Ben Franklin: Letter on a Manuscript against the Doctrine of a Particular Providence (1757?)

 Letter on a Manuscript against the Doctrine of a Particular Providence

Bonus: 

Don't spit that way, or it'll go in your face.

Summary: Even if religion is false, the benefits out way the harms

Commentary: This is a pretty short piece, but I feel like there's a lot to unpack. Written by Franklin to an unknown person about an unknown manuscript, the original piece is "against the Doctrine of a particular Providence, tho’ you allow a general Providence." Which "strikes at the foundation of all religion."

Franklin is against this for several reasons. The first is that he thinks it'll come back to bite the author. He doesn't address whether the author is right or wrong, but simply that it'll bring a lot of negative attention and fail to convince many people. This is kind of interesting for a guy who lead a revolution against the world's leading empire at the time.

To me, the strength of this argument depends, in large part, on how the piece is published. If you wrote it anonymously or pseudonymously, it'd probably be fine. You'd convince who you convinced, some people would be mad, that'd be the end of it. I'm not sure how hard that was to do at the time, but it seems possible.

You yourself may find it easy to live a virtuous Life without the Assistance afforded by Religion; you having a clear Perception of the Advantages of Virtue and the Disadvantages of Vice, and possessing a Strength of Resolution sufficient to enable you to resist common Temptations. But think how great a Proportion of Mankind consists of weak and ignorant Men and Women

Basically, religion is helpful for keeping the morons honest. Again, a couple different things come to mind here:

1. How "weak and ignorant" is the average person, and how much control do they have over that? While I was reading all the Great Books stuff last month, Adler and Hutchinson contended that we can't know if most people can get a LIBERAL EDUCATION since we haven't tried giving one to most people. On the other hand, we've tried giving most people a whatever the current public school education is, and the majority fall short. That leads to further questions about why that is. Could they have made it there with better teachers, better materials, smaller classes, whatever? Were they doomed from the start because they came from crappy homes, were malnourished, etc.? Are some people just morons no matter what you do? The reality is, for most of history, most people weren't really in charge of their lives. We've (supposedly) spent the hundreds of years moving away from that, and a lot of people still can barely manage to get up, go to work, and take care of their lives. But, again, why?

2. To what extent do the ends justify the means? If religion made the ~60% unwashed masses better, does that justify a giant society wide conspiracy. I feel like that's a pretty flat no. (Not having read the original manuscript, this and the next point might be where the general vs specific providence plays out.)

3. If you were going to enact said society wide program, is there room for acknowledging that the religion/religion-substitute isn't 100% true, while having it still be effective? Can we put together a culture wide story of how to be a good person without the hellfire and everything else? That's sort of what Aesop's Fables are, among other things. Do you need the magic torture component for them to take hold at a societal level? (I feel like the answer is no, but then you need commissars or something, since most of the large scale non-religious examples I can think of are from China, etc.)

Like I said, lots of thinking on this one.