As this recent Gallup survey shows, atheists continue to be America's most unpopular minority group. Gallup asked respondents the following question:
Between now and the 2008 political conventions, there will be discussion about the qualifications of presidential candidates — their education, age, religion, race, and so on. If your party nominated a generally well-qualified person for president who happened to be [insert group name], would you vote for that person?
Fully 53% state that they would not vote a for an atheist candidate nominated by their own party, as compared to 43% who would refuse to vote for a homosexual candidate, 24% for a Mormon, 12% for a Hispanic, 11% for a woman, and single digit percentages who would refuse to support a black, Jewish, or Catholic candidate. Although the Gallup survey doesn't include these groups, Pew surveys conducted in 2005 show that 38% of Americans are categorically unwilling to support a Muslim candidate of their own party, and 15% feel the same way about an Evangelical Christian.
Some of this opposition to candidates from particular groups may be a result of using information short cuts rather than simple bigotry. For example, a survey respondent might be opposed to an atheist candidate not because he has anything against atheists as such, but because he knows that most atheists are political liberals; he doesn't want to support a candidate that is on the political left, and as a result of "rational ignorance" (discussed in my recent article here) he doesn't want to take the time to study the candidate's issue positions in detail.
Unfortunately, however, it is likely that bigotry is the main factor, even if it is not the only one. After all, the survey asks whether voters are willing to support a candidate from a particular group nominated by their own party, and the party is unlikely to nominate someone whose ideology is greatly at variance with that of the party's base. Moreover, the percentage of respondents unwilling to support a black or Jewish candidate is negligible, despite the fact that these two groups are probably even more overwhelmingly made up of liberal Democrats than are atheists. The Gallup survey also indicates that those unwilling to vote for an atheist candidate include 33% of self-identified liberals, and 52% of "moderates;" these two groups are unlikely to categorically reject an atheist candidate merely because they perceive them as liberal.
Finally, it is worth noting that the 53% figure for those unwilling to support an atheist presidential candidate of their own party is statistically indistinguishable from the 50% who, in another recent survey said they had a "mostly" or "very" unfavorable view of atheists, and the 51% who believe that "[i]t is necessary to believe in God in order to be moral and have good values" (see here). The 50% figure, by the way, is much higher than that for any other other minority group, with Muslims a distant second at a 31% "mostly" or "very" unfavorable rating.
Thus, it is likely that a high percentage of those unwilling to support an atheist candidate for the presidency even if that candidate were nominated by their own party do so because of a generalized prejudice against atheists, not because they are relying on information shortcuts.
As I have argued in the Legal Times Article linked above, and here , the widespead prejudice against atheists is in large part due to the false perception that atheism is equivalent to immorality or moral relativism. Since this post is already getting too long, I'm not going to explain in detail why this widespread view is wrong. However, for those interested, I covered that issue in the Legal Times article and in the post linked in the first part of this paragraph.
Whether or not one believes that God exists is quite a fundamental aspect of one's world view that potentially affects every aspect of one's decision process. Further, there is a difference between atheism and agnosticism. It is completely rational for someone to think that agnosticism is acceptable but to have a major problem with someone who denies the possibility of a Creator God. If one thinks that atheism is irrational, then doggone if it's not pretty important to wonder whether the person is fit to be given such huge power as president.
This is far deeper than liberal/conservative.
For the record, I believe in God but would not have a problem with an atheist as president. I just sharply question whether it's bigotry for someone to have such a concern. That's painting with the same broad brush that you accuse the anti-atheist of using.
It's a deep pschological mystery to me how those who believe in God can't begin to understand how anyone else cannot, and those who don't believe in God can't understand how anyone else can.
Insertion used to demonstrate appalling bigotry.
I hope it's obvious from my post, but I'm sure the number of people who wouldn't vote for Jews or blacks remains much smaller than the number who wouldn't vote for atheists. I'm just commenting that the relative distance between them may be somewhat exaggerated.
It's not like these atheists on the news are running around persecuting Christians for their beliefs; they are just publicly disagreeing with Christianity, and encouraging people to believe what they believe.
Good for goose = ?
As opposed to, say, any other belief structure? It's easier to argue that having a religious faith, of any particular sort or of any kind in general, is irrational, than it is to argue that atheism is irrational.
On another but equally relevant note, I can't remember ANY Demcratic or Republican presidential candidate who didn't have any "irrational" views, even leaving religion out of it. If "not irrational" is your touchstone, don't vote at all. As any economist will tell you, THAT's rational!
Do you consider it bigotry if I were to say I would never consider voting for a Catholic? Would that change is I said 'Jewish' instead?
Granted, there can be reasons other than bigotry for holding such opinions, but given the widespread dislike of athiests, religious bigotry is likely the best explanation.
No fair switching the goalposts.
I have a serious problem with the part I quoted above. First, as people have mentioned, a person's faith says a whole lot about the person himself. It's not a prejudice, it IS the information. People choose their faith, and they choose to live it. If someone chooses to live by a faith requiring strict practices and personal sacrifice, that says a whole lot about that person. If someone chooses a religion based primarily on literal textualism, that too gives me information as a voter.
This is called informed voting. In an age when I'll never meet a candidate, I can't imagine a better criterion for judging a candidate than the religion he chooses to live his life by. The only way to see this as "prejudice" or "bigotry" is to believe that all faiths, including atheism, are essentially the same, which, as a person of faith, I reject.
Atheism has the additional singular quality of believing in the non-existence of God. This means, inescapably, that the atheistic candidate believes in a framework of of the universe, of humanity, of good, of evil, of life itself, that is fundamentally different than my own. This is not a trivial or factor. Nor is it something to be shrugged off as a "prejudice" or "bigotry".
Tell me, what else, if not a disagreement about the very nature of existence might be more important to me as a voter?
Unfortunately for atheists, there is no filter through which their beliefs can be reconciled with those of believers. As a result, religious people rightly see atheists as people who are wrong about one of the central facts of the universe and human existence. Sorry, Ilya, but I just don't see how voting against someone who you view as totally wrong is any form of "discrimination." I wouldn't vote for someone who believed the world was flat, either.
In each of these cases, religious choice reflects a certain world view, and I think voters can reasonably conclude that that world view sufficiently differs from their own and their expectations for the office that they're voting for that subscribing to that world view disqualifies them from consideration. I wouldn't vote for a socialist for president.
People choose to be atheists, and atheism reflects a world-view that many voters simply find problematic. I'd certainly prefer it if people didn't find atheism problematic, but it seems at least as intolerant to identify this objection as "bigotry" rather than an honest intellectual disagreement, and doesn't seem to be a productive means of reducing that 53% figure.
If voting against people with ideas I disagree with is intolerant, then I don't want to be tolerant. I guess I'm just a bigoted against liberals! :)
"Atheist" is generally assumed to mean: dead-certain that God does not exist. "Agnostic" is generally assumed to mean: doesn't know if God exists (as I understand it, a wrong view -- the better description being "the answer to whether God exists is unknowable"). Faith is so intertwined with doubt in most people's experience in the physical world that they feel a kinship with "agnostics" as they understand them. What they don't understand is how one can be certain that something so much a part of their lives does not exist.
The line about imposing beliefs was meant to demonstrate the fundamentally irrelevant nature of religious beliefs as a qualification for government in a pluralistic society. The only reason we should care whether a methodist or a lutheran is running the government is if we want the officeholder to be imposing one or the other set of views on society.
It isn't voting against people you disagree with that is intolerant; it is making voting decisions solely on the basis of someone's religion, regardless of any other set of beliefs or abilities that person might hold, that is intolerant.
For a person's beliefs to be important evidence of their qualifications is perfectly acceptable; for them to completely decide the question is disturbing.
Atheist: I respect your right believe in fictitious beings.
Theist: Ummm, thanks. Who are you?
Atheist: I'm running for President. So tell me again, why do we allow churches to qualify as non-profits for tax purposes?
Theist: I am so not voting for you.
Personally (aka unscientifically), I suspect many theists assume that atheists in general have little or no regard for theism, having come to the opposite conclusions re the big guy(s)/gal(s) in the sky. It's not a far step from there to conclude an atheist can/will act against (or merely without regard for) a theist's perceived best interests.
The survey seems to confirm that many people hold religion as more important than political affiliation and fear attacks from (perceived) anti-religious outsiders, which doesn't seem too terribly surprising.
What if you don't disagree about anything else? If a candidate should happen along who supports every policy you support but happens to be an atheist and, for that reason, you refuse to vote for him/her, what does that make you?
This, of course, is a very poor description of what most atheists believe; most atheists would say that they believe that an entity that corresponds with the standard theistic descriptions of god probably does not exist. Most atheists do not claim infallibility on this question; rather, they claim only that the weight of present evidence and reason supports their position.
Could libertarianism be considered a reprehensible belief to some? For those who think libertarianism is a reprehensible belief, is hostility towards libertarians appropriate? If not, why not?
Somin goes on to distinguish political ideology from religious ideology, overall suggesting that hostility towards individuals is at least sometimes acceptable due to their political ideology, but not due to their religious ideology.
The political ideology/religious ideology distinction Somin makes is weak. If hostility towards an individual based on his or her beliefs is appropriate, there doesn't seem to be a good reason to exclude religious beliefs. Is it appropriate to exhibit hostility towards communists, who may or may not be relatively powerless and harmless, versus people who beleive in human sacrifice (like the Aztecs, for example) or polygamy (like Mormons back in the day) which one might view as threatening and harmful. I don't buy it. A better view is that simple categorization of beliefs as religious versus non-religious is inadequate to explain when hostility towards individuals for their beliefs is justified.
Actually, from a Kantian perspective, utilitarianism is not a system of moral values, but is actually a form of moral relativism. Perhaps more sophisticated forms of utilitarianism can escape this largely justified charge. But in any case, even sophisticated utilitarianisms near exclusive focus on consequences might nonetheless strike a Kantian as lacking in moral discernment.
Further, as Somin mentioned, atheists are more affluent than average. Since many crimes are motivated by economic gain, we would expect atheists to commit less crime due to their better economic conditions. If money has a diminishing marginal utility, the gain from stealing is lower and we would expect those who are well off to engage in such behavior less often, even if they were morally typical.
It is not enough merely to have "lower crime rates" or "lower rates of social pathologies such as teen pregnancy." If one merely behaves in conformance with law and intelligent social practice, but not for good reasons, that is not virtuous and it is not moral. That is, if the only thing keeping an atheist from robbing a bank is affluence and the only thing keeping them from raping their neighbor is fear of getting caught, and the only thing keeping them from getting pregnant as teens is calculated self interest that does not, as Somin writes in his Legal Times article, "refute the claim that atheists are uniquely immoral." To be moral, one needs to do more than merely obey the law. If you obey the law merely because of fear of getting caught or fear of consequences to yourself, that law abiding behavior does not refute the claim that you are immoral.
Unlike Jews, atheists are not well-organized. This alone can explain their lack of political power. Which shows that Somin has failed to really demonstrate that prejudice explains the lack of atheist political power. The more persuasive piece of evidence regarding political dislike of atheists is the number of people who self-report being unwilling to vote for an atheists, rather than the actual number of atheists in office.
All this brings up my next question. Somin has argued that being an atheist does not imply that one is morally relativistic. In other words, if someone is an atheist, it does not mean with 100% probability that they are morally relativistic. But this does not really address the issue, which is whether they are probabilistically more likely to be morally relativistic compared to other groups. That is, it may be the case that atheists are more likely to gravitate towards moral relativism thus atheism might be a good "information shortcut." Somin must do more if he is going to refute the information shortcut idea.
This brings me to my final question. Are atheists more likely to be libertarians? To the extent that libertarians think human dignity is defined by consent alone, they are moral relativists. After all, under this view, there are no (or very few) substantive actions that are categorically unacceptable if consent is forthcoming.
Do atheism, libertarianism, and moral relativism go together? That is, if you have one, are you more likely to have another?
Now, that is an interesting question.
I'm sure you're elevating religion to (pardon the legalese, but it's convenient) "protected class" status. It's not. I don't disagree that at some point, discrimination against a religious belief becomes "bigotry," hence my earlier comment about taking their kids away, but we're talking about VOTING for them! I can categorically refuse to ADD MY POLITICAL SUPPORT to a person who holds beliefs contrary to mine without being called a bigot, can't I? If not, then I really don't care if I'm called a bigot anymore because the word is meaningless.
Your article says Congress has one member who is a conservative Republican homosexual. Who is he/she, and what district does he/she represent?
"A person's religion says a lot about the person, and refusing to vote for someone who disagrees with me on a fundamental issue like religion is not bigotry."
Gotta disagree here. Not trusting atheists is biggotry. Atheism is not a religion nor is there any one such thing as "Atheism." It means many things to many people. From its roots, "atheism" means "with out god." However, we are all atheists, whether we are atheists in regards to Ganesha or Zues or the god of Abraham. The people we generally call "atheists" just believe in one less god, and for that they are hated and distrusted. That is bigotry.
Clearly atheists are the last group that it is PC to hate.
Personally, I don't think a person's religion says much of anything about the person, per se. Virtually every strain of human behavior, good and bad, has its examples among people of every type of faith, or lack thereof.
I'm not sure if it's bigotry (because that term tends to connote discrimination on race/gender/religion sort of lines) but I think it is reprehensible. If one believes that a candidate is well-qualified, that he would promote views similar to the voters while in office, and that conflicting views that he holds would not interfere with his ability to perform the duties of his office in an acceptable manner, then it is intolerant (even if not bigoted) not to vote for him solely on the basis of that disagreement.
If he's referring to an out, Republican member of Congress, I'd guess he's referring to Arizona congressman Jim Kolbe, though I thought Kolbe didn't run for re-election last November. If he's referring to closted Republican members of Congress, there are probably several, certainly in the House, possibly one or two in the Senate.
(Similarly, we (again, as a populace) have a strong preference for candidates with both spouces and offspring not because we think that that makes them or indicates that they are better people, but rather because we want our leaders to have hostages to the long-term fortune of the country and world...)
Sorry, that's just nonsense on stilts.
You wouldn't call a black person who refused to vote for a redneck Southerner in 1955 or 1960 a bigot, would you? You'd call him a rational voter who doesn't want to vote for someone who hates him and everything he stands for.
Atheists assert a truth-claim about God--that He does not exist. This truth-claim is not only in direct opposition to the one I make--that He exists--but is further supplemented by other truth-claims that religion is evil--indeed that it is the source of most of the world's ills.
Not what you believe? Too bad...the public face of atheism is Richard Dawkins and his like...aggressive attackers of the believing majority. And his arguments are equally "unsupported" in a "scientific" sense, since the proposition that God does not exist is not only not falsifiable, it's logically unprovable (as you cannot prove a negative).
If I have to carry the can for Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson, atheists have to do the same for Richard Dawkins e tutti quanti.
If you want to call me a bigot for categorically rejecting those who would silence me and mine in the name of making the world safe...feel free: after all, it's (still) a free country.
In a sense that's true, but it doesn't change anything. If I refuse to vote for a black because I think blacks are stupid, that is both 1) "informed" voting, because I'm using the candidate's race as evidence for some trait that affects how well the candidate can do his job, and 2) bigotry. At the same time.
If a candidate's religion demands that he eats babies, and I decide not to vote for him on that basis, that isn't bigotry.
If a candidate is Jewish, and I believe that Jews eat babies, and I decide not to vote for him on that basis, that *is* bigotry.
Yet both of these are judging the candidate by the way he lives his life. The difference is that the first judgment is based off of truth, and the second one is based off of a bigoted belief. Judging someone by the way he lives his life is bigotry if your conclusions about how he lives his life make bigoted assumptions. This is also true of judging atheists by the way they live their life. At some point, the judgment must be based on the bigoted assumption "atheists are less moral than believers".
Well, religion was a protected class before there were protected classes; it's a first amendment value, not a fourteenth amendment one. But we aren't talking about law, we are talking about what private behavior is or isn't blameworthy. I tend to think we have a duty when we vote to support the candidate we believe will maximize societal well-being, so from that perspective, it is blameworthy to refuse to vote for a candidate solely on the basis of a reason which is not very relevant to that consideration.
And when your actions (even in the voting booth) are indicative of a pervasive hostility to a particular group of people based on their religious beliefs (and by that I mean hostility to the people, not merely their beliefs) then yes, I tend to view that as bigoted.
I this is a rather expansive view of moral relativism. The consent of another is an external condition. Is the difference between sex and rape morally relativistic?
The black person who refuses to vote for the redneck bases that on true beliefs of how rednecks behave.
The believer who refuses to vote for the atheist bases that on false, bigoted, beliefs, about atheists.
Just because the two situations can be described in a grammatically similar way doesn't make them similar.
Yes, the vast majority of Jews and blacks are liberals, but there are well-known specific examples of Jews and blacks who are definitely not liberal, and even distinctly conservative: Rice, Powell, Thomas, Connerly, Keyes; the "neo-conservatives" (who are perceived to be all Jewish). A pollee can easily imagine a Jewish or black candidate who represents the conservative position; or is socially conservative enough to be acceptable to centrists and moderates (Lieberman).
But there are few if any prominent examples of conservative atheists. Atheism is perceived as a choice which places the chooser with cultural radicals - with Queer Nation, Peter Singer, riot grrls, and bigots of the Amanda Marcotte stripe.
Jews and Christians agree to disagree about religion. Jews never condemn Christianity as such; prominent Christians (the Pope!) explicitly approve Judaism. Moslems are in trouble because they are seen as intolerant.
Atheists are also seen as intolerant. Attacks on Christmas displays or the minuscule cross in Los Angeles' emblem. Some very prominent atheists (Dawkins, Dennett) don't just reject religion, they condemn it ferociously. Militant atheists like Marcotte often condemn not only religion but traditional culture in general.
And there are no counter-examples. There are "libertarian conservatives" who disclaim God, and support gun rights and lower taxes, but most such are too libertarian about pornography, dope, abortion, immigration, and same-sex marriage to get anywhere in American politics. There are no visible "Atheists For Life" or "NASCAR rationalists".
So it makes sense that a lot of Americans won't vote for a hypothetical atheist.
I know there's a difference between "atheist" and "agnostic." I was just curious how people would react to "agnostic." Should have been more clear in my post.
I strongly suspect that the refusal to vote for atheists by and large is more like the second type of bias.
Can you tell us how athiesm effects "every aspect of one's decision process?" How does the decision of the athiest differ from that of the believer? On what issues would the decisions differ? Would all believers make the same decision on these issues? Is there a single issue on which all believers make the same decision? Is there a single issue on which all athiests make the same decision? What issues?
1. Atheism is a belief system and a choice usually, not an upbringing, ethnicity or heritage, so it can't be compared with some of the other groups apples to apples.
2. For this reason, it is also rational and not bigotry or bias - if I don't want a president that believes aliens invented the Internet, or that beleives the Earth is 6000 years old or that believes Kim Jong Il is a good man, well I should be choosing my president according to beleifs. So, while it may be disappointing to some of us that people want their president to be religious, it is perfectly valid for people to use the candidate's religion as a factor.
3. Re rational ignorance, you say "Unfortunately, however, it is likely that bigotry is the main factor, even if it is not the only one. After all, the survey asks whether voters are willing to support a candidate from a particular group nominated by their own party, and the party is unlikely to nominate someone whose ideology is greatly at variance with that of the party's base."
But a given candidate will have some and not other things in common with their party. I will be more likely to vote for a Republican if I knew he or she was not religious or less religious, and less likely if he or she is evangelical or strongly religious. Why? Don't I trust that they will have the same beliefs as me considering they are Republican and not Democrat? No. I, as a libertarian, will be more likely to agree with a less religious Republican.
4. Also you say "Moreover, the percentage of respondents unwilling to support a black or Jewish candidate is negligible, despite the fact that these two groups are probably even more overwhelmingly made up of liberal Democrats than are atheists." -- But there is nothing inherant in being black or Jewish that would indicate that you must be liberal. If you ask someone "would you vote for a black person if he or she were conservative?" and the person asked has an easy time imagining a conservative black (there have even been some on tv!) whereas you ask a social conservative religious person whether they could vote for a conservative atheist and they will tell you that its a contradiction in terms. They can't imagine it and so they won't say yes.
5. Finally, it is well known that people lie on this kind of test. They know that they are supposed to be colorblind and unbiased and so you ask whether they could vote for a conservative black and they will say yes because it doesn't go against their conservatism and they are supposed to be okay with a black president. They feel no such obligation to lie about voting against an atheist - there is no societal rule that we must accept atheist presidents. You can call this bigotry of our society and it may be, but if people are lying about the other minorities then there is no proof that the bigotry is much worse about atheism - it could just be quieter. Hopefully this isn't a major factor of course.
The existence of (a) God(s) is certainly not a "central fact" in any objective sense. And your analogy to a flat earth is fallacious. There is overwhelming objective evidence to show that the earth is not flat. The same is not true regarding God's existence.
I agree that some people assume that. However, others use atheist to mean a lack of belief in God. There's a difference in not believing in God, and believing there is no God.
Bertrand Russell described it as being a "teapot atheist." I don't believe there is an undetectable china teapot orbiting around the sun between Earth and Mars, but I can't prove there isn't, and I'm not "dead certain" none exists.
Nevertheless, I agree that many people responding to the poll might assume "atheist" means what you describe.
Finally, I understand and accept that many religious people may consider atheism a legitimate factor in choosing a candidate. I think you make a good point that to a religious person, someone of another faith could be someone who just found a different path. Further, I agree that it's reasonable for a religious person to consider a candidate's atheism as potentially relevant.
But I also agree with marghlar. If you could never consider voting for an atheist, no matter what their other qualities, then it's incumbent on you to show why atheism all by itself makes someone unfit for office. Otherwise, it's bigotry.
You say "To the extent that libertarians think human dignity is defined by consent alone, they are moral relativists. After all, under this view, there are no (or very few) substantive actions that are categorically unacceptable if consent is forthcoming."
But I am not sure how that is morally relativistic. It can be a moral absolute that there must be informed consent and free choice, that every society must protect the basic dignity of humanity by respecting inalienable rights of life, liberty and property. It is not relativistic if this crosses all cultural, religious and national boundaries across all history. Just because the moral standard involves consent and hence outcomes may differ does not make the morality itself relative.
It is one standard, like democracy is one standard whether the people vote in Democrats or Republicans for example.
I live in Louisiana and an Indian-American was in the gubernatorial runoff in '03-- he lost in large part because turnout softened dramatically among the white rednecks whose conservative ideology was quite well aligned with his.
No, he makes foreign policy, makes recommendations to the Congress regarding whether the budget for the military will be increased, or for the National Parks. He talks with other world leaders, he uses the bully pulpit, mostly for economic reasons, and so on. What does it matter whether he is an atheist or not? Frankly, anyone who would think religion or lack of matters in the voting of a president is basically an idiot. It's like voting for a guy because you think he would make a good drinking buddy. A person's religion can't even give you a sense of where he stands on basic issues: there are Espicopalians who support same-sex marriage, and those who don't. Ditto for the Mormons. You might as well say good looking candidates are more trustworthy. Talk about irrationality!
In RandyWorld, every candidate's religion would be his own business, and not that of anyone else's. Then you might actually have to listen to what a candidate says, and review his or her voting records, instead of just applying meaningless labels to them.
1. Worth noting a difference between the list of how many people wouldn't vote for various minority groups, and how many have a generally unfavorable view of them: homosexuals are not a category in the second list. I'll bet they'd give atheists a run for their money, as they do in the wouldn't-vote-for list; they'd probably at least take second place away from the Muslims.
2. I think you could have a clearly non-bigoted objection to an atheist presidential candidate: you might believe that the existence of God ought to be taught in public schools, or that it's an important duty of the president to pray for his nation, and those might be the most important political issues to you. It's certainly possible to have reasonable problems with those beliefs; but someone who held them could pretty reasonably expect that no atheist candidate would support his position on those issues.
3. Some people seem to be defending the claim that atheism can't provide a rational basis for morality. Question: so what? How many moral people are moral because they've logically proved the value of morality from their metaphysical beliefs, whatever those are? What about a political candidate who believed in God, and believed in an objective system of morality, but hadn't actually done the philosophical work of deriving the second belief from the first? Would that be an unacceptable candidate? If not, what's wrong with an atheist who's irrationally moral?
Most atheists don't go on TV and say that Christians and Jews and Muslims and Hindus are irrational. Most atheists don't go on TV at all.
Most atheists have family members who are religious, and love and care about those family members.
Most atheists don't spend a lot of time thinking about religion ... or about atheism, for that matter. Most atheists are, simply put, irreligious: they're just like anyone else, except they don't have a religion.
As a group, in the United States, atheists don't get in trouble with the law as often as Christians do, and they tend to be better educated. Both of these facts probably have more to do with demographics than with individuals, though.
Most atheists would be rather baffled by the idea that not believing in gods would mean having no morality. After all, most atheists do not run around stealing and raping, any more than most Christians or Jews do. Most atheists have more or less the same notions of what is right and wrong as most religious folks do, with one big exception: religious folks tend to think it's wrong to disbelieve in their religion.
I agree that the survey is probably skewed by the fact that the most public atheists are promoting what might be called anti-God policies, such as taking his name out of the pledge of allegience or off the money, but there are at least some, shall we call them traditionalist atheists, who are ok with leaving those things alone as a token of respect to the past. So I am back to where I started, what is one thing that an atheist President would necessarily do less well than a religious believer? If you don't have a specific answer, but still would never vote for one, then you are a bigot.
It is morally relativistic because anything is allowed as long as there is consent. There are no substantive actions that would be considered to violate human dignity per se.
It is not relativistic with respect to the consent, but with respect to all substantive actions. Any substantive action can be considered is okay, as long as their is consent. This is definitely morally relativistic.
But its not bigotry. 99.9% of Americans would call me "Christian" just because I have no Jewish or Muslim or Hindu or Buddhist etc in my family-religion-tree and if you go back far enough you can shake out a Christian. I guess I just see beliefs as distinct from background, and I don't think people have a problem with atheist heritage except to defend why your family had certain beliefs. I certainly defend my right to judge candidates on their religious beliefs along with all other beliefs.
I think a critical question when it comes to sex is whether one party is using the other person to get off, versus interacting with them as an end. If someone does not consent, you can bet that they are also being used. So, consent is necessary, but not sufficient, for sexual interactions to not violate human dignity.
It is possible to use someone sexually without raping them. I think libertarians are moral relativists because they would deny this, thinking that any action is acceptable as long as consent is forthcoming.
I must confess that I'm a bigot when it comes to presidential stupidity, and therefore I would not vote for such a candidate.
It's circular, one might say the same thing about gays 50 years ago or Catholics 100 years ago. Eventually, for atheists to reach acceptance, one has to start having openly atheistic elected officials, common enough and visible enough that people are no longer shocked that someone is an atheist and are willing to consider them on their merits. Will that happen any time soon? Probably not.
Viscus: Once again, I take issue with how expansively you define moral relativism. What counts a "substantive action?"
We don't outlaw the substantive action of shooting a gun -- we outlaw the substantive action of shooting a gun when it is aimed at someone's head, and the shooter is not acting in self-defense, and is in control of his body, etc.
We don't outlaw the substantive action of picking up a $100 bill and walking away - we outlaw taking that money when it belongs to someone else, and that person has not given you permission to take it, etc.
Most on point: we don't outlaw sex -- we outlaw rape.
Consent vel non of another is a fairly ubiquitous part of criminal laws which are not normally labeled morally relativistic.
Can you clarify what you mean by a "substantive action" and whether you consider the examples above exercises of moral relativism?
tell me one thing that a president that believed the world was flat would do less well than one that believes its round. Trade? Foeign policy? Maybe, but if Air Force One takes him there, it doesn't really matter if he doesn't know how. What about one who beleives that the Earth is only 6000 year old, or 230 years old - hey, maybe nothing existed before America. Can't name a specific policy? What if the candiate is a Scientologist? Or believes in aliens?
Just think about all the beliefs a candidate could have that might change your view of them-- your view of their ability to lead, your view of their broader belief system and the way they may choose policies, your view of their thought process, what shapes their morality, world view, etc. You can't judge any person - politician, friend, employee - without taking into account the beliefs of the person.
Should we take their word for everything even if we can't ask about a specific policy - or should we try to understand the person more broadly by understanding their world view? Its absurd to ignore it and pretend it means nothing.
Now it's a little clearer to me that we may be on different tracks. I think of libertarianism as purely a political belief system. There are many philosophical (and perhaps even religious) trains that can lead one to political libertarianism. Many libertarians believe in a large difference between which actions are immoral and which should be proscribed by gov't (consider objectivism).
I think you might be extrapolating backwards from the political beliefs to a philosophy that isn't there, or at least that many libertarians do not share.
You seem to take the philosophically indefensible position that all ethics that are not deontic are relativistic. That is simply false. Utilitarianism is explicitly universal; it is believed by its proponents to apply to all people, in all places at all times.
You're using the term "moral relativism" in a very non-standard way. Generally, a moral relativist is taken to be someone who believes (1) that there are no robustly universal action-guiding moral facts and (2) that moral judgments always and only express group-relative norms. Someone who says that an act that A performs on B is morally wrong just in case B does not consent *is* making a claim about a universal moral principle; it's just a claim that you disagree with. (Nobody actually holds a consent view that simplistic, of course, but you get the idea.) Using "moral relativism" for this kind of garden-variety first-order disagreement blurs the important distinction between metaethics and normative ethics.
If you want to have a serious conversation about this, pick a topic on which reasonable people can and do disagree, and then explain to us why one particular belief on that topic ought to exclude a person from consideration for public office.
Is it fair to assume that every atheist is Madelyn Murray O'Hair or similar deranged or dishonest people? Not at all. But nor is it terribly surprising, when the atheists that the ACLU works on behalf of are such astonishing pieces of work.
A person's religion says a lot about the person, and refusing to vote for someone who disagrees with me on a fundamental issue like religion is not bigotry.
As an atheist, a lot of this stuff scares me. Two things.
#1) Note that the poll posited an OTHERWISE WELL-QUALIFIED candidate. No person has identified a single issue where being an atheist would cause someone to vote in a certain way in our secular government.
I'm an atheist, and I would fight like hell to defend freedom of religion, but religious people would never ever ever vote for me just because of the label.
#2) I know it is established political fact, but voting for the person "most like me" is still a terrible idea. If you want to see you in office, run yourself. Otherwise, try asking which of the candidates will actually do the best job. (Several of the commentators virtually admit that they would vote for a theist over an atheist, even though the atheist would agressively back political causes they believe in.)
Daniel Chapman:
OK, easy. You have identified a political issue where you differ with the politician in question. Private religious belief is not supposed to be political. (Ex. The no religious test clause of the Constitution.)
David Hecht:
David, if you had read a word of Richard Dawkins then you would know that your words are utter BS. In fact, I think he spends about half a chapter of "The God Delusion" explaining exactly why he doesn't argue that God doesn't exist because you can't prove a negative.
Counterfactual:
Nicely put.
Is it frightening to think that the only thing that stands between a religious person and that person committing a crime is a book?
"Indeed, when you can provide to me a principled basis why atheism is more similar to flat-earthism than is any major religious belief system, I'll start to take you seriously."
I certainly can't! I happen to think, like my other examples (e.g. 6000 year old Earth) that the religious tend to have the more difficult to support theories.
I wondered whether someone was going to make that mistake which you are making- that I am claiming atheism is an unsupportable or bizarre belief. If you go back and read my posts you'll see that I never made this claim and rather that I am on the other side - I would find it hard to vote to vote for a young-Earth bible type.
However, just as I form opinions about the world views of politicians who believe or claim to beleive that the bible is literal and so forth, so I expect them to form opinions about my worldview based on my beliefs.
Often, consent is a necessary condition for human dignity, but is not sufficient.
With respect to criminal law, it makes sense to make consent a defense, to the extent that individual's motives for engaging in actions are not easily provable. In this way, consent can be considered an "information shortcut." We know that any sexual interaction without consent is one where one person is using another and thus violating them.
If we could tell with 100% certainty that someone was sexually using another person, I would have no problem punishing them, regardless of consent. (I might not make the punishment as harsh as for rape as without consent, since the psychological damage when there is no consent is probably more severe.) But the problem is that if we move away from consent, we might end up with a much higher error rate. Allowing consent as a defense is consistent with giving criminal defendants the benefit of the doubt and putting the burden of proof on the prosecutor. Some things are very hard to prove. One of them would be that X is using Y for sex. At the end of the day, it is more pragmatism that leads one to make consent a necessary element of rape, or that prevent one from defining a lesser crime of sexual using.
Libertarians are morally relativistic to the extent that they think that any action is morally acceptable as long as consent is forthcoming. That is, they don't believe that any substantive action is wrong if there is consent.
By substantive action, I mean any action that one takes, eliminating consent as a factor. X chopping off Y's hand with a sword is a substantive action. Y consenting goes to X's state of mind. In some cases, consent does justify X's action (a sword fight) in others, it does not (Y is depressed or thinks they deserve it for jaywalking, etc. and X knows that this is the reason Y is consenting).
The problem is not the specific argument that consent should be used as an information shortcut in certain circumstances. That would not make a libertarian or anyone else into a moral relativist. The problem is when they substantively think that any action can be justified when consent is forthcoming. That is, it is not possible to violate human dignity when there is consent.
Obviously, if one becomes more stringent about consent... there is no such thing as consent where someone agrees to let someone chop of their hand with a sword for jaywalking... then this becomes less of a problem. But then, consent becomes less of a thing having to do with agreement and more of a vessel for our moral judgments.
So, when I say that libertarians who think consent is a substitute for human dignity are morally relativistic, I mean it for those who define consent narrowly to mean agreement and have a relatively narrow definition of incapacity. If your argument is that people who want you to chop of their hand due to their guilt over jaywalking lack capacity, then you have moved away from the idea of consent as a substitute for human dignity and are in fact smuggling moral views into the concept of capacity. When you do so, you might as well be honest. You don't think it is right for X to chop of Y's hand for jaywalking, regardless of consent. Even if Y is completely sane and you would enforce any contract they chose to enter.
Of course that is true, but that isn't the subject under discussion. The issue isn't whether a belief contributes to our views of a person as a candidate, it's whether that view disqualifies them from consideration for office. I've never said that one's religious views should play no role in other's voting decisions, only that it is bigoted when they totally control that decision. You might be hesitant to vote for a young-earth creationist, but I assume that there is a set of other facts on which you might still choose to vote for that individual. By contrast, for a person to not believe that the Earth is round is pretty good evidence of a thought disorder in that individual, and would tend to constitute a prima facie reason not to vote them into office.
I just think we should be cautious of bad analogies.
These expressed preferences are often unreliable. When people think of an imaginary atheist candidate, even one of their own party, they assume the guy must not agree with them.
This Wikipedia article asserts that Kolbe is a supporter of "abortion rights". While I'd be skeptical of any politically charged claims in the article, as it appears not to have been written form a NPOV, if the assertion is true, it would make the description of Kolbe as a "conservative Republican" difficult to justify, unless Kolbe is to the right of center in the Republican party in the vast majority of issues. (I believe that the article Prof. Somin liknks to was written before the midterm elections, so I wouldn't use his current status as a former congressman to argue that Prof. Somin was referring to someone else.)
What would you ask (or how would you test) to get more reliable indica? Also, even if as is often suggested survey data such as these tend to indicate norms more than they indicate attitudes, isn't it a problem that our society has such intolerant norms regarding atheists?
I just don't think its bigoted. It may be foolish. It may be a bad idea to vote based on any single given issue (be it abortion or war) or any given piece of information about a candidate (be it an affair he had or an abortion she had or a beleif he or she holds) but it isn't bigoted.
And I may think its as much a thought-disorder (or inability or unwillingness to be rational) that a candidate believes in a young-Earth as I would if they believe in a flat Earth. Either one might be cultish or superstitious to me -- and I have every right to hold that opinion and it isn't bigoted. I may be wrong - the person may be very rational in every other way - but that could be true of the flat-Earth person too.
It is a rational determination not bigotry that would make someone form this kind of opinion about a candidate based on their beliefs.
Would it be bigotry if someone were categorically unwilling to vote for a Jew, a Catholic, a black, a Hispanic? If not, why is the same view as to atheists different? People are certaily allowed to disagree. But others are entitled to criticize the basis of that disagreement, which in some cases may indeed be based on bigotry.
Possibly. But why is this true of atheists to such a vastly greater extent than members of other groups, including relatively unpopular ones such as Muslims. Why do even 1/3 of self-described LIBERALS assume this about atheists, even though most atheists are probably liberal themselves? I suspect that bigotry is a big part of the explanation for the difference.
That said, I don't think abortion rights activists should flat out refuse to vote for "pro-life" candidates. Many people in government do their jobs according to the law and not according to their own preferences -- religious or otherwise. But if a candidate states that he or she will work to curtail or eliminate abortion rights, that is as relevant to how he or she will perform the job as any other stated position.
Because atheism is a belief, not a background. If I am unwilling to vote for anyone that believes the bible is literal (Earth is 6000 years old) does this make me a bigot? What if I think it speaks poorly of their ability to think rationally? If this is not bigoted, then how can you claim the reverse is bigoted? What if to some, atheism is a belief that speaks poorly of one's ability to think rationally or speaks poorly of something else (ability to act morallt for example)?
They might be wrong, just as I might be wrong, but neither is bigoted if its a careful determination regarding worldview which is based on the persons beliefs and philosophy - not their background, heritage, ethnicity, gender or race. Beliefs and philosophy are fair game -- these are things we should be basing our choice on.
Here is a way to think of what I am saying about consent. Think of consent as procedural. Think of the actions that one takes after receiving consent (or not receiving consent) as substantive.
That any substantive action is okay under a libertarian view, as long as there is consent, renders it morally relativistic. There is no substantive action that is condemned when there is consent. Thus, in some context, all substantive actions are okay.
So, if one lives in a different culture, and in that culture consents to be tortured and sacrificed for jaywalking, this would be okay. That is morally relativistic, under a fair definition of the term.
marghlar,
As far as utilitarianism being morally relativistic, some forms of utilitarianism are morally relativistic for reasons different from the reasons that some forms of libertarianism are morally relativistic. Some libertarians have the view that consent will justify any substantive action. That is morally relativistic. Clearly, from a utilitarian standpoint, the question is not whether there is consent, but whether the action will result in the greatest good for the greatest number. Thus, a utilitarian may condemn an action that a libertarian would allow and vice-versa.
Utilitarianism is morally relativistic in the sense that it focuses on the maximization of the good. Now, some forms of utilitarianism could escape moral relativism by suggesting that the good is fixed and universal across cultures and societies. However, when utilitarianism makes use of a subjective utility function, where what is good varies from person to person and from culture to culture, then the label morally relativistic is justifiably applied to it.
Your article says Congress has one member who is a conservative Republican homosexual. Who is he/she, and what district does he/she represent?
At the time, it was Jim Kolbe of Arizona, who has since retired. Steve Gunderson of Wisconsin, who retired a few years earlier was another example, though if I remember right less conservative than Kolbe.
People's religious beliefs (not including atheism) are treated with the same kind of kid gloves that race, gender, country of origin and (in some circles) sexual orientation. In non-political contexts (hiring/social contexts) you can add political viewpoint (democrat, republican, libertarian). So I think it is informative to ask what do these categories have in common.
The answer, it seems to me, is that they are all categories where critiques provoke strong fiery outraged reactions. Knock someone for being black or Irish and you could have a fight on your hands. Imply that women are less competent, Muslims are violent or gays are evil and you could find someone screaming in your face and the evening ruined for everyone.
In short certain categories become off limits for criticism because enough of the group would rather ruin things for everyone than let an insult to their group go unchallenged. It is the social version of the riots about the muslim cartoons but far more insidious. If you think there is even a 10% chance that someone is going to chew you out at a party for a casual remark even the most principled individual is likely to hold their tongue. I mean of all the people on this board who feel strongly that homosexuality is evil and wrong how many do you think wouldn't shy away from voicing it at a party with gay people?
This is why I feel that atheists are getting the shaft because they don't make enough of a scene. If the Jew is asked to eat pork or a muslim asked to partake of the host everyone knows they would refuse even if they must make a scene so no one asks. Yet the fact that atheists everywhere bow to politeness and try to avoid hurt feelings has the net effect that people aren't dissuaded from criticizing or imposing on them.
Sure there is a very small minority of atheists who overreact and take this too far but if more atheists reacted to insults, slander and requests with the same ferocity that the faithful did it would pretty quickly become socially unacceptable to diss atheists and eventually people would actually stop thinking it.
It explains why they have less power than Jews, but does not explain their TOTAL lack of representation in Congress or other branches of government. BTW, most of the Jews in Congress were elected from majority non-Jewish districts, and do not function primarily as representatives of Jewish interests.
Belief in consent as the foundation of morality is not moral relativism. Consent is itself an absolutist value. Moreover, most libertarians are not in fact contractarians, or at least not contractarian all the way down.
Although philosophers also like to use the word, I'm speaking of "truth" in the sense of factual accuracy. It just *isn't true* that Jews eat babies; people who believe that believe it out of bigotry.
And if you really need to ask "what would Arromdee do" when trying to figure out if "Jews eat babies" is true, we'd all be better off if you didn't vote at all.
In some cases, such as the NOI (and to a lesser extent Christian Science), belief in a particular religion commits the believer to a particular set of political stances. If you vote against them because you oppose those policy positions, that is not bigotry. However, as I have emphasized time and again, atheism does NOT commit the atheist to any particular policy positions. Therefore, categorical opposition to all atheists is likely - at least in most cases - to be based on bigotry - either on a bigoted hostility to atheism as such or on a bigoted assumption that atheism necessarily entails morally reprehensible positions that it in fact does not entail.
I agree completely. But I don't think this factor even comes close to fully accounting for the 10 fold difference between the numbers who wouldn't vote for an atheist and those who say they wouldn't vote for a black. Even if the true number of racists or anti-Semites is twice as high as the polls show, it would only get us to 10% not willing to vote for a black, and 14% not willing to vote for a Jew.
I doubt there are very many atheist public figures that are well known to the general public, or indeed any. There are certainly fewer such than Muslim public figures that are seen as anti-Christian, Jewish public figues that are viewed similarly, or black public figures taht are considered anti-white. Yet none of these groups has negative ratings even approaching those of atheists.
I am afraid it is moral relativism. It one thing to say it is an important part of morality is one thing, but to say it is the foundation is another. Making it the foundation any substantive action permissable, regardless of evil motive as long as consent is forthcoming. It definitely is morally relativistic.
Ilya Somin:
To the extent that libertarians move away from consent as the sole factor or as the practically only important factor or the overwhelmingly most important factor to be considered, they might move away from being morally relativistic. I think in fact many libertarians look at consent as overwhelmingly determinative. To the extent they do, it is fair to say they are morally relativistic, because this view renders nearly any substantive action permissable.
Overall, the precise countours of belief among actual libertarians is an interesting empirical question.
I can understand "marginalized", but "experienced physical pain" is evidence of being a nut.
The poll seems to me to of a genre that we have in the political arena all the time, the generic like/dislike poll, frequently taken of a supposedly random sample of adults, less frequently of registered voters, even less frequently of actual voters.
Example, from pre 2004: In the next election would you prefer the Democratic candidate or President Bush.
You get the idea. The preference was for a Democratic, until a specific person was named - Dean or Bush, Edwards or Bush, Kerry or Bush, etc.
I don't see that this question:
Is any different because people, except for yellow dogs, don't vote for "a generally well-qualified person" because "a generally well-qualified person" does not appear on the ballot.
A specific named person appears on the ballot, and the general question is, it seems to me, too general to be useful as an indicator of anything in particular.
I have to disagree. You are confusing the extensions of utilitarianism with its moral rules. An ethical theory is relativist if the standards for what make actions good or bad are not universal. The type of utilitarianism you refer to, preference utilitarianism, is universal, in the sense that it gives you the same rule for what makes actions good or bad in all circumstances: do not do that which violates the weight of human preferences (weighted for strength) among the group affected by the action. That rule is entirely universal; it is the same in all places and all times. It is true that some actions may be moral in some circumstances and immoral in others, because the theory is highly contextual, but that is a difference in extensions, not rules.
What you object to in utiltiarianism could be better described by some other term than