Joy, Sin, and Pseudoscience, Part II

Yesterday, in Part I, I discussed some of the efforts that various authors have made over the past 100 years to put guilt behind us once and for all—especially with regard to sexual behavior.

But the “progressive” forces can never rest on their laurels, because the human conscience is immortal and always reasserts itself if they relax their vigilance. That is why the struggle against traditional morality has to become more and more extreme with every passing decade

At the end of yesterday’s piece, I pointed out that the supposedly scientific basis for much of the twentieth century’s fashionable cynicism about morality was the three-cornered intellectual edifice built by the Victorian trinity of Marx, Darwin, and Freud.

Today, all three towers are showing their age badly. That is why serious reconstruction work is required in the twenty-first century, if guilt is to continue to be successfully suppressed in the name of science.

With Marx and Freud effectively out of commission, today’s cynics and moral nihilists have little choice but to double down on Darwin, dangerous as that increasingly appears to be, as a long-term bet.

Which brings me to the two books I want to discuss in today’s follow-up column: Simon Laham’s The Science of Sin (Three Rivers Press, 2012),(1) and Emrys Westacott’s The Virtues of Our Vices (Princeton UP, 2011).

Laham is a research fellow and lecturer in psychology at the University of Melbourne in Australia. Westacott is a professor of philosophy at Alfred University in western New York State.

As Laham’s claims are more extreme—he praises “sin,” whereas Westacott merely puts in a good word for “bad habits”—and accordingly have received more attention in the media, I will spend more time examining them.

In a piece on the Huffington Post web site called “The Benefits of Sin: Why Sinning Is Good for You,” Laham defends four of the seven deadly sins in the following terms:(2)

Lust:

Perhaps not surprisingly, the primary function of lust is to get people into bed. And the lustful mindset is exquisitely designed to do so. When we are aroused we pay attractive others more attention, see potential mates as better-looking and even read sexual intent into others’ faces where none exists.

However, some of the most interesting upsides of lust are less obvious. In the right circumstances, lust can make people more helpful and more likely to go along with the crowd. Having sex on the brain can even change the way we solve problems. Lust triggers a detail-focused mode of thinking which facilitates certain kinds of problem solving.

Yes, thinking about sex can make you smarter!

The first thing to note is the identification of sexual attraction (a biological phenomenon) with lust (a moral category).

This immediately signals that we are in the territory of science, where there is no room for norms or value judgments. If it feels good, it must be right. All itches deserve equally to be scratched.

This idea leads naturally to the other comments, such as lust’s making people “more likely to go along with the crowd” (sure, as in a gang rape) and “sex can make you smarter” (no question about it, a guy on the make has to have his wits about him).

Greed:

In recent years, greed has got an increasingly bad name, being blamed for all manner of financial crises. However, a closer look at our pursuit of money suggests that greed is far from uniformly harmful. The more money people have, the happier they are. And this is especially the case if they know how to spend it: Research shows that spending money on experiences brings more happiness than spending money on material possessions.

Pity the poor Darwinist. How easy it was to convince people to stop feeling bad about fornication, compared to the uphill battle it must be to sell folks on greed!

But a dose of good old-fashioned hedonism does the trick nicely: “The more money people have, the happier they are.” Enough said—as individual happiness is obviously the only thing that matters in the scientific mindset we are exploring here.

Once again—it goes without saying—note the collapse of the distinction between a natural and healthy concern with one’s own well-being and the vice of greed.

And note especially that bit about “knowing how to spend” the money. In other words, it’s scientifically proven that it’s better by far to take an eco-tour to the Costa Rican rainforest than to order in a wall-sized plasma TV.

Nice touch of class, that.

Anger:

Anger gets a bad rap because it is often linked to violence. However, research shows that violence follows anger only rarely. Strip the violent gloss from this deadly sin and you’ll discover a highly functional emotion. People feel anger either when they come across an obstacle to a goal or when they witness an injustice. And in both cases, the feeling of anger triggers a set of adaptive responses.

As usual, no distinction between proportionate, rightly directed wrath and the sin of anger, which is disproportionate and/or mistakenly directed.

But if he approves of genuine anger so heartily, then why is Professor Laham so dead-set against violence—one of anger’s essential attributes. How unscientific of him!

Can it be that he is really a closet moralist?

Pride:

Pride sits atop the list of deadly sins; it’s an honor that is thoroughly undeserved. Authentic pride—the feeling that comes after a hard-earned success—makes people more likely to persist with difficult tasks and, as a result, achieve further success. The proud tend to lead and are also more liked.

Many of pride’s boons come through the pride expression—arms akimbo, head tilted back, chest expanded—which tells others that “I’m successful,” thus triggering admiration and even further benefits.

Laham does’t mention chimpanzees, but it’s not hard to conjure up the mental image.

Also note the disconnect between the claims in the two paragraphs. In the first, he speaks of “authentic pride” that is really earned—once again, no sin at all.

In the second, he mentions only puffed-out chests, which I suspect are far more noticeable among common criminals than among creative geniuses.

With this last example, Laham’s intellectual muddle becomes complete.

What about Westacott? His book is not nearly as ambitious as Laham’s; hence, his descent into absurdity is not nearly as egregious. However, he is worth glancing at, as part of a trend.

In his book, Westacott discusses five “vices” or “bad habits”: rudeness, gossiping, snobbery, tasteless jokes, and arrogance towards others’ opinions.

Like Laham, Westacott wants to show the “good side” of these five vices. For example, in the conclusion to the chapter on gossip, he writes:

In relation to both the individual and society [gossip] has many positive aspects that tend to be overlooked. A proper appreciation of these should make us less ready to condemn it and feel less guilty about doing it. (p. 99)

What are the supposed benefits of gossip? Primarly, it is pleasurable (hedonism, again) and it fosters social solidarity.

While Westacott’s penchant for scientism cannot hold a candle to Laham’s, he still flirts here with the well-known speculation by some evolutionary psychologists that gossip may have played a critical role in the development of human language, and thus in hominization, generally.

But even if that is true, so what?

Nothing that Westacott says changes the fact that a person who refrains from gossiping about others with mischievous intent is morally superior to one who indulges in this widespread vice.

The mere fact that something is pleasurable, or even that it may once have had a social function, does nothing to show that it is morally permissible.

Similar points could be made about Westacott’s discussions of each of the other four vices.

In a scathing review in The Weekly Standard called “Let’s Misbehave,” the critic John Simon said of Westacott’s book:

If nothing else, though, this book is proof of how marginalized, how nugatory, philosophy has become in the modern world.

Next time: Sin and joy

____________________
(1) Published in the U.K. as The Joy of Sin (Constable, 2012).
(2) Laham gives reasons for admiring envy, gluttony, and sloth, as well, but I omit them here in the interest of saving space.