homepage
  roll on christmas  
click here to find out more about ship of fools click here to sign up for the ship of fools newsletter click here to support ship of fools
community the mystery worshipper gadgets for god caption competition foolishness features ship stuff
discussion boards live chat cafe avatars frequently-asked questions the ten commandments gallery private boards register for the boards
 
Ship of Fools


Post new thread  Post a reply
My profile login | | Directory | Search | FAQs | Board home
   - Printer-friendly view Next oldest thread   Next newest thread
» Ship of Fools   »   » Oblivion   » God's morality is objective (Page 1)

 - Email this page to a friend or enemy.  
Pages in this thread: 1  2  3 
 
Source: (consider it) Thread: God's morality is objective
Squibs
Shipmate
# 14408

 - Posted      Profile for Squibs   Email Squibs   Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
These days there is much chatter on the internetz about subjective and objective morality. The claim is often made that without God objective morality can not exist. Without getting to much into the particulars of the argument, I must say that I find it convincing. In short, I believe that there are certain actions that are wrong and that God is the best ontological foundation for such a belief. God is a better explination that anything am Harris has devised (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Moral_Landscape. But perhaps this is for another thread.

One of the few decent arguments against the concept of objective morality derived from God (perhaps I've worded that wrong) is to claim that God's morality is itself subjective because it is based upon God's own ideas. As the objective card is removed from the table (or the attempt is made), the conclusion is that God's ideas are no "better" than any other views on morality.

On the face of it the only option is to offer a circular argument that seeks to establish an immutable God with goodness and goodness with this God. Alternatively, one could propose that morality lies outside God, which would pose some very awkward questions.

It's a fascinating argument, and one that I don't necessarily have a rebuttal against.

Any takers? Or anyone want to run with this?

Posts: 1124 | From: Here, there and everywhere | Registered: Dec 2008  |  IP: Logged
Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238

 - Posted      Profile for Crœsos     Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
quote:
Originally posted by Squibs:
These days there is much chatter on the internetz about subjective and objective morality. The claim is often made that without God objective morality can not exist. Without getting to much into the particulars of the argument, I must say that I find it convincing. In short, I believe that there are certain actions that are wrong and that God is the best ontological foundation for such a belief.

From my perspective the biggest problem with this assertion is that if morality is "objective", there shouldn't be so much disagreement about it. Most other things that are "objective" generate greater agreement the more they're observed. Moral codes seem to proliferate over time.

I can understand why "God said so" is rhetorically attractive as a justification, but it seems to be an assumption made more for convenience than for any other reason.

--------------------
Humani nil a me alienum puto

Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
Bullfrog.

Prophetic Amphibian
# 11014

 - Posted      Profile for Bullfrog.   Email Bullfrog.   Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
What's the point of a morality? I imagine for some all you need is consequentialism driven by a social understanding of the pleasure principle.

--------------------
Some say that man is the root of all evil
Others say God's a drunkard for pain
Me, I believe that the Garden of Eden
Was burned to make way for a train. --Josh Ritter, Harrisburg

Posts: 7522 | From: Chicago | Registered: Feb 2006  |  IP: Logged
IngoB

Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700

 - Posted      Profile for IngoB   Email IngoB   Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
quote:
Originally posted by Squibs:
One of the few decent arguments against the concept of objective morality derived from God (perhaps I've worded that wrong) is to claim that God's morality is itself subjective because it is based upon God's own ideas. As the objective card is removed from the table (or the attempt is made), the conclusion is that God's ideas are no "better" than any other views on morality.

This "counter-argument" is based on a Platonic falsehood that sees morality as some kind of external yardstick (an "idea") with which to measure action. That is not the case. Rather, morality in an Aristotelian sense is simply the good of a creature that can make rational decisions. The good of a squirrel consists in part in collecting nuts and storing them away for winter. Where a squirrel can't do that, for example because it has a broken leg, we call it "ill". In other cases of interruption of its good we may call it "disturbed" or "confused" etc. The good of a human being consists in part in not killing innocent human beings. Where a human being does kill innocent humans, we call him "evil" if this arises from his own free decision. Where it doesn't, we call him "(mentally) disturbed" or perhaps "confused" etc. So this is in strict analogy to the squirrel, the only difference being that a human has the ability to turn away from his good by a free choice, and hence can be judged by "morals" (how well choices accord with goods).

It is then obvious that a Creator determines the "morals" of all rational creatures automatically, namely simply by making them with their own sets of good, just like any other creature. (Note that "good" here is completely general. The good of a stone is in part to be hard and heavy...) It is not the case that the Creator first makes rational creatures, and then makes a moral yardstick, and finally imposes the latter on the former - so that the rational creatures may feel "oppressed" by this choice. Rather in the very act of making creatures, their goods are set, and hence in making rational creatures, their "morals".

This is subjective in the sense that all creation is subjective. Obviously, that's nothing but saying that there is a Creator. It is however not subjective as in making an additional choice about "morals", existing apart from the original creation, which God somehow then decides to be good for creatures. Our "morals" are rather part of us, they are natural to us, written on our heart one might say more poetically...

quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
From my perspective the biggest problem with this assertion is that if morality is "objective", there shouldn't be so much disagreement about it.

The only thing that needs to be said concerning this is that nobody has ever claimed that it is easy to discover these objective truths. "Natural" as in natural moral law does not at all mean "obvious". We are spending incredible efforts to discover objective natural physical law, with plenty of ferocious disagreement along the way. There is no particular reason why "morals" should not likewise contain difficult problems that are hard to resolve. And so it does.

--------------------
They’ll have me whipp’d for speaking true; thou’lt have me whipp’d for lying; and sometimes I am whipp’d for holding my peace. - The Fool in King Lear

Posts: 12010 | From: Gone fishing | Registered: Oct 2004  |  IP: Logged
que sais-je
Shipmate
# 17185

 - Posted      Profile for que sais-je   Email que sais-je   Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
This "counter-argument" is based on a Platonic falsehood that sees morality as some kind of external yardstick (an "idea") with which to measure action. That is not the case. Rather, morality in an Aristotelian sense is simply the good of a creature that can make rational decisions.

I agree with you in thinking the Aristotelian view makes more sense - but that's because neither you nor I are Platonists. They might reasonably say you can't dump Plato's view by fiat. But we'll see if any Platonists join in.


It is then obvious that a Creator determines the "morals" of all rational creatures automatically, namely simply by making them with their own sets of good, just like any other creature.


But if creature act too much against their own virtues (here just a synonym for their good) they would probably not survive as social groupings. Too many murders/thefts/adulteries impairs trust make group survival less likely. It's not clear that a Creator is necessary to arrange things - it just happens.

There is no particular reason why "morals" should not likewise contain difficult problems that are hard to resolve. And so it does.

I agree, but also if it was very easy to be moral, morality would cease to be visible. It's like air - the experience of it's absence makes us notice it and makes it an object of study.

It seems to me that our ethical systems may be no more that assimilation of early learning projected, as humans are prone to do, onto a wider world.

As a child you are taught that some actions are 'good' (walking, using a potty, managing a spoon). 'Good' = getting approval = 'virtue'.

Later, when we are herded together in schools and nurseries we get an early grounding in rights ('We don't bite people, do we Tristram?', 'How would it be if we all behaved like that?'). And so on.

This isn't 'ethical' training - it's child management. But when we leave the nursery and extend the lessons to life in general perhaps it becomes ethics. I suspect it is not the poets who are the invisible legislators of mankind but the parents and primary school teachers.

--------------------
"controversies, disputes, and argumentations, both in philosophy and in divinity, if they meet with discreet and peaceable natures, do not infringe the laws of charity" (Thomas Browne)

Posts: 794 | From: here or there | Registered: Jun 2012  |  IP: Logged
IngoB

Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700

 - Posted      Profile for IngoB   Email IngoB   Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
quote:
Originally posted by que sais-je:
I agree with you in thinking the Aristotelian view makes more sense - but that's because neither you nor I are Platonists. They might reasonably say you can't dump Plato's view by fiat. But we'll see if any Platonists join in.

Well, actually I'd guess that the view of some kind of separable moral is not Platonic, as in the historical school of philosophy associated with the philosopher Plato. I merely meant "Platonic" in the generalized sense of "abstracting an idea from things and declaring that it has a kind of independent existence on its own, and in fact then is taken to be the external measure of the things from which it was abstracted". That was perhaps a bit confusing, since I did use "Aristotelian" more properly.

quote:
Originally posted by que sais-je:
But if creature act too much against their own virtues (here just a synonym for their good) they would probably not survive as social groupings. Too many murders/thefts/adulteries impairs trust make group survival less likely. It's not clear that a Creator is necessary to arrange things - it just happens.

First, I do not argue the existence of God from the existence of morals. I think all such arguments are as weak as our practical grasp of morals, i.e., very weak indeed. Second, it is no surprise that an Aristotelian explanation of morals would be very close in spirit to any "biologically derived" explanation. Aristotle is very much a "natural philosopher". Just as for any physical phenomenon, however, it is false to assume that Divine explanations come in as another cause among the natural ones. Rather, Divine causality is external to the whole set of circumstances and natural causes, causing all of it in a non-temporal sense. So in reading off morals from "nature", we are not eliminating God. We are rather discovering God's design. Third, the true difference comes to light not in the analysis of human morality, but in the evaluation of it. What is the force of discovering that this or that moral rule is best for human flourishing in a natural sense? In particular so if general human progress allows one to artificially modify and delay the expected "pay-offs" of our choices? Can we exert control over our morality, can we shape it to our liking?

quote:
Originally posted by que sais-je:
It seems to me that our ethical systems may be no more that assimilation of early learning projected, as humans are prone to do, onto a wider world.

This is basically a pointless comment as far as our discussion here is concerned. It may well be the case that we learn the morals of "not hitting others" from our parents. But this does not explain why our parents are not teaching us "hit them harder" instead. The mode of establishing morals is not the same as the content of morals. Humans in general require much more learning than other animals, but what we have to learn in order to flourish remains part of our nature. It is not good for humans to "hit each other harder", because for one this disrupts community and humans flourish better in groups. Furthermore, we can of course see the very act of parents teaching their children as part of an ongoing investigation into human flourishing. We may say for example that on the subject of hitting each other we have progressed beyond the parents in ancient Sparta, and we can demonstrate this objectively by "out-flourishing" them.

--------------------
They’ll have me whipp’d for speaking true; thou’lt have me whipp’d for lying; and sometimes I am whipp’d for holding my peace. - The Fool in King Lear

Posts: 12010 | From: Gone fishing | Registered: Oct 2004  |  IP: Logged
Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549

 - Posted      Profile for Dafyd   Email Dafyd   Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
quote:
Originally posted by Squibs:
One of the few decent arguments against the concept of objective morality derived from God (perhaps I've worded that wrong) is to claim that God's morality is itself subjective because it is based upon God's own ideas. As the objective card is removed from the table (or the attempt is made), the conclusion is that God's ideas are no "better" than any other views on morality.

The problem of course is that in claiming that God's ideas are themselves only subjective, the arguer simultaneously gets rid of any real ground for discounting them. If God's morality is only subjective there is no reason why God shouldn't impose them on anybody God chooses.

But God is not a person just like us writ large. God has no agenda other than the good of creation. God doesn't have any needs or passions, not even, despite some evangelical argument, any aversion to sin. God doesn't have ideas as we understand them, since God everything as it is perfectly by creating it. So treating God as just one more subjectivity is profoundly misguided.

(I rather think the words 'objective' and 'subjective' unhelpful in this kind of context.)

Of course, none of the above means that humans have unmediated access to God.

--------------------
we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams

Posts: 10567 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2004  |  IP: Logged
Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549

 - Posted      Profile for Dafyd   Email Dafyd   Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
From my perspective the biggest problem with this assertion is that if morality is "objective", there shouldn't be so much disagreement about it. Most other things that are "objective" generate greater agreement the more they're observed.

The area of human learning that commands greatest agreement is mathematics. Now either mathematics has no objective existence, or else mathematics falsifies materialism, or some other option obtains.
None of the above options are entirely unproblematic for your position.

--------------------
we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams

Posts: 10567 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2004  |  IP: Logged
Martin60
Shipmate
# 368

 - Posted      Profile for Martin60   Email Martin60   Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
Then it is moral to burn your daughter alive for being raped.

--------------------
Love wins

Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001  |  IP: Logged
EtymologicalEvangelical
Shipmate
# 15091

 - Posted      Profile for EtymologicalEvangelical   Email EtymologicalEvangelical   Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC...
Then it is moral to burn your daughter alive for being raped.

Such an action is certainly not necessarily immoral from a naturalistic point of view, because burning your daughter merely involves the reconfiguration of matter, which is what nature does. It's no more immoral than two rocks hitting each other as they hurtle through space. And if such an action provides utility to the person performing the act, then what's 'wrong' with that (within a naturalistic paradigm)?

Of course, I think the action certainly is totally immoral. But then, thankfully, I am not a (metaphysical) naturalist.

--------------------
You can argue with a man who says, 'Rice is unwholesome': but you neither can nor need argue with a man who says, 'Rice is unwholesome, but I'm not saying this is true'. CS Lewis

Posts: 3625 | From: South Coast of England | Registered: Sep 2009  |  IP: Logged
Ricardus
Shipmate
# 8757

 - Posted      Profile for Ricardus   Author's homepage   Email Ricardus   Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
Most other things that are "objective" generate greater agreement the more they're observed. Moral codes seem to proliferate over time.

Is that so?

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted by the UN in 1948. Could you have got so many cultures to acknowledge a common set of morals in 1548? 1048? 548?

--------------------
Then the dog ran before, and coming as if he had brought the news, shewed his joy by his fawning and wagging his tail. -- Tobit 11:9 (Douai-Rheims)

Posts: 7247 | From: Liverpool, UK | Registered: Nov 2004  |  IP: Logged
GreyFace
Shipmate
# 4682

 - Posted      Profile for GreyFace   Email GreyFace   Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
First, I do not argue the existence of God from the existence of morals. I think all such arguments are as weak as our practical grasp of morals, i.e., very weak indeed.

I find that interesting, because for me the concept of morality (note the, erm, key change there) is a knock-down argument against materialism. I acknowledge that it's not that way for other doubtless cleverer people but I've yet to encounter a description of morality that didn't seem to boil down to one of two options - either that morality is an illusion (and therefore we can't call any choice or action evil) or that morality is part of the nature of reality (which whilst not proving theism, makes it look a reasonable option and certainly kicks strict materialism off its pedestal).
Posts: 5748 | From: North East England | Registered: Jul 2003  |  IP: Logged
Marvin the Martian

Interplanetary
# 4360

 - Posted      Profile for Marvin the Martian     Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
quote:
Originally posted by GreyFace:
either that morality is an illusion (and therefore we can't call any choice or action evil)

That simply doesn't follow. Even if there is no such thing as an independent objective morality it doesn't mean we can't say that we think murder is evil. It just means we have to persuade other people to agree with our position rather than appealing to an external authority in order to impose it on them.

--------------------
Hail Gallaxhar

Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003  |  IP: Logged
GreyFace
Shipmate
# 4682

 - Posted      Profile for GreyFace   Email GreyFace   Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
That simply doesn't follow. Even if there is no such thing as an independent objective morality it doesn't mean we can't say that we think murder is evil. It just means we have to persuade other people to agree with our position rather than appealing to an external authority in order to impose it on them.

So are you trying to argue then that if the entire human race agreed with one voice that murder was not evil, it would become good?
Posts: 5748 | From: North East England | Registered: Jul 2003  |  IP: Logged
Marvin the Martian

Interplanetary
# 4360

 - Posted      Profile for Marvin the Martian     Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
quote:
Originally posted by GreyFace:
So are you trying to argue then that if the entire human race agreed with one voice that murder was not evil, it would become good?

As far as we were concerned, yes.

Is that any different in principle from the situation that actually pertains, namely that the entire human race agree that murder (albeit with varying definitions of the word!) is bad, therefore we consider it to be evil.

--------------------
Hail Gallaxhar

Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003  |  IP: Logged
GreyFace
Shipmate
# 4682

 - Posted      Profile for GreyFace   Email GreyFace   Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
As far as we were concerned, yes.

Then any claim that murder is evil is an illusion. It is, in your mind, nothing more than the opinion of a large number of people and therefore not subject to challenge.

quote:
Is that any different in principle from the situation that actually pertains, namely that the entire human race agree that murder (albeit with varying definitions of the word!) is bad, therefore we consider it to be evil.
Yes. Because I believe in the concept of objective morality, I can consider whether or not the majority opinion, or even my individual opinion, might be wrong. Calling it wrong requires there to be a standard to which it can theoretically be compared, whether or not we have any certain access to that standard. You on the other hand are stood, philosophically speaking, on a branch which you've just sawn through because you've defined your standard as the unanimous vote and therefore ruled out the possibility of a unanimous vote being wrong.
Posts: 5748 | From: North East England | Registered: Jul 2003  |  IP: Logged
Justinian
Shipmate
# 5357

 - Posted      Profile for Justinian   Email Justinian   Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
quote:
Originally posted by Squibs:
These days there is much chatter on the internetz about subjective and objective morality. The claim is often made that without God objective morality can not exist. Without getting to much into the particulars of the argument, I must say that I find it convincing. In short, I believe that there are certain actions that are wrong and that God is the best ontological foundation for such a belief. God is a better explination that anything am Harris has devised (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Moral_Landscape. But perhaps this is for another thread.

One of the few decent arguments against the concept of objective morality derived from God (perhaps I've worded that wrong) is to claim that God's morality is itself subjective because it is based upon God's own ideas. As the objective card is removed from the table (or the attempt is made), the conclusion is that God's ideas are no "better" than any other views on morality.

On the face of it the only option is to offer a circular argument that seeks to establish an immutable God with goodness and goodness with this God. Alternatively, one could propose that morality lies outside God, which would pose some very awkward questions.

It's a fascinating argument, and one that I don't necessarily have a rebuttal against.

Any takers? Or anyone want to run with this?

If morality is objective because it comes from the circular God is Moral argument I'm going to take the consequences a step further. It means that as a necessary consequence you have an objective morality because Might Makes Right. Nothing more, nothing less. God is the mightiest therefore he says what is right. That is the single and sole source of God's morality. "Because I can enforce this and am the biggest there is."

--------------------
My real name consists of just four letters, but in billions of combinations.

Eudaimonaic Laughter - my blog.

Posts: 3926 | From: The Sea Coast of Bohemia | Registered: Dec 2003  |  IP: Logged
GreyFace
Shipmate
# 4682

 - Posted      Profile for GreyFace   Email GreyFace   Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
If morality is objective because it comes from the circular God is Moral argument I'm going to take the consequences a step further. It means that as a necessary consequence you have an objective morality because Might Makes Right.

The fact that you're raising this objection suggests that you think it's then possible for there to be an objective morality to which God does not adhere, but that he might decree a different morality and enforce it by power. This is philosophically possible but in it God has become a creature in the broad sense because you could theorise the existence of an entity who has equal power yet is more moral according to the objective standard, and this alternative would be God (or closer to God) as monotheists conceive him to be.
Posts: 5748 | From: North East England | Registered: Jul 2003  |  IP: Logged
Marvin the Martian

Interplanetary
# 4360

 - Posted      Profile for Marvin the Martian     Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
quote:
Originally posted by GreyFace:
Then any claim that murder is evil is an illusion.

Not an illusion. A belief.

quote:
It is, in your mind, nothing more than the opinion of a large number of people and therefore not subject to challenge.
I didn't say it was not subject to challenge. Perhaps you misunderstood the meaning of "as far as we were concerned"? I mean, if you posit a scenario where humanity speaks with one voice then by definition there are no people challenging that voice!

quote:
Because I believe in the concept of objective morality, I can consider whether or not the majority opinion, or even my individual opinion, might be wrong. Calling it wrong requires there to be a standard to which it can theoretically be compared, whether or not we have any certain access to that standard.
Calling it wrong merely requires an alternative moral framework from which one can make such a claim. It doesn't require either side to be objectively right or wrong.

It is, in fact, your view that prevents any questioning of morality, because it states that X moral opinion is utterly and objectively true and cannot be argued against.

quote:
You on the other hand are stood, philosophically speaking, on a branch which you've just sawn through because you've defined your standard as the unanimous vote and therefore ruled out the possibility of a unanimous vote being wrong.
If it's truly unanimous then nobody will be claiming it's wrong in the first place, which I'll grant means it won't be overturned. And for all practical purposes I'd say any moral claim that is agreed upon by every single person on the planet is true, as far as we're concerned.

--------------------
Hail Gallaxhar

Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003  |  IP: Logged
GreyFace
Shipmate
# 4682

 - Posted      Profile for GreyFace   Email GreyFace   Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
Not an illusion. A belief.

Marvin the Martian believes murder is wrong. Fred Bloggs believes murder is right. There is no objective morality, therefore neither can be said to be right or wrong according to your argument. You can tell Fred he's done evil, and he can say that he believes he hasn't. You can never at any point appeal to Fred to change his belief from the wrong one to the right one, because there is no right one in your mind, there is only your preference.
quote:
I didn't say it was not subject to challenge. Perhaps you misunderstood the meaning of "as far as we were concerned"?
No, I don't think I did. I ignored it because I thought you were using it to evade the question. Let's narrow down that question. Bunch of children on an island grow up to believe that people with blond hair should be thrown off a cliff. That's their belief. I can say they're wrong. You can say nothing better than that their beliefs differ from yours. And I can say that if they were the only people in existence, they would still be wrong. You can't, in fact you've already said that they would be right (with the qualifier, as far as they're concerned).
quote:
I mean, if you posit a scenario where humanity speaks with one voice then by definition there are no people challenging that voice!
Quite so, and for me that means everybody is wrong, whereas you're not prepared to say that. I suspect this is because you know that you can't, without conceding the point that there's an objective morality. And in case it's not obvious I acknowledge that I cannot know they are wrong any more than you can. But because I believe in the possibility of true right and wrong, I can think it consistently. You cannot. All you can say is that you don't share their beliefs.

quote:
Calling it wrong merely requires an alternative moral framework from which one can make such a claim. It doesn't require either side to be objectively right or wrong.
But if neither side is right or wrong, then it's not a moral framework but a system of preferences and nothing more. You not only have no basis to judge between them, the concept of judging is meaningless. How do you morally judge between flavours or colours or scents?

quote:
It is, in fact, your view that prevents any questioning of morality, because it states that X moral opinion is utterly and objectively true and cannot be argued against.
A common argument against the existence of objective morality but it's complete rubbish. Without an objective morality you have nothing else to say to a wrongdoer than "I don't like it." Your definition of immorality is that which you don't like, or more broadly that which lots of people don't like. It's precisely because there is an objective morality that "I know you like that but it's wrong" is neither a nonsense thing to say not a paraphrase for "I know you like that but I don't", and this is why your claim here is rubbish.

quote:
And for all practical purposes I'd say any moral claim that is agreed upon by every single person on the planet is true, as far as we're concerned.
There's that disclaimer again. It's coming across as you conceding that the claim could be wrong (objective morality) but nobody would then be reasonably held responsible for so being wrong. If that's your position then I agree with it.
Posts: 5748 | From: North East England | Registered: Jul 2003  |  IP: Logged
Evensong
Shipmate
# 14696

 - Posted      Profile for Evensong   Author's homepage   Email Evensong   Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
quote:
Originally posted by Squibs:

One of the few decent arguments against the concept of objective morality derived from God (perhaps I've worded that wrong) is to claim that God's morality is itself subjective because it is based upon God's own ideas. As the objective card is removed from the table (or the attempt is made), the conclusion is that God's ideas are no "better" than any other views on morality.

Wtf?

Objectivity = truth.

God makes and sustains the world.

God saved the Israelites from slavery and oppression in Egypt.

Only quite a bit later did God give the Ten Commandments. And these were commandments so people could live well in community. They weren't for God's sake, they were for God's people's sake.

So:

1: if objectivity is truth and God is truth then God is not subjective.

2: God has no morality. God has no need of morality. God loves and saves humanity before God suggested morality to humans so they could live better together.

Posts: 9481 | From: Australia | Registered: Apr 2009  |  IP: Logged
Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238

 - Posted      Profile for Crœsos     Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
quote:
Originally posted by que sais-je:
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
The only thing that needs to be said concerning this is that nobody has ever claimed that it is easy to discover these objective truths. "Natural" as in natural moral law does not at all mean "obvious". We are spending incredible efforts to discover objective natural physical law, with plenty of ferocious disagreement along the way. There is no particular reason why "morals" should not likewise contain difficult problems that are hard to resolve. And so it does.

I agree, but also if it was very easy to be moral, morality would cease to be visible. It's like air - the experience of it's absence makes us notice it and makes it an object of study.
Who said anything about "obvious" or "easy"? I'm simply making the case that the more time is spent examining most objective phenomena, the greater the consensus on those pheonomena. To take the suggested example of air (which was well known and intensely examined even before the existence of reliable vacuum pumps), we actually know a lot about air and how it behaves. And the more we examine air, the more we can say about it with a reasonable degree of confidence.

On the other hand, the more a moral question is examined the more fragmentary the answers become. Take IngoB's example of "killing innocent human beings", a question examined by moral codes for a very long time indeed. Despite several millennia of examining this question, there still seems to be no consensus on exactly who qualifies as "innocent" under this rubric. Most societies have something they define as "murder", but the parameters can vary wildly. "Honor killings" seem a fairly obvious example. Or the execution of heretics. Of course, the Christian paradigm holds that no one is truly "innocent" (with the exception of God), making the entire question academic.

--------------------
Humani nil a me alienum puto

Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
Matt Black

Shipmate
# 2210

 - Posted      Profile for Matt Black   Email Matt Black   Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
Not as between human beings, it doesn't.

--------------------
"Protestant and Reformed, according to the Tradition of the ancient Catholic Church" - + John Cosin (1594-1672)

Posts: 14304 | From: Hampshire, UK | Registered: Jan 2002  |  IP: Logged
Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238

 - Posted      Profile for Crœsos     Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
Not as between human beings, it doesn't.

Sure it does! If you only have to avoid "killing innocent human beings" and no human beings actually qualify as "innocent", it's a stricture you can avoid just as easily as the question of whether or not griffins are kosher.

--------------------
Humani nil a me alienum puto

Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
Matt Black

Shipmate
# 2210

 - Posted      Profile for Matt Black   Email Matt Black   Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
'Not innocent in God's eyes' <> 'not innocent in human eyes'.

[ 12. December 2012, 14:15: Message edited by: Matt Black ]

--------------------
"Protestant and Reformed, according to the Tradition of the ancient Catholic Church" - + John Cosin (1594-1672)

Posts: 14304 | From: Hampshire, UK | Registered: Jan 2002  |  IP: Logged
Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238

 - Posted      Profile for Crœsos     Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
'Not innocent in God's eyes' <> 'not innocent in human eyes'.

IngoB didn't specify a context. Of course, if God's will is objective, there's no reason the two couldn't be equivalent. In fact, if morality is objective we would expect them to be.

--------------------
Humani nil a me alienum puto

Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
Matt Black

Shipmate
# 2210

 - Posted      Profile for Matt Black   Email Matt Black   Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
But relationally they are different.

--------------------
"Protestant and Reformed, according to the Tradition of the ancient Catholic Church" - + John Cosin (1594-1672)

Posts: 14304 | From: Hampshire, UK | Registered: Jan 2002  |  IP: Logged
Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238

 - Posted      Profile for Crœsos     Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
But relationally they are different.

Are they? I thought the argument was being advanced that human morality is essentially 'hard wired' in by God.

--------------------
Humani nil a me alienum puto

Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
Matt Black

Shipmate
# 2210

 - Posted      Profile for Matt Black   Email Matt Black   Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
There is the sense, between ourselves, though, that we are "not to judge another man's servant" when it comes to the issue of innocence. That is due I would guess to our own imperfections (motes and beams and all that); God, being perfect, is not so fettered.

--------------------
"Protestant and Reformed, according to the Tradition of the ancient Catholic Church" - + John Cosin (1594-1672)

Posts: 14304 | From: Hampshire, UK | Registered: Jan 2002  |  IP: Logged
Marvin the Martian

Interplanetary
# 4360

 - Posted      Profile for Marvin the Martian     Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
quote:
Originally posted by GreyFace:
Marvin the Martian believes murder is wrong. Fred Bloggs believes murder is right. There is no objective morality, therefore neither can be said to be right or wrong according to your argument. You can tell Fred he's done evil, and he can say that he believes he hasn't. You can never at any point appeal to Fred to change his belief from the wrong one to the right one, because there is no right one in your mind, there is only your preference.

I can appeal to him to change to my belief though. And if we have any kind of shared understanding of life, the universe and everything then I may even succeed.

quote:
Let's narrow down that question. Bunch of children on an island grow up to believe that people with blond hair should be thrown off a cliff. That's their belief. I can say they're wrong. You can say nothing better than that their beliefs differ from yours. And I can say that if they were the only people in existence, they would still be wrong. You can't, in fact you've already said that they would be right (with the qualifier, as far as they're concerned).
Yes to all points. Of course, that wouldn't stop me from trying to convince them that they're wrong - but it would stop me from barging into their society, taking it over and completely destroying the whole thing so that I could stop it happening. That ain't my place.

quote:
Quite so, and for me that means everybody is wrong, whereas you're not prepared to say that. I suspect this is because you know that you can't, without conceding the point that there's an objective morality.
Indeed. Well done.

quote:
And in case it's not obvious I acknowledge that I cannot know they are wrong any more than you can. But because I believe in the possibility of true right and wrong, I can think it consistently. You cannot. All you can say is that you don't share their beliefs.
Yes, correct.

I don't, for example, condemn the Spartans for exposing their children on the mountainside so that only the strongest would live. Or the Aztecs for practicing human sacrifice. Neither do I condemn the Romans for liking wild parties, or the Mormons for being polygamists, or any woman who gets an abortion for doing so. None of those are things I believe are good, but I don't believe I have the right to waltz into someone else's life and command them to start using my morality instead of theirs.

quote:
But if neither side is right or wrong, then it's not a moral framework but a system of preferences and nothing more. You not only have no basis to judge between them, the concept of judging is meaningless. How do you morally judge between flavours or colours or scents?
And yet people do have favourite colours, tastes and scents. And the ones that are most popular with most people are the ones that proliferate in society. Why can't it be the same with moral codes?

quote:
Without an objective morality you have nothing else to say to a wrongdoer than "I don't like it." Your definition of immorality is that which you don't like, or more broadly that which lots of people don't like.
Correct.

quote:
It's precisely because there is an objective morality that "I know you like that but it's wrong" is neither a nonsense thing to say not a paraphrase for "I know you like that but I don't", and this is why your claim here is rubbish.
I see no difference between the two. Any time anyone uses the second, they're just using it in place of the first in order to prevent discussion of the point.

quote:
There's that disclaimer again. It's coming across as you conceding that the claim could be wrong (objective morality) but nobody would then be reasonably held responsible for so being wrong. If that's your position then I agree with it.
Well, I'm using it because I personally do believe murder is wrong, and I don't want to be seen to be promoting it.

But let's be fair, murder is a silly example to use given that nobody thinks being killed is a good thing. It's just that all the "objective morality" people like to start with the 'everyone thinks this thing is wrong' moralities in the hope that the people they're debating will fall into some clever semantic traps and be forced to accept that there may be an objective truth, at which point they'll break out their Holy Texts and say "Ha! Then everything in here is objectively true and you can't say it isn't because you accept that objective truth exists!".

It starts with universal condemnation of murder, and end up with persecution of all those people the religious folks don't like. Because for them, "I don't like" means "objectively bad".

--------------------
Hail Gallaxhar

Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003  |  IP: Logged
Matt Black

Shipmate
# 2210

 - Posted      Profile for Matt Black   Email Matt Black   Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
But if you have the power to stop the blond children from being thrown off the cliff, but you choose to not exercise that power, are you not guilty of their deaths?

--------------------
"Protestant and Reformed, according to the Tradition of the ancient Catholic Church" - + John Cosin (1594-1672)

Posts: 14304 | From: Hampshire, UK | Registered: Jan 2002  |  IP: Logged
Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238

 - Posted      Profile for Crœsos     Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
quote:
Originally posted by GreyFace:
But if neither side is right or wrong, then it's not a moral framework but a system of preferences and nothing more.

The argument from adverse consequences is a particularly pernicious type of fallacy. Here your argument seems to be that morality must be objective because if it's not it would be harder (or impossible) for you to pass judgement on other people's moral codes. While that may be so, reality is not necessarily ordered for your personal rhetorical convenience. The fact that you'd like for your moral code to be endorsed and enforced by an omniscient superbeing is not proof that it is.

quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
But if you have the power to stop the blond children from being thrown off the cliff, but you choose to not exercise that power, are you not guilty of their deaths?

The same question can (and has) been asked about God. He usually gets some kind of a Prime Directive exemption based on free will.

--------------------
Humani nil a me alienum puto

Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
IngoB

Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700

 - Posted      Profile for IngoB   Email IngoB   Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
quote:
Originally posted by GreyFace:
I find that interesting, because for me the concept of morality (note the, erm, key change there) is a knock-down argument against materialism. I acknowledge that it's not that way for other doubtless cleverer people but I've yet to encounter a description of morality that didn't seem to boil down to one of two options - either that morality is an illusion (and therefore we can't call any choice or action evil) or that morality is part of the nature of reality (which whilst not proving theism, makes it look a reasonable option and certainly kicks strict materialism off its pedestal).

The problem is that a social agreement or a biological development or a cultural tradition is not an "illusion" as far as practical consequences go. For example, if I claim that all morality is merely a product of evolution, then you may answer that such morals are hence an illusion and that nothing stops you from rejecting a merely biologically conditioned restriction through a free and rational decision. But this is not the case. Because I am then biologically conditioned to make your life miserable in response. As far as practical effects go, there is little difference there to "real" morals and "illusory" morals commanding our obedience. There may be some, but with the blunt instrument of our moral understanding it will be quite hard to mount a compelling case.

quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
On the other hand, the more a moral question is examined the more fragmentary the answers become. Take IngoB's example of "killing innocent human beings", a question examined by moral codes for a very long time indeed. Despite several millennia of examining this question, there still seems to be no consensus on exactly who qualifies as "innocent" under this rubric.

You are here simply re-importing basically the entire moral system through that word "innocent". Because one is innocent if one has done no evil, but whether this is the case or not is in itself a moral question. The point is however that given some definition, any definition, of "innocence", all modern moral systems agree that killing such a person is murder and not allowed. You may get away with killing one person in one moral system and not the other, because they disagree about whether the victim is innocent. But you will not get away in either system with killing a person that this system considers innocent. There has been historical development on this, showing that progress in moral discernment is possible, but it is now basically a moral principle accepted by all (at least in the sense that lip service is paid to it by the vast majority of sane people - morals are never absolute in terms of how real people actually apply them in everyday life).

--------------------
They’ll have me whipp’d for speaking true; thou’lt have me whipp’d for lying; and sometimes I am whipp’d for holding my peace. - The Fool in King Lear

Posts: 12010 | From: Gone fishing | Registered: Oct 2004  |  IP: Logged
Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238

 - Posted      Profile for Crœsos     Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
The point is however that given some definition, any definition, of "innocence", all modern moral systems agree that killing such a person is murder and not allowed. You may get away with killing one person in one moral system and not the other, because they disagree about whether the victim is innocent.

That sounds awfully . . . subjective. Why not simply use this objective morality everyone's so hot on to judge innocence?

--------------------
Humani nil a me alienum puto

Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
GreyFace
Shipmate
# 4682

 - Posted      Profile for GreyFace   Email GreyFace   Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
quote:
Originally posted by GreyFace:
But if neither side is right or wrong, then it's not a moral framework but a system of preferences and nothing more.

The argument from adverse consequences is a particularly pernicious type of fallacy.
I'm not particularly interested here in appealing to consequences though I note in passing that Marvin apparently would prefer to let babies die of exposure on a hillside than interfere with another culture, and I find that appalling. No, I'm arguing that morality as a concept requires objective morality.

quote:
Here your argument seems to be that morality must be objective because if it's not it would be harder (or impossible) for you to pass judgement on other people's moral codes.

Almost but not quite. I'm saying that if there is no objective morality, then there is no way that one can pass judgment on another's moral codes or even have a disagreement about morality. You might consider that a good thing, and it seems ssensible. I'd be interested to see if you applied it when I robbed your house though.

quote:
While that may be so, reality is not necessarily ordered for your personal rhetorical convenience.
Nevertheless when you speak of there being no objective morality yet behave in all ways as though there is, you sound to me very much as though you're speaking nonsense. I mean that literally - not making a poor argument, just saying something that is self-evidently contradictory. It would be logically consistent to say that morality is just a set of rules that is not related to concepts of good and evil of course. Are you doing that?

quote:
The fact that you'd like for your moral code to be endorsed and enforced by an omniscient superbeing is not proof that it is.
Strawman, irrelevant, and untrue. Superficially I'd prefer it if there was no objective morality because then I wouldn't be answerable to it. I would extend Marvin's argument and do what the fuck I liked and could get away with, probably.

quote:
quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
But if you have the power to stop the blond children from being thrown off the cliff, but you choose to not exercise that power, are you not guilty of their deaths?

The same question can (and has) been asked about God.
That's all very interesting but are you going to answer the question?
Posts: 5748 | From: North East England | Registered: Jul 2003  |  IP: Logged
Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238

 - Posted      Profile for Crœsos     Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
quote:
Originally posted by GreyFace:
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
The argument from adverse consequences is a particularly pernicious type of fallacy. Here your argument seems to be that morality must be objective because if it's not it would be harder (or impossible) for you to pass judgement on other people's moral codes.

Almost but not quite. I'm saying that if there is no objective morality, then there is no way that one can pass judgment on another's moral codes or even have a disagreement about morality.
Exactly so. I'm not seeing any convincing argument as to why the Universe must necessarily be set it up in such a way to make it more convenient for you to "pass judgment on another's moral codes". Personal convenience is not a convincing argument for something's existence or non-existence.

--------------------
Humani nil a me alienum puto

Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
IngoB

Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700

 - Posted      Profile for IngoB   Email IngoB   Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
That sounds awfully . . . subjective. Why not simply use this objective morality everyone's so hot on to judge innocence?

Because objective morality is far from easy to discern, develop and apply in general, and the blanket term "innocent" can refer to any number of difficult cases and issues. However, if you gun down a toddler tomorrow as "too evil", then the reaction that you will get will show that objective morality is not entirely impotent in discerning innocence.

--------------------
They’ll have me whipp’d for speaking true; thou’lt have me whipp’d for lying; and sometimes I am whipp’d for holding my peace. - The Fool in King Lear

Posts: 12010 | From: Gone fishing | Registered: Oct 2004  |  IP: Logged
GreyFace
Shipmate
# 4682

 - Posted      Profile for GreyFace   Email GreyFace   Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
Exactly so. I'm not seeing any convincing argument as to why the Universe must necessarily be set it up in such a way to make it more convenient for you to "pass judgment on another's moral codes". Personal convenience is not a convincing argument for something's existence or non-existence.

It's not about personal convenience, it's about having a coherent position. You agree then that the consequence of your position is that you cannot criticise anyone else's morality? I plead Godwin's Law for not taking the obvious next step and rest my case.
Posts: 5748 | From: North East England | Registered: Jul 2003  |  IP: Logged
Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549

 - Posted      Profile for Dafyd   Email Dafyd   Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
quote:
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
Such an action is certainly not necessarily immoral from a naturalistic point of view, because burning your daughter merely involves the reconfiguration of matter, which is what nature does. It's no more immoral than two rocks hitting each other as they hurtle through space. And if such an action provides utility to the person performing the act, then what's 'wrong' with that (within a naturalistic paradigm)?

The argument is fallacious. You're switching between a conception of moral neutrality that only obtains in certain metaphysical systems (reconfigurations of matter are morally neutral) and applying it to a naturalistic conception of morality which would almost certainly consider it a straw man.

There are arguments that make naturalistic conceptions of morality look problematic. But that isn't one of them.

--------------------
we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams

Posts: 10567 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2004  |  IP: Logged
Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238

 - Posted      Profile for Crœsos     Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
quote:
Originally posted by GreyFace:
It's not about personal convenience, it's about having a coherent position. You agree then that the consequence of your position is that you cannot criticise anyone else's morality?

Not at all. That makes as much sense as saying you can't offer opinions on art unless aesthetics is objective, or compare the merits of various athletes unless the rules of football are somehow embedded in the universe.

--------------------
Humani nil a me alienum puto

Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549

 - Posted      Profile for Dafyd   Email Dafyd   Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by GreyFace:
either that morality is an illusion

That simply doesn't follow. Even if there is no such thing as an independent objective morality it doesn't mean we can't say that we think murder is evil. It just means we have to persuade other people to agree with our position rather than appealing to an external authority in order to impose it on them.
It depends on what you mean by persuade. We can bribe other people to agree with our position. We can flatter them or fast talk them, or use a stirring speech to befuddle them. We can coerce them. We can certainly appeal to external authority - if we bung the right politician a big enough bribe impose our preferences on anybody we like.
What we cannot do, if morality is not objective, is persuade them if by persuade we mean offer relevant reasons.

--------------------
we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams

Posts: 10567 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2004  |  IP: Logged
Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549

 - Posted      Profile for Dafyd   Email Dafyd   Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
quote:
Originally posted by GreyFace:
that morality is an illusion (and therefore we can't call any choice or action evil) or that morality is part of the nature of reality (which whilst not proving theism, makes it look a reasonable option and certainly kicks strict materialism off its pedestal).

If morality is an illusion it follows that the prohibition 'we can't call any choice or action evil' is also an illusion. Therefore, if morality is an illusion we can call choices and actions evil as much as we like.
If we want to prevent someone from taking the last bit of chocolate cake, and the most effective way of doing so is to tell them that the chocolate cake is evil then if there is no objective morality there is no reason other than our own subjective preferences why we shouldn't tell them it's evil.

--------------------
we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams

Posts: 10567 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2004  |  IP: Logged
Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549

 - Posted      Profile for Dafyd   Email Dafyd   Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
Most societies have something they define as "murder", but the parameters can vary wildly. "Honor killings" seem a fairly obvious example. Or the execution of heretics.

Most societies have something they define as air. But the number of definitions of air have multiplied over time. The Ancient Greeks claimed it was one of four elements, but our society defines it as a mixture of elements with a few compounds thrown in.
Of course, you could point out that there's a time direction: the change is one-directional and that's a mark that the change in definition of air is made on the basis of objective observation and criteria. That raises the question of whether the change from executing heretics or honour killings is one-directional. Are there many societies in known history that have gone from our claim that honour-killings are wrong to the belief that honour killings are sometimes justified (except in cases of mass immigration from a pro-honour killing society). There does seem to be a moral ratchet in the case of morality also.

--------------------
we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams

Posts: 10567 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2004  |  IP: Logged
Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549

 - Posted      Profile for Dafyd   Email Dafyd   Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
'Not innocent in God's eyes' <> 'not innocent in human eyes'.

IngoB didn't specify a context. Of course, if God's will is objective, there's no reason the two couldn't be equivalent. In fact, if morality is objective we would expect them to be.
Your argument equivocates between 'objective' in the sense of 'about something that's objectively there' and 'objective' in the sense of 'the thing that's objectively there'. Your conclusion only follows if the two formulations are equivalent. If they aren't equivalent then there's no reason to expect human opinions about what's objectively there to be the same as what's objectively there. In fact, the definition of objective amounts to a claim that the two formulations can always be distinguished in principle, and that therefore there's always a possibility that they can be distinguished in fact too.

--------------------
we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams

Posts: 10567 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2004  |  IP: Logged
Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549

 - Posted      Profile for Dafyd   Email Dafyd   Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
Of course, that wouldn't stop me from trying to convince them that they're wrong - but it would stop me from barging into their society, taking it over and completely destroying the whole thing so that I could stop it happening. That ain't my place.

Why do you need a place?
Assuming no objective morality there are no places and therefore you don't need one. It's like saying that because nobody issues resident's parking on your street nobody is allowed to park there.

It ain't your place to barge in and take over. It ain't your place to hold back from barging in. It ain't your place to try to convince them that they're wrong. It ain't your place to refuse to help put them all to death and salt the earth at the abomination. There are no places. You don't need no places.

--------------------
we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams

Posts: 10567 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2004  |  IP: Logged
HughWillRidmee
Shipmate
# 15614

 - Posted      Profile for HughWillRidmee   Email HughWillRidmee   Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:

Wtf?

Objectivity = truth.

God makes and sustains the world.

That is your opinion – you cannot demonstrate that it is truth.
quote:


God saved the Israelites from slavery and oppression in Egypt.

That also is your opinion – you cannot demonstrate that it is truth, nor can the archaeologists who have been attempting to do so pretty much since the end of the six-day war
quote:


Only quite a bit later did God give the Ten Commandments. And these were commandments so people could live well in community. They weren't for God's sake, they were for God's people's sake.

Assuming you are referring to the version in Exodus 20 – the first three don’t add much to the quality of community life do they? (Exodus 34 doesn't enhance your argument either does it?)

quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
... The good of a human being consists in part in not killing innocent human beings. Where a human being does kill innocent humans, we call him "evil" if this arises from his own free decision. Where it doesn't, we call him "(mentally) disturbed" or perhaps "confused"

May need separate thread, but, and I suspect that this is an area you know far better than I, there seems to be strong experimental evidence that our decisions are made by the unconscious brain based upon past influences (genetics and experience) which remove the option of genuinely free decision (free will?). If this is true killing an innocent is still “evil” – but it is the action that is “evil” rather than the person since the perception of decision making is merely the story by which our conscious mind accepts inevitably constructed instruction from the unconscious. The extension of this, of course, is that, were we created by an all knowing/all powerful god that god would have created us unable to choose good or bad.

--------------------
The danger to society is not merely that it should believe wrong things.. but that it should become credulous, and lose the habit of testing things and inquiring into them...
W. K. Clifford, "The Ethics of Belief" (1877)

Posts: 894 | From: Middle England | Registered: Apr 2010  |  IP: Logged
Evensong
Shipmate
# 14696

 - Posted      Profile for Evensong   Author's homepage   Email Evensong   Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
quote:
Originally posted by HughWillRidmee:
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:

Wtf?

Objectivity = truth.

God makes and sustains the world.

That is your opinion – you cannot demonstrate that it is truth.
quote:


Truth? What kind of truth? You cannot demonstrate that it is not true.

My position is more philosophically and logically sound however. The thing that creates, sustains and redeems the world is the source of objectivity precisely because it is creator, sustainer and redeemer. Without those things, there would be no life so objectivity is null and void.

Your position, as an atheist, is the weaker position as you have no logical source of objectivity. You have no source of truth.


quote:
Originally posted by HughWillRidmee:
quote:


Only quite a bit later did God give the Ten Commandments. And these were commandments so people could live well in community. They weren't for God's sake, they were for God's people's sake.

Assuming you are referring to the version in Exodus 20 – the first three don’t add much to the quality of community life do they?

The first three are the source of objectivity from which the others flow. Perfectly logical. One does not put the cart before the horse. The horse comes first.

Which was my original point. God first, then morality.

--------------------
a theological scrapbook

Posts: 9481 | From: Australia | Registered: Apr 2009  |  IP: Logged
Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238

 - Posted      Profile for Crœsos     Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
Truth? What kind of truth? You cannot demonstrate that it is not true.

I think you've strayed into Russell's teapot territory.

--------------------
Humani nil a me alienum puto

Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
Timothy the Obscure

Mostly Friendly
# 292

 - Posted      Profile for Timothy the Obscure   Email Timothy the Obscure   Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
'Not innocent in God's eyes' <> 'not innocent in human eyes'.

IngoB didn't specify a context. Of course, if God's will is objective, there's no reason the two couldn't be equivalent. In fact, if morality is objective we would expect them to be.
Your argument equivocates between 'objective' in the sense of 'about something that's objectively there' and 'objective' in the sense of 'the thing that's objectively there'. Your conclusion only follows if the two formulations are equivalent. If they aren't equivalent then there's no reason to expect human opinions about what's objectively there to be the same as what's objectively there. In fact, the definition of objective amounts to a claim that the two formulations can always be distinguished in principle, and that therefore there's always a possibility that they can be distinguished in fact too.
Actually, I think the problem with this entire argument is that it assumes that "objectivity" is a property of the thing being observed, rather than a quality of the relation between the observer and the observed. It assumes that "morality" is some kind of thing (an "object") that can be set apart from those observing it, such that they can analyze its properties and come to agreement about its nature. But morality is in us, and we as social animals exist in it--no separation is possible. Objectivity and subjectivity are not coherent constructs in this domain (I'm not sure they're coherent with regard to anything more complex than a rock, but that's another discussion).

--------------------
When you think of the long and gloomy history of man, you will find more hideous crimes have been committed in the name of obedience than have ever been committed in the name of rebellion.
  - C. P. Snow

Posts: 6114 | From: PDX | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
IngoB

Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700

 - Posted      Profile for IngoB   Email IngoB   Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
quote:
Originally posted by HughWillRidmee:
May need separate thread, but, and I suspect that this is an area you know far better than I, there seems to be strong experimental evidence that our decisions are made by the unconscious brain based upon past influences (genetics and experience) which remove the option of genuinely free decision (free will?). If this is true killing an innocent is still “evil” – but it is the action that is “evil” rather than the person since the perception of decision making is merely the story by which our conscious mind accepts inevitably constructed instruction from the unconscious.

No, this is wrong on several levels. First, let's assume the absurd position of materialism as true, for the sake of argument. In this case, there is obviously no "evil" in a strict sense, since the world is then merely a collection of atoms (quarks, gluons, what have you...) in motion (taken as term for any sort of change). However, it still makes sense to classify a particular (only relatively slowly changing) set of these atoms as a "person" that "acts", since this improves the predictability of atomic movements around this "person" greatly. Likewise their "acts" can be efficiently described by their effect on other "objects" and "persons", i.e., other collections of atoms that display lasting coherence in their motions. Certain "acts" can then be tagged as "evil" according to how much they disrupt the activities of a "person", the so-called "victim". And since such "acts" are committed by another "person", it remains perfectly appropriate to assign this label "evil" to the origin of the "act", a "person" that one might label "perpetrator". This again improves predictability about the atomic motions, since an "evil person" is likely to commit more "evil acts" in the future. So while materialism is obvious nonsense, one can in fact reconstruct the moral order entirely in terms of "efficient descriptions" of matter in motion. (Why is materialism obvious nonsense? Because the most fundamental and undeniable experience that you have, being you, cannot be explained materialistically. "Cannot" as in strictly impossible, not as in "currently unknown".)

Second, let's assume for the sake of argument that it is experimentally clear that becoming conscious of making a decision is significantly time-lagged to the actual making of decisions. (That is AFAIK not the case, rather it remains a contentious hypothesis with some apparent experimental support. But it's not my area of study, so I'm not claiming to be an expert on the current status.) This represents a problem only to an "implementation" of "free will" that invokes the homunculus of consciousness. I mean this kind of theory: the "subconscious brain" sort of prepares the cognitive case, like underlings prepare papers for a boss, and then put these on the table of a little man inside your head, who studies the reports, makes an explicit decision on what to do - this being the "conscious decision" part - whereupon his underlings (the "subconscious brain") scramble to execute his will. Obviously that kind of theory would be in trouble if the decisions were actually made before any conscious realization.

However, that sort of theory is basically bollocks anyhow, at least at the point when we bring the homunculus into play. It is not per se wrong to employ a homunculus in theories about the brain. These little men inside our heads are often a necessary place-holders for "stuff that clearly happens but for which we have no mechanistic explanation, or which would be to costly to model". However, if one puts a homunculus into place, then one is precisely not allowed to make far-reaching conclusions based on what these little men do. They must remain place-holders while we focus on something else.

This problem, if it then is even real, can be taken care of quite simply by assigning "free will" to the workings of the entire brain, with the "conscious" part being simply a high level summary of what one has decided, presumably for purposes of conceptual memorization. There is actually no particular problem in embracing all of what my brain does as reflecting "me" and "my decisions". And frankly, even experientially it is quite clear that there is a vast range of decisions taking, all in some sense expressing my freedom to act, but with very varied cognitive and conscious impact. I did for example decide to shut the door behind me when I left my house this morning. I was free not to. My intellect (intellect in the most general sense of "understanding" the world) proposed it as a good to my will (will in the most general sense of "internal drive") that the door should be shut. My will followed this and the door was shut. The total cognitive and conscious footprint of all that was however very small, it was "almost automatic". However, a lot more is going on now cognitively and consciously, as I reflect back on this. None of this is particularly surprising, and none of this represents any particular threat to "free will".

Third, none of this is of the slightest interest to the practical implementation of morality. Say you convinced me of the truth of materialism, atheism, evolutionism and whatever other "isms" makes you deny the most obvious fact about the universe, namely yourself. Then I would still maintain morality in a practical sense as it is. I don't care what the deep philosophical explanation for you trying to steal my car is. I don't care that there is no "I" that could care or not care. I do kick your butt for trying to steal my car. Morality is real at least in this sense: try to steal my car, get your butt kicked - in whatever definition of these terms you wish to use.

quote:
Originally posted by HughWillRidmee:
The extension of this, of course, is that, were we created by an all knowing/all powerful god that god would have created us unable to choose good or bad.

This follows from nothing that you have said, has not internal logic and is manifestly false.

--------------------
They’ll have me whipp’d for speaking true; thou’lt have me whipp’d for lying; and sometimes I am whipp’d for holding my peace. - The Fool in King Lear

Posts: 12010 | From: Gone fishing | Registered: Oct 2004  |  IP: Logged



Pages in this thread: 1  2  3 
 
Post new thread  Post a reply Close thread   Feature thread   Move thread   Delete thread Next oldest thread   Next newest thread
 - Printer-friendly view
Go to:

Contact us | Ship of Fools | Privacy statement

© Ship of Fools 2016

Powered by Infopop Corporation
UBB.classicTM 6.5.0

 
follow ship of fools on twitter
buy your ship of fools postcards
sip of fools mugs from your favourite nautical website
 
 
  ship of fools