Dear Sam,

The first fatal error I notice in what you've described as the central argument of your book, is that you conflate the scale of “pleasure as opposed to pain”, with that of “greater as opposed to lesser well-being”. If every behavior that increased suffering, decreased well-being, your logic would be sound, but not all of them do, so it's not. Further, I submit that rather than adequately addressing this in your book, under the heading “Can Suffering Be Good?”, you have at best glossed over it.

As to your moral landscape analogy, understanding how it reduces to absurdity, starts with realizing that any movement from a peak on a landscape, is down a slope. Hence, if your comparison to a landscape was valid, the only options available to those on these supposed “peaks of well-being”, would be morally neutral, or immoral. I'm compelled to ask directly: Will you admit this as a problem with your analogy?

Nevertheless, in getting to matters more likely to be of philosophical interest, I want to call attention to what you mean when you say “science can determine human values”, because it amounts to an assertion that “science” can serve as a moral authority. Since I am sure you are aware that “science” is not a communicative being, nor an entity capable of assuming any kind of authoritative role, yet I notice you tend to speak in terms of what science can “tell us”, it's clear to me that you're misusing the word in these cases. I suggest you try harder to restrain yourself from talking of science like it's a being. Instead, speak in terms of what we can learn by applying the scientific method. Once you adequately grok this issue, you won't be asking questions like, “Who says science has nothing to say about morality?”, or making comments about what science supposedly does or doesn't have an “official opinion” about.

You say that you think science should be considered “a specialized branch of a larger effort to form true beliefs about events in our world”. I agree with this, albeit in a way that I suspect you will find hard to accept. I believe that religion is this larger effort, and if there is anything of great philosophical interest that I feel most fit to challenge you on, it is your anti-religion stance. With more than a chapter of your book dedicated to anti-religion rhetoric, I hardly think the dispute over whether science and religion are necessarily irreconcilable should be dismissed as peripheral.

In challenging you to rethink your position on religion, I would initially ask you to recognize it in a similar manner that Christopher Hitchens did, when he referred to it as our first (and he said “therefore worst”) attempt at the sciences. Then I'd challenge you to recognize it as the ongoing process of associating with each other, based on common assessments about issues of the highest importance (The “sacred” in case you aren't too metaphorically impaired). Understood in this way, both moral standards and the scientific method stem from religion.

Though I have no interest in arguing against the truly banal claim that what's moral is what's supposedly conducive to greater well-being, given the opportunity to engage you on positions you hold that are actually controversial, I believe I could convince you: 1.) That religion is not intrinsically harmful, or fundamentally opposed to the scientific method (though specific religions might be). 2.) That maintaining a generally anti-religion stance is as pointless and naïve as maintaining a generally anti-government or anarchist stance. 3.)That claiming not to be religious, is a more stubborn barrier to rigorous religious criticism, (which necessarily entails the comparing of differing articulated religious beliefs/values) than any consensus among philosophy professors that an “ought” can never be derived from an “is”. 4.) That religious criticism is much more effective when carried out through in-depth conversation with the individual(s) whose beliefs are to be addressed, compared to taking pot shots at large segments of the population by stereotyping them. 5.) That the taboo against the sort of “religious criticism” that really just amounts to badmouthing entire cultures, as if without a doubt, their immorality is worse than our own, should (in the interest of greater well-being) remain in place.

I propose a challenge to you. I propose that we critically scrutinize one another's primary philosophical assumptions or......wait for it.......religious beliefs. You know, the self evident ones, that we're ever so dogmatic about, which constitute our highest ideals and deepest values. In other words, the first principles, assumed on good faith, that constitute our ruling logic (or “theology” in case you're beginning to catch my drift). Assuming you don't already have a list for me to critique, I will be happy to help you compile one, as part of a process I'll be trying to convince you to endorse, that I call self-canonization. I conceived of this process after coming to the realization (like I'm trying to help you do) that it makes a whole lot better sense to spend our efforts trying to improve religion, than to eradicate it. Frankly, I don't think it will be very hard at all to get you to see the untenability of the “anti-religion” position. Of course you would have to answer a few questions with candor, but I'll wait to see if you'll answer the question I asked in the second paragraph.

Since without a response from you, this is as far as it goes, and with so little I've had to say in the way of witty or elegant prose, I'm desperately trying to make up for it, by rhyming as I close. But if you truly want your errors more thoroughly exposed, pay special attention here, to the ethic that I propose: To the questions which you can, you should, respond with yeses and nos.

Warm Regards,

David Janca

P.S.

I greatly admire you for issuing this challenge. I would do the same if I could afford it.