Having Your Christ and Eating Him Too

Some thoughts on Jordan Peterson’s recent conversations with Sam Harris

Recently, Sam Harris and Jordan Peterson had a series of public debates where they discussed, among other topics, the nature of truth and morality. Both thinkers are against moral relativism; both argue for a morality that is tied to some universal truth. For Harris, that universal truth is simple: suffering is bad, so behave in a way that leads to the least suffering, for you and for all. Simple to say, if harder to accomplish with precision and consistency.

Peterson’s anchor of truth is more difficult to discern. I suppose if he were pushed to verbalize it in a single word, he would call it “God”. Unfortunately, this leads to confusion, especially when he talks to an atheist.

Disclaimer: I have no theistic beliefs. This makes me an atheist. And while I find much in Peterson’s thought to be interesting, insightful, and valuable, when he starts talking about truth and God, I become utterly confused. As eloquent and verbose as Peterson can be, I think this confusion springs from his own lack of clarity distinguishing between the ideas of fact, value, and truth.

Ought From Is

Peterson often criticizes Harris, and those who think like him, by saying that ought cannot be derived from is: value cannot be reached through fact. By his own admission, he therefore relies on “revealed truth.” While Peterson is certainly not the first person to make this claim, where or what this revelation is remains unclear.

Whatever this font of truth, we can quickly see that is often can lead to ought. For instance: poison will kill you or make you sick. If you wish to avoid death or illness, you ought to avoid poison. This is an example where facts prescribe a behavior or set of behaviors. In fact, it should be true in the majority of cases: facts about the world are helpful and necessary in gaining or achieving what we want. What we value.

Presumably, however, Peterson would say that the value of life, or healthy life, is the value that cannot be derived from facts. Strange, but okay: let’s tackle that. Luckily this is where the very subjectivity of value can paradoxically point us toward an objective foundational instance of value.

Value presupposes a valuer — a conscious subject doing the valuing. This means that without consciousness — and therefore without life — values cannot exist. So, through the very identity of what a value is, we see its foundation, and therefore we discover the cornerstone on which a hierarchy of values must be built: Conscious life.

At some point in their debate, Harris stated that a life without suffering is preferable to a life with suffering, and Peterson then exclaimed, “But how do you know?!” This to me seemed disingenuous.

But maybe not. Maybe this truly is a point of confusion. If so, this confusion would seem to rest on the idea that since values are by their nature subjective, they cannot coincide with (objective) fact. But this assumption is wrong.

Objective Subjectivity

“I do not like chocolate.” This is a statement of value. And, if it’s true, it is also a statement of fact. My subjective evaluation of a thing is an objective fact in the world, even if my subjective evaluation does not state an objective quality of the thing being valued. Said another way, it is an objective fact to say that I do not like chocolate. But this objective fact says nothing about yoursubjective evaluation of chocolate (which itself would be a separate objective fact).

Now, maybe this doesn’t quite rescue us from Peterson’s outburst. Even if one person’s dislike of chocolate is a fact, that fact does not make a claim about anyone else’s values (regarding chocolate). And so the same should be true of suffering, right? Just because you do not like suffering, this does not mean that everyone else must reach the same evaluative conclusion.

Except that “suffering” is not the same thing as “chocolate”. Suffering is not a thing in the world to be valued. Suffering is itself an expression of evaluation — it is a state of negative affect. And negative affect is factually negative for anyone and everyone who experiences it!

Of course there will be finer points to debate — what causes suffering for some will not cause it for all; some feelings of negative affect will lead to future moments of greater positive affect; some people may even take pleasure in the feeling of suffering (though to still call this suffering seems contradictory). But the basic point: that a state of suffering has objectively less value than a state without suffering — has to be non-controversial.

All of this would seem to justify Harris’ foundational ethical claim: that one should attempt to behave in ways that lead to the least amount of suffering. But what, then, is Peterson’s argument? If value is truly divorced from the world of facts, how does he lay claim to any notion of non-relative value?

The Case for Peterson

As I said, I do not fully understand Peterson’s position, but I will try to state it in a way that I hope he would appreciate. If I understand the main gist, it is this: culture, like biology, has evolved over time, and that culture which is the “fittest” has stuck around. In other words, the religion and philosophy that is still with us today is with us for a reason — because it works. And if it works, it is therefore true.

The above is a paragraph pregnant with possibilities…

Peterson points to Judeo-Christian culture as his “fittest” example. Though it could be argued that this is arbitrary, let’s put the specific choice aside and instead examine the more general claim: culture evolves, and that which remains is the fittest and truest.

To an extent, this is certainly true. Any cultural ideas that would result in their own extinction cannot last very long. The stickiest ideas will tend to stick around and replace the non-sticky.

Unfortunately, just as with genes, ideas themselves may be the selfish replicators, not the bodies and brains that transmit them. So — as long as an idea doesn’t lead to direct extinction for the brain expressing it — the stickiest ideas may turn out to be false, or they may lead to unnecessary suffering. The “fittest” idea is not necessarily the same thing as the most beneficial idea for a conscious individual. (Then again, for similar but different reasons, the idea most beneficial to a conscious individual will not necessarily align with truth.)

That being said: most biological mutations result in failure. The same is likely true for cultural mutations, i.e., new ideas that conflict with long-tested ideas are likely to fail. So Peterson would say it just makes better sense to stick with the long-tested ideas.

Again, there is some truth here. When faced with revolution and sudden cultural changes, it is reasonable to be cautious against throwing out the baby with the bathwater. When pushed about what is truth and what is God, however, Peterson seems to want to say that the bathwater IS the baby. (Or, more charitably, that it is impossible to distinguish the baby from the bathwater.)

When it comes to God, Peterson wants to have his Christ and eat him too. While the concept of God is not the same for everyone, there are certain qualities which tend to remain across the board, especially if one’s purpose is to champion an Abrahamic religion and culture. Certainly in the case of Christianity, there should be no point of confusion: Jesus was either literally god (or god’s son, and therefore a demi-god — okay, it’s confusing), or he was just some dude who had some good ideas. You can believe those ideas are still good (some of them?) even if you come to believe that Jesus was not a god. I suppose it’s also possible that a person can just reply, “I don’t know,” when asked the question. But what you cannot do in an honest conversation is pivot and avoid the question altogether.

God is good

The key to this behavior may be found in Peterson’s refusal to recognize Harris as an atheist. It was the weirdest thing for me to hear, and I don’t think that it’s a self-conscious attempt by Peterson to appear whacky and noteworthy. I think he truly believes he’s in a position to make the distinction. While he seemingly refuses to tell us what he means when he uses the word “God”, I do think he has a very specific definition in mind. And with that definition, it’s not possible for a good person to be an atheist.

Here is my guess: Peterson, at bottom, defines God as that which is good.

This sounds rather silly, so it may be the reason that he so consistently avoids defining the idea in public. And look — I’m not Jordan Peterson, so maybe I’m way off. But this is the only conclusion he’s allowed me to draw on the topic.

If this is true, what does it mean? It means that if you are a good person, then you know and recognize the good. And if you know and recognize the good, then you know and recognize God. And if you know and recognize God, then you cannot be an atheist — even if you don’t happen to label that good “god”.

But what else does this mean? It means that Peterson is an intelligent and thoughtful 21st-century man who is unwilling to live a life in which there is no meaningful map provided at the outset. While, I think, he rejects the man-in-the-clouds notion of god that has come down to us from the ancients, he still needs to believe that goodness somehow exists separate and apart from life. He needs to believe that value somehow exists outside of subjective experience. But just as there is no such thing as disembodied evil, so there is no such thing as disembodied good.

When Nietzsche declared the death of God, he felt the same fear as Peterson. He recognized that a life without ready-made values could lead to chaos — and indeed, suffering. But he also understood that a godless world is not a world without value. A world without god is a world where good and evil can be reevaluated and focused through the lens of reason and human nature. (Well, okay, he had his doubts about those things too.) At bottom, my point is this: value is by definition a subjective experience. But people exist in the world with objective qualities and characteristics, so it is possible for an objective morality to consistently point us toward positive subjective experiences. Value does not need to be disembodied in order to avoid moral relativism.

If Jordan Peterson and Sam Harris have another long-form conversation — and I hope they do! — I look forward to Peterson being less cryptic about his notions of god and truth.