D'Souza, Hitchens and Strawn update

As related in an earlier post, I attempted to start a conversation relating to a review of the D'Souza/Hitchens debate written by Josh Strawn, who was a pupil of Hitchens at New School in New York.

The "update" in the title is perhaps a grandiose addition, for this update consists of little more than the news that Strawn has not yet elected to respond in substance to the issues I raised with his arguments.

The chief reason for updating at this time is the fact that I revisited a site that led me just days prior to the exchange with Strawn to a review and commentary of Daniel Dennett's book, "Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon."

Strawn had referred me to Dennett along with Richard Dawkins and someone named "Harris"--I hesitate to conclude that Sam Harris is the corresponding personage.

The review, by David Hart, was quite memorable for the comparisons drawn between Dennett and characters from the stories of Lewis Carroll. I daresay Strawn, who expressed an admiration for Hitchens' gift of rhetoric, might find something to enjoy in Hart's treatment of Dennett on that basis at least. I'll borrow an exemplary selection:

I confess that I have never been an admirer of Dennett’s work. I have thought all his large books-especially one entitled Consciousness Explained-poorly reasoned and infuriatingly inadequate in their approaches to the questions they address. Too often he shows a preference for the cumulative argument over the cogent and for repetition over demonstration. The Bellman’s maxim, "What I tell you three times is true," is not alien to Dennett’s method.
(First Things)

I wish I had remembered to reference this review earlier!

It would be uncharitable, of course, to drawn any conclusions about Strawn's ability to answer the problems based on his recent failure to add to the dialog. On the other hand, his choice of authorities (pending the emergence of a Harris with gravitas) promotes the notion that Strawn is properly classed with atheists like Hitchens who appear to have a poor understanding the traditional theist/atheist debate topics.

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D'Souza vs. Hitchens reaction 1 (Updated)

The lively debate between Dinesh D'Souza and Christopher Hitchens has led, predictably, to spirited (no pun intended) commentary.

Over at "Jewcy" ("a magazine and community for new Jews and other riff-raff") the lead singer for Blacklist, Josh Strawn, decided to weigh in on the debate.

A caution: For all we know, Strawn has philosophy degrees spilling out of his ears and even if he doesn't his arguments ought to stand or fall on their own merits, not on the basis of his qualifications.

Strawn apparently considers himself somewhat above both Hitchens and D'Souza, though I can scarcely see any justification for that high opinion of himself in his commentary. Strawn is dismissive of D'Souza ("who essentially regurgitates theistic errors and rhetorical sidesteps") and disparaging of Hitchens ("could have done more to educate the folks who were getting off on his opponent's bullshit").

Strawn's main criticism of the debate rests on his conviction that science has explained the mind. His criticism of Hitchens primarily stems from his disappointment that Hitchens did not adopt what Strawn apparently regards as atheism's rhetorical ace-in-the-hole.

But to Hitchens: why not school people in precisely how the human mind does work at this point in the argument? It certainly does obey laws--laws so material that the notions of subjectivity and consciousness on which the theist's argument rest get blown to smithereens. If a human subject with a "mind" who makes ethical decisions that transfer to his or her immortal soul suffers a brain injury impairing his or her interpretive systems, ability to read human emotions (key to the brain response we know as 'compassion') then what's happened to the soul? If I can remove the part of a person's brain that enables ethical judgment, have I not surgically removed their moral soul? This connection between what the religious call the soul and what is known about material brain functionality severely undermines the theist's notion of the "I" that makes choices that bear on "my" eternal soul. If I'm a neuroscientist, I can plug your immortal soul into a machine and map it's electricity.
(Jewcy)

D'Souza would probably love to see Hitchens advance that argument.

Strawn's description of the atheist view of the mind appears absolutely deterministic. I would not envy Strawn the subsequent argument asserting moral accountability on the part of entities who cannot do other than what previous states of matter have compelled them to do.

I'll drop Strawn a line (if the Jewcy site permits non-Jewish interloping) and try to scope out whether or not he has any conception of the vulnerability he exposes regarding morality. How is Hitchens supposed to locate a principled objection to morality based on a deterministic framework?

Update:
Strawn has engaged the conversation here, and dropped by to offer commentary on this post (see Haloscan link below).

Though Strawn has engaged the conversation, he hasn't yet engaged my challenge to him, which was to resolve for Hitchens the difficulties with his moral argument that would result if Hitchens were saddled with the scientific understanding of the mind that Strawn advocated.

These quandaries have been addressed, even if they have not been resolved (as if they ever were prior to discoveries in neuroscience). In fact, Hitchens' allies, Dawkins, Dennett, and Harris all comprise different portions of the answer to how morality and responsibility exist in a materialist framework. Lewis nor Dostoyevsky has a trump card just because brains are matter and the body isn't acted upon by a ghostly entity. Read Dawkins on altruism, Dennett on free will as evolving phenomenon, Harris on the importance of beliefs (which are neurophysiological facts of the brain) corresponding as correctly as possible with the outside world.
(Jewcy)

Without the specifics, Strawn is offering a "My dad can beat up your dad" kind of argument. He kicks the matter down the street to a trio of dubious authorities (Dennett and Dawkins at least have some relevant credentials, even Dawkins tends to wander from his area of scientific study for purposes of commentary).

I pointed out that Dennett advocated compatibilist free will (you can evolve compatibilist free will until the cows come home and it will still have the weaknesses of compatibilist free will, as far as I can see).
I'm supposing that Strawn invoked Dawkins to show a plausible evolutionary rationale for altruism. That doesn't address any of the problems Hitchens would experience with his moral argument.
I'd need a reason to take Sam Harris seriously; I offered Strawn some derisive commentary from an atheist ethicist blogger that referred somewhat derisively to both Harris and Dawkins.

My suspicion that Strawn cannot rescue Hitchens' moral argument from the debate strategy that Strawn offered has only grown, but I'd still like more information.

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