3. Where we'll go
Who is Razib? Why does he matter?
Who are atheist conservatives? Do they
exist?
What does Razib believe? Why?
Why should we accept the importance of
political pluralism among non-religious
people?
4. But an aside
To obtain citations or methods for results
please go to: razib.com and contact me via
one of the available avenues
Where is the Radical Right?
8. Are conservative atheists rare?
The fact that I am speaking before you is
also proof...they couldn't find a famous
person!
9. A few examples of a rare breed
Heather Mac Donald
George F. Will (agnostic, we'll claim him!)
10. Also some non-famous people
Ideology of atheists and agnostics
GSS, year 2000-
20%
Liberal
Moderate
Con-
50%
serva-
31%
11. Wrong for women to get abortion for birth defects
Not wrong at all
Wrong only sometimes
Almost always wrong
Always wrong
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
Atheist & Not atheist
agnostic or agnostic
12. Homosexual sex relations
Not wrong at all
Wrong only sometimes
Almost always wrong
Always wrong
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
Atheist & Not atheist
agnostic or agnostic
13. Is premarital sex wrong?
Not wrong at all
Wrong only sometimes
Almost always wrong
Always wrong
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
Atheist & Not atheist
agnostic or agnostic
14. Pornography should be
Legal to all
Illegal to under 18
Illegal to all
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
Atheist & Not atheist
agnostic or agnostic
15. Sex with person other than spouse
Not wrong at all
Wrong only sometimes
Almost always wrong
Always wrong
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
Atheist & Not atheist
agnostic or agnostic
16. On economic issues divergence is
far less stark
Attitude toward income differences
7 – No government action
6
5
4
3
2
1 – Government should reduce
0 5 10 15 20 25
Atheist & Not atheist
agnostic or agnostic
17. But Razib, you must be a libertarian!
You are too reasonable!
This is not Razib, this is a libertarian:
19. Live not by reason alone!
Most of the human
race does not live
reflectively
Their actions are
driven by impulse &
emotion, not
rationality
20. Wrong species
Libertarianism, makes
total sense to H.
sapiens razib, but is
rather confounding to
H. sapiens sapiens
“Reason is, and ought
only to be the slave
of the passions”
21. On the issues:
I oppose affirmative action
I think abortion and gay marriage should be
handled legislatively, not through the courts
I am an isolationist
I think the nation-state is a coherent and
valuable entity
I think collective attributes (religion, ethnicity,
class) are legitimate aspects of human
experience which one can value
22. On the parties
I have voted for Republicans, Democrats, and
Libertarians
My conservatism is not about partisanship, but
is admittedly more philosophical,
dispositional, and intellectual
I do not believe that any given election will
determine the course of our civilization –
there are limits to party politics
23. Conservative, not Republican
I am not a conservative
because I think the
Republican Party
platform will result in full
employment in 5 years
I am a conservative
because I think
Western civilization as
it currently organizes
itself is a valuable form
of human flourishing
25. Politics as applied sociology
I am not personally particularly conservative
in a conventional sense
But I balance my own intuitions about the
“good life” against what I believe are the
intuitions of the majority
And I accept that I am a social creature, so
the intuitions of the majority do hold weight
with me
26. Is consensual incest “wrong”?
Should sex between adult siblings who use
contraception (if they are opposite sex) be
legally barred?
Many people have a viscerally negative
reaction to this, but can not provide rational
grounds
And aside from appealing to authorities (“God
said it is wrong”) it is difficult to make an
argument against this on individualist
grounds
27. Is sex selective abortion “wrong”?
Many people who accept that abortion is not
wrong, and perhaps not even troubling, find
sex selective abortion disquieting
Is it due the sexism manifest when selection
is against female fetuses?
28. Social harmony matters
Xunzi, third of the
great Confucian
sages
A materialist, the
natural world is all
there is
A pessimist about
human nature
Emphasized ritual
29. The altruist can change everything
Mozi, the anti-
Confucian
One should love all
humans equally
Music, ritual, etc., are
wasteful
Conceived of Heaven
as relatively similar
to Western God
30. China: 2,000 years of permanence
China maintained a
relatively secular political
philosophy grounded in
respect for tradition,
history, and precedent up
to the modern era
Though the system
ultimately failed because
of its inability adapt,
Communist China is now
sponsoring “Confucius
Institutes”
31. Why did Xunzi “win” and Mozi fail?
Because of his connection to Legalism Xunzi
was relatively marginalized in Chinese
history, but many historians argue that
“State Confucianism” owes more to his
variant of the philosophy than that of his
predecessors
Mozi seems to have been eminently laudable
in his intent. His movement sponsored
defense leagues to protect weak cities
against the powerful
32. Xunzi & Mozi : human nature
In the details Confucians were not always
right, but because of their reliance on
previous precedent they integrated much of
what we might term “modal human nature”
into their philosophy
In contrast, Mozi's rejection of gradations of
love and affection, and the assertion that the
arts are wasteful, operated with a faulty view
of human nature
33. Order, integration, cohesion
The Confucian insight is focus on the
individual as an atomic element of utility fails
to capture the complexity of human affairs
In particular, social relations are of the
essence to the proper functioning of human
affairs
The rest is commentary
34. Scrouge McDuck was happier with
Huey, Luey, and Duey, than with all
the money in the world)
35. Wrongness may not be reasonable,
and it may not be individual
Sex selective abortion and
“safe” incestuous sex may
be individually “rational”
But it may not be
sustainable for civilization
Making a fetish of coherent
rational systems
underestimates the
complexity of social
organisms
36. Why gay marriage and adult incest
are different
Homosexuality is a minority orientation with a strongly
biological component (at least in men)
Gay marriage allows individuals to flourish, but does not
impinge upon social harmony (most people are not
homosexuals)
Most people do not have a strong compulsion to incestuous
relationships, but unfortunately sexual abuse through incest
is a major social problem
Recognizing the happiness of individual incestuous couples
may still cause difficulties as one must consider the example
and differentiation between these relatively rare relationships
compared to the abusive ones
37. Yet propositions have to be tested!
There is some literature on the
persistence of brother-sister
incest in rural Roman Egypt
(a legacy of the incest
practiced by the Pharaohs)
Further investigation of this
phenomenon may allow us
to reconsider our intuitions
about the social effects of
banning adult incest
38. The logic of the unsystematic thinker
Look for precedent
Look for empirical examples
Avoid absolutes (i.e., talk of “rights”)
Evaluate on the scale of societies
Avoid long chains of inferential propositions
(excessive “reasoning”)
Don't confuse the normative and the positive
39. A plea for irreligious conservatism
Non-religious conservatism is
different in substance and style
from modern religious
conservatism
It occupies a particular position it
the ecology of ideas
And notably, it is important to note
that the moralistic stridency and
certitude of many religious
conservatives means they wish to
“conserve” very little
40. “Progress” in antiquity
St. Ambrose vs.
Symmachus
th
4 century debate of
the Bishop of Milan
vs. the pagan
aristocrat in regards
to due respect for
ancient rites and
symbols
41. A true and progressive future
“It is no disgrace to pass to better things. This
alone had I in common with the barbarians that of
old I knew not God. Your sacrifice is a rite of
sprinkling yourselves with the blood of beasts.
Why do you look for the voice of God in dead
beasts? Come and learn here on earth a heavenly
warfare; we live here, but our warfare is above. Let
God Himself, the Creator, teach me the mystery of
heaven, not man who knew not himself. Whom
should I believe about God, sooner than God
Himself? How can I believe you, who confess
that you know not what you worship?”
42. What St. Ambrose had
Certainty
Vision
Clarity
Lack of excessive respect for the past and
precedent
Lack of sentimentality
Self-assured rationality
43. What St. Ambrose and the Church
Fathers got right
Roman paganism was steeped in superstition
Its rites were barbaric (e.g., animal sacrifice)
Roman pagan culture was often inhumane
(Symmachus' private letters attest to casual
purchase of animals and slaves for
slaughter in games in the arena)
The Christian “atheists” were right when they
denied the gods of the Romans
44. What they may have gotten wrong
Was pagan culture without redeeming value?
Was Christendom genuinely more humane?
Was the Christian God any less of a farce
than Zeus, Isis, or the Platonic One?
Were the superstitious rites and rituals of the
pagans less edifying than the “pageantry” of
the Roman Catholic Church?
45. It's a matter of perspective
We can look back with hindsight and see who was
right or wrong, using our own yardsticks
But we don't always know where we are right or
wrong
Excessive certitude of our rational faculties outside
of mathematics and the physical sciences is a
recipe for overreach and hubris
Between 400 and 1700 the West forgot the wisdom
of allowing religious pluralism to flourish. Pluralism
was a custom and tradition forgotten in the service
of “better things”
46. In sum:
What is the “good life” is no easy thing to be
calculated through inferences from axioms
which you derive from introspection
The arc of the moral universe is long, but it
may wind back and forth (e.g., religious
pluralism)
There are no ultimate truths in human affairs
but for what humanity makes
Never forget that we can all be wrong!
