One reason pride is cited as the greatest sin is because it's the one that covers for all the rest. When someone has a flaw or problem in their life that they're unable to resolve, it's often their ego and sense of entitlement that is getting in the way. When people are blinded by pride they refuse to accept that they're doing anything wrong. Once you have humility, those blinders are removed and you are able to see all the wrong that you're doing.
My experience is that some of the worst decisions made stem from ego. Pride centers the self implicitly making your community an means to your flourishing. It is a corruption of self preservation to self exultation. This is eyerollingly bad when seen from a distance, but easy to slip into yourself.
I think Norm Macdonald the stand-up comedian had one of the most profound insights into religion and sin:
"Some people believe that man is divine, like kind of a hippie idea. I can't believe that because I know my own heart, and I know that's not true. Other people believe that we're wretched like the cynics or the atheists would believe we're all just wretched nothingness, just animals, just creatures. I can't believe that. It doesn't make any sense, that we're just beasts. I will say that Christianity has this interesting compromise where we're both divine and wretched, and there's this Middle Man that's the Savior, that through Him we can become divine, but we're born wretched. I kind of like that one, because it sort of makes sense."
Very much agree with this post. I worry secular culture will lose an important motivating force for goodness if it can’t replace “we all fall short of the glory of God” with something equally humbling (maybe consequentialism?).
“I recall a particularly dispiriting conversation in which immediately after convincing several people that eating meat was an egregious wrong—on the level of savagely tormenting many dogs—everyone I had spoken to immediately ordered the meat meal.”
Part of the problem here is that it’s not their individual meal that is equivalent to torturing several dogs, it’s their lifetime dietary choices - right? (But if you have different info on the expected value of meat consumption, I’d be super interested to hear it)
Bc under consequentialism (really I’m thinking utilitarianism) you’re definitely not doing as much as you should be. You should be giving away all your money until marginal utility to the recipient = marginal utility to you, and volunteering and whatnot on top of that.
Judaism has several mechanisms in place that help prevent careless "sinning".
1. One saying from Pirke Avot is "mitzvah goreret mitzvah," A mitzvah follows a mitzvah. (Mitzvah means commandment, It often is mistranslated as "good deed." It certainly includes many good deeds but does not include others, and includes many ritual rules that -- though important -- would fall outside of ethics.) I was surprised to find a wikipedia article on this saying. The idea is that by doing a commandment, we are more likely to do others. In other words, we try to find ways to habituate proper behavior.
2. Another idea is building a fence around the Torah. The idea is that if you don't want to do X, avoid doing things that are close to X or could lead to X.
3. There are detailed rules for lots of things in Judaism. The gospels and letters of Paul are full of criticisms of having such detailed rules. But one benefit of having such rules is they formalize the process of doing specific things. For example, Judaism advocates giving at least 10% of your income to tzedakah (loosely translated as charity, but more precisely translated as justice, implying an obligation to give), and there are detailed rules about accounting for income, what counts and doesn't count, and a general rule to be exact in your accounting for tzedekah. One can argue about the specific rules, but the idea of having rules seems like a good idea.
That quote from Lewis strikes me as wrong. I’m open to it being true, but it sounds like a smart post-hoc justification for Lewis’s moral positions. The Marquis de Sade knew a lot more about torture than I do. Gacy knew way more about killing little boys than those who don’t slaughter little boys. It seems to me that the greatest sinners of history actually know quite a bit more about their areas of expertise than the rest of us ever will.
And this is probably for the best. I don’t want to know as much as the Marquis de Sade or John Wayne Gacy knew about evil. I think that’s preferable.
I think it's wrong to look for what's right and good judging from our perspective, a lot of things seem right to us but fundamentally it leads us towards some really bad stuff. It's more correct to consider several points before making judgement especially taking scripture as a guide. We can ask several things such as does that action leads you away from God? Does that action makes you hiding something from God who is righteous? It's important because sin fundamentally is related to self-centered and human removing God from their standard to know what's good and bad. To be more precise, we sin because we turn away from God and fail to be obedient to trust in him. In Christianity God is a personal God, therefore, we could have some knowledge by relating to God and know our relationship with him as his image bearers. Ultimately, man has to learn to be pious, not to put ourselves as starting point but seek God in the first place.
I find the title ironic - if Christianity is right, why do you grant so many exemptions to small things like personal pleasure or minor deceit in the first paragraph? That's a level of self-deception that stems from... pride! Interesting how it all comes together very quickly.
Your appreciation of truth and understanding of the logic of sin is there, but you seem to have a fear of committing yourself fully when exposed to the truth, again, a sign of pride and an attachment to preconceived notions.
In your own example, we are all sinners struggling to do better, so I wish you the best.
Assume, arguendo, that intentionally maximising “utility” (whether interpreted as pleasure, happiness, preference satisfaction, or even some other candidate) is morally good (the right thing to do). It does not follow that failing to maximise “utility” must be morally bad (the wrong thing to do). For that inference leads to a contradiction or paradox (not merely the well-known “repugnant conclusion”):
“To simplify matters, we can ignore the possible problem of a clear distinction between good things and bad things and only speak in terms of bad things. If not stopping bad things that exist when we easily could is inherently immoral (not doing what “we ought, morally, to do”), then—conversely—not starting bad things when we easily could is inherently positively moral (doing what “we ought, morally, to do”). However, there is usually a far greater balance of bad things that we omit to do (and could easily have done) than bad things that we omit to stop (and could easily have stopped): e.g., personally engaging in theft/vandalism/arson/etc. versus stopping other people engaging in these things. Consequently, overall, we omit to start more bad things than we omit to stop bad things. Therefore, by simply omitting to do either we are either both moral and immoral at the same time or on balance positively extremely moral. It is paradoxical to describe mere inaction as either ‘moral and immoral’ or ‘on balance positively moral’. The paradox is easily avoided if we make something like the following three more-conventional distinctions, which libertarians qua libertarians hold more consistently than most people. To proactively and altruistically stop bad things is positively moral. To proactively inflict bad things is immoral. And to omit to do either is morally neutral … otherwise known as ‘innocence’.”
“Peter Singer’s ‘Famine, Affluence, and Morality’: Three Libertarian Refutations”
It’s possible to simplify the central argument. Some people, but especially utilitarians for some reason, think that it’s always morally bad not to do what is morally good if we can do so. Assume that is true, for the sake of argument (or arguendo). Then, by the same type of reasoning, it must be morally good not to do what is morally bad. That might not sound strange at first. However, these two assumptions entail that someone who is simply doing nothing is both morally bad and morally good at the same time (in fact, he is probably more good than bad because it is usually easier to harm than to help). But we can easily avoid such a paradoxical conclusion by making the normal and more intuitive distinctions of doing good, doing bad, and doing neither: i.e., being moral, being immoral, and being innocent.
Out of curiosity: Would you consider buying, owning, having sex with, and/or distributing child sex dolls/robots to be a sin? Completely serious question, BTW.
I read your posts with interest. I lived as a vegetarian for several years, in a place where vegetarian options are not readily available, and a cuisine that tends to add small amounts of meat to meals you would expect to be vegetarian. Eventually I gave up when I contracted testicular cancer because I was worried about being able to maintain a balanced diet throughout my treatment. I have not enjoyed good health for most of my life. Your posts are making me think of ways to return to vegetarianism.
Question: you’re a consequentialist (otherwise I would lose all respect for you!)…but what’s your theory of the good? This post has me wondering whether you believe virtue is intrinsically valuable?
You’ll never be satisfied unless someone becomes a robotic total utility maximizer. If the standard is impossible, and the criticism is identical no matter what one does, why bother?
One reason pride is cited as the greatest sin is because it's the one that covers for all the rest. When someone has a flaw or problem in their life that they're unable to resolve, it's often their ego and sense of entitlement that is getting in the way. When people are blinded by pride they refuse to accept that they're doing anything wrong. Once you have humility, those blinders are removed and you are able to see all the wrong that you're doing.
My experience is that some of the worst decisions made stem from ego. Pride centers the self implicitly making your community an means to your flourishing. It is a corruption of self preservation to self exultation. This is eyerollingly bad when seen from a distance, but easy to slip into yourself.
I think Norm Macdonald the stand-up comedian had one of the most profound insights into religion and sin:
"Some people believe that man is divine, like kind of a hippie idea. I can't believe that because I know my own heart, and I know that's not true. Other people believe that we're wretched like the cynics or the atheists would believe we're all just wretched nothingness, just animals, just creatures. I can't believe that. It doesn't make any sense, that we're just beasts. I will say that Christianity has this interesting compromise where we're both divine and wretched, and there's this Middle Man that's the Savior, that through Him we can become divine, but we're born wretched. I kind of like that one, because it sort of makes sense."
Very much agree with this post. I worry secular culture will lose an important motivating force for goodness if it can’t replace “we all fall short of the glory of God” with something equally humbling (maybe consequentialism?).
“I recall a particularly dispiriting conversation in which immediately after convincing several people that eating meat was an egregious wrong—on the level of savagely tormenting many dogs—everyone I had spoken to immediately ordered the meat meal.”
Part of the problem here is that it’s not their individual meal that is equivalent to torturing several dogs, it’s their lifetime dietary choices - right? (But if you have different info on the expected value of meat consumption, I’d be super interested to hear it)
How is consequentialism more humbling?
Bc under consequentialism (really I’m thinking utilitarianism) you’re definitely not doing as much as you should be. You should be giving away all your money until marginal utility to the recipient = marginal utility to you, and volunteering and whatnot on top of that.
Niebuhr quipped that "0riginal Sin" was te only Christian Doctrine for which there wad empirical proof. :)
Judaism has several mechanisms in place that help prevent careless "sinning".
1. One saying from Pirke Avot is "mitzvah goreret mitzvah," A mitzvah follows a mitzvah. (Mitzvah means commandment, It often is mistranslated as "good deed." It certainly includes many good deeds but does not include others, and includes many ritual rules that -- though important -- would fall outside of ethics.) I was surprised to find a wikipedia article on this saying. The idea is that by doing a commandment, we are more likely to do others. In other words, we try to find ways to habituate proper behavior.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitzvah_goreret_mitzvah
2. Another idea is building a fence around the Torah. The idea is that if you don't want to do X, avoid doing things that are close to X or could lead to X.
3. There are detailed rules for lots of things in Judaism. The gospels and letters of Paul are full of criticisms of having such detailed rules. But one benefit of having such rules is they formalize the process of doing specific things. For example, Judaism advocates giving at least 10% of your income to tzedakah (loosely translated as charity, but more precisely translated as justice, implying an obligation to give), and there are detailed rules about accounting for income, what counts and doesn't count, and a general rule to be exact in your accounting for tzedekah. One can argue about the specific rules, but the idea of having rules seems like a good idea.
That quote from Lewis strikes me as wrong. I’m open to it being true, but it sounds like a smart post-hoc justification for Lewis’s moral positions. The Marquis de Sade knew a lot more about torture than I do. Gacy knew way more about killing little boys than those who don’t slaughter little boys. It seems to me that the greatest sinners of history actually know quite a bit more about their areas of expertise than the rest of us ever will.
And this is probably for the best. I don’t want to know as much as the Marquis de Sade or John Wayne Gacy knew about evil. I think that’s preferable.
I like how your tone gradually became more and more like middle-20th century British English as the article progressed.
Great article!
I think it's wrong to look for what's right and good judging from our perspective, a lot of things seem right to us but fundamentally it leads us towards some really bad stuff. It's more correct to consider several points before making judgement especially taking scripture as a guide. We can ask several things such as does that action leads you away from God? Does that action makes you hiding something from God who is righteous? It's important because sin fundamentally is related to self-centered and human removing God from their standard to know what's good and bad. To be more precise, we sin because we turn away from God and fail to be obedient to trust in him. In Christianity God is a personal God, therefore, we could have some knowledge by relating to God and know our relationship with him as his image bearers. Ultimately, man has to learn to be pious, not to put ourselves as starting point but seek God in the first place.
I find the title ironic - if Christianity is right, why do you grant so many exemptions to small things like personal pleasure or minor deceit in the first paragraph? That's a level of self-deception that stems from... pride! Interesting how it all comes together very quickly.
Your appreciation of truth and understanding of the logic of sin is there, but you seem to have a fear of committing yourself fully when exposed to the truth, again, a sign of pride and an attachment to preconceived notions.
In your own example, we are all sinners struggling to do better, so I wish you the best.
Assume, arguendo, that intentionally maximising “utility” (whether interpreted as pleasure, happiness, preference satisfaction, or even some other candidate) is morally good (the right thing to do). It does not follow that failing to maximise “utility” must be morally bad (the wrong thing to do). For that inference leads to a contradiction or paradox (not merely the well-known “repugnant conclusion”):
“To simplify matters, we can ignore the possible problem of a clear distinction between good things and bad things and only speak in terms of bad things. If not stopping bad things that exist when we easily could is inherently immoral (not doing what “we ought, morally, to do”), then—conversely—not starting bad things when we easily could is inherently positively moral (doing what “we ought, morally, to do”). However, there is usually a far greater balance of bad things that we omit to do (and could easily have done) than bad things that we omit to stop (and could easily have stopped): e.g., personally engaging in theft/vandalism/arson/etc. versus stopping other people engaging in these things. Consequently, overall, we omit to start more bad things than we omit to stop bad things. Therefore, by simply omitting to do either we are either both moral and immoral at the same time or on balance positively extremely moral. It is paradoxical to describe mere inaction as either ‘moral and immoral’ or ‘on balance positively moral’. The paradox is easily avoided if we make something like the following three more-conventional distinctions, which libertarians qua libertarians hold more consistently than most people. To proactively and altruistically stop bad things is positively moral. To proactively inflict bad things is immoral. And to omit to do either is morally neutral … otherwise known as ‘innocence’.”
“Peter Singer’s ‘Famine, Affluence, and Morality’: Three Libertarian Refutations”
Studia Humana 9 (2): 135-141, 2020.
https://jclester.substack.com/p/peter-singers-famine-affluence-and
https://philpapers.org/rec/LESPSF-2
It’s possible to simplify the central argument. Some people, but especially utilitarians for some reason, think that it’s always morally bad not to do what is morally good if we can do so. Assume that is true, for the sake of argument (or arguendo). Then, by the same type of reasoning, it must be morally good not to do what is morally bad. That might not sound strange at first. However, these two assumptions entail that someone who is simply doing nothing is both morally bad and morally good at the same time (in fact, he is probably more good than bad because it is usually easier to harm than to help). But we can easily avoid such a paradoxical conclusion by making the normal and more intuitive distinctions of doing good, doing bad, and doing neither: i.e., being moral, being immoral, and being innocent.
Excellent post!
Out of curiosity: Would you consider buying, owning, having sex with, and/or distributing child sex dolls/robots to be a sin? Completely serious question, BTW.
I read your posts with interest. I lived as a vegetarian for several years, in a place where vegetarian options are not readily available, and a cuisine that tends to add small amounts of meat to meals you would expect to be vegetarian. Eventually I gave up when I contracted testicular cancer because I was worried about being able to maintain a balanced diet throughout my treatment. I have not enjoyed good health for most of my life. Your posts are making me think of ways to return to vegetarianism.
Question: you’re a consequentialist (otherwise I would lose all respect for you!)…but what’s your theory of the good? This post has me wondering whether you believe virtue is intrinsically valuable?
Objective list theory utilitarian.
Is virtue on the list?
Why exactly would you lose respect for someone who isn’t consequentialist?
Was just joking 🙃
You’ll never be satisfied unless someone becomes a robotic total utility maximizer. If the standard is impossible, and the criticism is identical no matter what one does, why bother?
I think there’s a difference between wanting to do less bad stuff and literally being a perfect utility maximizer. And I’m not even utilitarian