Latest / The Catholic Current / Is Moral Certainty Possible? (W.M. Briggs) 8/13/26

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Is Moral Certainty Possible? (W.M. Briggs) 8/13/26 · The Catholic Current

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This is The Catholic Current with Father Robert Mattheig.
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The insight for our time that we need to gain from Augustine is if we're
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not returning to Christ as individuals and families and communities,
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then we're just wasting our time. Absolutely, yeah. And I
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think that that's the real relevance of the City of God today, is that you
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do have this scramble among Christians right now
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trying to find the next, you know, hot ideology that's going to save us all.
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In the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit. Almighty God, through the
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intercession of Saint Ignatius of Loyola, we ask that you pour forth your Holy Spirit
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upon us, a spirit of discernment that might hear your voice and obey your
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command. In the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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Hey friends, you've probably heard something like this very often. Well, that's true
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for you, but it's not true for me, and I have to speak my truth,
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and that might be wrong for you, but it's okay for me, and who are
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you to judge? On and on it goes. I've banged my head
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against that brick wall for a long time in the classroom, in the pulpit,
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in the confessional, sadly, and in all too many social
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situations. And I said, you know what I want to do? I'm going to talk
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to a really smart guy who knows a lot logic very, very well
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and can very handily dismantle that
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moral smugness, that moral relativism, and that moral excuse-making
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that takes cheap shots at moral certainties. So my
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returning guest today is known as the statistician to
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the stars, and he's author of a very enjoyable book called
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Everything You Believe Is Wrong. Dr. Briggs, welcome back to
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The Catholic Current. Thanks very much for having me. Dr. Briggs,
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you published an essay recently on your Substack where
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you were talking about Hume's guillotine
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and Euclid's catapult. Now, I am very,
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very much a humanities major. My knowledge of mathematics
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is very modest. Symbolic logic brought me to tears.
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When I talk logic, I like to talk about the informal fallacies.
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Can you give a simplified summary of
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those 2 things for the intelligent, willing-to-learn layman?
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Because I want to use this as a point of departure for taking on the
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all-too-common and all-too-cheap moral relativism that we're surrounded
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with. Sure. Well, Hume's guillotine
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is the supposed impossibility
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of deriving ethical oughts, ought statements,
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moral oughts, things you ought to do, from any empirical observation,
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any is statement. So this is the way, this is the way
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the world is, and from that we ought to do this and such.
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And Hume pointed out a logical difficulty in that. And there's
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nothing wrong with that particular statement, but nothing— the
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gist of this paper that I reviewed from David Stove, he was a philosopher
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in Australia, is that nothing follows from that.
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And what I don't think people understood was that it's still
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possible to derive ethical oughts or moral
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oughts, not just solely from empirical
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is statements. Here's the way the world is. They have to be married
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to something else. And it turns out to be the exact same thing in mathematics.
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That's exactly how mathematical truths are proved
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and their foundation. You cannot, for instance,
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derive mathematical theorems, which are equivalent
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to ethical oughts, just from looking out in the world. You could have
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one object, you could have 2 objects, and all you—
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a second object, and all of a sudden you have 2 objects.
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But that is not a mathematical proof, and it's certainly not
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proof that adding objects in always is going to give you more and things like
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this. So it's the same exact— it's the same exact subject. But we have—
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there's something missing in both of those arguments. There's a piece missing
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in both of those those arguments, that's kind of what I put my finger on
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for people to see clearly so that we have no doubts
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about— I mean, it's not that everybody knows every mathematical truth,
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right? Mathematics is not so easy, but most
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people are comfortable with believing that mathematics can
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be objective. And I use the word objective in the limited
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sense that it's not driven by our desire.
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It's mathematical proofs and theorems are by the
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way things are. Right. So they have no difficulty believing mathematics,
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even though mathematics suffers from this same flaw.
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And so I called it Euclid's catapult because just to
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match Hume's guillotine, that's a nice killing machine. And Euclid
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was there at the beginning. And it's exactly the same problem in
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mathematics. But we don't go so far as to doubt mathematical objective
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truth. Yet we do, or many of you do, try to worm
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their way in and doubt ethical truths. And that's
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kind of long. It's a very long essay. It's not simple.
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It's not easy to go through.
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And there's many steps, you know, to follow,
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which we need not belabor here,
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for sure. Because I also want— because after I read the essay, I was helped
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by your video, and you've got your blackboard, and you're drawing things out, and so
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on. And we don't have that facility. But to summarize,
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the issue is, Smart people and not so
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smart people trying to imitate smart people seem to be looking
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for excuses for bad behavior.
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And when you call them on your bad behavior, then somehow you're
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the stupid one because you don't know that we really can't
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be sure of moral truths. And here I want to go back to
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Aristotle in the Nicomachean Ethics. He said, we expect a degree
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of precision from a science that's appropriate to the subject of
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the science. So, you know, when we look at mathematics,
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for example, in metaphysics, there's a degree of precision there that you
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don't get when you're asking, does this wine taste good to you
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or not? There's some subjectivity. So is it fair to say
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that in morality, there really is black and white?
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There are non-negotiables, you know, do good and avoid
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evil, provide for your offspring, And then there is a legitimate gray
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about which honorable people may disagree. So say, yes, do good, avoid evil.
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Yes, I have to provide for my offspring. Yes, almost certainly
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that includes providing for their education. But then when
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we get down to, and where should we send Johnny to school this year?
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Honorable men may disagree. That's where the virtue of
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prudence applies principles to particular situations.
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That doesn't allow people to say, aha, therefore all morality
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is relative. Is that a fair assessment of the situation?
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That's exactly right. And to tie it into mathematics, the reason it's
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easy to be so precise in mathematics is we have absolute control over
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mathematical language. And I gave an example of it with these— I'm not going to
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give the example here, but with these things we call successor functions, you could
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be extremely precise using mathematical language in
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that way. Whereas in ordinary language, the language we're
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using now, it's difficult to be precise, but not impossible.
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Right. I don't mean to say it's impossible. But so when you broaden
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the subject, it becomes more conditional. There may be
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many more conditions that you're bringing in, things, premises that are like,
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which school do you send Johnny to? That kind of thing. It's very difficult
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because there's an enormous world of assumptions
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that go into those particular arguments. But it's in no way a
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proof that simple objective moral and ethical statements
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cannot be found, because of course they can. And so you opened up
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your description, for instance, by people, they'll say, well, don't you judge me?
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Judging me about what my actions are. Well, that's the judgment
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fallacy, because the person is, of course, judging you in
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your statements. They're coming up with their own judgments of
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your ethical statement. So, they have assumed ethical
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truth in coming up with the don't you judge me
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thing, because they've just said, well, you're wrong, and I'm right on this ethical
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matter, and I think my ethical truth is a truth. And if I'm supposed to
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agree that all ethics are relative, then I don't have to— I'm
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free to judge. I could do whatever I want. Right. And I
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tried to point out that it's really, really hard to be
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a consistent moral relativist. I would tell students, look,
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what you need to do— everybody has at least one non-negotiable.
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Find out what that is. And lean
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into it hard and then see what happens
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next. You know, the very simple example is, you know, moral relativists always object
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if you take their wallet and refuse to give it back. And if I say,
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well, you know, in my reality, it's okay for me to take your wallet.
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And in my culture of a, you know, bespectacled,
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bearded, left-handed Jesuit philosophy professor,
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and, you know, in my culture, it's okay We've
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got to decolonize your morality, you hater.
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And then they seem to back off and they don't know what to
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do. And they seem to think I'm playing some kind of game.
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Very quickly, as we come up on the break, many years ago, I had a
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Dominican sister who was teaching 8th grade, and she said they were discussing
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freedom in class and the kids would not be disabused of the notion that freedom
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is you do whatever you want. So, I walked into class and I asked
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for the eyeglasses of the 2 girls in the front row, and I said,
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they're mine now. And in my reality, I can tell take them, and I
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outweigh both of you together, so if you try to take them back, I'll beat
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you down, and if you complain, I'll say that you're violating your own definition of
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freedom. And I said, now, that and worse will happen to you every day unless
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you change your definition of freedom, and then they agreed to do so. And the
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Dominican looked at me like, how did you do that so quickly? And I said,
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well, you know, game, set, and match, Society of Jesus. So, the challenge
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to living a moral life is that it's a combination
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of science and art. It's not only
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black and white, and it's not only gray.
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It's the two together, and that requires moral maturity,
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and being morally mature is hard, and people are always looking
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for easy way out. And here I'll quote, uh, my late mother,
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the Mrs. Malaprop of her generation, when she said,
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don't make them get away with it. Friends, we come back, we're going to continue
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our conversation with Dr. Matt Briggs, statistician to the stars. We are talking
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about moral certitude. Can you have it or not?
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Praise be Jesus Christ. This is Father Robert McTague of the Society of Jesus,
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By subscribing to iCatholic Mobile, you help fund programs that defend
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our Catholic faith. Today we are asking, is moral certainty
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possible? The answer is a resounding yet
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qualified yes, and my returning guest is
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Dr. Matt Briggs, also known as Statistician to the Stars.
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Dr. Briggs, I'm sure you've seen something like this.
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You know, people rightly ask for evidences, they ask for sources.
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You know, I'm a recovering academic. I live for footnotes
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and bibliographies and so on, but there seems to be a
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kind of logical trick where, you know,
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hey, you know, you shouldn't abort your children, or you should provide for their
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education, or marriage is between one man and one woman. And no matter what
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you offer, there's always a prove it, prove it, prove it,
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prove it, prove it. And there never seems to be
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a back wall behind which you can't go, that in which
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there is no Witcher. And then the claim
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is, well, because you can't prove absolutely everything,
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you really can't be certain of anything, and therefore,
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welcome to the jungle. I'm sure you've heard that many times.
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How do you begin to respond to that? Well, first of all, it's self-refuting,
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because you have just stated if you cannot prove anything,
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and therefore I believe that that's certain, you have just made
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a claim of certainty and a claim of proof. So it doesn't
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work. Uh, this also goes back to Hume too.
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He was not the first skeptic, by any means, but he sort
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of also was rigorous about trying to do it, about trying to define
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his skepticism. So he was skeptical about ethical truths, but he
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was also skeptical about logic and logical truths.
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And he saw that there was kind of a circularity. If you only
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have logic, if you just have logic and you say, here's my logic,
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and you try to build a world from that, you're always going
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to end up in some sort of circularity. But of course, that's not That's not
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what happens. Deductive arguments are not the only way
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to make arguments, and that's the whole basis,
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again, tying all this back to mathematics, that's the whole basis
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of mathematics. We know we have, we can argue logically
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and so forth, but where do the rules of logic come from?
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How do you know that the
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conclusions that you find in a logical, rigorous manner are themselves true
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because you've used the rules of logic? How do you prove them? You can't prove
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them using logic. Because that's circular.
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But you can prove them using different forms of
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reasoning, and that's different kinds of induction. And this—
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Hume was famously an induction— an inductive skeptic.
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But of course, induction, there are different kinds of induction. This goes back
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to Aristotle too. Sure. And our highest forms of knowledge come,
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I think, from our, you know, inductive intellection,
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where we grasp universals from particular cases.
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And in the case of mathematics, that's how we form our axioms, and we
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build all of mathematical truth and
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structure on these very simple axioms that we themselves
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deduce— use— or not deduce, induce using
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intellection. Because we notice that we have, every time we
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take a number and we add another one to it, we have another number greater
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than that one, and then we add another one and we have yet another
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number. But how can you prove this for all numbers without having
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to check. You could line up objects and check, but there's only one
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way. You come to the intuitive leap and say, aha, this must
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be true for all numbers that meet this particular definition
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of a number. And it's easy to do in mathematics where you're having— like
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I said, you could be completely rigorous in language, but that's exactly what it is.
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It's the same thing in logic. The rules of logic
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are formed in exactly the same way. You find that these particular
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syllogisms and so forth fit particular structures
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and you say, aha, they always work. You know, if X is an F and
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F is G, all that kind of thing that if you remember back from the
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days in which you took those classes, that's how we prove those things. But it
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all rests, it all rests, all of these arguments, there's no infinite
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regress. Infinite regress is an impossibility because they all rest on
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these inductive leaps we make where we actually do see,
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if you want to call it, this is my, I'm fond of saying it this
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way, where we do see the infinite, we do have a taste of the infinite
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because things that are universally universally true, which cannot be proved.
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Mathematics is not an empirical subject, for instance,
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right? Some equations fit the world, most don't,
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but we still think they're true. So you can't prove they're true empirically.
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You have to prove they're true based on these foundational beliefs
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that you have. And the same thing applies with ethics. That's what I was trying
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to do in that article, just show you that if you could believe mathematics,
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you could certainly believe ethics for the same reasons, right?
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Friends, we're talking today with Dr. Matt Briggs about the possibility of
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moral certainty. I want to draw an analogy
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here. You know, when I was taking philosophy of science, the professor would ask,
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you know, how many pieces of copper do you have
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to examine before you say, hey, you know, it really looks like copper
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conducts electricity? And then you say, well, you know,
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does it really make sense? Well, all of them? Have you
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examined every piece of copper before you have— before
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you can say that— I mean, because you can't do science that way if you
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have to have exhaustive knowledge of everything that you're looking at, isn't that fair?
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That's absolutely fair, and it brings up, and I'm not gonna discuss it,
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but it brings up there are levels, different kinds of induction.
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The kind of induction you're talking about there at first is kind of like an
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induction probability. You're taking these pieces of copper out
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of the ground and you test them, they're all conducting electricity, and this is before
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you have an idea of why it's happening. You don't have the full explanation
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in front of you, but you're able to make some kind of a cheap.
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And that builds up into further knowledge
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that you have yet again by grasping the nature of
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copper. And that's a different sort of thing than knowing what copper could
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do. So to build up that full explanation, you just build
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induction upon induction, which you can then test with the world.
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Right. You see, I think I want to shift a
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little bit because deep down I'm a metaphysician yearning to breathe
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free. And when I was teaching medical ethics, and it turned out that
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the best empirical data and the best of natural
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law harmonize with Catholic moral theology,
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so that you can say empirically, rationally, and by faith, for example,
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promiscuity is a really destructive idea.
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We shouldn't do that. And the students were absolutely astounded
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that science, common sense, and Catholic theology lined
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up. And I would say, hey, almost as if there was an intelligent
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design behind it all. Now I'm gonna say something politically incorrect.
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One of the reasons why Islam didn't really distinguish
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itself in science and Christianity did is because
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they have different views of causality and of God. God is reason.
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He's logos. He's logical. He's true. And we can know something about
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the Creator from the creation because there are patterns and regularity in
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nature by God's intelligent design and providence
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that allow things like science. Whereas for Islam,
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God is primarily will.
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And so, if you flick the light— the light switch and the lights come on,
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that's not because of the way things are. It's because in
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that occasion, God decided to have the lights come
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on. And if he wanted to change all that, then he could.
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Likewise, you know, murder might be wrong today, God might decide murder is
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wrong tomorrow. And you can't do do science that
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way if everything becomes unpredictable?
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Can you talk a little bit about the false dilemma between
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science and reason on one hand and faith on the other? Well,
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you're quite right about Islam. There's a degree of capriciousness
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there. I mean, whatever happens, you know, it was written, right?
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It is written. This is going to happen this way. So, if you don't—
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if you can't find regularities, you're never going to be able to— you're never
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going to be able to make predictions. And why, making predictions about the world,
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which is what science does so well, because it could change
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at any moment. Not that it's not entirely empty, they're not— it's
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not entirely wrong, because of course there can be miracles where
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God steps in and changes the nature of a thing, which happens
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every day at Mass or something. So it's not entirely
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false, but it's not the
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whole story, it's only portions of it, part of it.
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Oh, I'm sorry, I lost track of the other question. Oh, okay. No,
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we were talking about causality and understanding, but ultimately,
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it's the false dilemma between, well, there is science, which is
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true and provable, and everything else is completely made
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up. And so, talking about natural law or the Trinity is as ridiculous
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and mockable as, you know, seeing Elvis at Walmart
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or seeing the Blessed Virgin in a plate of scrambled eggs.
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Can you address that, please? And I'm aware of the fact we only have a
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few minutes in this segment. Yeah, absolutely. So, that's the whole point. I often say,
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in order to believe, I make the same arguments going
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back to mathematics, because this is something everybody believes is the most
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objective, rigorous thing that we have is mathematics or logic. And it's the same
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in mathematics with the axioms. You have to have faith.
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There's no other or better word for it, I think.
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You intuit that these things are true, and they cannot be proved
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true. You hit a wall of proof where it just seems true to you.
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Because of the way the world is, and there's no escaping
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it for those people who consider it. And that's faith. That's exactly,
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well, a portion of what faith is. So there's absolutely no mathematics
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without faith. There's no logic without faith. And since you're using math
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and logic to argue for science, you cannot have science
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without relying on these same faith propositions,
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if you like. So everything still has to be tested. You know, every religious
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claim isn't true just because somebody made it. Of course, there's any number
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of tests for it, and people do that, but to just say
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religion must be false because it relies on faith is therefore
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also to condemn science, also to condemn logic, also to condemn mathematics.
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I remember years ago, there was a very clever book written by an evangelical pastor
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called I Don't Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist, which I thought
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was a very clever play on words, but it
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seems to me undeniable That, that the world is intelligible
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and that that can't happen merely by accident.
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And had we but world enough and time, I would go on and talk about
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the moral significance of what it means for a supreme being to call something into
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existence out of nothing and so on. And, and then I'd start speaking in
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philosophical tongues, but I'll spare us all that.
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But, but my point is this: don't trust people who
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want to take away moral clarity.
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Don't trust people who say that absolutely
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everything is up for grabs because they're almost
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certainly up to no good. And I would also ask my students,
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when people make suggestions, recommendations,
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policies, laws, I would always ask, does this help
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us to build a moral house in which we would want to live?
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And I know that one of the famous so-called new atheists, I forget
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which one, maybe it was Hitchens, well, I don't
24:50
believe in Christianity, but I want to live in a Christian-based
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culture because people strive hard to be good.
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That's like saying, well, I like apple pie, I just don't believe in
25:01
orchards. Friends, we come back, we're going to continue our conversation with Dr. Matt Briggs.
25:04
We're talking about the possibility of moral certainty,
25:07
and I do recommend his book called Everything You Believe
25:11
Is Wrong. After the broadcast today, go to the Station of the Cross
25:16
cross.com. Get our resources list, download our audio as podcasts. If you can find audio,
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25:23
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26:00
This is the Catholic Current from the Station of the Cross Catholic
26:03
Media Network. Catch up on an episode you've missed or share
26:07
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26:11
wherever you enjoy listening: Apple Podcasts,
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Spotify, Podbean, TuneIn, and the iCatholic Radio mobile
26:17
app. Praise be Jesus Christ.
26:21
This is Father Robert McTeague of the Society of Jesus, your daily host for The
26:25
Catholic Current, where we bring Christ to the world and the world to Christ.
26:28
You're listening to us on the Station of the Cross Studios, your local radio station,
26:31
and the iCatholic Radio mobile the map. We proclaim the fullness of truth with
26:35
clarity and charity. My guest today, my returning guest, is Dr.
26:38
Matthew Briggs. We're talking about whether moral certainty is possible.
26:42
Dr. Briggs, in my book Real Philosophy for Real People, I insist
26:46
that ethics is both a science and an art. It's a science
26:51
insofar as it's a body of knowledge derived from principles,
26:55
and it's an art because it involves applying universal
26:58
principles to particular situations in ways that
27:02
can be creative or imaginative. So there is real moral black
27:06
and white, and there is legitimate gray which can and ought to
27:10
be navigated amongst the fixed compass points of the black and white.
27:13
So that's my, that's my, my claim, and I think I'm just standing in the
27:17
natural law tradition. There's nothing new about that. But I know you have a book
27:22
out called Everything You Believe Is Wrong, which makes it sound like you're a
27:26
complete skeptic. I know that you're not. And if I heard correctly, you have a
27:29
new edition coming out before I do, in September, October.
27:33
It's the second edition of this, many new chapters, cutting out
27:37
some of the boring ones. Okay. Rewriting every
27:41
one of the chapters. Oh, okay. Well, very good. When that comes out, we'll be
27:45
sure to feature it. So, you've got a book titled Everything You Believe
27:49
Is Wrong. I noticed that you italicize believe and
27:52
not know. Why is that? Well, for the very simple reason is you
27:56
cannot know what is false. It's sort of a precept
28:00
of logic that you can only know a truth. Truth, but you can believe
28:05
anything. And our culture, of course, has a large
28:09
number of beliefs that are highly suspicious, and that's
28:13
basically what I talk about. I don't talk about humble everyday sort of beliefs,
28:17
so, you know, you know which house is yours and
28:20
you know who your father and mother are, that kind of just simple mundane
28:24
everyday truths, but fallacies that seem to crop up or
28:28
do crop up up very often, extremely often,
28:32
and are used either in a cynical way by politicians or
28:36
are used in a sincere way by, for instance,
28:39
academics or reporters or something to try to make
28:44
arguments, to try to make arguments, to put their case about things.
28:47
And I just go through them each. I, you know, in logic,
28:51
all these names have— because of Aristotle, of course,
28:54
and and so on have nice Latin
28:59
tags associated with each of them.
29:02
But, you know, Latin is unfortunately kind
29:06
of a fading language. So I came up with more fanciful names for them.
29:11
And some of them, I think it's a good cause to do this too,
29:13
because some of them are rather— nothing is new
29:17
under the sun, of course, but some of them are rather pernicious
29:21
in our day and age. My favorite, just to give an example,
29:24
is the appeal to non-authority.
29:28
Everybody knows what the appeal to authority is. You say, you ask
29:32
your dad, why can't I do this? He said, because I said so. Well,
29:35
I never felt persuaded. So that's an appeal to authority. But the appeal
29:39
to non-authority is found every day. It's found
29:43
every day. You see it in every advertisement where they have some celebrity endorse a
29:46
product, or in politics where they usually trot out some child
29:50
or teen or something like this to complain about climate change
29:55
or racism or something like this. Now these kids can't know anything
29:59
about these subjects, particularly extremely complex
30:03
scientific subjects like thermodynamics on a rotating
30:07
sphere, you know, covered with fluid like the Earth.
30:11
So, but we believe them because they're children. Well, why would they
30:15
be there unless they were sincere? So sincerity is of course another
30:19
fallacy, but that we appeal so often to
30:22
celebrities, to children, to sports stars and all this kind of
30:26
a thing, that's a fallacy we all love. And it's really
30:30
hard to dissuade yourself from believing these things once
30:34
they trot these out, because they're very effective. That's why they're
30:38
so common, because they do in fact work.
30:40
Well, see, that is one of the things that I always found unsettling
30:44
and also puzzling. It's like, look, you know, you play
30:48
sports ball and you throw, you know, an inflated ball around a field
30:52
for a living, and now you're talking to me about
30:56
taxes and vaccination and morality and
31:00
so on. You know, drink French wine. You know, 40 million Frenchmen can't be
31:05
wrong. That's like saying, well, eat poop. 10 billion flies can't be wrong. So it
31:09
seems to me that we're raised to navigate the world
31:12
in a way that's unduly and dangerously sloppy,
31:18
shall we say, and very clever crafty people
31:22
know that and use that sloppiness to exploit us.
31:26
And that's why propaganda and advertisement continue
31:31
to work so well. So can we talk about some habits
31:35
of mind that would allow us to— how should I put this— exercise
31:39
better intellectual hygiene so that
31:43
our nonsense detector— I was gonna say something else, but we're on
31:47
the air— our nonsense detector works more reliably?
31:51
There's all— everybody's got any number of these guides and they all depend
31:55
on the person who is going to use them. For me,
31:59
and I, you know, not like I learned my own lesson, but my dad always
32:03
said, never pass up an opportunity to keep your mouth shut.
32:07
And of course, I flagrantly abuse that one
32:10
all the time. But if you— for me, it works.
32:14
This may not be your particular problem, but for me, me pause before
32:18
entering the discussion and think about what was just said,
32:22
because there's any number of distraction fallacies. I list a
32:26
number of them in the book that are used on you and that will
32:30
bring you away from the argument. So I'll give you an example.
32:33
My favorite, since we're talking about ethics, my favorite, one of my other favorite fallacies
32:38
is the imposing your beliefs fallacy. You'll see this
32:42
one used in Congress, for instance, a lot when,
32:45
say, a Supreme Court justice is coming up for nomination.
32:49
And one of the senators, Feinstein, at the time was talking to
32:53
Amy Coney Barrett and said, you're trying to impose your beliefs
32:56
on us. Well, that's exactly what a judge's job
33:01
is by definition, to impose their beliefs.
33:05
But in doing that, it's just like the judgment fallacy. Feinstein wanted
33:09
to impose her beliefs without calling them beliefs. So somebody
33:13
is always going to be, whenever there's 2 people who have
33:17
a disagreement about something and, and, only one decision can
33:22
be made, somebody is always going to be imposing their belief,
33:25
and you might as well make it the correct belief to
33:29
the best ability that you have. Just because you're saying
33:33
somebody is trying to impose the belief does not make that belief false
33:37
or wrong or doubtful or anything like that. Well, you know, and that's
33:41
also what, you know, legislation is. You know,
33:44
we're imposing our morality on would-be house
33:48
robbers that robbing is wrong. Wrong. And we enforce
33:52
that not only, you know, it's a good idea, but also we enforce it
33:56
with people who have badges and guns. And if you live in a sane state,
33:58
you're able to also defend your home, uh, as well.
34:01
But that's, uh, that's another topic for another time.
34:04
I'll put a big can of worms in— we've only got about 5 minutes left
34:08
in this segment. Advertisement works because we
34:12
are easily seduced and distracted and,
34:16
and addicted Are there habits of caution, if not
34:20
outright skepticism, that one can bring to the advertising arena or the
34:24
political arena or the places where slogans do their work? Yeah, well,
34:28
the obvious one is disbelieve or doubt
34:32
everything at first. Take everything as if there's
34:36
something else going on. This is not always going to be true. It's just
34:41
a rule of thumb. But if you're hearing from a politician, even if he or
34:45
she is from your side, so to speak.
34:48
And often, especially if they are saying that they are on
34:51
your side, you have to— to me, again, it just goes back
34:55
to the pause. Pause and think. Pause and think. I mean, you don't
35:00
have to come up with an immediate answer. You don't have to come up with
35:03
an immediate response to people. The way we have everything now, someone sends
35:07
you an email, a text, and if you're not on it in 10 seconds,
35:10
30 seconds, they start to wonder what's going on with your mind. So you
35:13
have to— you really have to pause to think. And there's no— for
35:18
me anyway, like I say, there's no other better way to try to see what
35:22
exactly is going on here. You know, I mean, the idea—
35:26
and when you're taking courses and all this kind of stuff, you're thinking,
35:29
what are the distinctions being made? What are the definitions here? What are the premises
35:33
here? And that's very difficult to do in the heat of the moment.
35:37
It's very difficult to do when you're being seduced by these advertisements
35:40
and all that kind of stuff. But if you find that if you do try
35:44
to just try to take apart one or too. Particularly, you're seeing, you know,
35:46
if you hear or see like a medical commercial, take this new pill. I always
35:50
use the example of Profedol. Take Profedol, you know,
35:54
and you'll avoid suicidal thoughts. And then they list one
35:57
of the side effects as suicidal thoughts and death.
36:02
And you think, well, okay, that's interesting. So should I take this
36:05
or not? You know, so if you do that, if you start to do that,
36:09
you'll find that you do it, you know, you develop a habit like anything
36:13
else, you develop a habit of doing this and then you've you find
36:17
if you carry it too far, you become a bore like me and you become
36:20
insufferable and you take to the internet and start ranting at people
36:24
through your Substack or something. Hey, some of
36:28
my best friends rant. So I'm not a ranter myself,
36:31
but I'm ranting adjacent. You know, I think
36:35
back, gosh, I was a kid and I was reading my older brother's copies of
36:39
Mad Magazine, which probably explains a lot. And they had something
36:43
on advertisement and a lot of it still, uh, stuck with
36:47
me. And it made me think, you know, later when I got more sophisticated
36:51
and went to school, and you think of, you know, cui bono, or better said,
36:53
you know, follow the money. I'm also going to throw in Gene Roddenberry from
36:58
Star Trek that said television exists for one reason only, and that's to,
37:01
to sell you things. Isn't it fair to say when someone
37:05
is trying to pitch an idea to you, your first idea should be to put
37:09
your hand over your wallet? Exactly. There's no better
37:12
advice. There's absolutely no better advice,
37:16
particularly in politics and especially in advertising.
37:20
The way they frame things, the language that's used, it's all very
37:24
highly ritualized. And if you learn to spot familiar
37:29
fallacies, then you'll, you know, you get into the habit of doing this,
37:33
you'll see how much of the discourse is quite fake.
37:37
Well, you know, one of the reasons I wrote my book Real Philosophy for Real
37:40
People is because, um, you know, I had the
37:43
time to, you know, to do, to do the research, and a lot of people
37:46
don't. But there's a lot of times you see something, you hear something,
37:50
and you say, wait a minute, that doesn't sound
37:54
quite right, but I can't put my finger on it. I wrote the book to
37:58
help people put their finger on it because it turns out the different
38:02
ways of being wrong is actually a relatively small
38:06
small number. And if you can begin to, you know, it's a
38:10
lot like, you know, you're bird watching and you have your book and you say,
38:13
oh, you know, that's a triple-breasted throat warbler, isn't that interesting?
38:17
And eventually when you have the, you know, who are you to judge, etc.,
38:20
so, oh, you've got a relative ethics, a reductionist anthropology,
38:24
a materialist metaphysics. That doesn't work. Here's why.
38:27
Here's the alternative. So I, you know,
38:30
thinking is Thinking well
38:34
is harder, and thinking well as a matter of habit is harder
38:39
still, but it's not impossible. And it really is
38:42
one of the things that makes life worth living. And especially
38:47
as Catholics, we who make the bold claim that we have
38:51
received the way, the truth, and the life from Christ our Lord,
38:55
put into the hands of the one church he founded, then we
38:59
need be really, really invested in
39:03
knowing the truth, loving the truth, telling the
39:07
truth, and doing the truth. And I think that something
39:10
that's anti-human and ungodly is to say
39:15
there is no truth, truth can't be known, truth is just
39:19
a matter of power, and now by golly, I'm in
39:22
charge and we're going to start putting biological men
39:26
into your kids' locker rooms, when in fact they're,
39:29
you know, the kids in question are girls. So if we
39:34
don't have a rigorous commitment to truth, the law of the jungle
39:38
will eventually emerge, and the, the casualty
39:42
rate for the jungle is a lot higher than we
39:46
would like. And that's one of the reasons why I do what I do.
39:48
I show up every day to talk to smart people so that you can develop
39:52
the habits that will keep you from believing lies.
39:55
Friends, when we come back, we're going to continue our conversation with Dr. Matt Briggs,
39:58
also known as Statistician to the Stars. Check out his good book called Everything
40:02
You Believe Is Wrong, and keep your eyes peeled for the second edition coming
40:06
out this fall. Be part of the conversation. Follow what we're following
40:10
by following us on Gab. That's gab.com.
40:14
The channel is The Catholic Current. You can influence the conversation.
40:18
You can contact us at thestationofthecross.com/askfather.
40:23
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40:27
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40:30
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40:34
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40:38
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40:41
Back in just 2 minutes. Please do stay with us.
40:59
Have a question or feedback
41:03
about today's episode? Want to suggest a guest or a future topic?
41:07
Go to thestationofthecross.com/askfather and
41:12
help influence the conversation.
41:20
Praise be Jesus Christ. This is Father Robert McTeague of the Society of Jesus,
41:24
your daily host for The Catholic Current, where we bring Christ to the world and
41:27
the world to Christ. You're listening to us from the Station of the Cross Studios,
41:30
your local radio station, the iCatholic Radio mobile app. We proclaim the
41:34
fullness of truth with clarity and charity. We're talking about whether moral
41:38
certainty is possible. My returning guest is Dr. Matt Briggs.
41:42
Uh, Dr. Briggs, I, I learned to do philosophy while yelling because
41:46
My, my mentor was hard of hearing, and we both had to talk loud enough
41:49
for him to hear himself and me. And if I
41:53
did believe in reincarnation, which I don't because I'm a Christian and a
41:56
good philosopher, I would say that he was the reincarnation of Socrates
42:01
because he had an absolute passion
42:04
to know the truth. And we could have knock-down,
42:07
drag-out arguments and then sit down to a nice dinner because
42:11
it was never personal. And I remember many times in doctoral seminars,
42:15
he'd read aloud a chapter of a book he was working on,
42:18
someone would offer a severe criticism, and he'd say,
42:22
you're right, I shouldn't have written it that way, and he'd tear it
42:25
in half and start the chapter from scratch. In my
42:29
experience, that kind of interior freedom and desire
42:33
for truth is relatively rare. What are your thoughts on
42:36
that? It's absolutely rare, especially on
42:39
the forum that most of us are familiar with, the internet. You must keep
42:43
a sense of humor. You have to keep a sense of humor about things.
42:47
When anybody comes up with an argument, too often, the first thing is
42:52
nothing but rank abuse instead of trying to either address
42:56
the argument or make a joke about it. I mean, you don't have to accept
42:59
every argument. But that's one thing you asked me in the last segment, but this
43:02
all follows too. And the one habit of mind that
43:06
I absolutely profess, and I think works in all of these situations,
43:10
it'll keep you in a good humor too, is what would it take to convince
43:13
yourself that you're wrong? There's any number of weird beliefs that
43:18
are out there, theories, you know, that people have about politics,
43:21
certain political events and everything. And we don't need to mention any of them.
43:24
But people grasp onto them easy. And for the very good
43:28
reason, it's a very good reason people grasp onto all these theories,
43:31
is because it is extremely easy to find evidence and
43:35
arguments that confirm a belief that you cherish,
43:40
that you desire to hold. It's really easy to do that. That doesn't
43:44
mean that wrong. It doesn't mean that they're wrong, but you need to practice the
43:48
habit, which is now gone, of what would it take to convince
43:52
you you were false, that your belief is false, or that
43:55
it's wrong? What would it take that you would change your mind? Is there an
43:59
argument that you could find? Now, in the old days, students, when they're going through
44:03
school, they would have debate, and you're just given any old side of a debate
44:07
to take, regardless if it's the one that you favor. And that built up a
44:10
great habit of mind to try to see what is
44:13
the best— they call it steelmanning now, but what is the best argument your opponent
44:17
has. And that's what, of course, Aquinas did, and in his
44:21
way of writing too, you find the best arguments that are out there.
44:24
And if you can tear those down and show why those are wrong, why,
44:27
that's what your duty is to do. But you have
44:31
to ask that of yourself. No one's going to ask it of you. If you're
44:34
latching on to some strange belief, or which seems strange belief to you,
44:38
or other people are telling you that's strange, it's up to you. It's your duty
44:43
now to go out and find out why might I be wrong. You don't have
44:46
to tell anybody about this. You don't have to go out and admit that you're
44:49
doing this kind of stuff. You know, it doesn't have to be embarrassing for you,
44:52
but you have to do it just the same. Right, right. I, you know,
44:55
I would tell my students, I said, look, once you've written the first draft of
44:59
your essay for me, go for a walk and imagine yourself
45:03
walking with a person who disputes every point
45:07
that you make, how would you answer them and then go back
45:11
and rewrite the essay? And they gasped in
45:14
horror. They said, that's a lot of work and that'll
45:18
take time. Yes,
45:24
it's worth it. And I think part of,
45:29
you know, one of my favorite forms of exercise is to leap from soapbox to
45:32
soapbox, drive my menagerie of pet peeves before me. And I'm going to try to
45:36
do this in just a quick sprint. One of the things that I think has
45:38
really crippled higher education, which I used
45:42
to have a very great reverence for,
45:45
is that it's become the cultivation of, of raw
45:49
emotion and the tyranny of grievance studies.
45:54
And the idea of living with an argument that you disagree with
45:58
and being open to changing your mind, a lot of that
46:02
seems to, to be lost. And so when I was studying theology
46:05
in London, I quoted Walker Percy. He was asked, why do
46:09
you remain a Catholic? And he said, what else is there? And so afterwards,
46:12
Sister remonstrated with me, said, Hans is from Germany, and he's a Lutheran. How do
46:16
you think that made him feel? And I said, I don't know. Hans didn't tell
46:19
me, and I don't care, but if he's committed to truth, he'll have a conversation
46:23
with me. Suffice to say, that was not the answer that Sister was looking for.
46:27
No, and nowadays, when you give somebody an argument that they disagree
46:31
with, some of the people at universities especially, I feel unsafe.
46:35
You're making me unsafe. I am physically unsafe.
46:38
How are you unsafe from hearing an opinion you don't
46:42
want to hear, you don't wish to hear? It doesn't make you unsafe.
46:46
This, this, it's juvenile. It's effeminate. I mean, we've become
46:50
a nation of effeminates. There's no other better way to put it. It's a
46:54
very strong way to put it, but I think it's absolutely the truth that people
46:57
cannot stomach any kind of disagreement anymore.
47:01
And that's a bad situation. And just for clarification,
47:04
effeminacy is different from being feminine.
47:07
St. Thomas Aquinas said effeminacy is a weakness
47:11
and softness. It's a cousin to acedia,
47:14
or sloth, which he says is a species of sadness,
47:18
a worldly sadness that laments that being good
47:22
is hard. So, when, you know, so I would say,
47:26
let's not give up on the commitment to the truth
47:29
just yet. Let's at least make an effort. Effort that's worthy of
47:34
a refutation. Dr. Briggslett, we got about 2 and a half minutes
47:38
left. I'm going to do a variation of let's you and him fight. Senior Catholic
47:41
cadres of the People Who Should Really Know Better Club run around saying
47:45
no one has a monopoly on truth. What do you make of that statement?
47:49
I think the people who are possessing the truth have an absolute monopoly
47:53
on it, and that's tough luck.
47:59
It's also true, of course, that no one person has a complete grasp
48:05
of truth. Now, I certainly don't. All of us make mistakes. Right,
48:08
right. And also, you know, our Lord really
48:12
did say, you know, you shall know the truth and truth will make you free,
48:15
and I am the way, the truth, and the life. And I think we
48:20
do a disservice to our neighbor
48:25
and to God if we're coy about what
48:28
can be known. We can talk about what has been revealed another time,
48:32
but we can know enough with confidence to
48:36
build a pretty robust civilization.
48:40
We can build with confidence, as I tell my students, a moral house
48:44
in which we would want to live. And my
48:48
friend Bill Whittle, whose work I admire very, very much, he said, you know,
48:51
if you want to build a civilization, do some simple things: tell
48:56
the truth, keep your promises, don't be a jerk, and don't
48:59
mess with other people's stuff. And if you follow that,
49:02
history shows you can have a very good civilization.
49:05
In that way. You can just say, hey, do good and avoid evil, and then
49:09
begin to act accordingly. Dr. Briggs, we got about half a minute
49:12
left. Where can people find your work?
49:15
wmbriggs.substack.com is the best place, or if
49:19
you're a video person, YouTube @WMB.
49:23
All right, well, we're certainly going to put those in the show notes
49:27
as well. Dr. Briggs, I'm very grateful for your time today. I'm grateful for
49:32
your clarity, your candor, and your good humor. We can
49:36
play with words and play with ideas and even disagree and not be enemies.
49:40
Isn't that correct? That is absolutely so. Right. It's something else Father
49:44
McTague was right about. Dr. Briggs, thank you for your time. I do look forward
49:47
to next time. Thank you for having me. I'm Jesuit Father Robert McTague,
49:51
your host here every day at The Current. You want to join us on Friday
49:56
because we're going to have another round of Let's Talk About This. We walk through
49:59
a complex issue together. We're going to have another episode of Novel
50:03
Prophecies where I take a look at a classic bit of
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literature that might be described as apocalyptic or dystopian,
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and I apply it to our here and now. And believe it or not,
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we're going to end up with Catholic hope. After the broadcast today, go to thestationofthecross.com,
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get our resources list, download our audio as podcasts. If you find audio,
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you can find us. Follow us on your favorite platform. Write a 5-star review.
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We need to attract the attention of the listeners so these conversations get the
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attention they deserve. Take this to your family and friends. Together we'll take it to
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the whole world. Through the intercession of Our Lady of Mount Carmel,
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may Almighty God bless you, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Go in
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peace, and please do pray for me, for I am a sinner.