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Atheism Amorality?
Can an atheist clear this up?

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Atheism Amorality?

Prime_Mover
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Posted 05/23/08 - 08:18 AM:	#26
klorius wrote: I can see how one might make the claim that life is a natural basic standard for value. However, I fail to see why: (a) it is a necessary standard; (b) that it should be the standard; or even (c) the only standard. It seems to me you're making all these three claims, and I'm rather puzzled as to how you justify such strong claims. In short, is it agreeable that if something is the only standard, then it is necessarily thee standard of moral reasoning? I simply make the claim that it is the only standard; I do not say that it is the "necessary" or "the" standard because those are implied, subsumed when I say the "only". Is infinity an impossibility? I'm not too sure why we should agree with the idea that an infinite progression is metaphysically impossible, even if we have a problem with an epistemological justification of such a concept. Furthermore, why should it be a linear progression? Why not, for example, a circular progression, or any other shape that loops back onto itself? More concretely, though, why do we require an ultimate end for all this? A linear progression is only possible if it begins somewhere. A progression of justifying some claim (in knowledge or ethics), must start from somewhere. If I ask a person for justification "why is that?" enough times, that person will either run into a void of concepts or an axiom. The "end in itself" is the axiom which provides certain justification for all resultant claims. Infinity is impossible because it means simply that, "without end" or "without (the) end (in itself)". I am not discussing metaphysical possibility of infinity, but as you say, the epistemological inability to process or comprehend such a concept. A circular progression of justifying moral claims in particular is simply circular reasoning and is impractical insofar as it is built on fallacy. Multiple ends appear to be perfectly possible, and arbitrary ends seem to work just as well as ultimate ends for the purposes of chains of justification. The question in ethics has never been "how many ends are there?" This is because working toward more than one end might lead to contradiction; moralists do not like contradiction in theory because it proves theory (or premises) wrong. The same is the case with "arbitrary" ends; "arbitrary" means a claim put forth in the absence of evidence of any sort, perceptual or conceptual; its basis is neither direct observation nor any kind of theoretical argument. An arbitrary idea is a sheer assertion with no attempt to validate it or connect it to reality. If you use the arbitrary to justify your chain of arguments, your conclusion will be arbitrary, an assumption. I need not provide examples of how arbitrary ends can justify murder, rape, and other atrocious acts as "moral" and "rational". Why is it that we should assume that ends define values? Is it not possible that values define ends instead? The meaning of the word "end" in this context is "the state of affairs that a plan is intended to achieve and that (when achieved) terminates behavior intended to achieve it". The "behavior" in this definition is equivalent to values because "values" are the motivating power of a man's (moral, in this case) actions. Values are those things which human beings have that drive them to certain actions; in other words, they are the means to the end, not the end themselves. Again, this requires further justification. Why should life be the only possible metaphysical phenomenon that is an end in itself? Why not rationality, or information, or divinity, or any number of possible formulations? Also, I'm rather unclear what sort of epistemology you're referring to here, since you seem to want to use genetics to define epistemology. If you're pursuing a biological line of argument, it seems perfectly plausible, even if one goes with the idea of life as value, for an individual organism to choose genetic continuity over individual happiness. As I said, without life, rationality, information, or divinity will not exist. Without life, morality itself will not exist; reason will not exist to even reach moral rights. The use of the word "genetic" here does not apply to the scientific connotations of the word but to the words original meaning: "relating to, or influenced by, the origin or development of something." That is, "'value' is directly influenced by (depedent upon) the concept of life", not "'value' is genetically encoded a priori". There is no biology and there is no metaphysical -> physical jump in what I am saying.

klorius
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Posted 05/23/08 - 09:39 PM:	#27
The_Rational_Animal wrote: In short, is it agreeable that if something is the only standard, then it is necessarily thee standard of moral reasoning? I simply make the claim that it is the only standard; I do not say that it is the "necessary" or "the" standard because those are implied, subsumed when I say the "only". Actually, the implication may not be there. Even if one claims that it is the only standard, understanding that claim depends on whether you are making a normative or descriptive claim (or both) there. It could be that it is the only standard, but we could still claim that there should be other standards, or even that it should not be a standard for certain situations. Similarly, we could still say that other standards can be in play, even if for now it is the only standard being used. At any rate, though, I still don't see how you justify the claim that it is the only standard, as per below. The_Rational_Animal wrote: A linear progression is only possible if it begins somewhere. A progression of justifying some claim (in knowledge or ethics), must start from somewhere. If I ask a person for justification "why is that?" enough times, that person will either run into a void of concepts or an axiom. The "end in itself" is the axiom which provides certain justification for all resultant claims. Infinity is impossible because it means simply that, "without end" or "without (the) end (in itself)". I am not discussing metaphysical possibility of infinity, but as you say, the epistemological inability to process or comprehend such a concept. A circular progression of justifying moral claims in particular is simply circular reasoning and is impractical insofar as it is built on fallacy. Well, I don't refer so much to an epistemological inability, but rather an epistemological difficulty. It is quite possible that we're all either spouting rubbish or appealing to a purely negative concept when we refer to the infinite, but I would hesitate to assert the certainty of such a claim. When we make a claim about a natural law, for example, and assert that it will be true across all time and space, is that epistemological nonsense somehow? I'm not sure why the fallacy of circular reasoning matters here. To that point, I'm rather unclear as to whether we're debating over normative ethics or meta-ethics here (hence why I ask above whether we're examining whether it is, or should be, the only standard). If we are trying to justify a certain theory of ethics, then, yes, showing that it is effectively circular reasoning severely weakens its claim. In terms of metaethics, though, I don't really see a problem with circular justification, since we could primarily be concerned with a descriptive account of how we evaluate actions and situations morally. The_Rational_Animal wrote: The question in ethics has never been "how many ends are there?" This is because working toward more than one end might lead to contradiction; moralists do not like contradiction in theory because it proves theory (or premises) wrong. The same is the case with "arbitrary" ends; "arbitrary" means a claim put forth in the absence of evidence of any sort, perceptual or conceptual; its basis is neither direct observation nor any kind of theoretical argument. An arbitrary idea is a sheer assertion with no attempt to validate it or connect it to reality. If you use the arbitrary to justify your chain of arguments, your conclusion will be arbitrary, an assumption. I need not provide examples of how arbitrary ends can justify murder, rape, and other atrocious acts as "moral" and "rational". If, indeed, there are multiple ends, and the different ends lead to contradiction, then perhaps it is in fact built on contradiction. Again, much depends on whether we're looking at normative or meta-ethics here. It is entirely possible to hold a metaethical position to the effect that our morality is irrational. Similarly, the basis for our morality could well be arbitrary, such as when the axioms that underly our values (assuming a linear justification) are effectively true by definition, not by any particular metaphysical reference. The_Rational_Animal wrote: The meaning of the word "end" in this context is "the state of affairs that a plan is intended to achieve and that (when achieved) terminates behavior intended to achieve it". The "behavior" in this definition is equivalent to values because "values" are the motivating power of a man's (moral, in this case) actions. Values are those things which human beings have that drive them to certain actions; in other words, they are the means to the end, not the end themselves. That doesn't seem to make sense. If a value drives me to certain action(s), then just by that definition it appears to be an end already. We could rationalise it as being a means to a higher or further end, but that rationalisation doesn't appear to be necessary at all. The_Rational_Animal wrote: As I said, without life, rationality, information, or divinity will not exist. Without life, morality itself will not exist; reason will not exist to even reach moral rights. This seems like an unjustified conflation of concepts. Just because A cannot exist without B, does not mean that B must be the (or even a) justification of A. Assuming that mind cannot exist without some biological basis of life (unless you are defining 'life' more broadly than I understand it here), it still doesn't seem to follow that the functions of mind do not or cannot have value independent of life. Indeed, if anything, if I were to, say, place the primary source of value on divinity, then the source of value of life would just be because it contributes to, or is necessary for the understanding or generation of divinity, not the other way round as you seem to assume here. The_Rational_Animal wrote: The use of the word "genetic" here does not apply to the scientific connotations of the word but to the words original meaning: "relating to, or influenced by, the origin or development of something." That is, "'value' is directly influenced by (depedent upon) the concept of life", not "'value' is genetically encoded a priori". There is no biology and there is no metaphysical -> physical jump in what I am saying. If this is what you are claiming, then I still don't see just how this is the case. If you are, as you claim, not arguing from the biological, why would value be dependent on life at all? Also, 'directly influenced by' can be very different from 'dependent upon'. I could agree that life (and presumably the preservation or advancement of such) is a fairly significant source of value, to the extent that it can directly influence or even generate value(s), but that is a far cry from claiming that we need life for value at all, or that all value is derive from life. In short, overall, it's quite unclear whether we're looking at a descriptive or normative claim here. You seem to want to make a normative claim, but your basic justification seems to be descriptive.
To be surprised, to wonder, is to begin to understand. - Jose Ortega y Gasset Knowing others is intelligence; knowing yourself is true wisdom. Mastering others is strength; mastering yourself is true power. - Lao Zi

universalanomaly
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Posted 06/03/08 - 06:52 AM:	#28
dwilljo wrote: Morality: An action is deemed as a general 'metaphysically' good/evil act based on info from the invisible dude with the big white invisible beard. You use God! (and metaphysics!) in your definition of morality. It is logically impossible that an atheist such as myself could be 'moral' in the way you have defined. I consider morality to be synonymous with ethics as you have defined it (albeit rather vaguely). In our culture we consider eating human bodies, insects, or a host of other things to be disgusting. However, these actions are not immoral as long as no living being is harmed as a result.
Taking evolution as the starting point for morality is no different than claiming the laws of physics are necessarily good because they are the laws of physics. "Any desire is imperative to the extent of its amount; it makes itself valid by the fact that it exists at all." William James

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