Transcript An Accidental World ––The Jefferson Center, July 2006––

What Cost Rationality?
–– CFI Community & Student Leadership Conference, June 2007 ––
Taner Edis
Truman State University
Kirksville, Missouri
www2.truman.edu/~edis
Enlightenment Rationalism

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2007
I defend
Enlightenment
Rationalism; a
very sciencechauvinist
version.
Today,
emphasize
mistakes, open
questions, and
costs.
What cost rationality?
2
Knowledge and Nature
Explanation
produces
(theory)
Detailed
naturalistic
picture of
our world
Reality testing
(experiment)
2007
success
What cost rationality?
3
No revelation?
No faith-based short-circuiting
of process.
 Everything open to criticism,
including scientific methods.
 Revelation cannot constrain
inquiry, but we may come to
see a particular revelation as
trustworthy after all. (Just
happens not to be the case.)

2007
What cost rationality?
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Not true that…
“The gods are immune
to scientific criticism” or
“if you invoke
supernatural agents it is
not science.”
 Intelligent design cannot
be ruled out of bounds.
ID is wrong because it is
a scientific failure.
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2007
What cost rationality?
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The role of philosophy?
Enlightenment rationalism prefers
philosophy over religion.
 No “proofs of God.”
 But armchair analysis does not
overrule supernaturalism.
Agnosticism? Stalemate?
 Defensive role + much of
philosophy joins science.
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2007
What cost rationality?
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Prevent short-circuiting
Deflect
Explanation
produces
(theory)
Detailed
naturalistic
picture of our
world
Reality testing
(experiment)
success
Faith-based
challenges
2007
What cost rationality?
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Where’s the motivation?
Moral critiques: “supernaturalism socially
harmful”; “faith leads to atrocities”;
“Religion restricts human freedom.”
 Extend naturalism beyond academia.
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2007
What cost rationality?
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Overstated?
Yes, modern, secular, liberal attitudes
attractive to many––compared to organic,
authority-based morals.
 Still, Enlightenment rationalism is weakest
in matters of identity and community.
(Loyalty to skepticism?)
 Unclear whether Enlightenment humanism
is practical for human societies. Europe?
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2007
What cost rationality?
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Problems: Example 1

Modern, secular moral
philosophy all very well,
but too often
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2007
Tries to attain hard
(~science) objectivity, to
replace religious morality.
Disconnected from natural
science.
Not emotionally compelling.
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Example 2

Neoclassical economics?

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2007
Too many aspects that seem
faith-based, ideological.
Badly emulates physics:
Disconnected from natural
science.
Disconnected from ethics.
If problematic, then also a
secular problem.
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Lack of success?

Cultural competitors of Enlightenment
rationalism in stronger position:
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Hard-core faith;
Soft-core, liberal faith + New Agery;
Unreflective secularity.
Even in intellectual life, comprehensive
naturalism hardly dominant.
What cost rationality?
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The costs of reason
How to understand all this?
 One major reason: We Enlightenment
rationalists have underestimated or
downplayed the costs of our style of
rationality.
 Naturalistic thinking is not natural for
humans. Needs costly effort to overcome
our natural cognitive tendencies.
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2007
What cost rationality?
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Science is hard
Scientific view of world
requires extensive education
and knowledge base.
 Science continually goes
against common sense!
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World looks designed.
Quantum randomness,
cosmology and time, etc.
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Social thinking is natural
Mythic thinking is natural. Rationalists want
to drop intuitive ways of social legitimation
and signaling trustworthiness.
 In social life beyond science and philosophy,
we have many interests other than achieving
truth. These interests can conflict.
 A quick-and-dirty approach that comes easily
and works more often than not can be the
most cost-effective. Religion?
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2007
What cost rationality?
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Islam, science, & secularism
Muslim lands scientific
disaster areas.
 Science and technology
always imported, always
with worries about also
importing secular, impious
culture.
 Moral and religious
concerns remain central.
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2007
What cost rationality?
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Islamic pseudoscience
Science enticing but
dangerous. Need
insulating layers of
pseudoscience.
 Science-in-Quran,
creationism, Islamized
social science, …
 Revelation has to remain
central.
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2007
What cost rationality?
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Social costs
Morality, political
legitimacy all tied up
with religion.
 Too costly to challenge
primacy of religion;
even to set up
“separate spheres” for
secular and religious
interests.
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2007
What cost rationality?
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Failure of secularism
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In Muslim lands, secularism
retains some elite allegiance,
but imposed by force on a
pious population.
Challenged by new religious
elites, with working class
allies. Cultural reIslamization.
Democratic, populist antisecularism
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Secularism delegitimized
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Secularism:
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Against communal religious
liberty;
Alien cultural imposition;
Despotic, military-backed.
New social equilibrium: Not
strict sharia, but much more
Islam in public life.
Secularism has been too
costly.
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Outlook: Intellectual scene

Enlightenment rationalism is healthy in intellectual
institutions. Always challenged, but that is as it
should be. Some concerns:
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2007
Parallel institutions linked to hard-core faith. Examples:
intelligent design biology. Christian law schools that
feed administration. Islamized “science.”
Direct influence of soft-core faith. Example: Templeton
Foundation.
Reputation of popular critics of faith as having
superficial view of religion. Partly correct. Example:
Sam Harris on Islam––unscholarly nonsense.
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Outlook: Public arena
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Not persuasive. Secularization: falling away from
organized religion, relativism. Europeans not
turning into Enlightenment rationalists.
Little analysis on how we might structure our
social lives so as to reduce costs of rationality.
Need to be more persuasive? Global effects of
civilization, global threats (environment, nuclear
war––not “terrorism”). In the long term, it may be
more costly to be held back by religious constraints
on our moral imagination.
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Books, books!
2007
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Thanks for listening!
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2007
Any questions?
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