Call me crazy, but I think unflinching analysis is pretty good! What is the alternative?
first, i disagree with the author of the original essay. the rationalist community clearly does engage with emotional and moral realities.
that said, from a faith-based (as opposed to acts-based) perspective, the supposed lack of engagement does undermine the arguments made. it is not so easy to make this perspective clear, according to the rules of logical argument. but my best attempt is something like so:
humans have many drives. most of these are self-serving, if not outright selfish. only one (“compassionate attending” maybe?) is good and just and trustworthy. in the absence of that one, some other motivation will come to bear. this other motivation cannot be trusted, and will bend the argument to its dark designs. to avoid this, one must ~have a pure heart~ engage with the emotional and moral realities.
essentially this rejects the (implicit) acts-based claim that “the provenance of an argument does not matter to its soundness”: we are, after all, fallible humans. and for any argument in a domain rich enough for moral philosophy to matter, we will find enough complexity that we should not trust the argument just because it seems sound.
again, i reject the author’s premise. as well, i myself am not perfectly sympathetic to the faith-based perspective. however, i think it is worth giving it a fair shake.
first, i disagree with the author of the original essay. the rationalist community clearly does engage with emotional and moral realities.
that said, from a faith-based (as opposed to acts-based) perspective, the supposed lack of engagement does undermine the arguments made. it is not so easy to make this perspective clear, according to the rules of logical argument. but my best attempt is something like so:
humans have many drives. most of these are self-serving, if not outright selfish. only one (“compassionate attending” maybe?) is good and just and trustworthy. in the absence of that one, some other motivation will come to bear. this other motivation cannot be trusted, and will bend the argument to its dark designs. to avoid this, one must ~have a pure heart~ engage with the emotional and moral realities.
essentially this rejects the (implicit) acts-based claim that “the provenance of an argument does not matter to its soundness”: we are, after all, fallible humans. and for any argument in a domain rich enough for moral philosophy to matter, we will find enough complexity that we should not trust the argument just because it seems sound.
again, i reject the author’s premise. as well, i myself am not perfectly sympathetic to the faith-based perspective. however, i think it is worth giving it a fair shake.