When author James Luce was a boy, his father once summarized his moral philosophy of life in one sentence: Your rights end at the tip of my nose. Many years later, after embarking on his own voyage of reflection, Luce finally understood his father's words. In Chasing Davis, he shares a set of unique ethical tools and blueprints that can be conceived and implemented by either societies or individuals, ultimately creating a moral life solely guided by logic and science rather than superstition or belief in divine guidance.
Luce believes it is time for a new genesis of moral living. He relies on several decades of research and contemplation as well as ancient and newly acquired wisdom as he carefully examines the difference between good and evil, the importance of self-awareness, and the reasons that morality is not dependent upon the existence of any god. Seekers of the truth and new ideas will learn the meaning and consequences of perception, as well as how to train ourselves to think more productively and morally and why laws, government, and religions are symptoms of our immorality.
Chasing Davis provides a practical, objective set of behavioral and cognitive guidelines that will help anyone live a moral life, regardless of individual cultural, religious, or philosophic antecedents.
Our Destination
This book is a voyage of discovery. We will navigate through the "reefs" of our individual minds and our collective human cultures; we will search through time for what we have lost and what we may yet recover; and we will explore our present and sail on to see what our possible collective futures may hold.
Our ultimate destination is a rational basis for ethical behavior and a generic, cross-cultural toolbox for building a moral life, a box buried in the sand where X marks the spot. There we will discover why and how to live a moral life in a universe devoid of gods or divine guidance.
We will take a few steps away from that cluttered and clotted wall of our blurred, everyday existence so that we are able, with a little objective distance, to perceive the orderly mosaic of life affixed to that wall, an ordered kaleidoscope that is our actual reality as opposed to our seemingly random place in space.
We will travel outward around the world and through the possibly infinite universe in order to see the larger perspective that forms the majestic vista just beyond that same existential wall; we will see from this point of view that the wall is not an unbroken barrier but offers an elusive gateway.
We will travel in time, inward through that same gateway, to better understand how we, our parents, and our distant ancestors have formed those beliefs that have led to our behaviors and to the way we live today.
Finally, we will travel into our futures with a toolbox in one hand and blueprints in the other to build an "ethical house" where we can all dwell together without violence, hatred, or greed. That is not to say this metaphoric house will be full of nothing but happy people, but it will be a house where we can pursue happiness without having to constantly look over our shoulders to see who is about to stick a knife in our backs.
After reading this book, you will understand
why morality is not dependant on the existence of any god;
why the answer to the question, "Does life have any meaning?" is neither "yes" nor "no";
why the question "If everything is the result of immutable prior events, how can there be free will?" is totally irrelevant to the "why" of living a moral life; and
why only our species, of all the thousands, engages in war, torture, child abuse, corruption of our environment, and all the other cruel and crazy activities that dominate the daily news.
You will have learned
how your brain actually receives, processes, utilizes, and remembers sensory input, and how with this awareness you may better understand how you form beliefs, why you behave the way you do, and how you can train yourself to think more productively and morally;
how logic and science, properly balanced, provide a practical, universal, and solid foundation for living a moral life; and
how law, government, and religion are symptoms of our immorality rather than any basis on which to build moral lives.
You will have in hand
a clear, practical, and universally applicable set of behavioral and cognitive guidelines for living a moral life and assisting others in doing so;
a useful methodology by which you may analyze the myriad, complex dilemmas we encounter each day to determine what the moral response to and resolution thereof is; and
knowledge about what you may do as an individual to start the process of restoring sanity to an insane world and why the process will require generations, not fleeting moments, to put into final effect.
A New Approach
Given the abdication of church and state in the twentieth century in both setting the criteria for and being an example of the moral life, it is time for a new genesis of moral living. It is time for the creation of a new set of ethical tools and a new moral toolbox to carry them in so they are always handy when needed. This book offers one such new beginning.
When I was ten or eleven years old, my father once summarized his moral philosophy of life in one sentence: "Your rights end at the tip of my nose." It required many more years of listening to him, learning from others, and thinking about the underpinnings of this statement to bring me to the point where I fully understood what he was saying. When the underlying meaning of each word in my father's summary is expanded, as they will be in this book, a universally acceptable, adaptable set of moral "rules" can be conceived and acted upon in any society by any individual using his or her customized tools, utilizing them with his or her own uniquely wired brain.
This book and its proposals are premised on the reality and utility of evolutionary logic and long-established scientific fact. Within this reality there is no need to propose the existence of any divine, omnipotent creator or any inflexible universal truths. All divine revelations and unquestioned beliefs are subjected to endless, pointless debate. They lack utility, because in the final analysis they are simply an unreliable crutch we use to hobble through our broken dreams and twisted cultures. They are not directed toward living a better life but are there to make life less painful. It is the difference between taking an aspirin and not having a headache in the first place.
This book provides a set of mental tools with which each person can build his or her own, personal moral structure but always using those tools while following the blueprints and building restrictions provided in subsequent chapters. You might well ask how or why logic and science are any better than divine revelation or philosophical speculation at providing a basis for moral living, and you would be asking a good question. Every logical argument must have one or more stated "assumption." Assumptions are made without proof. That is their very nature. Assumptions always form the basis for logical inquiry into reality. Scientists call assumptions hypotheses. Testing and experimentation determine whether there is objective evidence to either support or refute the hypothesis. A true scientist is just as pleased by evidence that the hypothesis is wrong as by evidence that it is correct. There is no such thing as a failed scientific experiment. Proof that an idea does not reflect reality is as useful as one that proves that an idea does reflect realty.
In contrast, unscientific belief systems, such as religion and philosophy, treat assumptions as though they were already proved. A person who bases his or her life on a religion says, "God exists because I believe he does; therefore, I can believe his holy writ." A philosopher makes an assumption and then proceeds only in a direction that will "prove" his or her assumption. Religious and philosophical arguments always start out on a foundation that is to be tested only by firm belief. The result is a structure that falls in the first storm because nobody bothered to be sure the foundation was solid and reliable. There is no rewriting of holy script every time some new facts emerge. Philosophers do not rewrite their treatises in light of changed circumstances. Both types of texts are immutable and inflexible. True ... certainty is more comfortable, but only doubt and questioning bring orderly change with progress in a world where random change without progress is inevitable absent our logical intervention.
Just as religions are usually based on the assumption there is a divine creator who sets all the rules, so too any logical approach to the formation of ethical behavior in a moral setting must have one or more basic assumptions. But in contrast to religion, assumptions in a logic stream are intended to be continuously questioned and tested.
The two basic assumptions on which the moral system in this book are based are
that self-awareness and sentience are good things and that the absence thereof is a bad thing. Being able to think, meditate, debate, feel joy and sorrow, eat, breathe, sleep, procreate, fornicate, and get drunk is better than not being able to do so; and,
that it is better for sentient and self-aware life to live in a world that is just, peaceful, and productive than in one that is not.
There is not and cannot be any proof that these assumptions are correct, because, like a belief in a divine creator, they are not subject to scientific inquiry. However, unlike a belief in a divine creator who is never seen, we know we are alive and are self-aware and sentient. Otherwise, for example, you would not be here to read this book and would not know how to read even if you were.
In addition to my two assumptions, this voyage will rely on some very ancient and some newly acquired wisdom. Much of the analysis in this book is based on one of the admonitions of Roman Emperor and philosopher Marcus Aurelius: "Look first to the essence of a thing in order to understand it. What is its nature?" (Advice aptly and infamously given by Dr. Hannibal Lecter to FBI Agent Starling in Silence of the Lambs.)
So what is the exact nature of this self-aware creature we call man? What does it do, and what is it capable of achieving? What does it want? Why of all known living things do only men and women dwell on the concept of good and evil? Even more fundamentally, what is it in our nature that ever led us to even contemplate that there was any difference between right and wrong, moral and immoral? Answers to all these questions will be suggested as we progress through this book.
Laying the evidentiary foundation for these answers necessitates many pages of discussion devoted to providing you with fundamental facts about how the social and geopolitical world we live in actually functions, how the human brain processes information and then translates this data into behaviors, and, most importantly, how to rigorously identify and evaluate the constituent elements of morality
This book is the result of several decades of research and correlation of scientific, social, and historical facts. But you will find that even the most specialized and arcane topics discussed in the chapters that follow have been reduced to their basics so that they are understandable by people who do not hold a PhD in biochemistry, astrophysics, theology, or any other subject. You will be absorbing in a relatively short time information that has been assimilated and condensed over many years.
As you read this book, you will be asked to put aside for a while many of your firmly held beliefs. There are many concepts developed in this book that you may find startling, disturbing, or even shocking. All I ask is that when you come across any such discussion that you keep your mind open until I have completed the argument, and then you can decide for yourself whether you agree. If you dismiss an argument before it has been fully expounded, you will never truly understand what is being suggested.
It is my hope and expectation that you will find the considerable investment of time and thought requested of you to be worthwhile and fully justified by the results of staying onboard to the end of this long voyage.
If you are a member of that vast perplexed minority of atheists, agnostics, and the simply intellectually inquisitive who want to lead a moral life but do not know exactly why; who may feel a troubling frustration from this soft vacuum of understanding; or who have behaved ethically all their lives without asking why, then you will find this book of interest.
Even if you are uncomfortable with my foundational assumptions, or even if you vigorously disagree with them, you may still find some enjoyment, and, yes, even some peace of mind as we travel along on this voyage.
Even if you vehemently and inalterably believe that we can know nothing for sure or that somehow reality is an illusion or that "everything is relative"; even if you are a fundamentalist Christian, Jew, Moslem, Buddhist, or Taoist or a holder of any other belief set that views morality as a fixed set of dogmas thrust upon mankind by an all-powerful, all-knowing, immutable, and divine creator; and even if you believe that nothing and nobody can change your mind, you may still find something useful in this book.
On the other hand, if you are perfectly happy with your life, if you are satisfied with the way the world around you is operating, if you are pleased by how you are treated each day, then perhaps you need not read any further.
But if you are not totally content with the way things are and the way your life is going, please join me on this voyage to see if my view of the world perhaps leads you to a way to be happier or, at least, more aware of why you are unhappy. Knowing the why of any problem is a prerequisite to ever finding the solution to that problem. Otherwise, it is all simply guesswork and luck.
The Genesis of the Voyage
The genesis and bases of this book include everything from Meditations by Marcus Aurelius to the collected short stories of H. H. Munro (Saki); from Saint Thomas Aquinas to Dr. Isaac Asimov; from the holy scriptures of Moses, Christ, Mohamed, and Buddha to the secular writings of Richard Dawkins and Carl Sagan; from the simplicity of Newtonian physics to the unfathomable worlds conjured from the theories of relativity and quantum mechanics; and from the earliest time of life on Earth 3.5 billion years ago to and through my own infinitely shorter sixty-six years of life.
The concept and consequences of time, both of the infinite and the finite variety, will appear frequently in this book. There are only three places I know of where time could actually seem to stand still: on the relativistic edge of a black hole; in the celestial presence of an eternal god; and anywhere in the tiny village of Davis, California, during that endless summer in 1952.
The first two places are, respectively, scientific and religious constructs whose existence in turn requires, respectively, belief or faith. The third is, or at least was a long time ago, a physical place whose existence requires only memory. It was here in Davis during the early 1950s that I found moments of inner peace that have only resurfaced in the last few years after moving to an equally small and peaceful pueblo in northeastern Spain.
In this book we will eventually visit all three of these timeless places. Arriving at them will require a few detours but no shortcuts. The route of the voyage will become evident as we proceed. Some of the places we visit will be familiar to you, some strange. Some of the familiar places will take on implications, innuendos, and consequences that you may not have noticed before or have forgotten you had noticed earlier in your life.
My personal road to finding inner tranquility in our insane world started at Sunday school in a tiny farm town when I was seven years old, way back in 1952. My parents were both graduates of Ivy League universities, but we were living in Davis, California, because my father was unable to live and work any longer in the fibrillating heart of New York City. He spent more than two years as a fighter controller during WW II in the terrible conditions of the Aleutian Islands. The constant loss of his pilots due to incessant, deadly Japanese air attacks and unpredictable, impenetrable fog had made the meaningless helter-skelter of city life intolerable. This intolerance was exacerbated by the fact that he had been raised in rural Shandong Province, northeastern China, the youngest son of a missionary. His earliest memories were of the tranquility and beauty he found in the Chinese countryside as he rode alone daily on his tireless, trusted donkey along dirt paths and through peasant villages.
Here I was—the youngest son of two highly educated parents—small and skinny, socially awkward, quick in school, reading books between classes, and worst of all, wearing glasses. In short, I did not fit in.
Well, of course, my mother, being a good New England Presbyterian, immediately upon our arrival in town had started sending me off to Sunday school every week. To get to Sunday-school class one had to first go to the back of the church, then down a flight of stairs, into a sort of large foyer, and then down the hallway to the right to arrive at the classroom—this route being out of sight and sound of the adults attending services.
Every Sunday morning I was heartily greeted in the foyer by three or four of the Davis Grammar School farm-boy bullies and dragged down the left hallway and given a good (or is that a bad?) beating along with what passed in their minds I'm sure as verbal abuse, albeit their vocabulary and grammar were so pitiable that, but for the beatings, I would have found their taunts funny.
(Continues...)
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Overview
When author James Luce was a boy, his father once summarized his moral philosophy of life in one sentence: Your rights end at the tip of my nose. Many years later, after embarking on his own voyage of reflection, Luce finally understood his father's words. In Chasing Davis, he shares a set of unique ethical tools and blueprints that can be conceived and implemented by either societies or individuals, ultimately creating a moral life solely guided by logic and science rather than...