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<\/a>A few of my online critics like to claim that my involvement in apologetics and with the Interpreter Foundation has afforded me a lifestyle of exotic travel and extravagant dining out. \u00a0And, of course, they\u2019re right: Today is the first of five days devoted to another bout of precisely such fine dining and adventurous sightseeing.<\/p>\n
With John Donovan Wilson and Camrey Bagley Fox, as well as James Jordan and Russ Richins and Mark Goodman of Redbrick Filmworks \u2014 unfortunately, my wife could not come along \u2014 I spent much of the day involved in filming in and around the old Territorial Statehouse in Fillmore, Utah, for our ongoing Becoming Brigham<\/em> series<\/a>.<\/p>\n For Peterson Obsession Board investigators who are keeping track of these important things, yes, I ate today. \u00a0Yet again. \u00a0Clearly, unlike normal people, my life absolutely revolves around food. \u00a0I eat every day, even while traveling.<\/p>\n Here are the disturbing details: \u00a0Before leaving my house in the morning, I enjoyed a glass of chocolate Carnation Breakfast Essentials. \u00a0For lunch, once we had driven south and after some filming at the Statehouse, I had a mushroom-and-Swiss burger at The Eatery<\/a> in downtown Fillmore (2020 population roughly 2592), accompanied by onion rings that I happily shared with the others and washed down with a very cold plastic \u201cglass\u201d of ice water. \u00a0In the evening, after we had completed our day\u2019s shooting, we went to the Iceberg Drive Inn<\/a> at the southern end of town. \u00a0I wasn\u2019t overly hungry, but I did have a mini-size chocolate milkshake. \u00a0We\u2019re spending the night here in Fillmore at the Best Western Paradise Inn<\/a>.<\/p>\n I will try to keep my monitors at the POB informed as to the specifics of my eating and my lodging during this Redbrick Filmworks\/Interpreter Foundation filming trip. \u00a0I know that these things matter to them.<\/p>\n Our focus for today\u2019s filming was on Brigham Young, Joseph Smith, slavery, and race. \u00a0We\u2019re in Fillmore because, from 1851 to 1856, Fillmore was at least nominally the capital of Utah Territory \u2013although the territorial legislature met in the town during only one term, in 1855. \u00a0The Statehouse here (which is only one wing of the large building that was originally envisioned) is the oldest government building in Utah. \u00a0Among other things, we\u2019re treating the important 1852 \u201cAct in Relation to Service\u201d that was passed by Utah\u2019s territorial legislature and signed by the federally appointed territorial governor, Brigham Young. \u00a0I spoke about the Act at last year\u2019s FAIR conference (see \u201cBrigham Young and Slavery\u201d<\/a>).<\/p>\n Here are my notes (with a few contributions of my own) from Hyrum Lewis, There Is a God<\/em>, 110-112:<\/p>\n If morality can\u2019t be deduced or derived from matter and only matter is truly real, can another source for it be identified?<\/p>\n Lewis cites the example of the vocal \u201cNew Atheist\u201d Sam Harris and his book The Moral Landscape<\/em>.\u00a0 In that book, Harris contends that we can get morality from science.<\/p>\n Now, at first glance, such a claim seems pretty obviously silly.\u00a0 Compassion can\u2019t be proven good in a cyclotron or a chemistry lab.\u00a0 Does botany tell us anything about whether slavery is wrong?\u00a0 Can a microscope demonstrate that torturing animals or abusing small children is immoral?\u00a0 Don\u2019t we already know that murder is evil before we enroll in a course on evolutionary biology?\u00a0 Has any scientist ever engaged in laboratory or field research for the sake of constructing (or falsifying) a moral system?\u00a0 (You may recall Sir Karl Popper\u2019s contention that \u201cfalsifiability\u201d is a requirement for a scientific theory to be meaningful.)<\/p>\n But Harris\u2019s argument isn\u2019t that obviously ridiculous.\u00a0 In The Moral Landscape<\/em>, he contends that we can base our morality on science by determining, scientifically, what promotes \u201cwell-being\u201d and then deciding, on that basis, what we ought to do.\u00a0 For example, living in community makes us happier than living in isolation, thus contributing to our well-being, so the promotion of community and living in community are moral goods.\u00a0 Donating to charity also enhances human well-being, so it is also demonstrably moral.\u00a0 There is no need to invoke God here, he says. \u00a0All we need is science.<\/p>\n Where, though, does Harris get his principle that we should<\/em> pursue happiness, or well-being?\u00a0 Where does that should<\/em> come from?\u00a0 Isn\u2019t that already a value-laden or moral judgment?\u00a0 And, if it is, was it scientifically derived?\u00a0 Was it deduced from counting lichen spores or finding exoplanets?\u00a0 Is it falsifiable?\u00a0 And why couldn\u2019t someone, instead, declare that we should pursue domination, or power, or pleasure?\u00a0 Or control?\u00a0 Or enlightenment?\u00a0 Or growth or experience or \u201cfulfillment\u201d?\u00a0 Or expanded Lebensraum<\/em> for the Aryan race?\u00a0 How can one distinguish between those goals \u201cscientifically\u201d?\u00a0 Evolutionarily or biologically, couldn\u2019t someone make the case that the true moral imperative is the maximum spread of his genes?\u00a0 Why not? How does one determine \u201cscientifically\u201d that happiness or well-being is the one proper moral goal?\u00a0 Isn\u2019t that a nonempirical leap of faith?<\/p>\n Lewis cites Bertrand Russell\u2019s Autobiography<\/em> (161-162) as saying that his work in philosophy \u201cbrought moments of delight, but these [were] outweighed by years of effort and depression.\u201d\u00a0 Still, even though his own personal unhappiness was often the result of his effort, he continued, as he saw it, to \u201cpursue truth.\u201d<\/p>\n And can science really determine what brings happiness or well-being?\u00a0 Will expanding the welfare state maximize happiness?\u00a0 Many think so.\u00a0 But many others argue that increased dependence on government welfare will, in the long run, reduce<\/em> human happiness.\u00a0 Does the prosperity that results from free trade outweigh the jobs that it sometimes destroys?\u00a0 Marital fidelity has been shown to be a contributor to human happiness, but not a few people have found happiness, as they imagine, through promiscuity.<\/p>\n John C. Calhoun evidently contended that African-Americans were happier as slaves than they would have been as free men.\u00a0 Assuming for a moment that he was right, would that have morally justified slavery?\u00a0Enslaving others may well have increased the happiness of the enslavers.\u00a0 If eliminating a subset of society could make the remainder of the populace happier, would that be morally justifiable?\u00a0 (Imagine that the genocide could be accomplished painlessly, perhaps even without inducing anxiety.\u00a0 Would that make a difference?)\u00a0 Is there a calculus for determining how large<\/em> a number of people might ethically be eliminated?<\/p>\n If happiness or well-being is the criterion, cases can surely be imagined in which enslaving others or committing murder or genocide would increase well-being or happiness for at least some portion, larger or smaller, of the population. But all normal people know, without needing to research it or think deeply about it, that even painless murder is morally wrong. \u00a0How do we know this? \u00a0On the basis of what do we know it?<\/p>\n Posted from Fillmore, Millard County, Utah<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u00a0 A few of my online critics like to claim that my involvement in apologetics and with the Interpreter Foundation has afforded me a lifestyle of exotic travel and extravagant dining out. \u00a0And, of course, they\u2019re right: Today is the first of five days devoted to another bout of precisely such fine dining and adventurous […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1019,"featured_media":115859,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[38578,292,39836,11471,3703,782],"class_list":["post-115853","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-becoming-brigham","tag-brigham-young","tag-fillmore","tag-race","tag-slavery","tag-utah"],"yoast_head":"\n<\/a>