Among other important elections, on November 4 Californians will be voting on Proposition 8, a measure to amend the state Constitution in order to ban same-sex marriages. The polling has been very close, with a possible late break toward a “Yes” vote; this would effectively overturn a California Supreme Court decision from this May that held that same-sex couples had a right to marry under the equal protection clause of the California Constitution. Eventually, of course, gay marriage will be accepted throughout the country, and we will look back on today as the bad old days of discrimination. But that’s cold comfort to the couples who would like to celebrate their love for each other right now. You can donate and learn more about the measure at No On 8.
We are occasionally asked why a Physics Blog spends time talking about religion and politics and all that nonsense. A perfectly correct answer is that this is not a Physics Blog, it’s a blog by some people who happen to be physicists, and we talk about things that interest us, blah blah blah. But there is another, somewhat deeper, answer. Physics is not just a technical pastime played with numerical simulations and Feynman diagrams; nor is it a purely instrumental technique for unlocking Nature’s secrets so as to build better TV sets. Physics, as it is currently practiced, is a paradigm for a naturalistic way of understanding the world. And that’s a worldview that has consequences stretching far beyond the search for the Higgs boson.
Charles Taylor makes an admirable stab at a very difficult task: understanding the premodern mindset from our modern vantage point. (Via 3 Quarks Daily.) There are many ways in which our perspective differs from that of someone living five hundred years ago in a pre-scientific age, but Taylor emphasizes one important one:
Almost everyone can agree that one of the big differences between us and our ancestors of five hundred years ago is that they lived in an “enchanted” world, and we do not; at the very least, we live in a much less “enchanted” world. We might think of this as our having “lost” a number of beliefs and the practices which they made possible. But more, the enchanted world was one in which these forces could cross a porous boundary and shape our lives, psychic and physical. One of the big differences between us and them is that we live with a much firmer sense of the boundary between self and other. We are “buffered” selves. We have changed.
Our ancestors lived in an enchanted world, where the boundary between the physical and the moral and the spiritual was not very clearly drawn. It made perfect sense, at the time, to attribute to the external world the same kinds of meanings and impulses that one found in the human world — purposes, consciousnesses, moral judgments. One of the great accomplishments of modernity was to construct a new way of understanding the world — one based on understandable, formal rules. These days we understand that the world is not magic.
This change in perspective has led to extraordinary changes in how we live, including the technology on which we are sharing these words. But the consequences go enormously deeper than that, and it is no exaggeration to say that our society has still not come fully to grips with the ramifications of understanding the world around us as fundamentally natural and rules-based. That’s the point at which the worldview suggested by science has had a profound effect on moral reasoning.
For our present purposes, the most important consequence is this: notions of “right” and “wrong” are not located out there in the world, waiting to be discovered, in the same sense that a new kind of elementary particle (or even a new law of physics) is located out there in the world. Right and wrong aren’t parts of the fundamental description of reality. That description has to do with wave functions and Hamiltonian dynamics, not with ethical principles. That is what the world is made of, at a deep level. Everything else — morality, love, aesthetics — is up to us.
Which is not to say that moral concepts don’t exist. It’s just that they are things we construct, not things that we come to understand by examining the world around us. To Plato or Aristotle, as well as their Medieval followers, the kinds of reasoning used to tackle moral questions wasn’t all that different from that used to tackle questions about the natural world. One looked at the world, noticed that certain things seemed to serve certain purposes, and (somewhat presumptuously) elevated those appearances to laws of nature. Some sort of conception of Natural Law has been an important strand of philosophical thinking all the way through to the modern era, even showing up in the Declaration of Independence (“We hold these truths to be self-evident…”).
But it’s wrong. There aren’t Natural Laws that distinguish right from wrong in human behavior. There are only Laws of Nature, which can account for the behavior of the complicated chemical reactions that make up human beings, but stand strictly silent about what those human beings “should” be doing. Things happen in the world, not because of any underlying purpose, but because of the combination of initial conditions and the laws of physics. The fundamental category mistake underlying the idea of Natural Law should have become perfectly obvious and universally accepted in the years after the scientific revolution, but it stubbornly persists, because people want to believe it. If the laws governing right behavior were inherent in Nature, waiting to be discovered, everything would be so much easier than if we have to work them out ourselves.
Just because moral instructions are not located out there in the world, immutable and awaiting discovery, doesn’t mean that “anything goes.” It means that moral guidelines are invented by human beings. Too many people fear that if this sort of moral relativism is true (which it is), then there is no way to denounce Hitler or Charles Manson from a standpoint of ethical absolutes. Well, what of it? I don’t need to live in a world where Hitler was wrong because the universe tells me so — I feel that he was wrong myself, and fortunately many other people agree with me. So I and these other like-minded people sit down to work out among ourselves what rules we want to live by, and we decide that people like Hitler are bad and should be stopped. The codification of moral rules does not come from examining the world or thinking about logical necessities; it comes from individual human beings examining their own desires, and communicating with other human beings to formulate rules of common consent. Some people might prefer that moral rules have a more timeless, universal standing; but personal preference does not affect the working of the actual universe.
Gay marriage is a excellent example of a rule that would be almost universally agreed upon by individual human beings negotiating in good faith, and it is to our culture’s endless embarrassment that at this late stage we are still struggling to get it right. Deep down, there are only two arguments against gay marriage. One, which is the one that actually drives most people’s views on the matter, is that it’s icky. They just don’t like the idea, and therefore don’t want it to exist. There is little point arguing against that, but we can hope that increasing normalization of the idea of homosexuality will cause such attitudes to become increasingly rare.
The other argument is that gay marriage is a violation of Natural Law. That the two human sexes clearly belong together (“Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve”) and the institution of marriage is a sacred covenant between a man and a woman. But once we understand how the universe works, in our post-Enlightenment era, there is no reason to take arguments like this seriously. Nature doesn’t have anything to say about the moral status of two individuals falling in love and formalizing their relationship. It is a matter for us individual human beings to get together and decide how we should structure our legal system. We have long ago decided to recognize the special legal status of two people who love each other and wish to formalize their status as a legal union. Marriage is a wholly invented institution; there is nothing “natural” about it. And there is simply no reason — ickiness aside — to limit that institution to heterosexual couples. There might be, if the existence of gay married couples had directly deleterious effects on other members of society; but it doesn’t, crazy exhortations about the looming threat to traditional families notwithstanding.
Opponents of gay marriage are either squeamish and prejudiced, or philosophically confused. Eliminating prejudice takes time, but the situation is gradually improving. But there is even less excuse for the philosophical confusion surrounding issues like this. And if it takes a Physics Blog to sort things out, we’re happy to take up the challenge.
The materialistic religious belief, followed by many scientists, is empty and false. But anyway, how does physics lead to advocacy of gay marriage? Now let me say I am not against civil gay marriage as a matter of principle. I could care less. If two men or two women want to get married that is their business and I don’t care. But yes, what on earth does this have to do with “natural law”?
Saying that morality is a “human construct” is a bit naive, as are most purely materialistic philosophies. The materialist claims a human being is nothing but a bunch of atoms and chemical reactions, but in reality we know this isn’t so. One consequence of this is that most of us inherently know that murder is wrong. On one level, murder is bad for the survival of the group. A human society cannot function if murder is sanctioned as “OK”. So its kind of a Darwinian survival thing.
But the fact is, it goes beyond that. Those of us who are mentally healthy know that murder is wrong not only for the reasons that it makes survival of the species risky, but the fact is it is plain wrong. There simply are many things that we know are true that fall outside of the bounds of science.
Gay marriage is “Icky” to many people from a gut level perspective, and the fact is this isn’t necessarily just prejudice in operation. Darwinian natural selection involves REPRODUCTION. A small band of humans living on the African plains a hundred thousand years ago would not do very well if many of them were GAY OR LESBIAN. Gays and lesbians do not reproduce and in a situation like that would be detrimental to the group at large. So its not surprising that many or most people would find it ICKY on a gut level. There is probably a built in “ICKY” factor that is based on the biological drive to reproduce.
That being said, the fact is gay and lesbian people do exist. And in modern society it doesn’t make sense to put prohibitions on them. From a government perspective that is. Gay marriage is fine, but I think its up to individual churches. The government should not prohibit it, but that doesn’t mean any church has to go along. I really don’t care if gay people get married, but I understand why many people are uncomfortable with it.
the materialist claims a human being is nothing but a bunch of atoms and chemical reactions
No, they don’t.
Thras:
I derived the physics-based explanation for Christian homophobia 15 years ago on usenet. The repost is on my blog, here:
http://lablemminglounge.blogspot.com/2007/03/sexual-sin-and-christians-repost.html
Is morality the only and appropriate criteria for a rational opinion on gay marriage? Consider the role that marriage has had historically on inheritance and on protection of children/mothers. It seems to me that these are logically connected to legal and monetary support issues to do with children. What does gay marriage have to do with this? Perhaps the legal/social support strategy of marriage (for all) should be reconsidered in view of modern economic conditions.
Let me play the devils advocate here to make the argument a bit sharper: Sean, you propose that when looked at with a more rational attitude there is no reason left to worry about gay marriage and thus there is no reason left not to allow it.
But let’s look with a similar attitude at the concept of marriage: It’s really a huge collection of tax (and similar health insurance etc) benefits which are given to the happy couple. So why should the community (or state) sponsor couples? When you leave out all reasons in terms of tradition an culture etc (as you suggest) then it’s really just that in western societies the birth rate has dropped alarmingly and it’s in the states good interest to (financially) encourage having kids. And it does this in this roundabout way of giving tax benefits to married couples.
This does not work at 100% efficiency (to say the least) but for biological reasons it even less likely to work in case of gay couples and therefore there is a good reason not to extend the tax benefits to them.
As I said, I don’t belief this argument myself but maybe it’s a bit less straw-mannish than yours.
writing as a gay man, let me just add that much of this comment thread…
oh, who the hell cares what I think?
As a gay atheist / skeptic who enjoys few things more than physics, I absolutely love this blog. I do have to say though that I am surprised at the number of breathtakingly ignorant and outright rampantly idiotic opinions expressed in several of the above comments. One can only presume that if your readers are mostly scientists, than the extreme compartmentalization of rationality to highly confined sections the human mind is a truly remarkable and highly developed ability indeed for certain individuals. The worst comments being from Thras (to whom I direct a hearty fuck you – homosexuality is no more an unhappy condition than having blond hair and perhaps if you’d actually met and talked to a real gay person at some point in your life, you’d know how imbecilic the majority of your opinions on said demographic really are) and H.M. Amir al-Mumenin-whomeverthehell who (astoundingly) places gay people far higher on his list of “ickyness” and “untreated mental illness” than he does for nighttime lamp-post fuckers. Wow, that’s some sharp thinkin’ there dude!
Anyway, the posts nearer the top of the list are more interesting and worthy of consideration. Joe (#3) in particular has a very good point that:
and I would argue therefore, that Sean’s original premise be modified to the following “The codification of moral rules does not come from examining the world or thinking about logical necessities; it comes from individual human beings examining their own desires, and communicating with other human beings to formulate rules of common consent, and should be generally guided by a desire to both minimize human suffering and maximize human happiness, liberty and well being.
Keep up the good work guys, I love reading about all the stuff you post at CV.
lol, looks like the gay dudes got to the conversation a little late, but at the same time!
applmak,
It remains the case, however, that while the natural laws will link our specific choices of moral laws with their outcomes, it is still we who decide which outcomes we prefer.
masonk,
Actually he’s specifically making the case that it is the belief in absolute morality that makes some think that it is permissible to discriminate against homosexuals. The point remains that if you strip away the notion of absolute morality, there simply isn’t any reason to discriminate against homosexuality except, “I think it’s icky.” If you could come up with another reason why homosexuals should be discriminated against as we discriminate against, say, those who kill other humans indiscriminately, you’re welcome to it. But I have to agree with Sean: there just doesn’t appear to be any such argument for homosexuality that has any validity, and so it should be no surprise that those of us who recognize that morality isn’t an absolute tend to side on supporting equal rights for homosexuals.
As a European, I must say that in my opinion the US is, objectively, a more rural and conservative nation than just about any other western country. These debates about abortion, stem cells, homosexuality, religion, etc, etc have been settled for some time in just about every western European country, and are on the way to being settled in others.
I think this has to do with two things. Firstly, the US is still a very rural nation. This may be difficult for the very many cosmopolitan Americans to accept, but one only has to look at a map to see why this should be so.
Secondly, and more importantly, the reason Europe has accepted liberalisation and secularisation on so many of these issues is because the alternatives have been tried, and have been found wanting. Wanting in quite fundamental ways in some cases. Everyone, especially Americans, like to trot out the example of the Nazis, but while they might be the most extreme example of an intolerant society in Europe they are by no means whatsoever the only example.
Franco’s Spain, Catholic Ireland, British class society, Communist states, etc, etc. The list is as long as your arm. European societies have tried fascism, communism, theocracy, racism, colonialism, (marketism?), anarchy, oppression and intolerance of all kinds. In every case, the method has been found wanting.
Collectively, Europe has now embarked on a long trial of tolerance, openness, democracy, the rule of law and personal rights. Over sixty years, not one of these measures has been found wanting after being introduced. A more free, open and tolerant society is a better one. This has been proven to be the case across an entire continent, and beyond. To paraphrase Randall Monroe in contemporary language; “Change. It works, bitches.”
No other western nation seems to have struggled with modernisation quite like the US. Ultimately, I think this is because the US as a country, has never really been tested in this regard. Americans have never been burned, and so continue to play with fires that are best quenched.
He’s making the case, and I’m making the case that it’s a belief in a different set of absolutes that gives him certitude about his own moral commitments.
And the other thing that goes away when you strip away the notion of absolute morality is a commitment to needing reasons for your moral choices, which is another way of saying the point I was making above. Everything you are arguing has relevance only is propositions (1), (2), and (3) from above hold, but you do not prove that they hold, or make a case for why they even might be true.
@Blake: Well put. A fresh breeze after prolonged spells of damp, airless nuttiness.
^_^J.
p.s. though I wouldn’t mistake ’em for scientists, mind.
Blake: I think the King of Yemen was posting tongue-in-cheek. I like to think so.
Jason Dick: Agreed (Go Free Will!), but I still think that my arguments make a strong case for the existence of natural laws.
ObsessiveMathsFreak: Culturally, I think that Europeans tend to be more liberal than Americans. However, I think that the recent development in Italy’s near-fascist government, Britain’s anti-terrorism, and many Western European country’s response to increased immigration shows that the debate may not be as settled there as you would like. Americans are interesting for their willingness to quickly adopt new technologies. The sudden appearance of anti-Science, anti-Rationality, and anti-Liberalism is merely a consequence of a segment of the population getting left behind during our constant transitioning. They are scared of the future that might excite you or me, and it’s our responsibility to show them why the next few decades are going to be full of awesome.
masonk: Yes: Anyone who argues are morals is not a moral relativist! I wonder, though, if there is some other definition of relativity here that wouldn’t help to explain the difference between the moralities of a Christian fundamentalist and our favorite atheist physicist?
I don’t think moral relativism is at all true. I don’t think there’s moral absolutism either. How about moral progressivism? We can have an objective frame of reference for morality, based on happiness and suffering. How do we discover what brings suffering and happines? By studying reality. That’s where science comes along. Morality progresses for the good, as long as knowledge progresses.
Homosexuality is a good example. We know now that the bible on gay people is horribly wrong. It is not an abomination. Furthermore, we know from biology that it’s actually perfectly natural. Even more so, many other species exhibit it as well. How, knowing that, anyone can still say that there’s something wrong with homosexuality is then just a matter of either ignorance or faith. As long as we preserve the knowledge, morality can only go forward. It is not relative.
I personally think that homosexuality is wrong. I believe it’s as wrong as adultery or any other sexual sin, or moral infraction if that suits you better.
I also oppose gay marriage from a government perspective, however, from a government perspective I oppose heterosexual marriage as well.
Marriage is an emotional, religious institution. The government shouldn’t care whether or not I’m married, but that’s just me. Being married is nice though come tax season (though not come retirement season), so I understand why a committed homosexual couple would push for “equal rights”.
RationalZen,
Why do you think it’s wrong? On what could you possibly base that assumption other than (excuse me) ignorance or faith? I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt and say it’s probably faith. (Or maybe claiming ignorance would be better?)
I do agree with you somewhat on marriage. Let churches marry, and at the same time, let marriage mean nothing legally. Let the government do civil unions which carry on the same rights “married” couples have now. And let everybody marry who they want. Then everybody’s happy. Let churches discriminate as they do with other things, but don’t take it to the government to discriminate.
Of ocurse, I meant, “And let everybody unite with whom they want”, not “marry.”
Sean, let me first say I really enjoyed your graduate GR course back when we were both at the U of Chicago. I would like to strongly disagree with the passage I have quoted though.
Physics is not a belief system or naturalistic paradigm. It is a scientific discipline based on the premise of the falsifiable hypothesis. Whenever we discuss a scientific issue in the public sphere, for example, evolution, the typical media response is to present a “fair and balanced” discussion. The evolutionist gets equal time on stage with the creationist, and nothing either says is challenged by the moderator. The uniformed viewer will typically make a decision based on what he thinks about the presenters of the argument, and not the truth value of the argument.
The only rational underpinning for this sort of behavior is exactly the belief that science is not based on objective reality, but rather that it is a point of view. We have to be very careful about encouraging that sort of thinking.
Gay marraige, to my knowledge, does not involve anything we can prove with mathematical rigor. There are no falsifiable hypotheses to work with, no cotnrols for our experiments, and very few reproducible results. This is not to say that we can’t discuss the issue in the framework of sociology and public health. We can and, indeed, have a responsibility to do so. But all of those issues should be clearly separate from the jurisdiction of the natural sciences.
I think it is wonderful that thinking about physics has helped to shape your views about society. However, I would urge you to be careful about linking physics to points of view. What makes science special is that it is not just a point of view. It represents humanity’s best efforts to produce an objective evaluation of physical reality. When we link it to one side or another in a purely political debate about human behaviors, I think we may produce some unintended and unwanted consequences.
Hi Obsessive Maths Freak,
Why is being a rural nation a bad thing? You are automatically equating rural with backwards-which isn’t necessarily the case. You are also assuming that urban people have more liberal views, which is also not necessarily the case. I used to live in Orange County, California and the areas I lived in were very Republican and Conservative. In the US you can often follow the money for that viewpoint.
Living in an urban area is not necessarily superior. I do live in an urban area now, but have horses I keep in a neighboring rural area and I see that in many ways the rural area is actually a far superior place to live. Being packed in like sardines into a large city is actually not good at all, but with so many people on the planet that’s the way it is.
The problem in the United States is not the % of rural versus urban, its the education system. Combine that with our trashy and shallow and all pervasive entertainment culture. Many people in the US, whether they are from the heart of Los Angeles or a tiny town in Kentucky are simply lacking in basic science knowledge and way of thinking, but probably know all about Britney Spears and Oprah.
I also think some of your comments are arrogant, and lots of people over here see Europeans as arrogant. You mention that Europe has tried Democracy for the last 60 years and boy its working. Newsflash: The US brought democracy into the modern era. Aside from the UK, there wasn’t much democracy in Europe until the end of WW 2. Democracy was basically imposed on Germany, Italy, and Austria by the US and Britain. I do give Germany credit, its come a very long way in a historically short time period.
The United States has struggled with lots of issues of tolerance, coming out of a tradition of slavery and racism. But so has Europe. Didn’t Europe invent all those things? The US had those problems because Europeans moved over here and created the US.
And as recently as 1945, Germans were not the nicest folks around. And I recall the problems in Serbia/Bosnia not too long ago indicating xenophobia has been alive and well among Europeans into the modern era. There are still problems in the US for sure, but things have come a very long way. Things are far better for women today and we are on the verge of possibly electing an African American as President. Gay marriage may be controversial, but 40 years ago there is no way it would have even been discussed. These things show that the US is actually pretty progressive. And frankly I can’t imagine that all Europeans are completely supportive of gay marriage either.
David McMahon:
Do you have a proof of your claim that human beings cannot be understood as a collection of atoms that obey the Schrödinger equation?
andyo:
RationalZen,
Why do you think it’s wrong? On what could you possibly base that assumption other than (excuse me) ignorance or faith? I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt and say it’s probably faith. (Or maybe claiming ignorance would be better?)
It’s based on ignorance, obviously. It just seems odd to me that any species would select their reproductive organs for exclusive use in any manner that guarantees extinction.
If homosexuality is nothing more than an emotional bond like friendship, than it’s ok. If it’s a sexual act that defines it, then it’s obviously perverse.
My opinion is based solely on the notion of wanting to further the species, a.k.a. ignorance.
David McMahon:
Your brain is a neural network. If we were to simulate your brain using thousands of supercomputers and simulate you being asked a queston about whether murder is morally right or wrong, then that computer simulation would yield a certain asnwer.
So, how come this is “outside of the bounds of science”?
Count Iblis: No, actually neural networks are attempts to model the brain. There is no evidence to show that they are equivalent. So far, brains can do quite a bit more than neural nets, like “choose”, which has yet to be modeled generally.
Gay marriage is a matter of faith and should remain such. If gay people want to get married then they should either start their own churches or join a church that will marry them under the authority of their particular Deity.
As for the legal status of domestic partners, there certainly ought to be laws that provide the same kind of benefits to same-sex partners as hetero ones. But that is strictly a legal matter and not a matter of faith.
Forcing churches to marry same-sex couples is the same kind of mixing of church and state that creationists and the far-right press upon the rest of Americans. We can’t have it both ways. Either separate church and state or not.