown1]: and that's something that

[Unknown1]: human beings have even when they are suffering from

[Unknown1]: disabilities or even when they're not fully functioning

[Unknown2]: hmm

[Unknown2]: yeah

[Unknown1]: and so i think you find this intuition in the rise of of what is called disability

[Unknown1]: studies which is a new movement within philosophy and ethics risen in the past

[Unknown1]: decade or so where you have

[Unknown1]: philosophers some many of whom are not let's say dis religious but are uneasy with

[Unknown1]: the kind of kind of rationalistic autonomous approach to medical ethics which they

[Unknown1]: see as dangerous to people with disabilities because a lot of people with

[Unknown1]: disabilities can't act

[Unknown1]: autonomously you know or some you know it's not you know obviously lots do

[Unknown2]: hm

[Unknown2]: mm

[Unknown1]: but uh some don't right there are people that are maybe have suffering from

[Unknown1]: alzheimer's or maybe other sorts of cognitive

[Unknown2]: yeah

[Unknown1]: ailments and to think that they're sort of subhuman

[Unknown1]: there are people in disability studies say that that is the logical

[Unknown2]: no

[Unknown1]: conclusion to that kind of rationalistic view of autonomy and we have to resist

[Unknown1]: that

[Unknown2]: hm

[Unknown1]: so it's interesting how in medical ethics there are str what i you know we would

[Unknown1]: call strange bedfellows right people

[Unknown2]: yeah

[Unknown1]: that ordinarily wouldn't align themselves but find themselves kind of in strange

[Unknown1]: agreement with each other right so let's say more conventional traditional

[Unknown1]: religious believers find themselves aligned with you know non religious people who

[Unknown1]: are uneasy with this kind of strong rationalism

[Unknown2]: yeah

[Unknown1]: in medical ethics

[Unknown2]: yeah i actually had down to ask you about like there were two areas where uh you

[Unknown2]: seem to have some convergence with one like post modern critiques of modern

[Unknown2]: secularism right like the idea even when you talk about critical race theory

[Unknown1]: history

[Unknown2]: not that uh i just had dr louis gordon on and he was talking about the way that

[Unknown2]: the current system often

[Unknown2]: relies on numbers over oral and lived experience

[Unknown2]: to hide certain things right

[Unknown1]: yeah

[Unknown2]: and one of the example that he gave was when he you know he grew up in the bronx

[Unknown2]: he had uh several like his family members told him all the time about their

[Unknown2]: encounters with police brutality but when he looked at the numbers they were

[Unknown2]: shockingly low but of course the numbers are based on conviction not on reports

[Unknown2]: and they were

[Unknown1]: no

[Unknown2]: determined by the police that doesn't necessarily mean that it it means one is

[Unknown2]: right over the other but certainly like it calls into question like when the

[Unknown2]: police are doing the reporting on themselves right but we

[Unknown1]: yeah

[Unknown2]: want to put those numbers over

[Unknown2]: oral and lived experience

[Unknown2]: and so it it

[Unknown1]: i

[Unknown2]: reminds me kind of of what you're talking about go ahead

[Unknown1]: yeah i think that's a great point it's it's something that uh i grew up i was born

[Unknown1]: in

[Unknown2]: hm

[Unknown1]: brooklyn i didn't grow up there i i my parents moved to las vegas when i was a kid

[Unknown1]: but my my mom's family

[Unknown1]: is from sicily and

[Unknown1]: naples and uh my two great grandfathers on my mother's side actually all four

[Unknown2]: yeah

[Unknown1]: great grandparents were immigrants and her father was as well he was born in

[Unknown1]: naples uh but know we heard stories

[Unknown1]: you know g my my my great aunts and uncles would talk about the kind of

[Unknown1]: discrimination that italian americans faced my one of my great grandfathers

[Unknown1]: actually shot in the back by

[Unknown2]: twel

[Unknown1]: police in in nineteen twenty

[Unknown1]: and i have the death certificate that actually says it on it and i've been

[Unknown1]: you know

[Unknown1]: tempted uh in a good way to kind of investigate it like what what's the report

[Unknown1]: look like

[Unknown2]: right right

[Unknown1]: and you know i had heard this from my grandmother and didn't realize i mean i just

[Unknown1]: i didn't know whether she was right or not i mean

[Unknown2]: yeah

[Unknown1]: you know there was no reason for it to her die up but you know and i sure enough

[Unknown1]: when i was doing genealogical research on my family it was there

[Unknown2]: three

[Unknown1]: and so i wonder what happened uh and it just said that he he was a peddler uh i

[Unknown1]: don't know you know tech that pro i don't know what that

[Unknown2]: you're right

[Unknown1]: meant right maybe he was but apparently you know my vision is he was accused of

[Unknown1]: stealing something ran away and was shot in the

[Unknown2]: hm

[Unknown1]: back and and and so my grandmother lost her dad

[Unknown2]: one

[Unknown1]: when she was

[Unknown1]: seven

[Unknown2]: yeah yeah

[Unknown1]: and i and you know and that's just you know so yeah so that that was recorded

[Unknown1]: right but that had an impact upon

[Unknown1]: you know how my grandma grew up

[Unknown2]: yeah an which

[Unknown2]: automatically leads to how your mom and even you have grown up like that gets

[Unknown1]: right she didn't

[Unknown2]: passed down

[Unknown1]: yeah so i didn't know now my yeah so i didn't know i only knew uh one of my great

[Unknown1]: grandparents his uh his wife

[Unknown1]: vicenza domino

[Unknown1]: she died when i was nineteen but i never i didn't know i didn't know him

[Unknown2]: h

[Unknown1]: right his name was josei domino

[Unknown2]: yeah wow

[Unknown1]: and yeah so it's yeah those things

[Unknown1]: you know i and it's interesting i

[Unknown2]: uh

[Unknown1]: i took when i was in grad school or neck rats when i was in law school i actually

[Unknown1]: took an entire course on called alternative

[Unknown1]: which is called

[Unknown1]: was it called non conventional was non traditional aspects of the law

[Unknown1]: and i studied critical race theory critical legal studies and feminist

[Unknown1]: jurisprudence and this was twenty years ago and it was before any of this became

[Unknown1]: sort of you know publicly controversial and so uh

[Unknown1]: you know i i tend to hold the view i mean i i am critical of of those those

[Unknown1]: schools of thought however i do think

[Unknown1]: that they are not without merit you know that there is a lot to learn from from

[Unknown1]: those schools of thought and i think you've alluded to it already that there are

[Unknown1]: aspects of our lives

[Unknown1]: out of experience

[Unknown2]: yeah

[Unknown1]: that some people don't understand and

[Unknown2]: oh

[Unknown1]: i'll give you one that's it may sound like a weird one but it's a political one

[Unknown2]: hey

[Unknown1]: i i am

[Unknown1]: i am not politically progressive i tend to be you know slightly right of center in

[Unknown1]: my politics and i've been that way for quite some time

[Unknown1]: so when i got my first job at at unlv

[Unknown1]: one of my colleagues in the political science department it was running for state

[Unknown1]: senate and

[Unknown1]: we were sh she wasn't she was being talked about at this party

[Unknown2]: hm

[Unknown1]: was a birthday party for one of my colleagues and so a couple of us were just

[Unknown1]: talking about the election and one of them turned to me and said oh did you vote

[Unknown1]: for dina in the primary

[Unknown1]: and i said i i couldn't

[Unknown1]: and they said well why couldn't you aren't you registered

[Unknown1]: and i said no i am registered to vote what would you mean you couldn't were you

[Unknown1]: like did you miss the so it didn't occur to them that i was a republican

[Unknown2]: right right

[Unknown1]: words it was always the

[Unknown1]: so that that that i couldn't because i couldn't vote in the democratic primary

[Unknown2]: right

[Unknown1]: and so i actually thought about that you know when i was when i was first studying

[Unknown1]: you know kind of critical race theory stuff i in order for me to help myself

[Unknown1]: understand it i actually tried to think of examples of my own experience that

[Unknown1]: helped illuminate and that was actually one that

[Unknown2]: yeah

[Unknown1]: helped you know that the sort of the assumptions that people make and i remember i

[Unknown1]: got to the point where one of my colleague one of my colleagues realized it and he

[Unknown1]: kind of got this kind of look of embarrassment

[Unknown1]: and i said no it's okay you know

[Unknown1]: now of course today things are a lot different in terms of the political makeup

[Unknown1]: the academy but

[Unknown2]: oh

[Unknown1]: but that was a you know i i think you know it's not i i think there are things you

[Unknown1]: know that we you i think you're right that you just simply can't appeal to the

[Unknown1]: numbers that there are

[Unknown1]: there are ways in which we just make assumptions about the world that

[Unknown1]: that are make may be perfectly innocent but we should be open to correction

[Unknown2]: yeah yeah that are and we keep coming to that word reductionist but i think it's

[Unknown2]: very helpful the last one and i think there's a good thing to end on you know i

[Unknown2]: want to be respectful of your time

[Unknown2]: especially as we become a more globalized society

[Unknown2]: your critique here of kind of this distinction between philosophy and religion i

[Unknown2]: think is really interesting in terms of like waiting in deep waters that i don't

[Unknown2]: fully understand here this is not something i'm an expert in but when

[Unknown1]: let's see

[Unknown2]: you look at other cultures they often don't distinguish between philosophy and

[Unknown2]: religion in the same way that we do when you talk about a moral tradition that's a

[Unknown2]: more you know when you talk about confucianism or you talk about buddhism hinduism

[Unknown2]: these have these philosophical sides and these theological sides in that in ways

[Unknown2]: that don't easily correspond and if we're going to have

[Unknown2]: these global discussions like we have to

[Unknown1]: like

[Unknown2]: be able to account for and deal with our own division between philosophy and

[Unknown2]: theology do you think that's a fair

[Unknown1]: yeah

[Unknown2]: assessment what are your thoughts on that

[Unknown1]: i think i think that that's a very good observation i i like to think of it in

[Unknown1]: terms of

[Unknown1]: in the west we've had this long tradition of church and state separation right

[Unknown1]: comes out of i mean we've it's always been there even when europe was dominated by

[Unknown1]: the christian faith there was always a kind of rivalry between

[Unknown1]: you know the princess and the kings and the bishops right they understood there

[Unknown1]: were different

[Unknown1]: jurisdictions

[Unknown2]: yeah

[Unknown1]: there are a lot of cultures globally that don't have

[Unknown2]: hm

[Unknown1]: that right it it and and so if you go to like pre

[Unknown1]: christian if you go back

[Unknown2]: see

[Unknown1]: to let's say the

[Unknown1]: you know the greek philosophers when aristotle and plato are writing right

[Unknown1]: the idea that

[Unknown1]: religious ideas are can somehow be totally disentangle from the culture of

[Unknown1]: society would have seemed almost absurd to them

[Unknown2]: hm

[Unknown2]: hey

[Unknown1]: and so i think we have to when we're having

[Unknown1]: you know discussions and dialogue with with folks from other backgrounds we

[Unknown1]: shouldn't think oh this model that we have should be the kind of model every

[Unknown1]: society

[Unknown2]: hm

[Unknown1]: i mean there's

[Unknown1]: uh

[Unknown1]: you know it may be i mean i remember when the when the

[Unknown1]: right after nine one one you know there were several seven articles published

[Unknown1]: you know online by scholars across the political spectrum suggesting that islam

[Unknown1]: should embrace a kind of post reformation

[Unknown1]: western view of church and state or moscow state

[Unknown1]: and you know whether that you know is even possible i don't know i'm not a scholar

[Unknown1]: as

[Unknown1]: islam

[Unknown2]: yeah

[Unknown1]: but i mean there there is this sense of

[Unknown1]: ah you know trying to sort of jerry rig

[Unknown1]: other societies into our model

[Unknown2]: hm

[Unknown1]: is unwise and i think that that doesn't mean

[Unknown1]: that

[Unknown1]: they can't

[Unknown1]: appropriate or learn from us and we can't learn from them i mean there' obviously

[Unknown1]: there's you that kind of stuff you can't regulate

[Unknown2]: yeah

[Unknown1]: you know i mean it's just it's just the way the world is

[Unknown1]: but yeah i mean i think you know to if you were to go let's say uh you know if you

[Unknown1]: were to talk

[Unknown2]: are

[Unknown1]: to someone from from from china

[Unknown1]: and ask them you know a question that

[Unknown1]: you assume this kind of division between religion and culture they would find it

[Unknown1]: almost incomprehensible

[Unknown2]: yeah

[Unknown1]: it's not a way that that most people have thought and i wonder too whether we've

[Unknown1]: always at least in the united states have had a kind of informal

[Unknown1]: uh

[Unknown1]: kind of

[Unknown1]: theological

[Unknown2]: hm

[Unknown1]: tradition i mean a kind of um

[Unknown1]: kind of a

[Unknown2]: you

[Unknown2]: reference the moral tradition earlier right

[Unknown1]: quasi yeah

[Unknown1]: yeah so so i think you know when you find for example you know in the early

[Unknown1]: republic of the united states this you know even though there was obviously great

[Unknown1]: diversity of of theological traditions the diversity wasn't all that great

[Unknown2]: right

[Unknown1]: right so people were divided between presbyterians and methodists and baptists and

[Unknown1]: there were a few catholics and a few jewish citizens

[Unknown1]: but still there was this kind of common theism

[Unknown2]: right even

[Unknown1]: right and and so

[Unknown2]: the even the crazy ones so to say we're deus right

[Unknown1]: yeah so and so the ones that were the most difficult were like the quakers and the

[Unknown2]: yeah

[Unknown1]: mennonites right because they were pacifists and but and we and even that they

[Unknown1]: were tough because we had to sort of find ways to get them as part of society and

[Unknown1]: we manage that but as you know time has has developed or has the country i mean

[Unknown1]: the diversity now is even

[Unknown2]: hey

[Unknown1]: deeper right so the divisions now

[Unknown1]: are not over these theological differences about let's say baptism and

[Unknown1]: ecclesiology and maybe just war now it's over like the nature of man

[Unknown2]: yes yeah

[Unknown1]: all right so i mean that's so i'm not i mean there's a question about whether you

[Unknown1]: know kind of conventional liberalism can handle that

[Unknown2]: yeah yeah uh any last words uh is there like a a one solid takeaway um o besides

[Unknown2]: read your book and you know to fully grasp your arguments you walk through several

[Unknown2]: important topics

[Unknown1]: like

[Unknown2]: but um

[Unknown2]: which by the way i love the titles of your book i don't know how much effort you

[Unknown2]: put into them but like if that's just something that you just come up with but

[Unknown2]: taking right seriously

[Unknown2]: and then never doubt thomas i i got a good chuckle out of those so one

[Unknown2]: congratulations they great titles but

[Unknown1]: yes

[Unknown2]: is there

[Unknown2]: something you can leave our listeners with

[Unknown1]: yeah i i think at the end of the day when it comes to religious

[Unknown2]: hm

[Unknown1]: conflict uh

[Unknown1]: i i think it's important to sort of

[Unknown1]: especially if if you're let's say skeptical of religion

[Unknown1]: kind of do yourself a favor i mean we're all kind of skeptical to some religion

[Unknown1]: that's not

[Unknown2]: you're right right

[Unknown1]: ours right so even if you're so i mean to sort of take take the time to try to

[Unknown1]: understand why people believe what they believe i mean

[Unknown1]: i mean really smart people believe this stuff i mean that's the thing that you

[Unknown1]: know you may like i'm not i'm a christian i'm a catholic ah

[Unknown2]: i

[Unknown1]: i have friends that are protestants i used to be a protestant but i have great

[Unknown1]: respect for people that are right i i don't think protestantism is right but i

[Unknown1]: understand why someone would be one

[Unknown2]: right right

[Unknown1]: right i think it's not an and so i think we have to kind of and we have to

[Unknown1]: cultivate that in

[Unknown2]: hm

[Unknown1]: ourselves it's a habit that we have to you know and i think for that reason it's

[Unknown1]: it's a good idea

[Unknown1]: to you know talk to people

[Unknown2]: hm

[Unknown1]: and not just rely on you know what you see on social media it's uh

[Unknown1]: and it's tough because we do kinda of create our own epistemic bubbles right where

[Unknown1]: we don't allow

[Unknown1]: you know our own you know we like to hear things that tickle our ears

[Unknown2]: yeah absolutely uh great summary thank you dr beck to our listeners if you enjoyed

[Unknown2]: the conversation please like and share it subscribe so that other people can

[Unknown2]: be a part of this conversation as well and just again thank you

[Unknown1]: thank you