Book contents
- Giving the Devil His Due
- Giving the Devil His Due
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction Who Is the Devil and What Is He Due?
- Part I The Advocatus Diaboli: Reflections on Free Thought and Free Speech
- Part II Homo Religiosus: Reflections on God and Religion
- Part III Deferred Dreams: Reflections on Politics and Society
- Part IV Scientia Humanitatis: Reflections on Scientific Humanism
- Chapter 19 Scientific Naturalism
- Chapter 20 Mr. Hume: Tear. Down. This. Wall.
- Chapter 21 Kardashev’s Types and Sparks’ Law
- Chapter 22 How Lives Turn Out
- Part V Transcendent Thinkers: Reflections on Controversial Intellectuals
- Notes
- Index
Chapter 19 - Scientific Naturalism
A Manifesto for Enlightenment Humanism
from Part IV - Scientia Humanitatis: Reflections on Scientific Humanism
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 February 2020
- Giving the Devil His Due
- Giving the Devil His Due
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction Who Is the Devil and What Is He Due?
- Part I The Advocatus Diaboli: Reflections on Free Thought and Free Speech
- Part II Homo Religiosus: Reflections on God and Religion
- Part III Deferred Dreams: Reflections on Politics and Society
- Part IV Scientia Humanitatis: Reflections on Scientific Humanism
- Chapter 19 Scientific Naturalism
- Chapter 20 Mr. Hume: Tear. Down. This. Wall.
- Chapter 21 Kardashev’s Types and Sparks’ Law
- Chapter 22 How Lives Turn Out
- Part V Transcendent Thinkers: Reflections on Controversial Intellectuals
- Notes
- Index
Summary
This article was initially published in the August 2017 issue of the journal Theology and Science under the above title and subtitle. It was commissioned by Ted Peters, Research Professor Emeritus in Systematic Theology and Ethics at Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary and the Center for Theory and the Natural Sciences. Even though Ted and I disagree on a great many things, we share a love and respect for science, for the question of extraterrestrial intelligence and for what such a discovery would mean to humanity in general and religion in particular. When Ted invited me to make the best case I could for a scientific defense of objective values and morals, I could not resist the challenge. My 2015 book The Moral Arc is a much longer and thorough defense of this worldview – especially my claim that science and reason can determine moral values – but herein I offer some new strategies for addressing the Is-Ought barrier problem to avoid the naturalistic fallacy that one cannot derive an ought from an is. And I relished the challenge of doing so in a more succinct statement.
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- Giving the Devil his DueReflections of a Scientific Humanist, pp. 221 - 235Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2020