John Derbyshire Resorts to Straw Man Arguments Against Human Exceptionalism

John Derbyshire has responded in The Corner to my First Things blog entry chastising him for rejecting human exceptionalism along with his faith. He has every right to do so, of course. But he doesn’t have the right to mischaracterize my arguments. He claims I grant humans a special place because we are “chosen and gifted by God.” I never wrote any such thing—ever. My position is entirely secularly based. Read my piece and Derbyshire’s disengenuous response and you will see that I am right.

Here are my core arguments in defense of human exceptionalism from the First Things entry, which, of course, were not intended to be complete: “What I think Derbyshire lost along with his faith is the realization that human beings are much more than the mere sum of our parts and functions. We, unlike any other species, have taken a bold step outside the Darwinian realm of genetic impulse, instinct, and reflex. We are moral and intellectual beings with the ability to create, civilize, project over time, and transcend.
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“Recognizing our special status is essential, in my view, to the creation of a better world. Take, for example, our moral impulse to prevent cruelty to animals. This is certainly not genetically determined. Indeed, it seems to me that preventing cruelty to animals is distinctly un-evolutionary—in the purely materialistic sense of that term. Why should we even concern ourselves with what happens to other species so long as it does not harm us? Elephants care very much whether a lion tries to kill one of the herd’s calves but are quite indifferent when the same lion rends the zebra. It takes a special and exceptional species to care enough about ‘the other’ that we will sometimes even protect them from human harm when it makes our own lives more difficult. (For example, California sea lions are protected in law despite the fact that they compete fiercely against us in exploiting the salmon fishery.)
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“The idea that we are just part of nature and nothing to celebrate is gaining traction in these nihilistic times. But beyond the esoteric, there are practical reasons to reject Derbyshire’s perspective. The way we act often depends on how we perceive ourselves. If we are nothing special, Jefferson’s assertion that all men are created equal—by which he means we have equal moral worth—becomes essentially untenable. Indeed, if we are nothing special, we are thrust back into a purely materialistic Darwinian world of tooth and claw, where might makes right. And that opens the door to all the evils that have plagued human history. Indeed, understanding that there is such a thing as evil action proves we are special in the known universe. Thankfully, one need not have faith to understand that.”

Not a word about God. Loss of faith should not also mean the loss of intellectual honesty.