I understand that Mansfield doesn’t actually believe in God, and is not religious. What does his delivering this kind of sermon say about him? What’s the motivation?

Well, because at bottom, both Harvey and Will are very much at one; they start (or end up) at the exact same starting point (atheism), only that Harvey is perhaps more “prudent.” In the case of Mansfield, I’ll hazard to say that his real position is perhaps captured discomfittingly well in a certain black-diamond, an excerpt from Quentin Smith, a passage which resonates strongly of section 109 of Nietzche’s Gay Science :

There is a sense that my life, actions and consequences of actions amount to nothing when I am considering the value of an infinite universe. Our emotional responses to acts or states of affairs we believe have positive or negative value occur when we are narrowly focused on “the here and now”, on the people we interact with or know about, ourselves, and the animals, plants and material things that surround us in our daily lives. In our daily lives, we believe actions are good or bad and that individuals have rights. These beliefs are false, but we know this only on the occasions when we engage in second order beliefs about our everyday beliefs and view our everyday beliefs from the perspective of infinity. Most of the time, we live in an illusion of meaningfulness and only some times, when we are philosophically reflective, are we aware of reality and the meaninglessness of our lives. It seems obvious that this has a genetic basis, due to Darwinian laws of evolution. In order to survive and reproduce, it must seem to us most of the time that our actions are not futile, that people have rights. The rare occasions in which we know the truth about life are genetically prevented from overriding living our daily lives with the illusion that they are meaningful. As I progress through this paper, I have the illusion that my efforts are not utterly futile, but right now, as I stop and reflect, I realize that any further effort put into this paper is a futile expenditure of my energy.

–Moral Realism and Infinite Spacetime Imply Moral Nihilism

And if Strauss really considered that the rabble must to be kept in line in such firm, draconian sounding terms which the article depticts/insinuates, then why on earth did Strauss spill the beans (to put it mildly) about esotericism. Hmm?

On another note — and I mean this in no way factitiously — I must commend Will for his cogency, thoughtfulness, respect, and not just a little open-mindedness about engaging these topics. Despite strong and pointed differences in opinion, I must say I’m grateful to Will for helping me better to think through many of these intellectual/political-philosophic problems.

With that said, here’s a small blurb, from a philosophically astute friend of mine, reacting to Will’s Mansfield denunciations. To wit:

I must conclude that your friend [Wilkinson] is mistaken and Mansfield basically correct. Mansfield is here in line with “Nietzschean naturalism” and your friend with the remnants of Enlightenment positivism. Why did Nietzsche describe English utilitarians as “ugly” little men who were doing their best to make it impossible to maintain the distinction between noble and base? Where did Nietzsche get off telling Darwin that there is no teleological orientation to human adaptation, no progression? After all, Nietzsche was
only a philologist, not a philosopher, huh? “Right
back atcha…” Try reading On the Genealogy of
Morals, especically the first essay.

Very simply this:

From the Bailey article

http://reason.com/9707/fe.bailey.shtml

At the heart of the neoconservative attack on Darwinism lies the political philosophy of Leo Strauss. Strauss was a German political philosopher who fled the Nazis in 1938 and began teaching at the University of Chicago in 1949. In an intellectual revolt against modernity, Strauss focused his work on interpreting such classics as Plato’s Republic and Machiavelli’s The Prince.

Kristol has acknowledged his intellectual debt to Strauss in a recent autobiographical essay. “What made him so controversial within the academic community was his disbelief in the Enlightenment dogma that `the truth will make men free.’” Kristol adds that “Strauss was an intellectual aristocrat who thought that the truth could make some [emphasis Kristol's] minds free, but he was convinced that there was an inherent conflict between philosophic truth and political order, and that the popularization and vulgarization of these truths might import unease, turmoil and the release of popular passions hitherto held in check by tradition and religion with utterly unpredictable, but mostly negative, consequences.”

Kristol agrees with this view. “There are different kinds of truths for different kinds of people,” he says in an interview. “There are truths appropriate for children; truths that are appropriate for students; truths that are appropriate for educated adults; and truths that are appropriate for highly educated adults, and the notion that there should be one set of truths available to everyone is a modern democratic fallacy. It doesn’t work.”

In crude terms, some critics of Strauss argue that he interpreted the ancient philosophers as offering two different teachings, an esoteric one which is available only to those who read the ancient texts closely, and an exoteric one accessible to naive readers. The exoteric interpretations were aimed at the mass of people, the vulgar, while the esoteric teachings–the hidden meanings–were vouchsafed to the few, the philosophers. Philosophers know the truth, but must keep it hidden from the vulgar, lest it upset them. What is the hidden truth known to philosophers? That there is no God and there is no ultimate foundation for morality. As Kristol suggests, it is necessary to keep this truth from the vulgar because such knowledge would only engender despair in them and lead to social breakdown. In his book, On Tyranny: An Interpretation of Xenophon’s Hiero, Strauss asserts with unusual clarity that Socratic dialogues are “based on the premise that there is a disproportion between the intransigent quest for truth and the requirements of society, or that not all truths are always harmless.”

Political scientist Shadia Drury, a passionate critic of Strauss, puts it this way: “For Strauss, the ills of modernity have their source in the foolish belief that there are no harmless truths, and that belief in God and in rewards and punishments is not necessary for political order….[H]e is convinced that religion is necessary for the well-being of society. But to state publicly that religion is a necessary fiction would destroy any salutary effect it might have. The latter depends on its being believed to be true….If the vulgar discovered, as the philosophers have always known, that God is dead, they might behave as if all is permitted.”

Thus, to preserve society, wise people must publicly support the traditions and myths that sustain the political order and that encourage ordinary people to obey the laws and live justly. People will do so only if they believe that moral rules are divinely decreed or were set up by men who were inspired by the Divine.

Kristol restated this insight nearly five decades ago in an essay in Commentary dealing with Freud: “If God does not exist, and if religion is an illusion that the majority of men cannot live without…let men believe in the lies of religion since they cannot do without them, and let then a handful of sages, who know the truth and can live with it, keep it among themselves. Men are then divided into the wise and the foolish, the philosophers and the common men, and atheism becomes a guarded, esoteric doctrine–for if the illusions of religion were to be discredited, there is no telling with what madness men would be seized, with what uncontrollable anguish.”

Thus, following the lead of Strauss and Kristol, those who support the attacks on evolutionary biology may be reasonably suspected of practicing a high-minded hypocrisy. They want to bolster popular morality and preserve social order. Attacking Darwin helps to sustain what Plato regarded as a “Noble Lie”– in this case preserving the faith of the common people in Genesis, and thus the social order.

Very simply this:

From the Bailey article

http://reason.com/9707/fe.bailey.shtml

At the heart of the neoconservative attack on Darwinism lies the political philosophy of Leo Strauss. Strauss was a German political philosopher who fled the Nazis in 1938 and began teaching at the University of Chicago in 1949. In an intellectual revolt against modernity, Strauss focused his work on interpreting such classics as Plato’s Republic and Machiavelli’s The Prince.

Kristol has acknowledged his intellectual debt to Strauss in a recent autobiographical essay. “What made him so controversial within the academic community was his disbelief in the Enlightenment dogma that `the truth will make men free.’” Kristol adds that “Strauss was an intellectual aristocrat who thought that the truth could make some [emphasis Kristol's] minds free, but he was convinced that there was an inherent conflict between philosophic truth and political order, and that the popularization and vulgarization of these truths might import unease, turmoil and the release of popular passions hitherto held in check by tradition and religion with utterly unpredictable, but mostly negative, consequences.”

Kristol agrees with this view. “There are different kinds of truths for different kinds of people,” he says in an interview. “There are truths appropriate for children; truths that are appropriate for students; truths that are appropriate for educated adults; and truths that are appropriate for highly educated adults, and the notion that there should be one set of truths available to everyone is a modern democratic fallacy. It doesn’t work.”

In crude terms, some critics of Strauss argue that he interpreted the ancient philosophers as offering two different teachings, an esoteric one which is available only to those who read the ancient texts closely, and an exoteric one accessible to naive readers. The exoteric interpretations were aimed at the mass of people, the vulgar, while the esoteric teachings–the hidden meanings–were vouchsafed to the few, the philosophers. Philosophers know the truth, but must keep it hidden from the vulgar, lest it upset them. What is the hidden truth known to philosophers? That there is no God and there is no ultimate foundation for morality. As Kristol suggests, it is necessary to keep this truth from the vulgar because such knowledge would only engender despair in them and lead to social breakdown. In his book, On Tyranny: An Interpretation of Xenophon’s Hiero, Strauss asserts with unusual clarity that Socratic dialogues are “based on the premise that there is a disproportion between the intransigent quest for truth and the requirements of society, or that not all truths are always harmless.”

Political scientist Shadia Drury, a passionate critic of Strauss, puts it this way: “For Strauss, the ills of modernity have their source in the foolish belief that there are no harmless truths, and that belief in God and in rewards and punishments is not necessary for political order….[H]e is convinced that religion is necessary for the well-being of society. But to state publicly that religion is a necessary fiction would destroy any salutary effect it might have. The latter depends on its being believed to be true….If the vulgar discovered, as the philosophers have always known, that God is dead, they might behave as if all is permitted.”

Thus, to preserve society, wise people must publicly support the traditions and myths that sustain the political order and that encourage ordinary people to obey the laws and live justly. People will do so only if they believe that moral rules are divinely decreed or were set up by men who were inspired by the Divine.

Kristol restated this insight nearly five decades ago in an essay in Commentary dealing with Freud: “If God does not exist, and if religion is an illusion that the majority of men cannot live without…let men believe in the lies of religion since they cannot do without them, and let then a handful of sages, who know the truth and can live with it, keep it among themselves. Men are then divided into the wise and the foolish, the philosophers and the common men, and atheism becomes a guarded, esoteric doctrine–for if the illusions of religion were to be discredited, there is no telling with what madness men would be seized, with what uncontrollable anguish.”

Thus, following the lead of Strauss and Kristol, those who support the attacks on evolutionary biology may be reasonably suspected of practicing a high-minded hypocrisy. They want to bolster popular morality and preserve social order. Attacking Darwin helps to sustain what Plato regarded as a “Noble Lie”– in this case preserving the faith of the common people in Genesis, and thus the social order.

And if Strauss really considered that the rabble must to be kept in line in such firm, draconian sounding terms which the article depticts/insinuates, then why on earth did Strauss spill the beans (to put it mildly) about esotericism. Hmm?

On another note — and I mean this in no way factitiously — I must commend Will for his cogency, thoughtfulness, respect, and not just a little open-mindedness about engaging these topics. Despite strong and pointed differences in opinion, I must say I’m grateful to Will for helping me better to think through many of these intellectual/political-philosophic problems.

With that said, here’s a small blurb, from a philosophically astute friend of mine, reacting to Will’s Mansfield denunciations. To wit:

I must conclude that your friend [Wilkinson] is mistaken and Mansfield basically correct. Mansfield is here in line with “Nietzschean naturalism” and your friend with the remnants of Enlightenment positivism. Why did Nietzsche describe English utilitarians as “ugly” little men who were doing their best to make it impossible to maintain the distinction between noble and base? Where did Nietzsche get off telling Darwin that there is no teleological orientation to human adaptation, no progression? After all, Nietzsche was
only a philologist, not a philosopher, huh? “Right
back atcha…” Try reading On the Genealogy of
Morals, especically the first essay.

I understand that Mansfield doesn’t actually believe in God, and is not religious. What does his delivering this kind of sermon say about him? What’s the motivation?

Well, because at bottom, both Harvey and Will are very much at one; they start (or end up) at the exact same starting point (atheism), only that Harvey is perhaps more “prudent.” In the case of Mansfield, I’ll hazard to say that his real position is perhaps captured discomfittingly well in a certain black-diamond, an excerpt from Quentin Smith, a passage which resonates strongly of section 109 of Nietzche’s Gay Science :

There is a sense that my life, actions and consequences of actions amount to nothing when I am considering the value of an infinite universe. Our emotional responses to acts or states of affairs we believe have positive or negative value occur when we are narrowly focused on “the here and now”, on the people we interact with or know about, ourselves, and the animals, plants and material things that surround us in our daily lives. In our daily lives, we believe actions are good or bad and that individuals have rights. These beliefs are false, but we know this only on the occasions when we engage in second order beliefs about our everyday beliefs and view our everyday beliefs from the perspective of infinity. Most of the time, we live in an illusion of meaningfulness and only some times, when we are philosophically reflective, are we aware of reality and the meaninglessness of our lives. It seems obvious that this has a genetic basis, due to Darwinian laws of evolution. In order to survive and reproduce, it must seem to us most of the time that our actions are not futile, that people have rights. The rare occasions in which we know the truth about life are genetically prevented from overriding living our daily lives with the illusion that they are meaningful. As I progress through this paper, I have the illusion that my efforts are not utterly futile, but right now, as I stop and reflect, I realize that any further effort put into this paper is a futile expenditure of my energy.

–Moral Realism and Infinite Spacetime Imply Moral Nihilism