Over at Maverick Philosopher, Bill Vallicella has written a fine post in response to a query from a reader about religious zealotry. The reader’s argument was:
Given that, as most religions claim —
1) There is an afterlife of infinite duration;
2) Those who live in strict accordance with the religion’s requirements and prohibitions will be eternally rewarded in the afterlife;
3) Those who instead violate the religion’s requirements and prohibitions will be eternally punished;
4) The quality of these rewards or punishments far exceeds anything we might experience in our brief mortal lives;
— does it not follow that it is irrational not to dedicate everything in one’s earthly life to the fulfillment of one’s religious obligations, with everything else taking a distant second place?
As Bill’s reader put it:
If this ranking system is correct, it is hard to see how it could ever be rational for one to pursue any set of mortal goods””no matter how well they rank on the finite scale””when one could spend the same time and resources in the pursuit of the afterlife goods or avoiding afterlife evils, which are both endless in duration and of infinitely great quality. If extreme fasts are pleasing to God, and increase my chances of obtaining salvation by a tiny bit, then the rational thing for me to do is to live in such an ascetic state for as long as possible, unless it prevents me from doing other activities that could do even more to promote my own salvation.
The argument given, then, mitigates strongly against religious moderation as a rational approach. Here in the West, where we place paramount value on Diversity, inclusiveness, and religious pluralism, we regard religious “moderates” with far higher esteem than those we consider to be “fundamentalists” or “extremists”. But does this make sense? Given the stakes, why would any rational believer be moderate?
The discussion turns to epistemic limitations. Certainly the polyinfinite goods of the afterlife, if genuine, outweigh the transient goods of this one. But if we cannot know with certainty that the rewards of religious fidelity are real, and are guaranteed, then perhaps they don’t tip the scales against the known pleasures of the mortal world. How is one to balance the two?
As Bill acknowledges, this is a difficult question, and he doesn’t claim to have the answer. But he focuses the inquiry with his usual clarity. One thing that emerges quite clearly is that religious “moderation”, if it is to be rationally motivated, seems to necessitate doubt. Or, to put it another way: for anyone who would make no distinction between his belief and certain knowledge, religious moderation is not a rational choice.
Read the post here.
19 Comments
Saw Dr. V’s post and read some of the comments. Had to wonder, though, whether there was room in this discussion for deep (perhaps fervent) commitment to some form of the middle way, e.g., Madhyamaka Buddhism, neo-Confucian Golden Mean, Aristotelian virtue-as-mean, etc. It’s just as hard to cleave to the middle as it is to remain at one or another extreme.
Good Lord, I hadn’t even realized there were comments. There weren’t any when I first read the post, and Bill so rarely allows them these days that I didn’t think to look for them. I’ll go read them now.
Malcolm – While the matter of epistemic limitations was raised, it is peripheral to the problem as originally posed — and it’s probably not true that there is a necessary connection between moderation and doubt or uncertainty. This is more properly understood as a question about the nature of rational behavior when presented with incommensurable values — the religious trappings serve a merely illustrative purpose.
Bob, it seems reasonable enough to say that moderation only makes sense if there is doubt. If the requirements for eternal reward and punishment are established beyond doubt, and reward and punishment in the afterlife trump their mortal equivalents as the infinite exceeds the finite, isn’t the rational choice obviously to concentrate all one’s efforts on passing the entrance exam?
Of course there may be areas of life that are soteriologically neutral, and so with regard to those we may do as we like (the drinking of beer is given as an example in the comment thread at Bill’s — which would be fine for a Christian, but not, say, for a Muslim). But it seems that strict adherence to religious guidelines, whatever they may be, would be the only rational plan. Why hedge your bets when you know the outcome of the race?
Kevin, I think the point would be that whatever the prescribed strategy, one would rationally be motivated to follow it to the letter always and in everything. If the Golden Mean is the ticket to heaven, then one must be zealously immoderate in one’s adherence to it.
Which makes for an interesting paradox: zealously immoderate moderation.
Yes, I was thinking that also.
Malcolm –
Your comments betray an immoderate notion of what is rational. Think ‘maximizing’. Then think ‘satisficing’. Then rethink ‘rationality’. Also, reread Aristotle on the mean.
Bob, I’d be the last one to hold out for ideal rationality in human affairs (and I’m well familiar with “satisficing”); this has been the point of my rebuttal, for example, of C.S. Lewis’s argument against naturalism.
Nevertheless, though, the point here is that to the extent that a religious believer attempts to implement a rational approach to living this mortal life, the pull should be away from moderation (devoting only some of one’s actions toward maximizing one’s chance of salvation), and toward “zealotry” (choosing every action in terms of this aim). The only thing that I can see that would mitigate against that in a rational analysis would be epistemic limitations, i.e. doubt.
As for the mean, Aristotle’s point was that it is, for every individual and every purpose, that which optimizes the result without excess or deficiency. But if one optimizes one’s chance of salvation by following the doctrine of one’s religion to the letter at all times, then what we usually think of as religious “moderation” becomes, in fact, deficiency.
Malcolm –
First, I’ll caution against conflating optimization and maximization — in many contexts the latter is the enemy of the former.
Second, if rationailty isn’t a matter of maximizing, then there is no reason why attempting to be rational should pull one away from moderation toward zealotry.
You see, I’m quite sure that the “problem” presented over at Bill V’s is entirely due to unwarranted assumptions about what constitutes rational behavior.
BTW, a very similar problem serves as a standard objection to classical utilitarianism. Scare quotes aren’t necessary around ‘problem’ in this context precisely because classical utilitarianism employs a straightforward maximizing rule (i.e., do whatever results in the greatest good for the greatest number).
Right. But the question here is about a simpler issue: maximizing one’s chance of salvation. If it is clear beyond doubt that the closer you adhere to doctrine the closer you come to maximizing that chance, then the rational course is adhere as closely as you can. Limitations on rationality aren’t the point; we all agree that humans are not perfectly rational.
Malcolm – I didn’t say anything about limitations on rationality or less than perfect rationality. My point is that perfect, unlimited rationality probably isn’t a maximizing game. Satisficing is not about lowering our aspirations vis a vis rationality. It’s about reconceptualizing those aspirations. And it’s a gamechanger.
I think we are talking past each other here, and getting bogged down in examinations of rationality itself.
As I see the question at hand it is: if we know beyond all doubt that the rewards of the afterlife are real, and trump anything available here below, shouldn’t we do everything we can to achieve them? Shouldn’t that effort be of paramount importance? Why would we shilly-shally with a “moderate” religious life instead of sacrificing everything to the ultimate, infinite reward?
Malcolm – Well, this is about what is required by rationality, isn’t it?
And suppose “doing everything we can” to attain the rewards of the afterlife is of “paramount importance.” How does it follow that one should never do anything except pursuing those rewards?
More to the point, we are talking primarily about what a rational believer should consider to be required by religion.
Yes, as I said above, and as commenters at Bill’s pointed out, it may well be that there are various things that are orthogonal to salvation — for example, one of the commenters pointed out that the Pope drinks beer. But when it comes to the things that are specifically spelled out in one’s religious tradition, then it makes sense to put them foremost, above everything else.
As Spencer wrote in response to you:
And as Bill wrote:
Let us remember the words of Firesign Theater: a mighty hot dog is our Lord.
I’ll stick to my interpretation according to which the religious trappings are merely illustrative. And since Bill’s other illustrations would seem to confirm this assessment, this really is about whether rationality requires us to set aside all goals besides those we think are of “overriding importance.”
Well, only religious goals — the promise of eternal salvation or threat of eternal torment — have the particular quality of infinitely transcending worldly goods, no? But even speaking more generally, what can you mean by “overriding importance” if not trumping all other aims?