Cory's had atheism on the brain in the last 24 hours after I interviewed Hemant Mehta on Between the Lines for his book I Sold My Soul on eBay.
Cory's concern goes something like this:
(And this is rough. I could be more precise here, but cut me some slack.)
1. If you are an atheist, you do not believe there is ultimate meaning in the world (If A then ~U.)
2. If ~U, then it is pointless to work toward human progress if you don't directly benefit. (If ~U, then ~P.)
(E.g. why work toward a cure for cancer if you know a cure is too far away for you to directly benefit? Why work to eradicate extreme poverty if a) you're not in extreme poverty and b) the likelihood of you or anyone you know ever being in extreme poverty is very low.)
3. If you are an atheist, it is pointless to work toward human progress if you don't directly benefit. (If A, then ~P [1, 2 - Transitivity].)
Therefore, an atheist should not work toward human progress if he does not directly benefit.
My Objection:
There is a distinction between ultimate meaning and proximate meaning.
An atheist can still find proximate meaning ('meaningfulness' perhaps) through family, academic pursuits enjoyed for their own sake, and through participating in the project of human progress. No, the atheist may not think there is an ultimate meaning to life, but he/she can still find meaningfulness in working toward a project he/she enjoys.
It's 'enjoyable' to work toward human progress, regardless of whether that matters 10, 100, or a million years from now.
So my objection, really, is to (2). At the very least, the atheist can directly benefit from participating in the project of human progress because he/she enjoys it, derives satisfaction from it, etc.
This is akin to someone watching 'Old School.' No, you're not going to learn any grand lessons from the movie, but you do it because frankly you enjoy it. And that should be enough.
Cory's Counter-Objection:
Okay, I'll grant you the atheist can still derive proximate meaning from participating in the project of human progress, but isn't ultimate meaning (U) strongly implied, if not entailed by proximate meaning (M)? (If M, then U.)
My Reaction:
I'm not sure . . . I would think not, but I can't say I've ever really considered it. However, if (If M, then U) is true, then the atheist is faced with two options:
1. Conceding there is ultimate meaning.
2. Rejecting proximate meaning, which best I can tell would simply lead to nihilism.
If the atheist picks (1), then she/he seems to have two options:
1'. There is ultimate meaning, and I have a story about how there can be ultimate meaning and no God.
1''. There is ultimate meaning, and I'll be damned (pun intended)! There is a God. Crap.
At the very least, if (If M, then U) is true, then the atheist must reject certain forms of atheism that hold to proximate meaning.
At worst, atheism might become internally incoherent if the atheist cannot produce (1').
Take Away:
Now, that sounds fine and dandy, but that's all predicated on whether or not (If M, then U) is true.
If have NO idea if an argument can be given for (If M, then U.), but we're at least going to work on it. If an argument can be made for it, that's a BIG TIME paper, and frankly, big time progress in philosophy.
We would LOVE your feedback on this. Any thoughts on arguments for (If M, then U)? Anybody think they can produce (1')? Anybody see any substanative flaw in the landscape I'm laying out?
Update: My initial thoughts after stepping away from this for 15 minutes are:
A. Would this work something like the Cosmological Argument (only hopefully better)?
B. Would an objection to (If M, then U) be that U is logically prior to M and therefore (If M, then U) can't be true? Obviously you'd need an argument as to why U is logically prior to M, but that might be a way to object if there turns out to actually be an argument for (If M, then U)! :)
