View
Enlightenment Cancelled
Engelbert Recktenwald on How the Naturalists Refute Themselves
In 1990 a memorial ceremony took place in Munich in memory of the student resistance group White Rose, whose members Hans and Sophie Scholl, Christoph Probst, Alexander Schmorell, and Willi Graf were sentenced to death under Hitler for distributing protest flyers. At this ceremony, Arthur Kaufmann spoke about "bravery of the heart." He explained how these students had put this bravery, which consists in exposing oneself to mortal danger for the sake of the good, into practice. And then he quoted a line from the novel Die schöne Frau Seidemann by the Polish author Andrzej Szczypiorski, who himself was imprisoned in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp: "What is this greatest and most mysterious wisdom of man, other than to call Good good and Evil evil? In this respect he, the common tailor, surpassed . . . many . . . philosophers and prophets."
Indeed, there are, unfortunately, many philosophers who do not possess this wisdom and who make every effort to show that good and evil do not actually exist. One example is Michael Schmidt-Salomon, the chief ideologue of the new atheists in Germany. In his view, one can no more speak of good and evil people than of good and evil mice. Moral concepts such as guilt and sin have no right to exist, according to him.
Materialistic Atheism
Aside from the mockery made of criminal offenders and innocent victims alike by such a leveling of the difference between evil and good, one must ask how Schmidt-Salomon arrives at his thesis. Behind it is a particular view of the theory of evolution. As long as this theory restricts itself to the realm of the natural sciences, it is unproblematic. Pope Pius XII conceded that the idea of the human body being the result of an evolution was compatible with the Catholic faith. The picture looks different, however, when the theory of evolution makes a universal claim by which it seeks to explain not only the material side of man, but also everything else, including consciousness, behavior, and morality.
Serious scientists are aware of the limits of their methods. In the standard science textbook Evolutionsbiologie, for example, authors Volker Storch, Ulrich Welsch, and Michael Winkthe acknowledge the philosophical objections to the denial of human free will asserted by the biological side. But there are atheists who inflate the theory of evolution into a universal explanation that overreaches its limits and extends even to the spiritual reality of man and his morality. For these atheists, the evolutionary theory is the magic key that opens the door to all knowledge and renders God superfluous. They propagate, as the cultural journalist Rolf Spinnler once noted, "an ideology under the guise of science," which amounts to "label fraud" and must be exposed.
One such atheist is Daniel Dennett, who, alongside Richard Dawkins, is one of the best-known representatives of the new atheists. In his book, Darwin's Dangerous Idea (1995), Dennett purports to explain consciousness, morality, and "everything that has meaning" by means of the theory of evolution. In this way, he misuses the theory to make it the spearhead of a certain kind of atheism—specifically, materialistic atheism. For it is only matter that evolution has available to work with. So life, consciousness, reason, and morality are, in this worldview, nothing other than manifestations of highly developed matter.
Value Realism
Against this backdrop, it is only logical for Schmidt-Salomon to deny the free will of man. For if man is merely a somewhat more complex clump of matter, he remains—like all matter—entirely subject to the laws of nature, and his behavior is determined by these laws. In this worldview, there is no more room for free will than there is for God. The human being as a moral subject responsible for his actions becomes for Schmidt-Salomon an organism whose actions are controlled by the subconscious behavioral routines of the brain.
Austrian scientist Konrad Lorenz (1903–1989), considered the founder of ethology, the comparative study of behavior, distinguished between the moral behavior of humans and the merely morally analogous behavior of animals. When a mother bird feeds her young, she is following an instinct. When a human mother feeds her child, she is acting morally. Though a woman's maternal love is placed into her heart—and here one may, in fact, acknowledge an inherited biological predisposition—she is nevertheless free, and each act of love toward her child arises anew from her decision to respond to this love, and not to follow her inclination toward comfort or laziness, for example. Her behavior is morally good, because she could neglect her duty yet does not. She is responsible for her actions, both the good and the evil ones. This is what distinguishes human behavior from animal behavior.
It is precisely this distinction that Schmidt-Salomon denies. In the context of this denial, the words "good" and "evil" are given a new meaning, such that Schmidt-Salomon speaks of their demystification. What does he mean by this?
When we call certain behavior "evil"—for example, the behavior of the Nazis against which the students of the White Rose protested—we mean that a quality objectively exists in the behavior that makes it reprehensible, detestable, and punishable. When we call a behavior "good," we mean it has a quality that makes it praiseworthy. In philosophy, one calls this position "value realism." According to this position, the moral value of an action is something real, to which we respond. And we do so both emotionally and in deed. Examples of emotional responses to evil are indignation, revulsion, and contempt; responses to goodness are admiration, gratitude, and esteem. In distributing their flyers, the members of the White Rose showed how one reacts to evil in deed.
This value realism corresponds to our everyday experience. Every normal person is a value realist in his everyday life.
Negating Good & Evil
The new atheists, on the other hand, seek to "liberate" us from our everyday understanding. They call this "enlightenment." A considerable part of their enlightenment program consists in convincing us that we are victims of an illusion when we consider values to be real. The reason for this illusion lies, in their view, in our genes. Evolution has programmed our genes in such a way that we perceive a behavior that is conducive to the survival of our genes, such as altruism or cooperation, to be good. This goodness is not an actual value inherent in the behavior, but merely an aura in which it is enveloped by our genes to motivate us toward this behavior. As Edward O. Wilson and Michael Ruse asserted in a 1985 essay in New Scientist: "Ethics as we understand it is an illusion fobbed off on us by our genes to get us to cooperate."
Thus "good" and "evil" vanish into thin air. This is only logical for the materialist. For these values are not material qualities that can be perceived or measured. They evade the grasp of purely scientific observation. Neither microscope nor telescope will ever detect them. Values are not "natural" qualities, as is said in philosophy, not in the sense of being "supernatural" as opposed to "natural," but in the sense of being insusceptible to empirical study—i.e., they have no physical, chemical, or biological characteristics that are discoverable through the methods of the natural sciences. But as soon as a natural scientist makes the claim that he can recognize and describe the entirety of reality using his methods, the negation of the naturalness of values results immediately in the denial of their reality.
There follows a Copernican revolution in the relationship between a value and our response to an action: we are not outraged by an action because we see it as evil, but the other way around; we see an action as evil because we are outraged by it. Feeling outraged about it is nothing other than the result of a conditioning to which evolution has subjected us through our genes.
This philosophical position is called naturalism. It "naturalizes" morality and only leaves over that which falls into the realm of biology. Wilson even speaks of "biologizing" ethics and taking it temporarily out of the hand of the philosophers.
If we take this viewpoint seriously and apply it to our initial example, it would mean that, from the enlightened standpoint, the criminal behavior of the Nazis was just as "valuable" as the resistance of the White Rose. Both behaviors would be situated on the same moral level, because in reality this moral level does not even exist. It is only projected by us onto events that in and of themselves are entirely value-free. The behavior of the White Rose members is not intrinsically good and praiseworthy; we have only been programmed to consider it praiseworthy. It does not deserve our praise because of its inner moral quality; rather, in indulging our urge to praise such behavior, we project a moral quality onto it, a moral quality that does not objectively exist independently of us.
The Loss of Conscience
The implications for the concept of the conscience are obvious. The conscience ceases to be a part of our reason, an organ of insight that puts us in contact with the reality of values; rather, it is a moral feeling that urges us on to certain actions in a similar way as does the sex drive or the feeding instinct, according to Dawkins.
But no sooner am I enlightened in this manner by Mr. Dawkins and Mr. Schmidt-Salomon than a question arises: Why should I, when faced with a conflict—whether, for instance, to indulge my pedophilic impulses or resist them—follow my so-called conscience rather than my sex drive? After all, from the "enlightened" standpoint, there is no moral difference between the sexual abuse of children and any other behavior. When I am enlightened to the fact that there is no such thing as good, then my conscience, which commands me to do the good, no longer possesses any moral authority. The conscience is an instinct just like any other, and there is no longer any moral reason why I should not simply give in to the stronger instinct.
Of course, the pedophile may think twice anyway, as he will risk losing his social respectability if he is caught molesting a child. But this consideration has nothing to do with a moral question of conscience. Once conscience and morality have been exposed as illusions, the only remaining criteria for making a decision will be egoistic calculation or random action at whim, both of which lack any moral compass.
An Indelible Remainder
Schmidt-Salomon prefers to speak of the "moralizing attitude" rather than of the conscience. That makes a better impression than admitting to abolishing this moral authority. Yet he still wants to counter the "banality of evil." But how? No longer by means of moralizing lectures, but with technical modifications that aim to influence the "subconscious behavioral routines of human brains." So swiftly can the noble claim of the "enlighteners" change: the enlightenment gives way to technical manipulation. The improvement of human behavior would thus be achieved not through gaining new insights, but by manipulating the subconscious.
This makes perfect sense when one denies the responsibility of man. But who is actually the subject of this manipulation? The subconscious behavioral routines of brains? Of which brains? And who is to be granted the power of this manipulation? Whom can we trust to deal responsibly with this power? And how can one deal with it responsibly, if man is not even capable of responsibility? Schmidt-Salomon is a perfect example of the old dictum that the naturalizing enlightenment cancels itself out. It is the abolition of reason in the name of reason.
Alas, Schmidt-Salomon himself doesn't seem able to adhere to his own maxim of refraining from moral appeals: he advises the "brains" to "perhaps in fact concern themselves somewhat more intensely with the abolition of the hypothesis of free will and its corresponding demystification of good and evil." He therefore advises beings who presumably are not capable of acting freely out of insight to do just that—act out of insight.
As one can see, Schmidt-Salomon is one of the many naturalists who cannot follow through on their own theory. They avail themselves of the very thing they set out to deny. They live in a constant performative contradiction. The reason for this is that, in spite of their denial of human nature, they remain human beings who act, think, and speak responsibly and morally. In this sense, an indelible remainder of that wisdom of which Szczypiorski spoke is also to be found in the naturalists. By virtue of this tenacious wisdom, the naturalists themselves serve as the best rebuttal of naturalism.
—This article was adapted from an essay that originally appeared in the German-language periodical Vatican-magazin (vatican-magazin.de). It was translated for the author by Elizabeth Moritz.
Engelbert Recktenwald is a German Catholic priest in the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter (FSSP) who studied philosophy under Robert Spaemann. Among his publications is a book about St. Anselm (Die ethische Struktur des Denkens von Anselm von Canterbury).
A Journal of Mere Christianity—Delivered to Your Door
- Essays on theology, culture, and the Church
- Contributors from across the Christian traditions
Six print issues (one year) of Touchstone, plus full online access and PDF downloads for only $39.95.
Get a one-year full-access subscription to the Touchstone online archives for only $19.95.
bulk subscriptions
Order Touchstone subscriptions in bulk and save $10 per sub! Each subscription includes 6 issues of Touchstone plus full online access to touchstonemag.com—including archives, videos, and pdf downloads of recent issues for only $29.95 each! Great for churches or study groups.
Transactions will be processed on a secure server.
more on philosophy from the online archives
24.2—March/April 2011
Certain Death & the Last Lectures of Socrates & Jesus by Randall B. Smith
25.6—Nov/Dec 2012
The Loss of Aristotelian Logic & the Social, Moral & Sexual Consequences by Peter Kreeft
more from the online archives
32.2—March/April 2019
on Preserving Physical & Spiritual Nourishment by Nathanael Devlin
18.2—March 2005
On Conservatism as Vexation, Vanity & Near Impossibility by Graeme Hunter
calling all readers
Please Donate
"There are magazines worth reading but few worth saving . . . Touchstone is just such a magazine."
—Alice von Hildebrand
"Here we do not concede one square millimeter of territory to falsehood, folly, contemporary sentimentality, or fashion. We speak the truth, and let God be our judge. . . . Touchstone is the one committedly Christian conservative journal."
—Anthony Esolen, Touchstone senior editor
