Not strictly on social sciences, Stijn Ruiter discusses The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins. Especially the origin of (human) morality caught his interest. Dawkins quotes brain researcher Hauser, who “does statistical surveys and psychological experiments, using questionnaires on the Internet, for example, to investigate the moral sense of real people […] the way people respond to these moral tests, and their inability to articulate their reasons, seems largely independent of their religious beliefs or lack of them.” That’s interesting – isn’t it – doing statistical investigations to morality? The way people responded to the moral tests given, did not correlate with their religion or religious beliefs. Dawkins builds upon this finding, by arguing that people do not require the existence of a God to be or become good: if the human body can do it for itself, no external force is required.

This line of reasoning reminded me of a post I wrote a while ago, about a Dutch cardiologist Pim van Lommel who wrote a book about near death experiences. This book was based on findings he published a few years earlier in the Lancet. In that publication, the occurrence of near death experiences during cardiac arrest is cross-tabulated with several variables, such as used medication, but more interesting also with the patients’ religion. Since it was shown that these variables did not relate to the occurrence of near death experiences, the article rejects many existing theories about the experience of an afterlife. Very interesting, but in the book this finding is extended to argue that since the body cannot sustain consciousness during cardiac arrest, the consciousness apparently exists independent of the body. In that, the line of reasoning is quite the opposite of the from Dawkins: since the human body cannot do it, it must lie outside the human. In my contribution I argue that these findings are quite likely to be due to lack of measurement accuracy.

Finally, a warm welcome to a new participant of this blog carnival. Bram Hengeveld discusses (in Dutch) quite some literature from a behavioristic school of research, which he elegantly applies to his own discipline: geriatric nursing. The behavioristic study is basically a replication of the classic Milgram experiments (the one in which participants were stressed to obey authority to administer electrical shocks to others, despite their (seeming) objections). Bram applies the findings from these kind of studies to his nursing profession. Interestingly, he does not focus on the patients (which probably could initiate some more posts), but on the nurses themselves. Most people working in health care, according to Bram, are not satisfied by the conditions under which they work and how these dictate (read: restrict) the level of care they can provide. However, as the experiments showed, in certain circumstances people readily seem to accept their situation and ‘go along’.

That’s it for today’s edition. I hope you’ll enjoy the posts gathered here, and please keep the new posts coming! Next edition will be on March 3rd.

The problem is that the culture war we are in at the end of the twentieth century posits opposing and, often enough, mutually exclusive visions of the public good. (p. 15)

The state’s involvement on questions of the public good is not a trifling matter. (p. 19)

Again a quote, or two actually, on the morality of good. Please combine these two in your understanding, and perhaps even with the previous quote. If someone legitimises him or herself by reference to ‘good’, one might worry. Would this be different when the state does so, or perhaps even more disturbing?

Hunter, J. D. (1994). Before the Shooting Begins. Free Press, New York.

We Americans generally want to think of ourselves as good people. That, in many respects, is where the trouble begins.

We all try do to good, but if we’re unconditionally convinced of ourselves: what harm can we do? If my actions impose influence upon you, can justifying myself by referring to the “moral good” perhaps be the most oppressive?

Hunter, J. D. (1994). Before the Shooting Begins. Free Press, New York. Page 14.

How far is a single man willing to push scientific advancement in order to better God? Victor Hoppe is willing to go far, very far. This is the central theme of the book by Stefan Brijs, soon to be translated in English. In English, it will be called `The Angel Maker’, in Dutch ‘De engelenmaker’. The book chronicles the life of Victor Hoppe, a man who the reader learns about when he moves into an old house in the little village of Wolfheim.

The book consists of three parts, all narrating the story from different perspectives. The first part of the book tells the middle part of the life of Victor Hoppe from the perspective of the inhabitants of Wolfheim. These village people only see the strange man coming, and with him he has three little children. The man is a doctor, but never shows himself, nor his children. It takes almost a year before the villagers see the three children for the first time. When asked what happened to the mother of his children, the doctor responded “The children do not have a mother, they never had“. Their names are Gabriel, Michael, and Raphael.

In the second part of the book, the reader learns more about the main character. In beautifully mixed sections, alternating between the youth and the academic career of Victor Hoppe, the motives of his work become clear, as well as the manner in which he attempts to carry out these motives. We learn about his personality and morality, which are heavily influenced by the syndrom of Asperger. Due to this syndrom of Asperger he views the world as consisting only `good’ or `evil’, not being able to perceive anything in between. The way he was brought up by the nuns learned him to perceive Jezus as good, for he did good to the people, and God as evil for he abandoned his son. Victor was abandoned by his own father and left alone with the nuns, where he spent almost the first five years of his life. In his academic career, Victor emerged to be a brilliant medical student and a promising embryologist, receives high levels of acclaim for being able to clone mice. He is the first capable of cloning mammals. However, he does not take into account the scientific mores, not willing to replicate his experiments. When an investigation is started, for he is discredited for fraud, he does not even wait for the outcomes of the investigation, but simply leaves. He continues his work on his own, showing that he does not care about academic life, but only about the results. He clearly has some higher goals in life than academic esteem.

The apotheosis of all that has been built up in the life of Victor Hoppe is detailed in the third section of the book. While in the previous section much has become clear about the three sons, here it becomes clear how small their role and impact actually were in the life of Victor. They weren’t much more than a (failed) step in reaching his goal: bettering God. Finally he has the means to fulfill his own plans, but time is running out. But the little time he needs is granted to him by the changed attitude of the villagers around him. Having gradually won the hearts and minds of the villagers of Wolfheim, Victor is now protected by them when people from his own history, unknown to the villagers, try to reach him. This shows in a brilliant way how people can make the wrong decisions for the right reasons. Additionally, the final decisions Victor Hoppe makes show how complete madness and strict rationality do not exclude each other.

Not willing to give away the plot of the book, I have purposedly left out some of the most interesting parts of the story. But it is clear how the three parts of the book are structured and how they add to each other. All characters have their own specific role to play, and all are described in more than enough detail to understand their actions, without resulting in overly long elaborations that do not add to the story.

But before I continue describing all the beauty and splendor of this book, I do have basically two issues with the way this book is set up. The first issue is not so much as real critique, but has more to do with my personal preferences. The book clearly deals with ethical questions regarding fertility issues, and thereby the relationship between morality, scientific progress, and religious doctrine. However, to me this interplay has not been worked out sufficiently broad to engage in a debate on these issues. Rather, it is clear that the main character has developed his own (special) morality and thereby the ethical issues are reduced to our moral stand on what he does, thereby not dealing with more general issues. Additionally, the church and it’s doctrine seem to play a large role in the plot of the book, which opens up possibilities for interesting reflections on how the church deals with technological change and the new moral issues this leads to. But actually, it is only the way Victor Hoppe is influenced by the church that forms a motive for his deeds. Again, although this makes a highly interesting motive and a fascinating book, I still have the feeling that a slightly different perspective could have been more interesting. To me, at least.

My second and more important criticism on this book is its high level of predictability. Because Stefan Brijs takes so much care that his readers are able to understand the motives of the main character, thus resulting in repetition, it is clear in advance what the outcome of these motives will be. The book has I think three main plots, two of which were clear to me 100 or even 200 pages in advance. For a book that is clearly written to excite the reader, this is too early. The third and most important plot (not the third in the order of the narrative) is not clear that long in advance, but when it happens, the motives and historical background are clear immediately as well. I think this would have been a better book when there would have been more room for puzzling out what happened in the mind of Victor Hoppe.

Nevertheless, I do think that Stefan Brijs has written an excellent novel. It is very well structured and written ((I read the Dutch version, the original language it was written in)) , and the characters are developed beautifully. And that is the most important: indeed it intends to be more of a character novel that one focussed on moral issues. Especially the character of Victor Hoppe is detailed very well, with both the complex history he has had and the clarity of his own, almost binary, morality of a world only consisting of good and bad. The debates on technological advancement, religious doctrine, and morality, although to my opinion not worked out completely satisfactory, form an interesting setting for the development of this troubled character.

Indeed, these issues are important and will perhaps be more so in the near future. Generally, Stefan Brijs appears to have a detailed knowledge on the technicalities that are dealth with in his book, resulting in a sense of realism to the reader.

The Angel Maker has been received very well in the Netherlands and in Flanders, winning several important literary prices. The translational rights have already been sold to many countries, such as for instance the U.K. and the U.S.A., Greece, Russia, and Turkey. I’m looking forward how this book will be received in this countries, especially regarding the religious issues that are dealth with in the book.