Piggybacking off of it, suppose the man is struggling in life and otherwise doesn’t get any exercise. Suppose that Sunday morning digging really improves his health and quality of life a lot. Is the activity justified?
How about if he’s depressed? What if he isn’t digging by himself but is instead digging with a tight nit community of other gold believers? The digging provides him with feelings of warmth and connection that make life worth living. Is it justified then?
Where I’m coming from is that, supposing we view truth as an end in-and-of-itself, I want to question how much weight we give to truth relative to other ends we are interested in. I think that regardless of whether you are a consequentialist or virtue ethicist or deontologist or whatever, non-naive versions of these philosophies will weigh different considerations against one another.[1]
And so I don’t think OP’s position here indicates that he assigns a low value to truth. I moreso suspect that he is weighing truth against other important considerations and feels that the calculus comes out in favor of sacrificing some truth in favor of other important things.
And so I don’t think OP’s position here indicates that he assigns a low value to truth. I moreso suspect that he is weighing truth against other important considerations and feels that the calculus comes out in favor of sacrificing some truth in favor of other important things.
Just to be clear, I don’t think you have to sacrifice any truth at all and that it’s possible to engage with religion, assuming the right religion, that actually aids in your pursuit of truth by helping you develop greater psychological safety to have to courage to face what is so.
That said, if you really wanted to practice, say, Pentecostalism, you would in fact have to give up some truth to get benefits from it. I would not advocate that rationalists become Pentecostalist on this basis, and instead suggestion religions where engagement need not involve a truth tradeoff.
That’s an excellent thought experiment!
Piggybacking off of it, suppose the man is struggling in life and otherwise doesn’t get any exercise. Suppose that Sunday morning digging really improves his health and quality of life a lot. Is the activity justified?
How about if he’s depressed? What if he isn’t digging by himself but is instead digging with a tight nit community of other gold believers? The digging provides him with feelings of warmth and connection that make life worth living. Is it justified then?
Where I’m coming from is that, supposing we view truth as an end in-and-of-itself, I want to question how much weight we give to truth relative to other ends we are interested in. I think that regardless of whether you are a consequentialist or virtue ethicist or deontologist or whatever, non-naive versions of these philosophies will weigh different considerations against one another.[1]
And so I don’t think OP’s position here indicates that he assigns a low value to truth. I moreso suspect that he is weighing truth against other important considerations and feels that the calculus comes out in favor of sacrificing some truth in favor of other important things.
Thanks to Gordon for helping me understand this in this dialogue!
Just to be clear, I don’t think you have to sacrifice any truth at all and that it’s possible to engage with religion, assuming the right religion, that actually aids in your pursuit of truth by helping you develop greater psychological safety to have to courage to face what is so.
That said, if you really wanted to practice, say, Pentecostalism, you would in fact have to give up some truth to get benefits from it. I would not advocate that rationalists become Pentecostalist on this basis, and instead suggestion religions where engagement need not involve a truth tradeoff.