Semantics of Sin

We all know about the so-called seven deadly sins: envy, gluttony, greed, lust, pride, sloth, and wrath. These are curious words; we do well to delve into their meaning. What is the correct semantic theory of sin words? We can contrast these words with other words in the moral vocabulary: murder, theft, lying, ingratitude, promise-breaking, betrayal, and others. These words designate types of action that are intrinsically and necessarily immoral; it isn’t that these things are immoral only when excessive or extreme or out of control. But the sin words aren’t like that; they designate types of action that are only immoral when excessive or extreme or out of control. The underlying act isn’t immoral at all, just its degree. Let’s go through them one by one to verify this claim.

The dictionary will be our guide. For “envy” the OED gives us “discontented or resentful longing aroused by another’s possessions, qualities, or luck”. On the face of it this does not amount to sin (“an immoral act considered to be a transgression against divine law”). Surely, you can long for what someone else has without doing or thinking anything immoral—you might long for their virtue, for example. This may lead to discontent and even resentment, but not to any immoral behavior. We get closer to sin when we read in the Shorter OEDof “hostility, malice, enmity” occasioned by such longing: that is, envy is sinful when and only when it leads to such attitudes or actions. Malicious envy is bad but not envy as such. True, the longing involved can easily lead to bad envious behavior, but the longing is not itself a sin—or else we are all doomed before we get started. Of course, we often wish for what others have. The underlying desire or emotion is not the sin but rather its expression in bad behavior and attitude. So, don’t berate yourself for feeling envy, or fear eternal damnation, just don’t give in to any tendencies you may have towards nasty behavior directed against the envied individual.

For “gluttony” we read “habitual greed or excess in eating”. That gets it right straight off the bat: there is nothing sinful about acting on a healthy appetite or lengthy starvation, just don’t do it excessively or selfishly. Suppose you first consume a good amount of food but then go on to stuff yourself excessively: that is not a good thing to do, especially if others are thereby deprived. But the underlying act of eating a lot is not in itself bad—as murdering or stealing even in moderation clearly is. The sin is one of excess not merely eating heartily. Do it, by all means, but don’t overdo it. But we don’t say “Break promises, by all means, but don’t over-break them!” Gluttony is (habitually, compulsively) eating beyond requirements, not eating till you are adequately full when hungry. There is nothing even a bit wrong about eating as such—as there is always something a bit wrong about murdering, however moderate. Sins are sins according to degree, not by nature or definition of the act in question.

The third deadly sin is called variously “greed” or “avarice”, so we get “intense or selfish desire for wealth, power, or food” and “extreme greed for wealth or material gain”, respectively. A pattern is emerging: it isn’t a desire for wealth, power, and food that is the problem, or even a strong desire for these things; it is extreme or excessive desire for them. Not so for murder and theft: here any desire for these things, or action based on such desire, is morally wrong. What counts as extreme or excessive is left open, but it is supposed that there is such a thing as too much such desire—enough to tip the balance into sin. It is not sinful to desire wealth, power, and food, even strongly, but it is sinful to do this excessively (whatever that means). When the desire for material gain reaches a certain point, it turns from healthy accumulation to mortal sin (capitalists will feel relieved).

Now we come to lust, everyone’s favorite deadly sin. The dictionary supplies “strong sexual desire” and then adds “a sensuous appetite regarded as sinful”. Well, which is it? Clearly, there is nothing sinful about strong sexual desire—isn’t all sexual desire strong (or nearly all)? Two people in love will be strongly sexually attracted to each other—is that supposed to be bad? Of course not—what, we should all be weakly attracted to the one we love? Not even the hint of a sin is in sight here. We only get into sin territory when we say “regarded as sinful”. The word “regarded” is doing sterling work here—rightly or wrongly so regarded? Obviously not wrongly, but then rightly on what basis? We might try “excessively”, but relative to what? Perhaps the idea is that we shade into sinful lust, as opposed to healthy sexual appetite, when we do it all day every day, or anywhere we happen to be, or make undue noise. This is all pretty shaky stuff, and doesn’t really correspond to the intent of the concept—which is really to press a puritanical agenda. In any case, it is hard to see what the sin is supposed to be—it certainly isn’t tantamount to rape or assault. The underlying act is hardly sinful by anyone’s standards—badly wanting to sleep with your lover is not any kind of crime or moral failing. It is difficult to see why lust is on the list at all, now or ever, lexically speaking.[1] Perhaps a lust for puritanical punishment lies behind it.

Pride is an interesting case: why should having a high opinion of oneself be a sin? If solidly based, it is simply an acknowledgment of truth. Proper pride is not improper! Can’t you be proud that you are not guilty of the other sins on the list, given that you are not? The puzzle is removed by noting the dictionary definition, but it is important to see that pride as such is not sinful: what is bad is “the quality of having an excessively high opinion of oneself”. The sin is in the error not in the nature of the attitude—exaggerating one’s own qualities, not soberly recognizing them for what they are. If you are proud of your tennis stroke or handwriting, you may simply be aware of their merits; the fault comes when you overestimate these qualities. This may be just bad judgement on your part, or it may spring from a need to compete with others irrespective of the facts. In any case, there is nothing intrinsically sinful about pride, as long as it is correct and rationally based. Having a good opinion of yourself is nothing like being a liar or a thief or a traitor. Would Newton go to hell for having a good opinion of his scientific abilities?

Sloth is an odd one too: how does it differ from taking a well-earned rest? The OED gives us “reluctance to work or make an effort; laziness”. Don’t you think a coalminer after a long strenuous shift deserves to put his feet up? He is very reluctant to do any more work or make an effort of any kind; he feels “lazy”. Taking a rest is no kind of immoral act. What is objectionable is being excessively work-shy—never working, always shirking. The hard question is when taking a rest turns into culpable laziness—the alleged sin of sloth. What is the criterion for this? When is the sin upon you? Many people don’t get enough rest because they are afflicted with the “protestant work ethic”; many are “addicted” to work; many can’t leave their work “at the office”. This is a fault that can rise to the level of wrongdoing, as in neglecting one’s family or one’s “deeper self”. And it is hardly a sin to sleep in on Saturday morning. What is bad is laziness in the face of moral demands—not giving a shit about anybody but yourself. Moral sloth is a sin, no question; but much inactivity has no moral dimension—it’s just lying about doing nothing. Sloth can be sinful (immoral), but it isn’t always. Doing nothing all day is nothing like actively murdering and robbing.

Finally, my personal favorite, wrath or anger. I am all in favor of it. We need much more of it in my view. Anger, I love it. Why? Because anger is the chief force opposing evil—the more anger there is, the less evil there will be. Someone who is never angry at injustice and cruelty is morally defective in my book. So, why is it included in the list of sins? It’s because anger can become extreme, excessive, overdone, out of control. The dictionary is well aware of this, defining “wrath” as “extreme anger”. Again, it is not clear why extreme anger should be counted a sin—can’t you be legitimately extremely angry about vile despicable actions? Should you be only mildly angry at history’s worst tyrants, or your traitorous friends? Absurd: anger can have degrees and a high degree of it is no sign of sinfulness. What is meant, presumably, is the normative judgment that the anger in question is excessive compared to the facts—unreasonable, hysterical, dangerous. This is certainly a moral failing, a “sin”. An irascible individual is not a virtuous individual, especially if he or she expresses anger unrestrainedly. This is certainly deplorable. But that isn’t always the case; there is plenty of justified moral outrage in the world—not enough, in my opinion. Anger is the backbone of morality. Bad anger is bad, for sure, but anger as such is not always bad.

The pattern here is obvious. None of the actions and attitudes named on the list of seven deadly sins is really sinful; what is sinful are certain immoral examples of these actions and attitudes. When the dictionary definition uses words like “extreme” and “excessive” it is slyly introducing a normative evaluative element. All the work of defining sin is done by this element; the names of the alleged sins tell us nothing morally relevant, though they clearly purport to. There is nothing sinful, even slightly, about feeling envy, dining heartily, wanting nice things, sexually desiring strongly, being proud of one’s accomplishments, avoiding work when tired, or being angry at evil actions. Things only go wrong when these attitudes slide into immoral territory—into malice, selfishness, acquisitiveness, sexual misbehavior, self-aggrandizement, culpable laziness, and unwarranted anger. When this is the traditional list does not tell us; so, it is next to useless as a guide to right conduct. Indeed, it is positively misleading, because it brands perfectly okay attitudes and actions as sinful, or leaves the moral agent unsure when he or she has crossed the line. It makes people nervous, especially when the penalties are so high (hell etc.). It should really be abolished. It has done real harm in the sexual sphere and has encouraged false modesty in the pride department. It has also given anger and hatred an unfairly bad name. It is actually a recipe for pointless guilt, perhaps intentionally so; politically, it is pretty suspect. It’s a good way to keep people down and under authoritarian control. Virtually everyone is “guilty” of the underlying acts, though not of the excessive immoral versions of them.[2]

[1] Simon Blackburn has a nicely tolerant attitude to lust in Lust (2004).

[2] Instead of the seven deadly sins we should call them the seven harmless pastimes. Some are even quite enjoyable, such as buying stuff, eating, and copulating.

Bald Eagles and Religion

Religion is typically composed of beliefs, emotions, and practices. These are logically detachable. In particular, existential beliefs in respect of supernatural entities are not necessary to the existence of religious emotions and practices. In fact, they can undermine such emotions and practices if they are wildly implausible or rebarbative. If people find the beliefs hard to accept, they will tend to discard the other components of the religion in question. Moral: don’t build crazy beliefs into your religious system. Christianity does a lot of this, while not emphasizing emotion and practice. Buddhism does the opposite. Zoolatry asks for nothing but ordinary natural beliefs combined with attitudes, emotions, practices, and moral prescriptions. It is therefore not vulnerable to ontological doubts.

Bald eagles have been in the news lately, an account of a family of them in Colorado. A camera has been installed in their nest giving them fulltime worldwide exposure. They are watched, religiously. Just yesterday a big event occurred: a fledging took flight for the first time and we all saw it happen. There was universal celebration. It was indeed a stirring moment: the hesitation, tentative flapping, and then the launch into space and successful flight. The symbolism was obvious: the tight-knit family, growth and maturation, then bold independence in the form of actual soaring. What struck me was how easy it was for people, especially children, to become riveted and inspired by this real-life story. It would be so easy to build a religion around these experiences. But this religion wouldn’t postulate any supernatural eagles—eagle gods—but stick with the actual specimens we can all see with our own eyes. Nothing else is necessary to generate the required uplift. Don’t make the actual eagles look less than their supernatural counterparts; accept them for what they are in all their glory. And emphasize the ethical aspects of the situation—how wrong it would be to disrupt the proceedings or (heaven forbid!) kill the eagles. By all means take pictures and try to learn more about eagles. Don’t belittle or infantilize the birds. I myself own a large glossy book dedicated to eagles, covering all 68 species of them, with magnificent illustrations (The Empire of the Eagle, by Mike Unwin and David Tipling), which I have read from cover to cover. (I have similar books on whales, lizards, and butterflies.)

I would say that the Abrahamic religions have been, if anything, anti-animal, not merely neglectful of animals (some of this no doubt has to do with sex). Greek religion was too humanistic and the Abrahamic religions have been too theistic. I would describe myself as an anti-humanist and anti-theist. Animals need a place in religion—and it is entirely natural to human beings to find a place for them. The eagle readily evokes religious feelings, as recent events illustrate. I am not the first to surmise that religiously based mistreatment of animals has fed into mistreatment of other humans; and of course, much violence has sprung from religious intolerance. It isn’t the existence of religion that causes these problems, as one might be tempted to suppose; it is choosing the wrong religion. Probably, this stems from an attachment to monarchical political arrangements—politics precedes religion. Democracy has yet to include animals apart from the human animal. It is all very well to dwell on utilitarian arguments in favor of better treatment of animals, but we need a deeper basis in religious sentiment. Hence, zoolatry.[1]

[1] I don’t think it’s a good idea to make religion too formulaic and formalistic; better to keep it flexible and loose. Religion should be plastic not rigid. Too many rules spoil the spirit of it. The hippies were right about this. But I don’t subscribe to the slogan “All you need is love”; I prefer “All you need is respect for life”.

Darwinian Theology

Suppose we marry zoolatry with modern evolutionary science: what kind of offspring do we get? Are the two compatible or do we get only sterility? I think they are perfectly compatible and that we deliver an attractive baby; indeed, something with considerable power—scientifically and spiritually. We get a Darwinian religion, a science of the divine. Am I talking about miraculous spiritual energies controlling evolution, with God firmly in the cockpit? I am not. There is no God in this religion or anything supernatural: we just have animal organisms evolving by means of Darwinian natural selection and gene propagation.[1] This is a scientific religion—and I mean orthodox science. My point is that sound biological science, as atheistic as you wish, is not incompatible with a religion built around animals. We can regard animals as sacred, divine, holy, venerable, and absolutely fabulous without giving up on Darwinian science; we just have to detach those adjectives from God-centered religion. We may view animals as god-like but not godly; they resemble (non-existent) gods in certain ways without being actually gods. The OED gives the following for “divine”: “of, from, or like God or a god”: to be divine is to be like a god, i.e., as “excellent, delightful” as a god. The intuitive idea is that animals can be (and often are) regarded as deserving of reverence, awe, and admiration—religiously, in a word. But notsupernaturally. We can even think of them as having souls or spirits–though not as capable of surviving death in a disembodied form. We are not going full Cartesian dualist about animals. Nor do we suppose that they were created ab initio by God; rather, we follow orthodox Darwinian evolution by mutation and natural selection. There is no supernatural metaphysics, but there is cultural religiosity. Zoolatry is atheistic and anti-supernatural, but it is also religiously tinged (iconography, rituals, ethical attitudes, “mystical” emotions, places of worship, devotional communities). We have the trappings of typical religions but without the baggage. There is nothing self-contradictory or spooky about any of this.

According to this religion, animals evolved from inorganic matter many millions of years ago, then proliferated by blind natural selection, eventually producing us (and whatever happens in the future). Darwin was the messiah of this religion (Wallace was his John the Baptist). The Origin of Species is the New Testament of the zoolatrical religion (the Old Testament consists of the Creationist guff that preceded Darwin). But Darwin didn’t know it all; he had no idea about genetics. Here is where things get interesting in zoolatrical circles: how do genes figure in the new (actually very old) religion? I’m not going to beat about the bush: they play the role of God. For genes are the hub, the driver, the architect of the animal world. I won’t argue for this position here; it has been done already by better men than me. I am concerned with interpretation: what is the religiousmeaning of the gene? Simple: genes are regarded as sacred in this religion. You could write a book called The Sacred Gene. Genes are objects of veneration, awe, gratitude, amazement, worship. They make animals! Us, too, but we are talking here about a religion of (non-human) animal worship (fascination, esteem, love). The genes are the gods of scientific zoolatry—the masters, the creative agents. That double helix rules the biological universe. We would describe DNA as miraculous if that word were in our naturalistic vocabulary—miraculous-seeming anyway. Without genes there would be no biological world; no butterflies, bees, or beavers. Nothing to get excited about. Also, genes are not selfish in the sense that they produce selfish animals; on the contrary, they produce unselfish animals where genetic relatives are concerned. The things animals do for their offspring! Genes are also immortal like gods: the vehicle perishes when the animal dies, but the genes live on in perpetuity. My genes will still be here long after my body and soul have shuffled off this mortal coil. So, in the religion of zoolatry genes will be granted a special place of honor—lovingly depicted, sung about, praised, commemorated. The Sistine chapel will have a different ceiling: an array of chemicals dividing and growing, with glorious animals springing up everywhere. The genes play the generative role traditionally ascribed to God: they are “holy spirit” of living things—though entirely chemical in nature. The science of genes thus occupies a central place in the bible of zoolatry. And notice the plural: not a single superlative Gene but many different genes—polytheistic not monotheistic. If you want a proof of their existence, you need nothing more than a good microscope to look through: DNA molecules are small but in principle visible. Of course, their workings are rather inscrutable—they work in “mysterious ways”—but we can be sure that there is nothing else in there calling the shots. Animals are rather inscrutable too, as far as we are concerned, but no one doubts their existence; mystery just adds to their religious appeal. Thus, the theology of zoology is plain sailing; nothing spooky to worry about, no miraculous resurrections or virgin births—just good old biological reproduction. This is astonishing enough—much better than that loaves-and-fishes caper, or the walking-on-water stunt. This is whole animals arising from little eggs, fish becoming mammals, etc. The genes are quite enough to inspire and amaze. Butterflies are icing on the cake.[2]

Did early man get the idea of the gods from observing animals? Did he magnify the remarkable traits of animals into something transcending the natural order? That seems like a plausible hypothesis—where else could he get the god idea? He observes the excellence, power, perfection, awesomeness, and beauty of animals and projects it into the idea of a superior being with similar attributes—a kind of eagle-man perhaps. He has already deified the Sun and this is a natural progression of thought. He really has no idea of what these deities might be like apart from their animal and celestial models. If so, the content of early god-centered religions is based on acquaintance with animals. It is therefore no great stretch to convert more recent religions into nature-based religions—solar or animal. Then we shall want to conjoin them with whatever we have discovered scientifically about the natural world. Hence, Darwinian religion with its accompanying theology. Part of that theology is that there are no gods (or God) in the usual sense, but it is accepted that we can have god surrogates—remembering that the gods were originally based on animals anyway. It has always been animals in our deep religious psychology, in so far as that psychology has any intelligible content (thus the mammalian being with a long beard of old-school theology). It is true that we are not going to be able to derive our morality from observation of animal behavior, but that idea is no worse than trying to make gods our moral yardstick, as Socrates pointed out long ago. What we really need is a type of religion that meshes with current science (and philosophy); and Darwinian zoolatry seems to fit the bill nicely. The selfish gene meets the sacred gene.[3]

[1] See my “Animal Worship” and “Beastly Religion”.

[2] The zoological theology of parasites has a problem, however, since we don’t tend to regard parasites with any awe or affection. They might be viewed as the demons of the biological world, on the principle that a religion needs its villains as well as its heroes. I will remain agnostic on the question of parasite divinity.

[3] This perspective enables us to interpret the book of the dead carried by the genes as constituting a sacred text: it informs us of times long past when life was at an earlier stage. The genes tell a story akin to biblical stories, but there is no God or gods in this story. The genes have their book of Genesis.

Explicable Knowledge

Suppose I don’t know where my phone is; it could be in a number of places in the house. I look around and find it on top of my desk, thereby coming to know that my phone is on my desk. This is a paradigm case of perceptual knowledge—knowledge by means of the senses. It is characteristic of such knowledge that I also know how I know—the means, the method. I don’t just suddenly know, inexplicably. I know that I know the fact in question by using my eyes to search the house and eventually see the phone sitting on my desk. I know that I moved my body through space and let the external world act on my senses so as to produce experiences of kinds that I also know. I know that I saw the phone from a particular angle, in a certain light, at a specific time. I know what led up to the knowledge, its preconditions and procedures. I have first-person explicable knowledge—knowledge of how such knowledge is produced, in general and in particular. It is no mystery to me. It gives me confidence in the belief I formed about the whereabouts of my phone.  So it is with what we are pleased (and proud) to call empirical knowledge in general—a posteriori knowledge, if we prefer the Latin (and its associated italics).[1]

But the same is not true of all knowledge. Suppose I know that 2+2=4 or that everything is self-identical or that bachelors are not married: do I know how I know these things? I do not. I could say “By reason alone”, but that is like saying I know where my phone is “by perception”: there is no detail, no explanation, just a general formula. There is nothing corresponding to walking around the house, casting my eyes this way and that, letting the world act on my senses (I could also feel my way around if it’s dark). I don’t know how I know—in fact, there is nothing like the procedures that led to my phone knowledge. I am inclined to say I just know, inexplicably (it is “self-evident”). My knowledge of mathematics, logic, and analytic truth operates in the absence of an accompanying knowledge-how. Movements of the body are not involved; nor is environmental causality. What we are pleased (and proud) to call Pure Reason has need of none of this: it proceeds in a vacuum, as it were. There is no knowledge of how the knowledge is produced. We have a first-person blank here, while in the case of perceptual knowledge we have an embarrassment of riches.

This enables us to make the following pronouncement: a posteriori knowledge is explicable knowledge and a priori knowledge is inexplicable knowledge—that is, to the agent or subject. The first kind of knowledge is knowledgeably known, but not the second kind; it is unknowledgeably known. Thus, the latter is a mystery-to-the-knower. We don’t understand how we come to have such knowledge. It is a kind of ignorant knowledge, though this doesn’t detract from its status as knowledge. The epistemic lack is higher-order: it concerns knowledge of knowledge. Conceivably, it could be the other way round: inexplicable perceptual knowledge (perhaps a bit like blindsight) and explicable rational knowledge (but what would this be like?); in any case, as things are, this is the way things line up. Predictably, the situation provokes suspicion of the a priori: it smacks too much of unsupported intuition, mere stabs in the dark. It would be nice if we could fit it under the sensory umbrella, as covertly perception-based; then it would enjoy the procedural transparency of perceptual knowledge. Some may say there can be no such thing, or that it amounts to vacuous tautology. And one can appreciate the motivation; there is a real asymmetry here, to the seeming detriment of the a priori (but see below). The a priori already seemed suspect from an objective explanatory point of view (mysterious in its operations); now we see that its first-person epistemology leaves much to be desired. The subject doesn’t know how he knows what he knows, yet he is convinced that he knows. This kind of suspicion will spill over into neighboring areas like introspective and ethical knowledge. For here too we find no clear analogue of the perceptual case: how do I know that I am in pain or have a particular belief, and how do I know ethical propositions? Not by moving my body around and deploying my senses, not by causal interactions and sensory impressions. Rather, I just know, inexplicably. Thus, some people question whether there is really knowledge in these cases—hence expressivist theories. If the subject can’t say how he knows, he doesn’t really know; and if he doesn’t know, there is no fact to be known. A lot of philosophy hangs on the asymmetry in question.

But an irony intrudes: if perceptual knowledge comes with knowledge of how it is acquired and justified, the question must arise of whether the means we use are up to the task. Hence skepticism. Brains in vats could use the same methods, or appear to. But not so for a priori knowledge: if no means are used, then there is nothing to criticize. Thus, a priori knowledge has been traditionally regarded as exempt from skepticism—not brain-in-vattable. It allows for (justified) certainty. Since it is first-person inexplicable, we can’t ask how good the explanation really is: what is not attempted cannot be faulted. A priori knowledge may be mysterious and inexplicable, but it cannot be accused of using shoddy methods, as a posteriori knowledge can be. We have a kind of Mexican stand-off: guns drawn but no victory, because what the a priori gains in certainty it loses in explicability, while the a posteriori can claim explicability only at the price of skepticism. This has been the basic layout of epistemology since Plato’s time: empirical knowledge makes sense but is open to skepticism, while rational knowledge is hard to make sense of but is not open to skepticism. The senses are fallible, so empiricism faces skepticism; reason is not similarly fallible, so it is (relatively) immune to skepticism. But rationalism is up to its neck in mystery (first-person and third-person), while having an easier time with skepticism. There is no obvious way out of this maze, as the last two thousand years testify.[2]

[1] This view of perceptual knowledge is defended by Michael Ayers (my old supervisor) in Knowing and Seeing: Groundwork for a New Empiricism (2019). I have not had the opportunity to read this book, but I have gathered the basic thesis from the book’s blurb. It is pretty straightforward.

[2] I first wrote about this topic in my MA thesis in psychology in 1972 and have returned to it intermittently.