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Moral Argument for God

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Moral Argument for God

Johhanes de Silentio
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Posted 04/23/08 - 04:35 PM:	#676
Buddahchuck wrote: Buddhism suggests that desire only causes suffering. Food, drink, and shelter are necessities, and sometimes desires as well, but their importance lay in the fact that they are necessary for human survival. This is a really great point. It undercuts the foundation for most moral systems. What you need to decide, Johhanes, is why it is necessary for you to believe that morality is objective. Do I believe it? I don't know. I am a big fan of Kierkegaard, hence the name Johhanes, so I acknowledge the merits of subjectivity. I will tell you my motivation: I have a "love of wisdom" as they say and so I am interested in proofs for God's existence. The problem with most, as I see it, is that they demonstrate the existence of some transcendent, all-powerful, "unmoved," governing entity, but they do not prove this entity is all-good or all-loving. I don't think I need to give specific examples for this, I can if you need me to, but I'm sure you have realized the same problem. There are, however, two arguments that, if valid, do prove the existence of such a loving Being. These are the moral proof and the proof from religious experience. The latter holds very little philosophical water, as it relies solely on one's subjective testimony. The former requires that we first prove the existence of an objective morality, correct me if I'm wrong in this, and so that's what I seek to do. Yet doing this has proved more difficult that I imagined. But I will not give up this one claim. It seems that certain events, such the ones you mentioned, the Crusades, the Inquisition and the Holocaust, these appear to be objectively wrong. And I find it absurd to think otherwise. Does this not reveal to objectivity?

jdrw
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Posted 04/23/08 - 05:39 PM:	#677
Tisthammerw wrote: How would you do the same for objective rationality? Objective rationality is intuitively perceived; there's no way around this. It is true that some intuitions are less reliable than others, but some types and levels of intuition (using the broad definition of intuition that I gave earlier) are absolutely essential. If intuition of any type is insufficient grounds for accepting a belief, then we'd have to throw out belief in the at-least-sometimes-reliability of sensory perceptions and the belief in the existence of objective rationality. Rationality can be demonstrated to work or not in the objective world. There are experienceable consequences of applying it or not applying it. We can experience the difference in consequences when we apply it compared wit when we don’t apply it. For example, we can experience the difference between taking a medication that is the product of rigorously reasoned conclusions and taking a medication that is the product of reasoning that violates logic and rational reasoning. There are innumerable routine instances of experienceable differences between the consequences of conclusions that are arrived at logically and rationally and conclusions that violate logic and rationality. Some of the latter merely frustrate or inconvenience us, but some of them even kill us. This does not appear to logically follow. Even if we had no idea how to determine for certain whether objective moral values exist, clearly we can understand the statement "statements about how we ought to behave that are objectively right/true/correct." By "objective" it is meant that the statements are true independently of what people think, feel, and believe. You are the only person I've met that claims he/she cannot understand what objective moral values are. I think that Mackie’s “queerness” for instance is a way of saying he doesn’t understand what objective moral values are or possibly would be like. Many people agree with this. Unless we understand what the alleged rightness/trueness/correctness consists in and how to tell the difference between whether this rightness etc. really is authentic moral rightness, as distinguished from mere opinion that it is rightness, then the claim "statements about how we ought to behave that are objectively right/true/correct" is meaningless. What does it mean for a moral statement to be objectively correct? I really, truly, sincerely do not understand what this could possibly mean. If it’s so obvious to you, I wonder why you cannot answer the questions that I’ve asked. What possible experience could we have with this Objective Morality that would inform us that a given behavior really is immoral, irrespective of our mistaken opinion to the contrary? What possible experience could we have with this Objective Morality that would resolve differences of opinion about the morality of a given behavior? What difference to us does it make if our opinion (or even our intuitive perceptions) about the morality of any given behavior is contrary to Objective Morality? In the end you have resorted to saying only that you “intuitively perceive” really existing objective morals to be the case. Which I find singularly odd for a claim about something that allegedly exists in objective reality. Resorting to “It really exists because I just know it does” is about as lame an explanation and as intellectually uncompelling an argument as I can imagine. jdrw wrote: I have asked you what your epistemic criteria were that provide you with reason to accept your claim. You bet, and now I'm turning the tables. I argue that objective morality is on the list of "basic beliefs" that are intuitively perceived, along with logic, objective rationality, and the existence of the objective physical world (through e.g. sensory perceptions). Now you've made statements like, "Intuitive notions pop into our heads with great regularity, but their truth must be earned through meeting epistemic criteria." Again, how do you know which criteria to judge a theory by? Isn't the reason we accept the "epistemic criteria" because we intuitively perceive them to be rational? So your claim that something called Objective Morality really exists in objective reality apart from human opinion, belief or feeling is a “basic belief.” Which magically exonerates it from the nuisance of having to meet any epistemic criteria—no coherent rationale, no empirical corroboration required. “Whatever I say about Objective Morality is true, because I declare it to be a basic belief.” Well why didn’t you just say so a hundred post ago? Just wondering: Is there a reason I cannot just declare by fiat that Moral Skepticism is a “basic belief”? Or since it meets the same epistemic criteria that you’ve offered for Objective Morality, that alien abductions are a “basic belief”? Are there any other rules for qualifying to be a basic belief besides meeting your intuitive perception that they are? Logic, rationality and the existence of an objective physical world are beliefs that can be demonstrated to have consequences that we can and do experience routinely. They can be demonstrated to have pragmatic value in meeting our purposes. We can demonstrate that conclusions reached via flawed reasoning or illogic simply are not experienced to be very reliable, whereas conclusions reached by rigorous application of logic and reasoning are a way of increasing the likelihood that the conclusions will be experienced to actually work. We can demonstrate that constructing our understanding of our experiences as engagements with an objective physical world works to produce experienceable consequences that reliably help us achieve our purposes far better than not constructing our understanding of our experiences as engagements with an objectively existing world. In short we can readily show that doing it one way rather than its opposite has experienceable consequences. I have asked you several times to tell me what possible experience we can have from which we would be able to distinguish the difference between the existence and the non-existence of Objective Morality, or the difference between its objective existence and its imagined existence. If it really exists independently of our opinions, then we need some way to tell whether a given moral statement is merely our mistaken opinion or is the Real thing. What experience is it possible for us to have by which we can differentiate the real thing from our mistaken opinion? If this alleged Objective Morality cannot be used by us to determine the difference between false moral claims and true moral claims, then what’s the difference to us whether it exists or not? If there’s no possible experience that we can have by which we can experience a difference, then your claim is vacuous. I also have asked you to explain what exactly is this Objective Morality’s alleged universally binding force on us, and in what possible way we can experience it. If you claim that there is a morally binding force on all human beings, but cannot tell what this force is, nor how we can tell whether its really there or not, cannot tell us how to distinguish the difference between its being there and its not being there, what’s the point of making a claim that it’s really there? What are the experienceable consequences of adhering to vs. violating these allegedly universally binding morals? What possible experience can we have with these allegedly objectively existing morals that would reveal whether or not a given behavior really is moral or immoral? But perhaps we can flesh this out a bit further beyond the "basic beliefs" and apply the old reductio ad absurdum principle. Basically, the alternatives to ethical objectivism either don't work or are just plain nuts. Cultural relativism says being violently anti-Semitic is morally right if that's what the culture believes. Ethical subjectivism says trying to kill Jews is morally right if that's what you believe. Ethical noncognitivism says there's nothing morally wrong with the Holocaust. None of these alternatives seem even remotely plausible. Out of curiosity, which one do you accept? And why on earth do you find the seemingly outrageous consequence plausible? I’ve explained this before. To dispute that calling the Holocaust “immoral” is “meaningless” or is just “emotive expression” or even is “wrong” is not to accept the Holocaust as unproblematic--it’s merely to dispute that calling the Holocaust “immoral” adds any cognitive information, any additional cognitive understanding of the issue. Non-cognitivism is the position that claims that “the Holocaust was immoral” are either meaningless or are merely rhetorical, emotive expressions of disapproval based on deeply held value judgments. The vast majority of moral skeptics in our society are in complete agreement with moral realists in their vehement disapproval of and outrage against the perpetrators of the Holocaust. It is not the judgments that are in dispute, what is disputed is the cognitive import of calling those judgments “moral,” and insisting that they’re based on something that’s “transcendent,” “universally binding,” “absolute,” “objectively real,” and the like. Since moral realists cannot intelligibly explain what these attributes even mean, let alone demonstrate that they actually obtain, non-cognitivists assert that they add no cognitive information, no additional understanding to the issue. To insist that some behavior is “immoral” has rhetorical force in emphasizing the intensity of the judgment against the behavior, but has no actual cognitive content. To claim that a given behavior is immoral because God has decreed it to be immoral seems at first blush at least to be intelligible, but even in this usage all that “immoral” means is that it’s something that God strongly disapproves of (because such behavior violates his values.) So we’re right back to judgments of moral/immoral simply being rhetorically energized disapprovals of behaviors based on value judgments. (Not to mention, of course, the empirical problems that claims about such alleged divine decrees run into.) How so? You were the one who tried to provide "morality says how we ought to behave" as an alternative non-God basis of morality, not me. Did I not say (or at least imply) that "morality says how we ought to behave" is an incorrect interpretation of the brute fact position? Did I not describe the best non-God alternative (brute fact position) as objective morality being based in reality/existence? I clearly noted again that Moral Realists are positing the Real existence of some sort of metaphysical entity that is the foundation and source of morality. [more below] jdrw wrote: The point of non-God Moral Realists is that there Really IS some metaphysical something there as the sovereign source of moral authority behind the oughts and ought nots—just as your “heart of God” is represented as some metaphysical something that’s Really there as the moral authority. I agree. The question is, what plausible alternative metaphysical somethings are there? I have argued that "morality is the basis of morality" is a candidate that just does not work, and the best (indeed only) plausible alternative is "the universe/reality/existence says how we ought to behave." The name for the Moral Realist’s really existing metaphysical entity is “Objective Morality” but they construe this name as referring to something, as referring to some transcendent, universally binding, absolute, real entity or force, and it is this transcendent, universally binding, absolute, real entity or force that tells us how we ought to behave. Playing glib word games with their name for this entity (renaming it “how we ought to behave” so you can generate “how we ought to behave says how we ought to behave”) allows you to avoid their claim that Objective Morality refers to some really existing metaphysical entity that is the source of morality. It is a flagrant misrepresentation of their argument for you to do this. Do you agree that this is the only plausible alternative? Or do you think "morality says how we ought to behave" works? If you think it does work, what about my objections regarding the seemingly fatal problem of circularity? Your “problem of circularity” is a sleight of hand illusion that you create with your glib little word game that refuses to recognize that Moral Realists claim to be referring to some real actually existing metaphysical referent by which our behavior is determined to be moral or immoral. The Moral Realist claim is not that “how we ought to behave tells us how we ought to behave” (as your sleight of hand word game puts it) it’s that “there’s some really objectively existing metaphysical entity out there that tells us how we ought to behave.” I for one do not find the Moral Realist claim to be one bit convincing. But I do not find it to be any more problematic than your claim about the “heart of God” being the foundation and source of morality. Any claim to be the foundational source of universally binding, absolute Morality has the problem of establishing that its particulars are the really True morality, of establishing how and in what sense they are binding on humans, and of explaining the experienceable consequences of compliance or non-compliance. Hmm, on an atheistic standpoint (at least the traditional one) isn't it the case that there is nothing metaphysically "behind" the universe? Wouldn't the non-God ethical objectivist simply place the basis of objective morality in the universe/reality/existence? What more is there than the universe, particularly without God? Isn't it true that there's nothing more than reality/existence? If not, then what? I don’t know. My meaning was simply that for Moral Realists, Objective Morality is an integral aspect of the whole universe, irrespective of the details of how the whole universe is construed. Cheers. jd
_____________________ OTOH I might be exhaustively wrong about everything I've ever thought--with the possible exception of this sentence.

Buddahchuck
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Posted 04/23/08 - 09:48 PM:	#678
It undercuts the foundation for most moral systems. Like which ones? I am a big fan of Kierkegaard Me too. So you can buy into the communal subjectivity meaning a closer relationship with God than the concept of objectivity. It seems that certain events, such the ones you mentioned, the Crusades, the Inquisition and the Holocaust, these appear to be objectively wrong. And I find it absurd to think otherwise. Does this not reveal to objectivity? Note that YOU find them to be objectively wrong. Yet these things were not immoral given a certain cultural context. And the context of each of these was that they were trying to promote what they saw as objectively right. And therein lies the irony. In fighting for the objectively moral thing to do, they committed acts that you deem as objectively wrong. Can you really imagine the Grand Inquisitor getting up there and saying, "Now I know that you think that you are right, but I think you are wrong so you will die." No. The Grand Inquisitor spoke more like "For the moral good of all humanity, to promote what is objective and right, I cannot allow you to continue life by holding a false vision of what is objectively moral." Now, perhaps there truly is objective morality out there, but that goes nowhere to saying that it is possible for humans to know it. Tist wrote: You are the only person I've met that claims he/she cannot understand what objective moral values are. Right here buddy....I'm another. And if I'm not mistaken, PMB said something about "objective morality" being a vague term. And TMB had a bit to say. Even Makarismos brought up the impossibility of objectivity. And then Mariner. Actually, looking back, the only person who thought that Objective Morality is a clear term, other than yourself, is Johannes. Tist wrote: But perhaps we can flesh this out a bit further beyond the "basic beliefs" and apply the old reductio ad absurdum principle. Basically, the alternatives to ethical objectivism either don't work or are just plain nuts. Cultural relativism says being violently anti-Semitic is morally right if that's what the culture believes. Ethical subjectivism says trying to kill Jews is morally right if that's what you believe. Ethical noncognitivism says there's nothing morally wrong with the Holocaust. None of these alternatives seem even remotely plausible. This isn't exactly how reductio ad absurdum works. The Holocaust is wrong for reasons that are subjectively evaluated (some people think the Holocaust was right); so you can't merely assume that any view that justifies the holocaust is absurd. Additionally, the cultural relativist would still say that the holocaust is wrong based on his own cultural beliefs; he's not required to embrace another's cultural morals. Ethical subjectivism, if you actually gave it credence, is more like what you are advocating where "intuitive perceptions" inform morality; so if someone's "intuitive perceptions" told them killing jews was morally right, then it would be....and you are yet to elucidate the differences. jd has done a fairly good job of explaining "Ethical noncognitivism" which you just don't seem to get (God is an unnecessary addition on your part to Ethical Noncognitivism). A true reductio ad absurdum is when the reasoning used to justify one thing, justifies another thing that is just plain unacceptable. For example, universe/reality/existence is a pink elephant, therefore if objective morality exists, it is proof of the existence of pink elephants is the reductio of your position trivially redefining God to allow one obscure idea to prove another.

TMB
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Posted 04/24/08 - 06:49 AM:	#679
Johhanes, you said, At the expense of disappointing each of you and undermining the work you put into your responses, I wish to proceed in a different fashion. I will start by laying forth my underlying assumptions and see if we cannot agree upon them; if we can, I will move on to the latter steps. Why are you unable to work with the specific points put forward? I suspect it is because we assimilate moral perspectives from our society and this is done indepentently of intellectual evaluation. This means that once argument develops around rational reason for moral positions they fail, however we ostensibly promote reational discourse as being the necessary way to achieve these things. This means that moral debates rarely manage to stay on track. Let me see where your next tack takes us. 1. Although they vary in terms of how they define it, each person desires happiness. I am not OK with this. If happiness has unlimited variations in definition, of what value is it to know that we all have different ideas of what people desire? I think what you should be defining is that each person desires fulfillment. However this is a tautology in that fulfilment is defined as achieving that which is desired. My difficulty with happiness is the sense that it is being at peace with ones reality, as opposed to the pleasures of the senses, and perhaps might include the sense of Hindu self realised bliss, a detachment from the material world. However thats just my definition. 2. There are certain necessary conditions for happiness; these conditions are the fulfillment of universal human desires. These desires include food, drink, shelter, an opportunity to flourish - again, this depends on one's definition of "flourish," but it is nevertheless a universal desire - others include a desire for relative peace, health and contact with fellow human beings. Again I disagree. Having the above things is not guarantee of how you feel. I have seen many people with enough food, drink and shelter who shows signs of great discomfort and unease, and others who have very little who seem in god spirits. I concede that people with no water or food feel extreme misery and of course ultimately death results. Peace is problematic. I think that violation of ones own peace is the issue, not disruption of others, unless it affects ours. People can be blissful while others have no peace, and even revel in this. The achievement of the Hindu state of bliss can also occur while surrounded by disharmony. Poor health certainly can make one miserable, although there are exceptions, but good health does not assure you of being happy. Contact with human beings depends upon the nature of this contact, and again even positive contact does not assure happiness. Can we agree on these? A bit more rigour required with the above in order to establish some common ground. Given that we are trying to ascertain of objective morality is the basis for our moral standards, I cannot see how you can avoid beginning your discussion with being clear about what this means, what the flip side of relative morality means. If you are trying to then map the argument to something like happiness, then you probably need to justify this approach.

TMB
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Posted 04/26/08 - 03:41 AM:	#680
Buddachuck, you say. Tist wrote: You are the only person I've met that claims he/she cannot understand what objective moral values are. Right here buddy....I'm another. And if I'm not mistaken, PMB said something about "objective morality" being a vague term. And TMB had a bit to say. Even Makarismos brought up the impossibility of objectivity. And then Mariner. Actually, looking back, the only person who thought that Objective Morality is a clear term, other than yourself, is Johannes. I think the issue is the perspective from Tist where he appears to place himself in a position to be able to judge moral values as being objective or not. I am OK with the concept or objective moral values, I just do not think values in play in human life are objective values. Tist offers an example (the Holocaust), arguing that because to judge them as something other than objective is absurd in his subjective opinion, therefore means they must be objective. I just cannot see any moral values practiced by humans that can be shown to be objective, but I have no issue with the concept of an objective moral value.

Johhanes de Silentio
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Posted 04/26/08 - 05:59 AM:	#681
So objective morality exists it simply cannot be demonstrated?

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Posted 04/26/08 - 06:49 AM:	#682
Johhanes de Silentio wrote: So objective morality exists it simply cannot be demonstrated? Rather, we cannot know if it exists - it may or may not. The only thing we can be sure of, is that if it exists then we can never know anything about it.

Johhanes de Silentio
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Posted 04/26/08 - 07:29 AM:	#683
Not anything? Not even that the Holocaust is wrong?

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Posted 04/26/08 - 07:43 AM:	#684
Johhanes de Silentio wrote: Not anything? Not even that the Holocaust is wrong? You think it is wrong, I agree, and almost anyone we could ask would agree with us: but I dont think that this is enough to make the holocaust objectively wrong. Objective morals are so mysterious, they might even prescribe more holocausts - we simply have no way of finding out. Even if we could agree on this, it strikes me that it tells us very little about what we should do on a day to day basis, aside from "do not cause or participate in genocide".. If this maxim is true, then perhaps one should not pay taxes, if living in a country with armed forces? it still doesn’t tell me much about every day moral decisions which people find so difficult.

Johhanes de Silentio
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Posted 04/26/08 - 07:56 AM:	#685
People seem to agree on more than just that though; that is, the vast the majority do. We all seem to share certain interests: in personal affirmation, health, order, justice, and (on the negative side) in avoiding harm, pain, rejection, being taken advantage of by fraud or force, etc. So I think there is at least some reason to think that our common nature suggests underlying interests that we share, even if the more specific and elaborate conceptions of what happiness consists in are different. From these underlying similarities we can outline certain principles that apply to everyone. Again, not everyone agrees, Hilter and Stalin come to mind, but these men do not represent the typical human.

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Posted 04/26/08 - 08:19 AM:	#686
Johhanes de Silentio wrote: People seem to agree on more than just that though; that is, the vast the majority do. We all seem to share certain interests: in personal affirmation, health, order, justice, and (on the negative side) in avoiding harm, pain, rejection, being taken advantage of by fraud or force, etc. So I think there is at least some reason to think that our common nature suggests underlying interests that we share, even if the more specific and elaborate conceptions of what happiness consists in are different. From these underlying similarities we can outline certain principles that apply to everyone. Again, not everyone agrees, Hitter and Stalin come to mind, but these men do not represent the typical human. We share some interests yes. It's the interpretation which is important, and the means which are believed necessary to achieve these goals ends. If we believed that personal affirmation could be best served by proving oneself an battle then that would appear justified. physical health is important to most, but it's benefits are denied by some for other concerns: in the spiritual and the addicted. In the addicted concerns of physical need give way to a concern for health - in the spiritual deprivation of some physical need can be the gain of some other goal. We see this in sleep deprivation in some spiritual quest, or in the long hours of study in pursuit of knowledge. Many would therefore build a hierarchy of needs, perhaps with self actualisation at the top .

Johhanes de Silentio
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Posted 04/26/08 - 08:58 AM:	#687
Yes, and a morality should facilitate that self-actualization (SA) for all people. If one person's method of reaching what they deem to be SA for them conflicts with the SA of general population, we deem that person's actions immoral. If, for example, I declare my SA is to be a ganger and shoot innocent civilians, this would be immoral, for it does not allow those people to reach their SA. It seems that some general principles: do not murder, do not steal, do not commit fraud, etc. - can offer the vast majority of people what they need to reach SA. These, then, are the moral standards.

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Posted 04/26/08 - 09:25 AM:	#688
TMB wrote: I just cannot see any moral values practiced by humans that can be shown to be objective, but I have no issue with the concept of an objective moral value. Makarismos wrote: Rather, we cannot know if it exists - it may or may not. The only thing we can be sure of, is that if it exists then we can never know anything about it. In order to be able to intelligibly conceive that something objectively exists we need to understand how it is that we can determine the difference between its existence and its non-existence. And unless we understand what it could possibly mean for us to experience its alleged properties, we are not actually conceiving of that thing, we're just saying words. What properties of Onjective Morality (universal bindingness, absolute moral sovereignty, transcendence … can you experience in such a way as to tell whether they’re actually there or not? If we can never know anything about it, what does it even mean to say that it exists, and why ever would someone assert that such a thing exists and that it has certain properties? What is the difference to us of its existence or its non-existence? How do we judge whether claims about it are the case or not if we don’t even have any way of determining that it’s actually out there somewhere and not just a notion in our heads? If we don’t know how to use it as a reference to authoritatively determine whether or not a given behavior Really is moral or immoral, what difference does it make whether it exists or not? What does it even mean for something that can’t be accessed to be the prevailing authority? I think that Objective Morality is one of those seductive word strings that seems to mean something, but which--when rigorously analyzed--turns out to be empty. Cheers. jd Edited by jdrw on 04/26/08 - 09:30 AM
_____________________ OTOH I might be exhaustively wrong about everything I've ever thought--with the possible exception of this sentence.

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Posted 04/26/08 - 09:56 AM:	#689
Makarismos wrote: Johhanes de Silentio wrote: Not anything? Not even that the Holocaust is wrong? You think it is wrong, I agree, and almost anyone we could ask would agree with us: but I dont think that this is enough to make the holocaust objectively wrong. Why not? Don't forget that an ethical noncognitivist, if he is consistent, would disagree with the statement "the Holocaust is wrong" because he would believe that morality does not exist. A noncognitivist can disapprove of the Holocaust, but this is not the same thing as the Holocaust being "wrong." Rather, supposed claims of morality are really just expressions of personal taste of what a person likes and dislikes. A noncognitivist may not like what Hitler did. But for noncognitivism it is like favoring vanilla over chocolate. It’s just a matter of personal preference and nothing’s really wrong. Not even torture and genocide. Really the only way to avoid apparent moral absurdities is to posit ethical objectivism. Cultural relativism says being violently anti-Semitic is morally right if that's what one's culture believes. Ethical subjectivism says an individual trying to exterminate the Jews is morally right if that's what the individual believes. Ethical noncognitivism says there's nothing morally wrong with the Holocaust. None of these alternatives seem even remotely plausible.
_____________________ Knowing is half the battle; the other half is a really big gun.

jdrw
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Posted 04/26/08 - 11:03 AM:	#690
The ethical non-cognitivist says that the Holocaust was an outrage, that nothing like it should ever have happened nor be allowed to happen again. That the perpetrators should be tried and punished. That the survivors should be cared for. That the victims should be honored. That we should take military action against any future attempts to commit such a crime against humanity. That preventive watchdog measures should be in place. etc. The Moral Realist also says all this, and adds: "... and it was wrong." Because it violates some transcendent, universally binding, absolute, sovereignly authoritative thingy somewhere off in the ... um ... vast somewhere. And to deny this is to commit a "moral absurdity." Cheers. jd
_____________________ OTOH I might be exhaustively wrong about everything I've ever thought--with the possible exception of this sentence.

Johhanes de Silentio
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Posted 04/26/08 - 11:23 AM:	#691
In order to do ethics, like any any other branch of philosophy, we must establish first principles. From these we can discern moral rules - e.g. one should not torture innocent people - and from them practical truths - Hitler should not torture the Jews. I agree that without this first principles, this practical truth, in regard to the Holocaust, cannot be proven. What, then, can act as such first principles? Natural Sentiment for Humanity. Tisthammerw wrote: Really the only way to avoid apparent moral absurdities is to posit ethical objectivism. Cultural relativism says being violently anti-Semitic is morally right if that's what one's culture believes. Ethical subjectivism says an individual trying to exterminate the Jews is morally right if that's what the individual believes. Ethical noncognitivism says there's nothing morally wrong with the Holocaust. None of these alternatives seem even remotely plausible. Is this right? The Holocaust is wrong because to think otherwise would be absurd? Perhaps it would be, but can that act as a first principle? Breaking a promise may be wrong but I certainly do not find it absurd to do so; on the contrary, much can be gained by breaking a promise. So why do we consider it wrong? Because we have a natural capacity for sympathy. We know we have wronged another person when we feel their pain. This then provides the criterion or the first principle needed to establish a moral system. From this principle, through reason, we can set forth moral rules and apply those to practical moral issues.

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Posted 04/26/08 - 11:51 AM:	#692
Johhanes de Silentio wrote: Because we have a natural capacity for sympathy. We know we have wronged another person when we feel their pain. This then provides the criterion or the first principle needed to establish a moral system. From this principle, through reason, we can set forth moral rules and apply those to practical moral issues. But we also have a natural capacity to beat the hell out of or even to kill people who really piss us off. And a natural capacity to seek escalated revenge on anybody we perceive as having harmed us in some way. We have the natural capacity to annhilate to the point genocidal extermination those whom we perceive to be a mortal threat to our particular group. Why shouldn’t these natural capacities be the foundational moral principles? By what value judgment do you select Natural Sentiment for Humanity to be the foundational principle rather than these and many other natural capacities? And then how would you establish that the value behind that judgment is the right value? And how do you establish that the value behind the right value is the right value? You will either be in a regress or will have to arbitrarily assert some value to be the foundational value. But then you cannot show how your foundational value is better than somebody else’s foundational value except by further value references in a regress. We can establish a reasonably rational system premised on certain foundational values (as in fact we do in our system of laws) but such a system surely cannot be shown to be an “objective morality.” Cheers. jd
_____________________ OTOH I might be exhaustively wrong about everything I've ever thought--with the possible exception of this sentence.

Abiathar
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Posted 04/26/08 - 12:06 PM:	#693
Though not following, completely, the current train of thought, I do have something to say on the topic in hand. Often people wish to attribute personal and individual viewpoints to the entirety of the world, and in doing so this is meerly an egotistical farce. If one truly takes a step back, for but a moment, and forget how they themselves think of the world, they may begin to realize that some individuals do not have an understanding of what we deem 'Right and Wrong'. To the contrary, almost every belief system, including moral beliefs so not to forget our atheists, tends to have views of 'Right and Wrong' that are differing from the other. The solution to this is generally an abandonment of the better views and a whole hearted acceptance of their more violent. If one considers, simply, the concept of an omnipotent being, one must also conclude that by definition such a being is Immortal. When I say Immortal, I mean the capital letter. To be Omnipotent one does not feel physical pain, fear death, and would lack a conceptualized view of both due to this. Without experience, one cannot truly understand the full extent of our fears, and if you look at the most basic level, our fears involve death and pain. Our moral systems are based upon the fear of another inflicting either of our baser and less loved emotions, and as such a moral system would have to, inherently, be perscribed by an entity with which these fears and understandings hold true. In other words, human beings invented Moral philosophy, as all morals, no matter how trivial, are based upon someone's fear of one thing or another. Most morals are designed to a certain way of thinking, such as the fact in China it is often ignored if one child takes a toy from another, and often not fussed over. That child does not claim 'Unfair' as he has not been taught what Unfair means. Therefore, with empyrical evidence at hand, I must conclude that the conjunction of a Diety and Moral standards would have to be folly.

TMB
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Posted 04/26/08 - 05:01 PM:	#694
Johhanes, you said, Because we have a natural capacity for sympathy. We know we have wronged another person when we feel their pain. This then provides the criterion or the first principle needed to establish a moral system. From this principle, through reason, we can set forth moral rules and apply those to practical moral issues. Regardless of the fact that we also have a natural capacity for antipathy, what you have described is the basis for subjective morality not objective morality. As social groups, we do assess what serves the purpose of the group, and with compromises, the individuals within. I do not agree that this is a rational process, it is more an adaptive one. Behaviors that violate the integrity of the group tend to get vilified, those that retain the integrity get promoted and if the group survives on the basis of the behaviors, these tend to prevail. Over time, as the environment changes, these moral standards change to suit the environment and pressures from within. Homosexual behavior, various sexual mores, have all undergone changes in the last one or two generations, and behavior regarded as wrong is now acceptable or even right. More fundamental issues like the right to enslave, or cannibalise other peoples are now seen as almost universally wrong, but well accepted in their societies at the time. Stem ce reseach, abortion, capital punishment are all in transition at the moment as various lobby groups wrestle to establish the moral right for society. This all demonstrates relative morality. What is interesting in this discussion is the avoidance of these obvious examples by Tist and Johhanes. The tendency to try and operate as if moral standards were objective, is very strong, for obvious reasons. As Tist says, then we would see that morals are based upon personal or cultural preferences, and this recognition might neutralise the ability of social morals to dictate how people ought to behave. That King Henry the 8th had a personal preference to get a new wife through divorcing his current wife was enough to break up the church of the time and build a different set of standards, beliefs and moral values as to what was right or wrong. Are we unable to operate in a rational society that recognises moral standards to be based upon the dynamics of power rather than some transcendent force or being that describes objective standards. It seems likely to be the case. Would society crumble if we came to terms with this, or will we be protected by the inability of people to be rationally cogniscent of this? I vote for the latter. We need to believe in an objective morality, because we are unable to come to terms with the implications of relative morality. At a conceptual level it is easy enough to debate it, but from a practical life level, only psychopathic personalities seem able to escape the tendency to act as if objective morality exists.

Johhanes de Silentio
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Posted 04/26/08 - 07:57 PM:	#695
jdrw wrote: But we also have a natural capacity to beat the hell out of or even to kill people who really piss us off. And a natural capacity to seek escalated revenge on anybody we perceive as having harmed us in some way. We have the natural capacity to annhilate to the point genocidal extermination those whom we perceive to be a mortal threat to our particular group. Why shouldn’t these natural capacities be the foundational moral principles? By what value judgment do you select Natural Sentiment for Humanity to be the foundational principle rather than these and many other natural capacities? If we used the natural capacity to kill, for instance, as our first principle, then such events as Holocaust could be justified. As we have said, however, it is absurd to believe that the Holocaust is morally acceptable. Our intuition tells us this. What does intuition tell us to ground our moral beliefs in? Natural Sentiment, for only this leads to a morality consistent with our intuitions. And then how would you establish that the value behind that judgment is the right value? And how do you establish that the value behind the right value is the right value? How do we establish it rationally? You're missing the point. First principles are established not through reason but through intuition. Why do we accept the law of non-contradiction? How do we know a thing cannot be itself and also another thing? What proof can we give for this? No proof, but none is necessary. The truth is self-evident. Because relativism and nihilism reduce to absurd conclusions, e.g. the justification of the Holocaust, it is self-evident these things cannot be true. It follows that an objective morality exists, for only it remains consistent with our intuitions. You will either be in a regress or will have to arbitrarily assert some value to be the foundational value. But then you cannot show how your foundational value is better than somebody else’s foundational value except by further value references in a regress. Of course I can. By the implications of different systems, I can see which remain intuitively consistent and which do not. The closer the system remains to my intuitions, the closer it is to the truth.

Abiathar
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Posted 04/26/08 - 08:08 PM:	#696
If there was, at some basic level, a natural instinct or intuition for morality then, logically speaking, it should be, by this point in human evolution, inherent in all human beings. This, as we can see simply by turning on the news, is blatantly absurd. There is enough evidence readily at hand to provide the grounds for an argument of no universal morality. If there is no universal morality, then by default there would be no diety governing this system. A child does not understand, at first, that hitting someone else is wrong. This is the case with all children, at some time in their life. With that, a most simplistic basis for an argument, one must conclude that the Morals inwhich we govern our lives with are -not- instinctual, as we must teach our children not to steal, to harm other living things, and to not lie/cheat/etc. The fact that this must be a learned trait makes it the diametric of an ingrained, or universal trait. No matter what one wishes to argue, any learned trait is not an instinctual one, and if there were a universal law governing the morals of individuals then it would be instinctual as our race would have lived with this fact for easily over one million years as even the corpse of 'Lucy' shows us. Also, if this were goverened logically or through a systematic scheme then all life would act according to the same universal law system. This is, easily shown by watching a killer whale play with a baby seal, not the case. Life does not only include human beings between the ages of 18+, which I think is the most common assumption that I have seen thus far on this topic.

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Posted 04/27/08 - 08:21 AM: Subject: Do ethical noncognitivists really believe what they claim to believe?	#697
jdrw wrote: The ethical non-cognitivist says that the Holocaust was an outrage, that nothing like it should ever have happened nor be allowed to happen again. If the ethical noncognitivist says that and means it, he does not really believe what he claims to believe (which might actually be the case). Morality is a "system of principles and statements of how we ought to behave that are right/true/correct." Under noncognitivism however, morality does not exist and statements like "we should not commit genocide" have no truth value. A noncognitivist, if he is consistent, simply cannot claim that the Holocaust should not happen, because there is no "should" and no "ought," only expressions of what people like and dislike--like favoring vanilla over chocolate. Notably, there seems to be some inconsistency between what many noncognitivists believe and what they do. In public speeches and writings they may seem indistinguishable from people who believe in a real right and wrong. Noncognitivists might urge practices like love, kindness, and tolerance for everyone. When rulers go on genocidal campaigns, noncognitivists might fervently denounce them and say the rulers ought to stop the mass killings, almost as if there was something wrong with genocide. Yet noncognitivism says there is no "ought" or "should" here, no moral right or wrong. Noncognitivism says that hate isn’t any better than love, and that intolerance isn’t any better than tolerance. It's all a matter of taste--like preferring vanilla over chocolate--as mentioned earlier. I don't like certain vegetables, you might; that's okay because it's a matter of personal taste and neither of us is really right or wrong. The same goes for genocides. But then whence all their hubbub over genocides as if they were moral outrages? It's not as if people shouldn't commit genocide, if noncognitivism is correct. Noncognitivism says genocidal rulers just have different tastes and that’s OK; there’s nothing wrong with it. Any noncognitivist that would say we ought to put an end to such behavior would be inconsistent. As C.S. Lewis said, "The Naturalists must not destroy all reverence for my conscience on Monday and expect to find me still venerating it on Tuesday." A noncognitivist could shout from the rooftops "I loathe genocide" like I could for "I loathe sauerkraut" but neither of us have any real basis or any real reason for others to share our dislike for those sorts of things (for we ourselves dislike it for no real reason; it just doesn't fit our mental taste-buds). There is no real reason for a genocidal ruler to stop killing people, because it's all a matter of personal taste and nobody's really wrong, right? It is almost as if such people know deep down that some things really are wrong, but for whatever reason do not want to believe it. In any case, at the end of the day views like "there is nothing morally wrong with the Holocaust" still seem unreasonable (inconsistent behavior of noncognitivists notwithstanding).
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Posted 04/27/08 - 10:41 AM:	#698
Tisthammerw wrote: If the ethical noncognitivist says that and means it, he does not really believe what he claims to believe (which might actually be the case). Morality is a "system of principles and statements of how we ought to behave that are right/true/correct." Under noncognitivism however, morality does not exist and statements like "we should not commit genocide" have no truth value. A noncognitivist, if he is consistent, simply cannot claim that the Holocaust should not happen, because there is no "should" and no "ought," only expressions of what people like and dislike--like favoring vanilla over chocolate. Notably, there seems to be some inconsistency between what many noncognitivists believe and what they do. In public speeches and writings they may seem indistinguishable from people who believe in a real right and wrong. Noncognitivists might urge practices like love, kindness, and tolerance for everyone. When rulers go on genocidal campaigns, noncognitivists might fervently denounce them and say the rulers ought to stop the mass killings, almost as if there was something wrong with genocide. Yet noncognitivism says there is no "ought" or "should" here, no moral right or wrong. “Should” and “ought” and the like can be used by anyone to express opinion about how they want people to behave or to refrain from behaving without any implication that they also are claiming that what they want mysteriously receives authority from some allegedly objective, transcendent, universally binding, absolute, metaphysical thingy that somehow really exists off in the great somewhere. “Shoulds” and “oughts” can be based on norms and values without all the metaphysical hand waving and fog. Noncognitivism says that hate isn’t any better than love, and that intolerance isn’t any better than tolerance. It's all a matter of taste--like preferring vanilla over chocolate--as mentioned earlier. I don't like certain vegetables, you might; that's okay because it's a matter of personal taste and neither of us is really right or wrong. The same goes for genocides. But then whence all their hubbub over genocides as if they were moral outrages? It's not as if people shouldn't commit genocide, if noncognitivism is correct. Noncognitivism says genocidal rulers just have different tastes and that’s OK; there’s nothing wrong with it. Any noncognitivist that would say we ought to put an end to such behavior would be inconsistent. As C.S. Lewis said, "The Naturalists must not destroy all reverence for my conscience on Monday and expect to find me still venerating it on Tuesday." A noncognitivist could shout from the rooftops "I loathe genocide" like I could for "I loathe sauerkraut" but neither of us have any real basis or any real reason for others to share our dislike for those sorts of things (for we ourselves dislike it for no real reason; it just doesn't fit our mental taste-buds). There is no real reason for a genocidal ruler to stop killing people, because it's all a matter of personal taste and nobody's really wrong, right? It is almost as if such people know deep down that some things really are wrong, but for whatever reason do not want to believe it. In any case, at the end of the day views like "there is nothing morally wrong with the Holocaust" still seem unreasonable (inconsistent behavior of noncognitivists notwithstanding). What is your strategy here—if nonsense is repeated often enough eventually it will be true? I addressed this cut and paste of yours one hundred posts ago in post 597. Non-cognitivists are simply saying that calling behaviors ‘moral’ or immoral’ adds no cognitive content to our understanding of the issue. Non-cognitivism does not dispute the values at stake. It does not claim that “hate is as good as love,” nor does it equate opinion about the Holocaust with ice cream flavor preferences. Non-cognitivists fully recognize and subscribe to hierarchies of values and norms (typically the very same values and norms that are at issue for Moral Realists), they just don’t accept the Moral Realists’ claims that these values and norms somehow receive authority from out there in the great somewhere. If you can show us exactly what cognitive content ‘ought’ and ‘should’ and ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ add to what non-cognitivists say, then please do enlighten us. If you can show us how your claims actually really do receive authority from some transcendent moral authority, then please do enlighten us. If you can show us how you are able to determine whether behaviors really are moral or immoral acording to Objective Morality, then please do enlighten us. If you can show us how it is that you know what objective morality really says, then please do enlighten us. If you can show us how we can tell the difference between what objective morality really says in contrast to mistaken notions in our heads about what objective morality says, then please do enlighten us. It also would go a long way toward compelling rational people to accept your claims if you could show how Objective Morality really is transcendent. And really is universally binding. And absolute. And True. If you cannot do these things, then what exactly is the cognitive content that you think your claims add to what non-cognitivists say about the behaviors at issue? I agree that your terms have rhetorical and emotive force, but what cognitive content do you think they add? Cheers. jd
_____________________ OTOH I might be exhaustively wrong about everything I've ever thought--with the possible exception of this sentence.

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Posted 04/27/08 - 01:12 PM:	#699
jdrw wrote: I think that Mackie’s “queerness” for instance is a way of saying he doesn’t understand what objective moral values are or possibly would be like Really? I've always instead interpreted Mackie's queerness argument as saying that objective moral values are queer things. Mackie seems to at least implicitly understand what the phrase "objective morality" means, else he couldn't say it was false, strange, unsupported, or anything of the sort. Come to think of it, that raises an interesting point. "Here's my theory--" "I don't know what it is but I believe it's wrong." How can one think it is wrong without even knowing what it is? You have claimed not to understand what objective morality means, but then how can you criticize a belief when you don't even know what that belief is? And what don't you understand? The word "morality" (i.e. a system of principles and statements of how we should and should not behave that are right/true/correct)? Or just the phrase "objective morality" (the belief that the truth of such statements is independent of what humans think, feel, or believe)? If it's "morality" then how can you be a noncognitivist, since the definition of noncognitivism is the denial of morality? How can you deny X if you don't know what X is? Tisthammerw: Objective rationality is intuitively perceived; there's no way around this. It is true that some intuitions are less reliable than others, but some types and levels of intuition (using the broad definition of intuition that I gave earlier) are absolutely essential. If intuition of any type is insufficient grounds for accepting a belief, then we'd have to throw out belief in the at-least-sometimes-reliability of sensory perceptions and the belief in the existence of objective rationality. jdrw: Rationality can be demonstrated to work or not in the objective world. There are experienceable consequences of applying it or not applying it. We can experience the difference in consequences when we apply it compared wit when we don’t apply it. For example, we can experience the difference between taking a medication that is the product of rigorously reasoned conclusions and taking a medication that is the product of reasoning that violates logic and rational reasoning. But for this to work, you have to have some basis for thinking that sensory perceptions are at least sometimes reliable (e.g. that a person really is telling you that this medicine is the product of rigorously reasoned conclusions; that the medicine is actually working) and after the events you must have some basis for thinking that memory is at least sometimes reliable (e.g. that someone did indeed tell you the medicine was the product of rigorously reasoned research, that the medicine in fact worked). The basis for accepting these basic beliefs is intuitiveness; you rely on the intuition (as I broadly defined it earlier) that sensory perceptions and memory are at least sometimes reliable. Moreover, you also have to assume that these sensory perceptions and memories constitute rational grounds for accepting rationality--which also means you are presupposing rationality. To recap the definition of objective morality I have been using, it is "a system of principles and statements of how we should and should not behave that are objectively right/true/correct." The name for the Moral Realist’s really existing metaphysical entity is “Objective Morality” but they construe this name as referring to something, as referring to some transcendent, universally binding, absolute, real entity or force, and it is this transcendent, universally binding, absolute, real entity or force that tells us how we ought to behave. We seem to agree that objective morality implies the existence of some transcendent, universally binding, absolute, real entity or force, and it is this transcendent, universally binding, absolute, real entity or force that tells us how we ought to behave. A couple things here: first, it seems that the necessity of such an entity constitutes at least some degree of evidence for the existence of God. Under theism, God is after all the transcendent, universally binding, absolute, real entity or force that tells us how we ought to behave. The sovereign metaphysical entity certainly sounds like some type of God, even if it is not the God of traditional monotheism. Second, if this sovereign metaphysical entity (I'll call it entity X) is not God then what is it? Simply naming the entity "objective morality" doesn't mean much, because given this peculiar definition of "objective morality" (the transcendent, universally binding, absolute, real entity or force that tells us how we ought to behave) the phrase "objective morality" could simply be God. So what is the identity of this sovereign metaphysical entity if it isn't God? The only plausible alternative I know of for the identity of entity X is that it is the universe/reality/existence. But this gets us to pantheism, as I explained earlier. jdrw wrote: Tisthammrew wrote: If the ethical noncognitivist says that and means it, he does not really believe what he claims to believe (which might actually be the case). Morality is a "system of principles and statements of how we ought to behave that are right/true/correct." Under noncognitivism however, morality does not exist and statements like "we should not commit genocide" have no truth value. A noncognitivist, if he is consistent, simply cannot claim that the Holocaust should not happen, because there is no "should" and no "ought," only expressions of what people like and dislike--like favoring vanilla over chocolate. Notably, there seems to be some inconsistency between what many noncognitivists believe and what they do. In public speeches and writings they may seem indistinguishable from people who believe in a real right and wrong. Noncognitivists might urge practices like love, kindness, and tolerance for everyone. When rulers go on genocidal campaigns, noncognitivists might fervently denounce them and say the rulers ought to stop the mass killings, almost as if there was something wrong with genocide. Yet noncognitivism says there is no "ought" or "should" here, no moral right or wrong. “Should” and “ought” and the like can be used by anyone to express opinion about how they want people to behave or to refrain from behaving without any implication that they also are claiming that what they want mysteriously receives authority from some allegedly objective, transcendent, universally binding, absolute, metaphysical thingy that somehow really exists off in the great somewhere. Problem is, "should" and "ought" refer to obligation in those contexts, and obligation in these matters is precisely what noncognitivism expressly denies. So the noncognitivist shouldn't (no pun intended) use those words to express their beliefs on the Holocaust if they don't want to be misinterpreted as contradicting themselves. They can say "I don't like that the Holocaust happen" but they cannot say "The Holocaust should not have happened" because "should" doesn't exist. I don't like certain vegetables, you might; that's okay because it's a matter of personal taste and neither of us is really right or wrong. Similarly, noncognitivism says genocidal rulers just have different tastes and that’s OK; there’s nothing wrong with it. I addressed this cut and paste of yours one hundred posts ago in post 597. Tu quoque, you yourself have just repeated what you have said in previous posts, and I continued on the line of discussion over the logic and content of noncognitivism until post #614 where you dropped the line of discussion altogether. I apologize if it seemed impolite, but you said, "The ethical non-cognitivist says that the Holocaust was an outrage, that nothing like it should ever have happened nor be allowed to happen again." Thus, my writings on how this was inconsistent with noncognitivism seemed quite apropos here. Non-cognitivists are simply saying that calling behaviors ‘moral’ or immoral’ adds no cognitive content to our understanding of the issue. Non-cognitivism does not dispute the values at stake. It does not claim that “hate is as good as love,” nor does it equate opinion about the Holocaust with ice cream flavor preferences. How is it though that what you say is true, given the definition of noncognitivism? Noncognitivism says there is no right and wrong; just people's expressions of what they like and dislike. What relevant difference does noncognitivism have here that invalidates my ice cream simile (whereby some people prefer vanilla over chocolate based on nothing more than personal taste)? I don't think there really is one. It's all a matter of taste--like preferring vanilla over chocolate--as mentioned earlier. I don't like certain vegetables, you might; that's okay because it's a matter of personal taste and neither of us is really right or wrong. The same goes for genocides. But then whence all their hubbub over genocides as if they were moral outrages? To this you replied (in post #583): jdrw (in post #583): The “hubbub” is over violations of deep values--value outrage instead of moral outrage. They are over deep values about human beings and how it is and is not acceptable to treat them. ------------------------------ And after my subsequent response to this (in which I criticized noncognitivism for being like favoring vanilla over chocolate, about it being mater of personal taste), you said this: jdrw: (#597) It’s not a matter of taste, it’s a matter of value judgments. Tisthammerw (#601): But remember that for the noncognitivist these "value judgments" have no objective reference point. They're simply an expression of what the individual likes or doesn't like, i.e. personal tastes (like preferring vanilla over chocolate). If my understanding is not correct, then what exactly are "value judgments" for the ethical noncognitivist if they are not simply expressions of personal taste? How exactly do you define the term "value judgment" in the context of noncognitivism? jdrw (#604): The phrase “personal taste” has a certain pejorative rhetorical slant that trivializes the value judgments at issue. It misrepresents what can be very deeply held values that people are even willing to put their lives in the line for. A moral nihilist’s value judgments about the Holocaust are misrepresented as being merely a matter of taste analogous to trifling preferences such as vanilla vs. chocolate. Tisthammerw (#608): But in reality isn't that all it is under ethical noncognitivism--personal tastes, albeit personal tastes that some people feel very strongly about (like someone hating sauerkraut to the nth degree)? You still did not quite answer the questions you quoted. What exactly are "value judgments" for the ethical noncognitivist if they are not simply expressions of personal taste? How exactly do you define the term "value judgment" in the context of noncognitivism? jdrw (#612): Value judgments for moral nihilists are the same thing value judgments are for moral realists. In this context, they are principled judgments about people’s behavior. Essentially they are approvals or disapprovals of people’s behavior. The criteria on which these judgments are based typically comprise an elaborate network of social beliefs and practices. What distinguishes them from trivial personal preferences such vanilla vs. chocolate is that they are: (1) principled, (2) widely shared in the society, and (3) concerned with what are considered to be the very most important behaviors (life, death, birth, sex, food, property, the gods … .) Tisthammerw (#614): (2) and (3) do not seem to be any reason not think of supposedly moral statements as simply expressions of personal taste. Even if most everyone preferred vanilla over chocolate and most everyone thought this preference is very important, the "I like vanilla over chocolate" is nonetheless simply an expression of personal taste; likewise with supposedly moral statements. (1) (even when combined with 2 and 3) also does not seem to be any reason to discount the personal taste explanation, at least with some definitions of "principled." How do you define "principled"? What makes a statement like "I hate genocide" "principled"? Is it because it goes against a fundamental belief on what the person likes? If so, that doesn't appear to be a good reason not to consider it an expression of personal taste (as a person might have a fundamental belief regarding the preference of vanilla over chocolate). Is it because it goes against a fundamental belief on what the individual thinks is morally right? That doesn't appear to be a good reason either, since under noncognitivism this individual would be simply mistaken (since there is no such thing as moral right and wrong). ------------------------------ In your next post (#615), you dropped this line of discussion altogether. Care to pick up where we left off? Or do you concede that my analogy is apt and that according to noncognitivism it really is just a matter of personal taste, like favoring vanilla over chocolate? Edited by Tisthammerw on 04/27/08 - 04:54 PM
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Posted 04/27/08 - 01:40 PM:	#700
Buddahchuck wrote: Buddahchuck wrote: Objective moral values (existing or no), need to be demonstrated as the type of thing known to be objective by subjective entities like humans. Raising this point kind of misinterprets and misses the point of my claim "If objective moral values exist, then they are evidence for the existence of God." This could be translated as "If one recognized the existence of objective moral values, then one could use them as evidence for the existence of God." Actually, chief, it doesn't. This argument, actually directly indicts your claim, however you phrase it. Please explain why, because the denial of the antecedent does not imply denial of the conditional. "If X, then Y." Even if X is false, it does not imply that the conditional is false. Similarly, my claim is "If one recognized the existence of objective moral values, then one could use them as evidence for the existence of God." I don't need to show that the antecedent (we recognize the existence of objective moral values) is true to show that the conditional is true. Conditional and indirect proofs in mathematics and logic rely on the validity of conditionals even in cases where the antecedent cannot be true. So by all means, please explain how attacking the antecedent directly indicts my central claim (the conditional). 1. If objective moral values were known not to exist, then such knowledge would constitute evidence that God does not exist. 2. In order for Objective Moral Values to exist in a manner consistent with the idea of God, it would have to be known by humanity with certainty. 3. ...objective moral values cannot be known by subjective entities like humans 4. Objective Moral Values do not exist (from 2 & 3) 5. God does not exist (from 1 & 4) This argument is a little awkward. For one thing, (4) does not follow from (2) and (3). One reason is that some ethical objectivists are atheists, so (2) has little meaning for them, and the mere fact that we cannot know of something's existence certainly doesn't imply that it doesn't exist. If you want a valid argument, this would be better: If God exists, then objective moral values exist In order for objective moral values to exist in a manner consistent with the idea of God, it would have to be known by humanity with certainty. Objective moral values are not known with certainty. Therefore: God does not exist. This argument is actually valid, though premise (2) is not necessarily true. A counterexample: God gave humanity free will, including the power of self-deception, and thus end up not knowing (by their own free will) what the correct moral action is. Actually, the lack of perfect knowledge of moral goodness is only one of many evils in the world. You could argue that if God was the basis of objective moral values, not only would He disallow incorrect moral knowledge (which admittedly is an evil that perhaps self-deception can only partially explain) but He would disallow all other evils as well. But I don't want to have this argument degenerate into an argument from evil. "There are no satisfactory reasons why God allows the evil we see" is a premise that is impossible for the theist to disprove and impossible for the atheist to prove. I'd rather save the argument from evil for another thread. Still, I think the "objective moral values cannot be known by subjective entities like humans" claim warrants a closer look. On what grounds do you claim this to be true? For one thing, there is this matter: Buddahchuck wrote: Tist wrote: You are the only person I've met that claims he/she cannot understand what objective moral values are. Right here buddy....I'm another. Then how can you claim that they do not exist if you don't even know what they are? Isn't it like saying "that belief is wrong" without knowing what the belief is? And how can you say "we cannot know whether objective moral values exist" if you do not even know that objective moral values are? Isn't that like saying "we cannot know whether belief X is true" while not even knowing what belief X is? In any case, the idea that we cannot even in principle know that objective morality exists seems false. I noted that in principle it could be known via intuitiveness, with me defining it as "immediate/direct apprehension or cognition (of a belief)." On this definition there are various levels and types of intuition in how we accept our (basic) beliefs, some more rational to accept than others. At the highest level is when we intuitively "see" basic logical principles like the law of noncontradiction. From there we can construct real ironclad proofs as in mathematics. Lower down the scale is the intuition that our memory and sensory perceptions are at least sometimes reliable. If you think intuitiveness cannot even in principle give us knowledge (i.e. properly justified true belief) of the existence of objective truths, how is it that can know other objective truths, like those in logic and mathematics? Aren't the basic principles of logic intuitively perceived? And if we can intuitively perceive objective truths of e.g. the law of noncontradiction (the principle it is impossible for something to simultaneously be and not be of a specified kind/quantity), why is it impossible in principle to intuitively perceive objective truths regarding morality? In this case, I think the burden of proof on impossibility claims rests on the person who makes it. Additionally, the cultural relativist would still say that the holocaust is wrong based on his own cultural beliefs; he's not required to embrace another's cultural morals. He would if he lives in a culture that says the Holocaust was morally right. Similarly, if he lives in a culture that says Antisemitism is morally right, the cultural relativist is required (if he is to be consistent) to embrace this culture's morals. A true reductio ad absurdum is when the reasoning used to justify one thing, justifies another thing that is just plain unacceptable. I agree, but you have to keep in mind that "There is nothing morally wrong with the Holocaust" is something that many (if indeed not most) people find just plain unacceptable. Hence my use of it. The problem is that we disagree over what is "just plain unacceptable." If you honestly think "there is nothing morally wrong with the Holocaust" is reasonable, we might just have to agree to disagree on that one.
_____________________ Knowing is half the battle; the other half is a really big gun.

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