Thinking Christian Comments
Original Post: A New Bearing on The Golden Compass
What do you make of those of us who have all these good things without God?
Nobody has any of it "without God." We all live in God's universe. God's common grace extends to all creatures. So there is intellectual curiosity, pleasure, even some joy for everybody; but in their fullness, only through God.
Tom, you wrote, "It's a mystery why one would want to cut oneself off from the Source of all love, beauty, and truth, in order to pursue these things." This implied to me that you thought it possible that one could choose to pursue the good things without God. If you meant something different, please explain. It seems you are saying now that regardless of whether one chooses to believe in God, whatever one enjoys in life comes from God anyway. So why worry about those who don't believe in God?
Of course it is "possible that one could choose to pursue the good [or truth or beauty or, etc.] things without God." But then you beg the question: what are the true, the good, the beautiful, i.e., how do you know them? Moreover, how does one get to these from a materialist "is"? By employing DL's subjectivism... through "persuasion"? Doesn't that further beg the question? If one is to be persuaded to something, that something must itself be true, good, beautiful--and not just subjectively, for that is village atheist reasoning... like Richard Dawkins trying to convince us there is NO good, evil, right, wrong... all while categorically and absolutely whining about a God to "permits" free will and natural disasters. Hitler's methods of "persuasion," after all, "resonated" with him... so what possible claim could DL have on Hitler? None. Time for me to yawn...
Holo,
You know things are good because you experience them as good. No God needed for that.
Holo wrote: "Of course it is "possible that one could choose to pursue the good [or truth or beauty or, etc.] things without God." But then you beg the question: what are the true, the good, the beautiful, i.e., how do you know them?"
And how does theism help us avoid this sort of question begging?
OS:
Really? And why, pray tell, is anything "good" (or true or beautiful) if it's merely material? You are profoundly begging the question to claim things are "experienced" as good when you haven't told us (let alone demonstrated) what "good" means in the first place. What could you possibly mean if one person considers killing Jews a "good" while others do not? One thing it does mean is your approach falls apart in a heartbeat. Moreover, you have a serious problem (for example) with fortitude (bravery) or fidelity: never in any culture has anyone ever viewed these as "bad" or "evil." Never, ever -- in no place or time. What about honesty... and in particular, what about honesty in conducting scientific experiments: maybe you know of people who believe it's "good" to cook laboratory notebooks? Are you seriously suggesting this is reducible to subjective individualism the likes of DL's village atheism? Come on, you can do better than that.
Jordan:
Well, the onus is on your side--which claims the true, the good, the beautiful can be known. I think you honestly do understand that is question-begging... and I think you also understand what problems that leads to. But, just to make sure, let's first hear the admission that your side is question-begging (especially on the "is" vs. "ought" level), and then I'll show you how to avoid it. And, I'll do it without proximately referencing God.
Holo wrote: "Well, the onus is on your side--which claims the true, the good, the beautiful can be known."
Theists make the very same claim, they just push it back a step by bringing God into the picture. That is, where the atheist says, "What's good is good, end of discussion," the theist says, "God tells us what's good, and everything God says is true, end of discussion." Both cases rest on assumptions, it's just that the atheist's assumption is easier to spot.
Holo,
Yes, really. Nothing is good or bad until one makes it so. And your claim that "never in any culture has anyone ever viewed [bravery and fidelity] as 'bad' or 'evil.' Never, ever -- in no place or time" can only possibly hold true if you define your terms. For example, if your definition of "bravery" includes a soldier killing "the enemy," then definitely there are those who would disagree that that is not bad or evil. Similarly, if your definition of "fidelity" includes being loyal to one wife, then those living in cultures in which having more than one wife is acceptable might disagree that fidelity is better than infidelity.
I don't suggest that cooking laboratory notebooks is honest, but I could imagine a situation in which it is not bad to do so.
Am I "seriously suggesting this is reducible to subjective individualism?" No, I am suggesting that this is more complicated than your objective morality posits it.
Nothing is good or bad until one makes it so.
An eternal God has already made many things good or bad. He hasn't spoken about everything--like whether it's good or bad for me not to like cantaloupe, and many other less trivial examples--but he has spoken clearly on many things. So "one" has "made it so," and with authority for all the rest of us.
That's just your opinion, Tom. You have *made* God, Christianity, and absolute morality good.
OS:
Really, you're not thinking things through: (1) on the one hand you claim nothing is good or bad unless we make it so--which is continued question-begging: WHAT is "good" or "bad"? You're not answering by simply saying "good or bad are what I say is good or bad." Then, (2) on the other hand--even if we believe your (il)logic and apply it to Tom--you come back with, "that's your opinion, Tom." No, that can't be because per your own criterion it's Tom that "made" a good--and who are you to disagree? [Tom: I'm not saying that's what you did--just playing OS's game against him.] So, OS, how will you fight your own (il)logic--by contradicting yourself... again? Go ahead... and join the DL club.
OS:
Here's another example of where we can use your own criterion against you. You claim, it's just that the atheist's assumptions are easier to spot. Let's say I grant you that. (I don't, but to expose a bigger problem for you I'll let it slip.) Just because an atheist's assumtpions are allegedly "easier to spot" doesn't mean they're true, does it? We're talking about the truth content of your assumptions--not whether their easy or difficult to spot. Given that, you're on the ragged edge of promoting fallacious support of your assumptions. If you want to be taken seriously, try to convince us that your "assumptions" are not easier to spot but that they are, in fact, true. Ah-ha! Suddenly, things get a whole lot tricker, don't they?
There's no illogic to fight, Holo. Tom has his opinion about what is good and bad, and I have mine, and you have yours, etc. I am free to disagree with the two of you, as you are with me. What's the problem?
As for the assumptions thing, that wasn't my comment.
Well, OS, then you're left with nothing but your cherished "disagreement"... which, without any doubt leads not to truth but power, lust, greed: if two parties "disagree," in your world view, the stronger wins rather than the truth being embraced by both. It's amazing (and scary) someone can be satisfied with mere disagreements rather than truth... but, hey, that what atheism is all about... isn't it? So, why not be honest and cut out all the other nonsense? Why not admit you're seeking power over others? What's the problem? THAT is the problem.
And here's a direct anti-intellectual admission: "Tom has his opinion about what is good and bad, and I have mine, and you have yours, etc." Opinion? This blog is about seeking truth and letting it embrace us. Opinion, while possibly interesting, is irrelevant in the search for truth. Do you really think "opinion" matters to scientists and philosophers? Again, you're not thinking things through. Yes, you are free to have your opinion. No, you are not free to have your own truth: truth is not a matter of personal opinion. Perhaps that's why you're an atheist: opinion and "disagreement" matter more than truth, beauty, goodness. Correct me if I'm wrong... but then you'd be appealing to a truth rather than a personal opinion, wouldn't you?
Holo,
I consider your 9:31am post to be a statement of your opinion about truth. I disagree with your opinion that "You are not free to have your own truth." I disagree that there is an ultimate truth. Of course you will try to convince me differently, because your opinion (belief, if you prefer) is that the ultimate truth you believe in must hold true for everyone.
In my worldview, the group and not the individual alone determines who holds power.
So, what is the truth content of your worldview, and especially of your categorical assertion that "the group and not the individual alone determines who holds power"? Is it "true" simply because you hold it to be "true"? If, as you seem to admit, your view is mere opinion, why hold it if you don't even know whether it's true or not? Perhaps because it serves some other presupposition? If you are so supportive of personal opinion ruling the day, why are you asserting it as if it were a truth? Yet again, your own words contradict you... a clear sign (I repeat) that you are not thinking things through.
Martin Luther King (a mere "individual" in your worldview) stood virtually alone in opposing the "group" (who held power) and its racism. According to your worldview, he was "wrong" merely because the racist group "rightfully" held power, and that their opinion therefore defined ("made" in your words) the truth. Are you suggesting racism is a "good" and "truthful" personal opinion?
I live in a country struggling with the deadly and psychologically-debilitating results of "group think" taken to extremely lethal ends... in a similar way that raw, self-centered, self-serving, power-seeking individualism seems to rule the day in the west. The implication of your "worldview" is there is no way we can--nor should we--rise of either of those.
It is not mere opinion to claim your "opinions" are morally repugnant.
Tom:
Your referencing Lewis wrt to Pullman was very good. It occurred to me there is a direct Scriptural reference to that—and I’d guess Lewis had it in mind: “The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I am come that they may have life, and may have it more abundantly.” (John 10:10 DR) Now, consider that in some of the (accurate) ways you characterize Pullman’s intentions: “… a distortion of a Biblical good…,” “… pride leads some persons to prefer personal independence at whatever cost…,” “[David Downing] … Pullman shows a remarkably stunted imagination in his inability (unwillingness?) to envision the worldview of faith…”
Recall Jacob, the post-modernist commenter from a few months ago. At some point I commented on Jacob’s views (regarding faith—which he claimed to have) being creepy, dripping of something wrong, missing something, leaving me with a similar feeling to that after seeing the beautiful but incomplete (and therefore terrifying sans eyebrows) portrayal of Satan in “The Passion of the Christ. Jacob decried truth as such, and hence he cast off a major portion of reality because he was satisfied with personal opinions, that disagreements were okay, that everything is a power-trip (including his own power trip and alleged claims to truth). Jacob, in fact, sough not life as “abundance” but a mere cross-section of that abundance.
Some of the current atheist commenters on this blog (echoing Pullman) have a similar stunted, distorted, partial view of reality: “abundance” in life is what one makes it, not what reality offers; the MESs “explain” all; reductionism is what reality is all about; ideas are nothing more than neurons; induction and statistics define the bounds of what counts as knowledge, etc. It is a prideful struggle against reality: reality is at fault because it doesn’t fit their personal opinions and their presuppositions. What is the historical result of atheism when it took political power? Exactly as Christ portrayed it above: to “steal, and to kill, and to destroy.”
Post-modernism jettisons truth (and eventually the other transcendentals). Atheism, on the other side, jettisons goodness and beauty—reducing them to mere subjective, personal opinion… with truth eventually falling as well. Both sides try to chip “offending” pieces off Christ—as we all do to one extent or another… which is why He bled for us. Everyone is trying to tame the untamable Lion because the abundance and joy of life and reality lived to their fullest is, as Lewis correctly noted, too much for us: we’re far too easily pleased with our limitations and errors and egos. The Lion’s roar is too scary, His mane is too furry, his strength is what we want for ourselves—and we must take it away, His love is too much, His truth must succumb to our opinions, His suffering for us and with us is “illogical,” and his death is a joke.
There’s something significant about eastern Christians that unsettles western Christians: they constantly repeat the prayer of the publican “Lord, have mercy on me a sinner” in their liturgies and prayers. I think, deep down, they understand that merely “knowing” we’re sinners is not enough: we’re so much sinners that we need to constantly remind ourselves of that… which is a sign of humility and wisdom.
Holopupenko,
You don't understand moral relativism. Countless times you have propped-up the same old straw man and argued that moral relativism means everyone is objectively right at the same time (which would be a contradiction). You argue as if there is some meta-rule that says that "if two people have differing subjective opinions, therefore, they should give up any desire to change or the other person or impose their views on the other person." However, this is total rubbish, and it shows that you have not given the matter any thought at all. Your reactions are reflexive, not reflective.
For starters, the meta-rule upon which you operate isn't even the one that's held by most people. The meta-rule that most of us subscribe to (also, as a matter of preference) is that we ought not unnecessarily impose our preferences on others.
You have not thought the issue through from the relativist perspective, so you are incapable of making any cogent criticism of it. Instead, you resort to fallacy, albeit emotional fallacy that some people find persuasive.
Your instinctive response to this will be to say that, if all I care about is persuasion, then I have no basis to complain about your fallacious arguments as long as they are persuasive to your friends. So why should you give them any weight?
The truth is that I do care about more than persuasion in general, and more importantly, so do you. Persuasion is just a way of describing moral interactions in the most general sense. The moral relativist does not "value" persuasion per se. The moral relativist recognizes persuasion as the thing that governs moral debate. It is the values of the receiver that determine whether an argument is persuasive.
So, it does not matter what my worldview is, what matters is whether my arguments appeal to your values. If the Pope claims your pants are on fire, you don't care about his claim because he's the Pope, but because you care about your pants being on fire. Likewise, if Kant tells you your pants are on fire, you won't risk the crown jewels on the grounds that he's an idealist.
When I state my arguments, you ought to value them if you value truth. Yet you prefer to respond with attacks on who I am. That's a clear signal that you don't value the truth. Instead, you value authority and absolutism, and you value your image as the authority on Thomism, and your appearance as Christian in front of your peers.
Holopupenko,
The classic, lame argument is the one you gave on another thread in which an island population changes by natural disaster, and the prevailing opinion changes. It works like this.
1) You (the observer of this thought experiment) feel that X is wrong.
2) The majority population of the island agrees with you (the observer of the thought experiment) about moral issue X.
3) A natural disaster alters the demographics on the island, so that the majority opinion disagrees with you (the observer of the thought experiment) about moral issue X.
4) Have you (the observer of the thought experiment) changed your moral opinion about X?
No. Of course not. As an observer, your opinion regarding X does not change as a result of the demographics (unless, say, the moral opinion is about demographics in particular).
The argument doesn't prove a thing. It merely confirms the known fact that you don't get an "ought" from an "is". It confirms that every moral opinion can trace its way back to a personal opinion.
In order to prove that morality is more than personal opinion, you need to make morality predictive of something (other than personal opinion) so that you can actually be wrong about it.
Truth about morality is truth about preference. If you are arguing that a relativist about Z does not subscribe to absolute/objective truth about Z, then so what? It's like saying that a musical relativist does not think there is objective truth about the goodness of music. So what? That doesn't mean that people don't have taste in music.
What you seek is some objective reason to impose morality on others through force of authority. I'm sorry, but you haven't found such a thing. You'll have to come to terms with (and take personal responsibility for) your own use of coercion.
All I have to add to what DL said is that MLK did *not* "Martin Luther King [stand] virtually alone in opposing the "group" (who held power) and its racism." In fact, it was MLK's ability to *persuade* people that his view was "right" and "true" that led to the success of the civil rights movement.
OS & DL:
You two are a trip. It was MLK's ability to *persuade* people that his view was 'right' and 'true'"? Persuade to what end... to another "opinion"? And what if public "opinion" in that respect changes tomorrow because David Duke "persuades" a large group of people that his "preference" is "right" and "true"? Reducing morality to persuasion or preference (DL: "Truth about morality is truth about preference") is as silly as reducing knowledge to statistics... is as silly as Paul reducing ideas to "[they're] nothing but neuron's, anyway."
Strawman alert: DL - where have I said, "everyone is objectively right at the same time"? it is you who do not understand moral relativism precisely because (1) you can't cogently describe it, and (2) because you practice selectively: you spout it and yet level moral claims against those who disagree with you in absolutist and categorial terms. I've had to defend my position in class, on exams, in practice, and in discussions like this blog. You, however, have no formal bona fides to do so. In and of itself this lack doesn't disqualify you from discussions... but it surely reveals your ignorance of the subject matter. Moreover, you are on record as asserting that "nearly everything" is explainable by physics. Well, please apply physics (or, if you'd like any and all the MESs and mathematics) to produce a sound argument in support of moral relativism.
Next strawman alert: twisting to fit your personal needs the island-tsunami example. In particular, your points 1) and 4) are utterly false. I'm not a participant, and you'll notice I didn't state anywhere that I believed cooking scientific notebooks and murder were wrong (I do, but that didn't enter into the description): I clearly stated a majority of the islanders did (prior to the tsunami), and then that a majority of islanders did not (after the tsunami). I then asked about the nature of the moral acts indepedent of me or anyone else. Sigh... yet again reading skills fall victim to the blindness of personal baggage.
Coercion? Sorry, your powers of persuasion are very weak indeed, and your personal "preferences" are morally repugnant to boot. "Coercion" is an empty, emotional reaction coming from a moral relativist. Besides, per your own rules, your moral claim against me is empty of objective content and therefore mere opinion. I don't care about your opinion--I care about objectivity and truth independent of me.
OS & DL:
I might add it's rather comical to see such moral indignation, such strength of moral purpose, such moral claims cast in absolutist and categorical terms coming from moral relativists... especially when there is so little persuasive substance behind these emotional outbursts.
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Hey Tom:
DL and OS are into “persuasion” not to truth but to personal opinions and “preferences.” They’re also into the logical fallacy that buttresses arguments in support of moral relativism, namely, if a majority of people are “persuaded” to judge a certain act as “right” or “wrong” (i.e., numbers (statistics?) determine right and wrong.
In the interests of humoring these guys, is it possible to set up voting buttons for specific posts that you open and close after participants have had a chance to present their positions? I’m not sure how realistic it would be given that one should avoid double- or triple-dipping (after all, per Chesterton, one cannot trust moral relativists) and lurkers being invited in to anonymously cast votes based not upon careful consideration of the material presented but upon unfair lobbying to simply cast votes. Perhaps, if possible, it could start with a simple “yea” or “nay” on the “persuasiveness” of a given position. Of course, we will likely hear the usual whining (and genetic logical fallacy) that since this is Christian blog, the voting will “necessarily” be skewed… yada-yada.
Just a thought
Another unrelated request: is it possible to include more than eight or so of the latest comments in your side bar? When I access your blog in the morning my time here in Kyiv, some of the earlier comments “slide off” the comment preview section… which makes it difficult to follow the summary of a thread.
DL:
One more thing: you've been accusing me of promoting Catholic "dogma" here, and that it's my Thomism and Catholicism that color what I present. Regarding the latter, that's the genetic fallacy... so try to pay attention to the arguments themselves rather that from which they may or may not originate.
Regarding the former, the only place I made a related comment was to state that it is indeed the teaching of the Catholic Church that reason and faith can never truly contradict one another. Apart from that, could you please provide specific references in these comments where I (a) promoted Catholic dogmatic teaching, and (b) that indeed it is formally dogmatic teaching of the Church? Given your deep knowledge of Christianity, surely the latter should be no problem for you.
Holo writes,
"You two are a trip. It was MLK's ability to *persuade* people that his view was 'right' and 'true'? Persuade to what end... to another 'opinion'? And what if public 'opinion' in that respect changes tomorrow because David Duke 'persuades' a large group of people that his 'preference' is 'right' and 'true'?"
This is actually exactly what happens, Holo, especially in the US, where people vote. This is part of what I mean by the group deciding who--and what worldview--holds power. In fact, prior to MLK and the civil rights movement, a large group of people *had* been persuaded that racism was right and true. What was considered right and true changed as MLK and others like him persuaded people away from that worldview.
And what will you do, OS, if David Duke is able to “persuade” a majority of people to accept racism... stand by picking your nose as blacks die? (My sense is you are idly standing by as unborn children have their brains sucked out of their skulls or bodies hacked to pieces or their skin burned off in saline solution… correct me if I’m wrong.) All you’re doing is (vainly) trying to eliminate certain objective moral principles with something else you believe is objective by its nature: voting. What if people are persuaded to vote out “voting” and “persuasion” (it’s happened before)?
I’m amazed you think you could have any possible moral claim against Hitler (or David Duke) simply because you hold a different opinion or because (currently) more people oppose Duke’s ideas... and I’m amazed you can’t see the inconsistency of your position: the faster you patch up the holes of your ship, the faster it sinks...
Do you really think the first five-hundred people listed in the Knoxville, TN phonebook will take you seriously? Do you really think you or your ideas are persuasive? Come on, be honest with yourself… Oops! Sorry… honesty is merely an opinion, isn’t it?
Holo,
You lose your credibility when you accuse me of atrocities. I won't respond to that.
Sorry, you lose your credibility when you accuse me of standing by while atrocities are committed.
os, here's what Holopupenko is trying to say. It's not that he thinks you would commit those atrocities (right, Holo?). I don't doubt, and I don't think that he doubts, that you have a strong moral aversion to those things, and that your moral sensibility would keep you very far away from such acts.
We make moral decisions largely on the basis of such moral sensitivities. The thinker, though--which includes anyone writing or reading here--also wants to have a rational/logical basis for moral decisions. This rational/logical basis ought to have some connection to the moral sensitivity by which we make our moral decisions.
Holopupenko has been asking you to examine the rational/logical basis of your moral thinking. He has been describing a scenario in which social norms change, just by (in his example) a natural disaster hitting the community and selectively wiping out more people who share a certain moral sensitivity and fewer of those who disagree. The balance of opinion changes. By your apparent standard, your apparent rational/logical moral basis, your moral opinion should change when that happens.
That would be the logical outcome of taking a rational/logical stance such as you have done. But moral sensitivities rise up in protest--which is exactly what you have done in your two recent comments. I don't know if Holopupenko needed to use such graphic language as he used, but maybe he did; for it showed the disconnect between your moral sensitivities and the rational/logical basis for your moral decisions.
By one standard you ought to see that it would make sense to change your moral opinion, and by another standard you know you could never do that. Your own standards are in conflict with one another. That ought to be a sign that there's something wrong with one or the other, or with both.
That's the point Holopupenko is trying to make. He wanted to provoke a sense of outrage in you--but note that he did it by carrying through the logical outcome of your own approach to moral decision-making. He has just shown you the consequences of your own beliefs.
Thanks, Tom, but I can think for myself, really. I understand what Holo is saying; it's he who, as DL pointed out, doesn't understand what I am saying about relative morality.
I did, however, react to what Holo wrote re: abortion rather than respond--which is probably why he wrote it the way he did. Actually, I am pro-choice, so yes, I do stand by while what Holo describes happens.
Here's the error in your thinking, Tom: You wrote, "By your apparent standard, your apparent rational/logical moral basis, your moral opinion should change when that happens." This is wrong. *My* morality doesn't change just because everyone else's does. What is moral *to me* doesn't change. That would be like me becoming a Republican just because a Republican won the election.
But os, I know that your morality doesn't change (or at least I took it to be a safe assumption to make--although for Paul, it is not). That's your moral sensitivity at work. I recognize this, and I think I said so already in my last comment.
But if your morality doesn't change when cultural morals change, then at that point you are entering the contradiction. One of your principles seems to be that cultural conditions determine morality, and one of your principles seems to be that you alone determine your morality, and those two principles are at opposition to one another.
The point? There is a moral system in which this contradiction does not occur. You can choose to live in a way that invites contradictions, or you can choose to live in a way where you can remain consistent. Any system that bases morality on cultural conditions will eventually lead to that contradiction, however.
Tom, I think the problem is that I think different moralities can co-exist and you think there is only one morality. Is that correct?
If there are different moralities based on cultural conditions, then the following statement would have to be possibly true, based on one's place in geography and history.
"Killing millions of Jews is okay, and killing millions of Jews is not okay."
Is that your position?
How am I to make sense of "have to possibly be true"?
Re: the Holocaust: It *was* true, wasn't it? It was both okay and not okay (just like every other moral issue), according to who you were at that time (by the way, the propaganda used at the time de-humanized Jews so that it would become more acceptable to more people to kill them--they weren't killing people, they were killing Jews.)
Now, ask me whether *I* think it was both okay and not okay to kill Jews, and I will tell you that *for me* it is *always* not okay. But, I am aware that, had I been in a certain place and time in Germany, I might have thought otherwise.
"Have to possibly be true" means that it is not impossible, that it is not contradictory, for the Holocaust to be both morally right and morally wrong.
As to what you have admitted at the end: that leads to one more, and possibly one last question. There were those who thought the Holocaust was right. You believe it's at least possible that if you had been there at the time you would have thought so too. Here and now you think it was wrong, and to have spared all those lives would have been right.
Do you see that your opinion of what would have been right carries no more weight than the opinion of those who thought the killing was right? There is no more justification, no more good reason, no more base for your belief than there was for theirs.
That entirely changes the definition of "right." It would be far more honest and accurate to say "preferred" instead. You prefer this, they prefer that, it's a matter of custom and taste, and that's that.
Well done (again) on this issue, Tom and Holopupenko.
As always, morality reduces to fashion.
This is the problem with relativism and skepticism in morality.
Once we had Paul assuring us that relativism was not about personal morality. But to other relativists it is. Paul was also sure it was not merely about preference. But DL keeps undermining that claim. And, of course, since morality is relativistic, there is no way that Paul (or DL, or OS) can say what it does or does not necessarily entail.
However, it is not useful to adopt a definition of “morality” as meaning the code of conduct accepted by the members of a society because in many large societies, not all members of the society accept the same code of conduct. Nor is it useful to adopt a somewhat more general definition of “morality” as the code of conduct accepted by the members of a group because it is not only always possible, it is often the case, that not all members of any group accept the same code.
http://plato.stanford.edu/entrie...ity-definition/
Descriptive claims about morality reduce to relativistic claims, and, of course this leads us to nothing but an individualististias sense of the word. The inconsistency lying there is that the individual, after granting himself the right to define morality, wants that to be the morality of all concerned. There are no limits to the contents of an individual's morality, and yet he thinks it ought to be an overriding morality. The relativist endorses only his morality, and not that of others, but soemhow continues to make judgments as though he has stumbled across a normative value. This bootstapping from descriptive to normative, of course, is incoherent. There is nothing in the content of these "moralities" to distinguish them from non-moral systems.
The obvious incoherence is exposed when we find out that one event can be both good and bad, right and wrong.
Save your collective breaths, atheists, rushing to add "objectively, and absolutely" to that last sentence. We know that's what you think. And that's what makes your positions incoherent. "Right" and "wrong" mean something to people when they use the owrds, and when they hear them. You reduce them to nothing but fashion statements while relying upon the cache tehy have with others.
No Tom, there is a difference between what people think is right and what they "prefer." People will sacrifice for what they believe is right. MLK, for example, sacrificed for what he believed was right, as did a lot of other people who agreed with him. People do not sacrifice for what they prefer.
Hi OS,
Is that just a bit of semantic quibbling, or do you disagree with DL as well?
In order to prove that morality is more than personal opinion, you need to make morality predictive of something (other than personal opinion) so that you can actually be wrong about it.
Truth about morality is truth about preference.
By the way, OS, I agree with your last statement. Unlike DL, I do not think that morality is a matter of taste and preference (as he compared it with musical taste). We wring our hands over female genital mutilation with broken bottles, not over a rpeference for polyrhythms. Wilberforce devoted his life to ending slavery (and other injustices), not a societal preference for reels and jigs. We sanction nations like South Africa and China for their human rights violations, not for their allegiance to pentatonic melodies.
Unfortunately, your appeals are inconsistent with your claims.
Our moral sensibilities hang on and on. Yes, we do sacrifice for what we think is "right," and not likely for what we "prefer." But all you've done here is to add this: what's "right" is that which I prefer and for which I'm willing to sacrifice.
You haven't shown that the choice behind that preference is anything other than just that. For if you go back to previous discussion here, you'll see that choices are preferences based on accidents of time and location, not on what's really right or wrong.
Charlie,
How so?
Tom, you are doing something akin to begging the question: You say that I have to prove that my beliefs meet your standards. You say that "not on what's really right or wrong" because *you* already believe there *is* something that is "really right or wrong." I don't believe that. All you are saying is that you believe in objective morality, and I believe in relative morality. That is correct.
Tom,
I think you, unlike Holopupenko, seem to understand what moral relativism actually is. That said...
That entirely changes the definition of "right." It would be far more honest and accurate to say "preferred" instead. You prefer this, they prefer that, it's a matter of custom and taste, and that's that.No, that would be changing the definition of "right and wrong" and "morality." It's fallacious to say that "right and wrong don't exist unless it is packaged with my metaphysics."
Morality is refers to a class of experiences, behaviors and emotions. We feel that something is right or wrong, and we are often willing to act on these feelings no matter what someone else believes.
Moreover, if Fred has a moral disagreement with Bob, and Fred decides to coerce Bob, then it really doesn't matter whether Fred and Bob are realists or relativists. The mechanics of the moral dispute and the coercion are virtually identical.
The words "right" and "moral" are used to refer to things that aren't metaphysical. They refer to experienced realities.
You have one metaphysical interpretation of this reality. You cannot go and redefine morality to refer to your own metaphysical theory.
Tom,
You haven't shown that the choice behind that preference is anything other than just that. For if you go back to previous discussion here, you'll see that choices are preferences based on accidents of time and location, not on what's really right or wrong.As long as you're not stealing definitions (as I described in my last comment), I agree with this.
Just as people have differing taste in music, people have differing taste for acts and outcomes of acts. They also have differing abilities to predict the effects of their actions.
When presented with a choice of action, I predict how I will feel during the act, and predict what will be the outcome of the act and how I feel about that outcome. On the basis of those feelings, I choose my action.
If I were presented with information that enabled me to make better predictions about the outcome, I may change my mind.
Also, there is a role for moral argumentation. My predictions about the outcome of an event will generally be incomplete. I may decide to eat a cookie because I presently desire to eat one. However, I might be persuaded to change my decision if I am reminded (by a moral argument) that I will have to run an extra mile to maintain my waistline after eating the cookie, and that I will feel bad about having to run that extra mile or getting fat. Though I could potentially have predicted this aspect of the cookie-eating, I neglected to do so, but a moral argument can remind me. Moral arguments allow us to better predict and understand the outcomes of an action or policy.
Hi OS,
What's up with that?
So...
Hi OS,
Charlie,
How so?
Why not ask DL?
He seems to be able to tell whether or not a person has a grasp on relative morality, and he agrees with me (on this point).
By the way, speaking of 3-down football ...
my Saskatchewan Roughriders just won the Grey Cup!!!!
DL,
It's fallacious to say that "right and wrong don't exist unless it is packaged with my metaphysics."
OS,
You say that "not on what's really right or wrong" because *you* already believe there *is* something that is "really right or wrong." I don't believe that.
===
DL [to Tom]
You have one metaphysical interpretation of this reality. You cannot go and redefine morality to refer to your own metaphysical theory.
Tom is not redefining morality.
Morality (from the Latin moralitas "manner, character, proper behavior") has three principal meanings.
In its first descriptive usage, morality means a code of conduct held to be authoritative in matters of right and wrong, whether by society, philosophy, religion, or individual conscience.
In its second, normative and universal, sense, morality refers to an ideal code of conduct, one which would be espoused in preference to alternatives by all rational people, under specified conditions. To deny 'morality' in this sense is a position known as moral skepticism.[1]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morality
The term “morality” can be used either
1. descriptively to refer to a code of conduct put forward by a society or,
1. some other group, such as a religion, or
2. accepted by an individual for her own behavior or
2. normatively to refer to a code of conduct that, given specified conditions, would be put forward by all rational persons.
http://plato.stanford.edu/entrie...ity-definition/
Tom is using a proper definition of morality, the one that people mean when they use the word, and the only one that is defensible and makes any sense.
Charlie,
I assume you put my quote and OS's together as if they contradict each other. They don't.
Your quoted definitions of morality show that (1) Tom's metaphysical model of morality would fall under the heading of morality, but (2) Tom's model is not all there is to morality. Thanks for the quotes! They prove my point quite well.
Hi DL,
I assume you put my quote and OS's together as if they contradict each other. They don't.
Good assumption.
Show me why not rather than just asserting it.
Your quoted definitions of morality show that (1) Tom's metaphysical model of morality would fall under the heading of morality, but (2) Tom's model is not all there is to morality. Thanks for the quotes! They prove my point quite well.
Flipping a two-headed coin here?
You said Tom invented a definition of morality. You admit his model of morality is not his invention. Your point is lost.
Which point do you think I made? That your definition is also a definition of morality? Well, sure it is. Nobody ever said it wasn't. It's just a definition which tells us that there is no real right and wrong and that morality is up to the individual.
I made your point? Good. Then we're all agreed.
While your demonstrating the coherence of your points with those OS is making why not iron this one out.
DL:
zTruth about morality is truth about preference.
OS:
No Tom, there is a difference between what people think is right and what they "prefer." People will sacrifice for what they believe is right. MLK, for example, sacrificed for what he believed was right, as did a lot of other people who agreed with him. People do not sacrifice for what they prefer.,/blockquote>
===
ps. to OS,
Why do you claim that people think and believe things are right when there is no real right and wrong?
*you're*
Tom:
Regarding your 11.25.07 - 5:11 pm comment (and question to me): you are correct. The approach I invariably take with these guys is to reflect their words and ideas back upon themselves or their ideas… and then sit back to watch the death of a thousand qualifications—which is what OS continued to do with you. The logical conclusions of their personal, subjective opinions are morally repugnant (which I force them to face up to)… and they’re having an embarrassingly difficult time dealing with it.
DL (perhaps we should rename him DF?) has introduced a new arrow into his quiver of Fallacies: when I don’t agree with him and accept moral relativism, he accuses me of not understanding moral relativism. He’s also adopted the Monty Python King Arthur approach to being called on false accusations: “Run away!” (We’re still waiting for you, DL, to provide examples—with clear and verifiable references to Church teaching—where I promoted Catholic dogma on this blog.)
With respect to OS, note his approach:
(1) Moral indignation (where’s the logical consistency of reasoned discourse we might expect—perhaps erroneously—from a moral relativist) as he falsely accuses me of accusing him of atrocities (11.25.07 - 4:45 pm).
(2) Then he corrects himself with: “you lose your credibility when you accuse me of standing by while atrocities are committed” (11.25.07 - 4:46 pm), which means a small healthy core of moral responsibility lies buried under all the moral relativist nonsense… but further implying OS indeed contradicts himself.
(3) THEN, he ADMITS he DOES merely stand by while atrocities take place: “I am pro-choice, so yes, I do stand by while what Holo describes happens” (11.25.07 - 5:40 pm). I suppose OS can now come back and redefine “sucking brains out of the skulls of unborn children” such that it is no longer an “atrocity” in his personal, subjective “opinion,” but then he mimics those in the antebellum South who defined the humanity of blacks away as being a fraction of a person, or he mimics Hitler’s characterization of Jews an untermenschen. Standing idly by while atrocities are committed by others is not an excuse for absolving one of moral responsibility—especially if one “votes” to make such atrocities possible. The sin of omission is still a sin.
(4) And then he apes DL’s new fallacy—hence contradicting his claim “I can think for myself”—by accusing me of not understanding his moral relativist position simply because I don’t agree with him.
So, how does one take this kind of stuff seriously without adopting the typical atheist MO of leaving one’s brains at the door of intellectual discourse? OS’s and DL’s moral relativism does lead, in fact, directly to atrocities: atrocities are unavoidable if they can be defined away to support one’s (or a group’s) “preferences.” That’s why atheists are so uncomfortable about the crimes of communism (as a philosophical and political tool) being directly, officially animated by atheism. Then they descend into outright denials or, worse, intentional deflection by falsely accusing Christians of complicity in such horrors because (wink, wink) Nazis were allegedly “Christians” and communism is not about atheism. Its one of the most revealing characteristics of evil that while trying to hide its results, evil tries to win as many converts as possible to find comfort in numbers.
Atheism kills—big time: in the 20th century alone claiming more innocent victims than all religious faiths throughout history—that’s all there is to it. There’s plenty of empirical evidence of this occurring in history, but these guys can’t seem to let those uncomfortable facts get in the way of a priori ideological commitments.
Holo,
You are right that I reacted to your inflammatory comment about abortion. Please note that I said I was pro-choice, not pro-abortion. I do think that abortion is a kind of atrocity, and that in an ideal world it would be unnecessary, but given the realities of this world, I can understand why some women need to make that choice.
Atrocities are unavoidable no matter your morality. That's the innate complexity of life.
OS:
Look, I do appreciate and thank you for the frank admissions you've made and your overall tone. But that still doesn't resolve the issue ... in fact, falling short of resolution, it doesn't even permit continued discussion. Why? Your position is by its nature based on opinion and persuasion... but that can't be correct, can it? One is not "persuaded" by opinion (unless one is happy with that sort of thing). One is persuaded by truth.
Don't judge the arguments this side of the aisle proposes (which is a problem DL has) simply because Christians are the ones proposing it. Judge the arguments on their soundness, i.e., on their material truth content and formal validity. One word: truth... NEVER, EVER stop seeking the truth--no matter how difficult, no matter the set-backs, no matter what... and I would hope you apply the same to your struggles with these admittedly complex questions...
But complexity alone doesn't justify defining difficult terms (atrocity) away (pragmatism is not a virtue but an approach, a method), nor does it justify relegating and reducing these difficulties to "innate complexities of life." We are humans--not rocks or plants or animals: we overcome difficulties, the others merely "deal with" them--if that. Why is the admittedly VERY difficult problems some (but far from all!) women face cast as an either/or? [If you doubt me, it's fairly straighforward to find "statistics" that point to abortion being largely used as a method of birth control.]
Why not, for example, help the mother AND the child? As much as I'm a hands-off guy in my political leanings, it seems to me in the clear interest of society to pay the price to help women out in those difficult cases rather than reducing the problem away to abstract concepts like "choice." Why isn't the child given a "choice"? Well, that presupposes (from the perspective of intellectual integrity) understanding exactly WHAT that child is before the strong make such an ultimate decision for him/her.
Finally, if you think I'm trying to "convert" you, I'm not: it's not in my job description and I'm no good at it. I can't grant you the gift of faith or provide grace. The only thing I can do is try to clear artificial barriers away. The "choice" is yours.
Tom:
This is off-topic: if you haven’t already, you should read Paul Davies’ “Taking Science on Faith” in the NY Times here. He might have had DL’s anti-intellectual vendetta against the PSR in mind with the following regarding why the laws of physics are the way they are:
“The favorite reply [of physicists] is, ‘There is no reason they are what they are—they just are.’ The idea that the laws exist reasonlessly is deeply anti-rational… until science comes up with a testable theory of the laws of the universe, its claim to be free of faith is manifestly bogus.”Ain’t it the truth.
Tom:
Just to add, I don't agree with everything Davies says. In fact, I couldn't believe he asserted the following bogus circularity: "... the laws [of nature] should have an explanation from within the universe and not involve appealing to an external agency." Godel put that foolishness to rest with his Incompleteness Theories (as applies to beings of reason) because he demonstrated we may someday come up with a Theory of Everything (doubtful), but we will NEVER know whether it's consistent.
I'm ready to give up this line of discussion, Holo, but not before I respond to two things in your comment: First, you say, "Judge the arguments on their soundness, i.e., on their material truth content and formal validity." But this is *not* how I judge arguments re: morality, right, wrong, truth--these things I judge, in large part, by my experience.
Secondly, you ask, why not help both the mother and the child. You assume there is some way to do that. But in many cases there is not, and then the predicament becomes whose interests take precedent and to what lengths is society willing to go to to ensure one person's freedom at the expense of another's--again, very complicated moral questions not answered simply from either the perspective of objective morality or relative morality.
Paul Davies is into woo. He's a Templeton winner.
At some point you have to hit rock bottom and have assumptions that ground your theory of everything. You will always be left with those assumptions that cannot be proven in terms of experimental data. Why this and not that? Why is the universe structured? Why is it largely consistent? Even if the universe is generally none of these things, but happens to be so in our neighborhood, we're still lost for a reason why the universe is intelligible in our neighborhood. Davies obviously hasn't thought this far ahead.
Either the most fundamental laws are inexplicable, or else there are no fundamental laws because the explanations regress infinitely.
And, Holopupenko, I'm still waiting (after what, 3 years?) for you to explain why every event (as opposed to some events) has to have a cause as the PSR demands. So, please, don't lecture me about incomplete homework assignments.
Charlie,
You said Tom invented a definition of morality. You admit his model of morality is not his invention. Your point is lost.You missed my point by a mile.
Tom has been defining morality to refer ONLY to his objective variety. By doing this, he aims to say that if one is a moral relativist, one is devoid of morality, and no morality exists. (And by extension, the moral relativist is amoral).
My point is that morality is not defined to be Tom's metaphysical variety of morality to the exclusion of all else. Tom's moral realism is a model that was invented to explain morality in general.
Changing the definition as Tom does here is like saying that gravity does not exist unless it's explained by Newton's laws. Like saying that anyone who subscribes to Einstein's recasting of gravity in terms of geometry denies all gravity.
So your quotes are fine by me because they show that Tom's definition is not exclusive.
DL:
Your request to me is a philosophical one dealing with a philosophical issue, which I’ve done but you’ve rejected on MES and mathematical grounds, i.e., wrong tools for the wrong question. My request to you, on the other hand, is to support an unsubstantiated accusation—which you have not done. We’re waiting…
Also, living up to your usual fallacious approach: that Davies, a physicist, won the prestigious Templeton Prize, is irrelevant to the arguments he poses. Why do you insist on employing the genetic fallacy to impose your personal opinions rather than addressing (and seeking) truth?
And here’s another fallacy—a false dichotomy: Either the most fundamental laws are inexplicable, or else there are no fundamental laws because the explanations regress infinitely. Just because you can’t see beyond your own self-imposed epistemological constraints doesn’t mean the world is the way you assert it is.
Hi DL,
Paul Davies is into woo. He's a Templeton winner.
Ad hominem and genetic fallacy.
Your indignation doesn't rise early?
Hi DL,
Tom will reply to thi himself, but before he does:
By doing this, he aims to say that if one is a moral relativist, one is devoid of morality, and no morality exists. (And by extension, the moral relativist is amoral).
No he's not.
He is saying they are not grounded by that philosophy. He is consistently saying that the way you and OS are defining morality provides us an ungrounded version and he points out the troubles with that.
The quotes don't help you out by providing definitions of ungrounded theories of morality.
Now I happen to think an ungrounded morality is no morality at all. And, as I've shown you at least three times, you rely on the grounded, metaphysically objective morality yourself. You just do it without acknowledging the truth of morality.
Holopupenko,
Moral flexibility is not the same thing as moral relativism. You can have moral relativists who are inflexible, and moral realists who are flexible.
You suggest that Hitler wasn't a Christian, and that he and all his followers were moral relativists. Can you prove that? I think it's false on the face of it. I think it's implausible that the German supporters of Hitler were easily persuaded because they were philosophical relativists. No. They were moral realists who were flexible.
Hitler despised Christianity and was intent on destroying it - the authoritative Mr. Carrier's opinion aside.
Hi OS,
I was hoping you'd address DL on "preference" and "real right and wrong".
He ssems to know what it means to understand moral relativism and I'd like to know the official position.
Charlie,
And, as I've shown you at least three times, you rely on the grounded, metaphysically objective morality yourself. You just do it without acknowledging the truth of morality.And as I have shown you at least 3 times, you have no basis for a claim of moral reality. You have only your feelings on which to base your moral opinions.
It is not necessary for there to be moral reality for one to make moral appeals. It's easy to see.
Imagine a world in which there is no moral reality. People have values that derive from their genetics, their culture and their personal experiences. In such a world, moral appeals and argumentation are useful and effective. Social contract emerges naturally. Moral flexibility is variable, but most people are pretty rigid morally speaking. Now why in this world does one need to invoke moral reality?
Hi DL,
It is not necessary for there to be moral reality for one to make moral appeals. It's easy to see.It is necessary for there to be moral reality to say "the crime can NEVER warrant said punishment" and "such and such an act can NEVER be just". You also demonstrated that morality was separate from "feeling" when discussing revulsion and burn victims and showed morality was objective when you described (yet another reason for) the invention of God as a way to ground moral reality.
Charlie,
I was hoping you'd address DL on "preference" and "real right and wrong".I think that OS views preference as taste over a very short time horizon.
He seems to know what it means to understand moral relativism and I'd like to know the official position.
Instead, I see it as meaning "rather X than Y in the long run". I don't prefer the cold (on a short term basis), but I would prefer rake leaves and be cold now, than destroy my lawn because I prefer being cold for an hour to a lawn that's brown for 3 months.
Hi DL,
You are not talking about time frames. but rather just a wider range of considerations. You prefer X, but not when you take into account Y as well. And perhaps your preference of Y really ought to be contingent upon Z.
This does not have to be over any long run, but merely over a wider perspective.
Back to your oft-demonstrated moral realism.
If morals were only values, as you've said, and reactions, as you've said, and feelings, as you've said, then we'd know that and respond in kind. We'd ignore the morals of foreign nations and say "well, that's just the way they are". We'd ignore torture and atrocities claiming "well, it's not my preference".
But we don't. And you know it and have admitted that the vast majority do not see it this way. We say it is wrong. We think it is so wrong that we surmise that people must be somehow defective who can't see it so we have criminal psychologists and attempts to rehabilitate and suggestions of repairing them physically.
You even say that we invent God (one member of your endless list of reasons we've invented God) to ground the morality which we know is not grounded without Him, but that we also know requires a ground for it to mean what it obviously means to us.
DL:
Sorry - I'm a bit confused: where did I claim "all [Hitler's] followers were moral relativists"?
Charlie,
I'm not sure what DL means, but by preferences I mean things that we have feelings and make choices about that matter less to us than what we think is "right" and "wrong." I guess you could say that morals are very strong preferences, but that doesn't feel satisfactory to me. As you point out, we feel so strongly about our morals that we question and sometimes intervene when others don't believe in "right" and "wrong" the way we do. I don't think the reason we feel so strongly is that morals are grounded by God, though.
Charlie,
If morals were only values, as you've said, and reactions, as you've said, and feelings, as you've said, then we'd know that and respond in kind. We'd ignore the morals of foreign nations and say "well, that's just the way they are". We'd ignore torture and atrocities claiming "well, it's not my preference".No, this does not follow at all. It shows that you haven't thought about the issue.
First, most people are ignorant of the fact that morality is just a matter of taste.
Second, let's assume a world where people do know that morality is relative. In that world, a man's moral feelings are still about what he and others ought to do. It does not matter that they are feelings. He will not suffer (subjectively) immoral acts, unless the attempts to stop those acts would result in a (subjectively) morally worse outcome.
So, the relativist will not ignore the acts of others even if he acknowledges that his moral opinions are no more correct (in an absolute sense) than the opinions of others.
The only way you get an inconsistency is if you incorporate an absolute moral rule that says "personal tastes can never be a basis for discrimination." But that rule isn't held by relativists. It's held by moral realists. So you're begging the question.
You even say that we invent God (one member of your endless list of reasons we've invented God) to ground the morality which we know is not grounded without Him, but that we also know requires a ground for it to mean what it obviously means to us.Don't confuse what I believe with what I say you believe.
I do not believe that you can ground morality in any absolute sense. You do.
I do not believe that God's opinion is an objective basis for morality. You do.
I do not believe morality has an objective basis. You do.
Clearly, I do not believe that the invention of a God would ground morality. You do.
Charlie,
It is not necessary for there to be moral reality for one to make moral appeals. It's easy to see.Then it is a good thing I don't say that in any absolute sense. When I say that "the crime can never warrant said punishment" I mean that "I feel that the crime can never warrant said punishment."
It is necessary for there to be moral reality to say "the crime can NEVER warrant said punishment" and "such and such an act can NEVER be just".
Can you see the difference? The latter does not say that my moral opinion holds more weight with anyone else but me (and those I influence). It does not deny that others may hold contradictory views with objectively equal moral justification. It means that, for me, my moral feelings take priority over the feelings of others on this issue.
Hi DL,
No, this does not follow at all. It shows that you haven't thought about the issue.
Really? How does it show the exact opposite of reality?
First, most people are ignorant of the fact that morality is just a matter of taste.
1) So you think OS was reacting to Tom out of ignorance. Fine.
2) Most people are ignorant of this because this isn't true.
Second, let's assume a world where people do know that morality is relative. In that world, a man's moral feelings are still about what he and others ought to do. It does not matter that they are feelings. He will not suffer (subjectively) immoral acts, unless the attempts to stop those acts would result in a (subjectively) morally worse outcome.
"Ought" and "feeling" do not go together.
And the man is not suffering the immoral act. He is thinking about it half a world away and he observes its immorality and he strives to correct it.
A man won't suffer a moral act either, if he finds it offensive and can do something about it. That says nothing about your position.
So, the relativist will not ignore the acts of others even if he acknowledges that his moral opinions are no more correct (in an absolute sense) than the opinions of others.
So he won't? Did you just demonstrate something? Why won't he ignore the acts when they have nothing to do with him (not the ones causing him to suffer) and only violate his personal preferences and tastes? Why won't he raise money to free Australian children from the evils of appreciating the didgeridoo just as he will to free children from forced prostitution?
Don't confuse what I believe with what I say you believe.
...
Clearly, I do not believe that the invention of a God would ground morality. You do.
Ah, but clearly you think there was something that people thought needed grounding, and that many of them bought into.
They certainly didn't need to ground their preference for chocolate over vanilla, or their revulsion at the sight of burn victims, or their desire not to have their lifes'savings destroyed.
Mere opinions and preferences did not require the invention of an ultimate transcendent being.
By making the false accusation that God is an invention you acknowledge that people do not merely prefer one outcome over another but that they know that one outcome is better than the other. Nobody invented a celestial adjudicator to determine the issue of Jelly Roll Morton V. Fats Waller.
===
Hi OS.
Thank you for your frank response.
I'm not sure what DL means, but by preferences I mean things that we have feelings and make choices about that matter less to us than what we think is "right" and "wrong." I guess you could say that morals are very strong preferences, but that doesn't feel satisfactory to me.
So when you reacted to Tom by claiming that your world view did not reduce morality to preferences you meant to say that it reduced them to strong preferences.
No Tom, there is a difference between what people think is right and what they "prefer." People will sacrifice for what they believe is right. MLK, for example, sacrificed for what he believed was right, as did a lot of other people who agreed with him. People do not sacrifice for what they prefer.
By "what they believe is right" you meant "right" and by "right" you now mean "strongly prefer".
There again, that is just what Tom is saying; your system has no grounds to say what is right and wrong but merely to name what it is you prefer.
This is the natural result of your belief system (which I pointed out and to which you asked "why is that Charlie?"). But, of course, this doesn't "feel" right to you. It's not "satisfying".
That's because it isn't right and it isn't satisfying. What your relativism entails is counter-intuitive even to you because it is wrong.
DL asserts: my moral feelings take priority over the feelings of others on this issue.
Power-hungry, self-centered nonsense with no justification other than "personal preference." No wonder millions die at the hands of atheists or as a result of their ideas.
Dl,
Your wheels are spinning.
Then it is a good thing I don't say that in any absolute sense.
Yes you do. You say "NEVER".
When I say that "the crime can never warrant said punishment" I mean that "I feel that the crime can never warrant said punishment."You cannot feel this if you believe that morality is just about feelings.
I can see the difference. You have not thought this through.
Can you see the difference?
The latter does not say that my moral opinion holds more weight with anyone else but me (and those I influence). It does not deny that others may hold contradictory views with objectively equal moral justification. It means that, for me, my moral feelings take priority over the feelings of others on this issue.
doctor(logic) | Homepage
It means you don't believe morality is about feelings and reactions. If you did then you would NEVER feel that nobody could ever feel that the crime deserved the punishment or that justice was served. If you really thought that morality was about individual feelings you would automatically understand that somebody could feel that these things were moral, and, that many people actually do.
For instance, you would never say that
vanilla is NEVER preferred over chocolate. Of course it is, somewhere, by somebody, at some time.
Charlie, it seems to me that you are trying to argue with me on an issue of semantics. You don't like the words I choose to express my ideas, or the words mean something different to you than they do to me. But that doesn't make me wrong, except in your opinion.
Hi OS,
I am trying to point out, as I did when I asked the question, that you are the one being argumentative. I asked you if this was merely a semantic issue - or if you actually had a substantive reply.
You don't like the fact that Tom is a Christian and has a Christian blog expressing Christian ideas, so post after post you plop down your ideas, ill-thought as they are, with nothing other than the fact that you don't like the words chosen and that you think you have a different opinion.
We've seen this before from you.
If your ideas can't stand up to the critique then you ought to reassess how you present them (and, more importantly, why) and your knee-jerk reaction to the opinions expressed here.
And, OS, I didn't claim that you were wrong because we disagreed (echoing Paul there).
I showed why you were wrong even in your own opinion. You cannot live what it is you claim.
DL fails to as well, as you can see above.
Only one response, Charlie--you are wrong that I "don't like the fact" that Tom is a Christian. It's fine with me that Tom is a Christian, and that he has a Christian blog expressing Christian ideas. It would also be fine with me if he were a Buddhist, a Hindu, a Satanist--whatever. I read his blog because I am interested in understanding people who think differently than I do.
One thing I encounter here does really bother me, though, and that is when some commenters attack others instead of responding respectfully and inquistively to what they present.
OS:
I'm going to jump in again: you can't complain "when some commenters attack others instead of responding respectfully..." Well, actually you can complain, but what difference does it make in a totally morally relative world? If all of morality is subjective preferences or personal values, then your claim is irrelevant in the broader scheme of things. As soon as you complain you contradict yourself: any moral relativist, sooner or later, will cry "no fair!" You can have no binding, no objective, no serious moral claim on anyone—ever—if you want to be consistent and true to your moral relativism.
Nor ought you complain when you receive the same responses that you give.
On the last thread you opened with this:
But as with your previous post, you chose to overlook some important information:
Not only were your observations irrelevant, but you accused Tom of purposely ignoring evidence. I see that as far more "attacking" than any response I've made to you.
On the previous thread you accused Tom of misleading his readers:
The AP article was far more nuanced than you lead us to believe, Tom. For one thing, it noted the *lack* of empirical evidence supporting your claim.The AP article was far more nuanced than you lead us to believe, Tom. For one thing, it noted the *lack* of empirical evidence supporting your claim.
The previous time you and I went around you were accusing Christians of being intolerant and exclusive - while doing the same thing. You also said they were unloving, but you used your own personal definition for this.
This is another problem pointed out above about moral relativism: relativists acknowledge that they are dealing only with their preferences, and yet they want those preferences to be normative for everyone else.
Speaking of which, here's our last discussion on moral relativism, poor Heinz, and your ungrounded "Do unto others" morality.
It also demonstrates your semantic argumentation.
http://thinkingchristian.net/C24...1205/
index.html
Here we discussed inclusivism and love - and in which you were judging the blog and its participants and making your own truth claims.
http://thinkingchristian.net/C24...2536/
index.html
These kinds statements always interest me.
It would also be fine with me if he were a Buddhist, a Hindu, a Satanist--whatever. I read his blog because I am interested in understanding people who think differently than I do.
I'm doubtful that this actually plays itself out in real life.
Do you frequent such blogs as you've mentioned above? And is your participation there uniformly negative toward the blog owner and his positions as they are here?
OS:
Sorry, but Charlie just sparked another thought... so I'm jumping in yet again.
It's interesting that one of your defenses of moral relativism (DL succumbs to this as well) is really the fallacy of deflection:
(1) You assert moral relativism is true.
(2) We criticize it's independent moral incoherence as well as the selective application (hence inconsistency and hypocrisy) it enjoys in practice.
(3) You come back with (among other things) with something like God doesn't make morality objective... hence morality is subjective.
It's the last point that's problematic for you: the embedded non-sequitur is used to deflect away from the inherent unworkability of moral relativism. We're NOT talking about God serving as the ultimate basis for moral foundations because you don't even permit that. Well, fair enough... BUT the onus is on you to provide sound arguments for your assertion that moral relativism is true in all cases, in all times, in all places.
To repeat: we're criticizing your assertion--we've haven't gotten to employing God as a basis for morality. In fact, I offered to Jordan to show morality can be objective without proximate reference to God (meaning: I won't explain "good" and "bad" with direct reference to God just like I won't explain why a match is able to light a candle because of direct reference to God. But, that doesn't in any way "explain God away," nor does it tie me to the MESs or mathematics to do the explaining, nor does it explain why there is a universe rather than nothing at all.
Perhaps you should think about these things...
You know, I first came to this blog as a believer (not a Christian, but at least a believer.) I thought that in a blog entitled "Thinking Christian" I might find the ideas of someone who was approaching religion differently, who was asking the hard questions and trying to "answer" them from a spiritual/religious/Godly perspective. And, although I don't agree with Tom most of the time, I do respect him and find that he strives to live up to his ideals in regard to being Christian.
But it was in large part what I read here and my responses to it that led me to realize that I don't, in fact, believe in any kind of God at all (that's not to say I don't have a sense of spiritually.) For that I am grateful (although at times I miss believing in something) to the blog and all of you who comment here, because I've come to a truer understanding of myself and the way I view the world.
Yes, Charlie, I have read Buddhist and Satanic blogs, and no, I haven't been critical of everything I've read there, as I haven't been critical of everything I've read here. I am really, truly interested in different religious and moral views, and seek them out, and share my own.
You may find my views inconsistent, and my arguments invalid, but I think they can--and have--stood the test of real life. I think I'm a pretty ethical person, and that's good enough for me.
Charlie,
"Ought" and "feeling" do not go together.Au contraire. You just assume that it is impossible for a person to have an emotional reaction to acts that he knows someone else is committing. But it is a proven fact that you are wrong about this. People have empathy and mirror neurons, and they can place themselves in another person's shoes. And they feel emotions even when they are not directly affected by the acts in question.
And the man is not suffering the immoral act. He is thinking about it half a world away and he observes its immorality and he strives to correct it.
A man won't suffer a moral act either, if he finds it offensive and can do something about it.
The facts do not support your view that oughts are not feelings. Instead, it teaches us that oughts are known by feelings, and you have yet to show that oughts are anything more than feelings about actions.
doctor(logic), you wrote,
Tom has been defining morality to refer ONLY to his objective variety. By doing this, he aims to say that if one is a moral relativist, one is devoid of morality, and no morality exists. (And by extension, the moral relativist is amoral)
I don't recall making that a matter of definition, but rather one of argument; and I have never said the relativist is amoral. You could never read that into what I said to os, I hope; for I allowed for his morality in terms of moral sensibilities (maybe moral intuitions would be a better term). No, I don't think relativists are amoral, and I never said they were. I said they lack grounding or explanation for their morality; or that the grounding they provide is weak and subject to serious effects like making them agree that child sacrifice can be ethical (to quote Paul again).
So let me repeat: it's not about whether the relativist has morality but whether the relativist's morality has adequate grounding.
...
Oh, man, Charlie already said that! I just read further down the comments and saw that. I'm encouraged to see that I at least said what I thought I said!
...
Later dl wrote,
And as I have shown you at least 3 times, you have no basis for a claim of moral reality. You have only your feelings on which to base your moral opinions.
This is going to call for a new blog post, but I'll answer it briefly here: We all have strong and committed intuition that certain things are morally right or wrong. For example: is the following right, wrong, or just dependent on culture? (Assume that if you knew all the attendant and extenuating circumstances you would find nothing in them to change your first view of the situation. In my first example, for instance, you need not ask whether the child is secretly in the employ of an assassin on his way to murder someone, or whether her mother is the assassin or the target.)
a) Helping a lost child find her mother in the department store. Right, wrong, or indeterminate?
b) Rounding up all the homosexual men in your city into concentration camps and shooting them. Right, wrong, or indeterminate?
c) Returning a hundred-dollar bill to a man who dropped it while walking out of the bank. Right, wrong, or indeterminate?
d) Giving your child healthy food to eat on a regular basis. Right, wrong, or indeterminate?
e) Forced sterilization of all men and women with a measured IQ less than 105. Right, wrong, or indeterminate?
If you're like most people, you'll have an easy, quick, intuitive response to all of these, for they are easy and obvious moral questions. I'm not arguing that all situations are easy and obvious. But if even one moral situation is clearly right in all circumstances (barring extenuating situations, like helping a child find her mother so she can murder her), then there is at least one objective moral value. And if there is at least one objective moral value, then objective morality exists.
Now, here's the nub of it all: is this just a feeling? No, I think it's an intuition as reliable as the intuition that tells me that there is an external world revealed to me by my perceptual apparatus.
I think we see these values directly. I don't think we need an argument to see that (b) is always wrong in every circumstance. We just know it. We know it with the same strength of knowledge that we know that the external world exists. Or is your knowledge of the external world just a feeling in your brain?
Continuing to read, I saw this, doctor(logic):
First, most people are ignorant of the fact that morality is just a matter of taste.
Is it just a matter of taste if you and I think it's wrong to round up all the homosexuals in the city, put them in concentration camps, and shoot them? I don't think so. I think it's wrong because it's wrong, not because it some people hold it as a preference.
So, the relativist will not ignore the acts of others even if he acknowledges that his moral opinions are no more correct (in an absolute sense) than the opinions of others...
It does not deny that others may hold contradictory views with objectively equal moral justification.
You have just destroyed all meaning to moral progress. Boom, it's dead. Others may hold the view that the slave trade is good, with equal moral justification. Others may hold the view that rampant discrimination against African-Americans is good, with equal moral justification. Others may hold the view that witch-burning is good, with equal moral justification.
Their moralities were just as good as ours, you say. There's no such thing as moral progress, nor can there be, if this is true.
Oh, and there's no such thing as any person making a moral improvement, either. I was in a class once with Harold Thompson, a convicted bank robber who had been on the FBI's 10 most wanted list, had served time, and had been pardoned. He had dedicated his life to helping people in prisons. By your view, he was no better after he got out of prison than before he was caught for his crimes, because his moral opinions after were no more correct than his opinions before.
In all of this I've intentionally left out the parenthetical part of your quote: "(in an absolute sense)." That's because it's not necessary for the point I was making, and was not necessary even for the point you made. In order for morals to be more or less correct, they must draw closer to or farther from some standard. If that standard is not absolute, what is it? Some person's opinion? Do you see where that would take you? It becomes entirely circular.
Perhaps my morals can become more correct by reference to your standards. But your standards may be more or less correct; their correctness depends on their standing relative to some reference.
Which reference is that? Some other person's, I suppose. So your standards' correctness rises or falls relative to that person's morality. But that person's standards may be more or less correct; it depends on their standing relative to some reference.
Which reference? Some other person's, whom we'll call "the next person". So that person's standards's correctness rises or falls relative to the next person's morality. But the next person's standards may be more or less correct; it depends on their standing relative to some reference.
Which reference? Some other person's (the "next next person"). So the first next person's standards's correctness rises or falls relative to the next next person's morality. But the next next person's standards may be worse or better; it depends on their standing relative to some reference.
From this point I could continue to use copy-and-paste to write the rest of the post and cover all the potential standards, but I would have to do it some 6+ billion times (with 6+ billion "nexts" in the last phase of it) to cover everybody on the planet so I don't think I'll try. You get the point.
For morality to be more or less correct it has to be more or less correct in reference to a real standard, and not to a shifting standard of personal relative morality.
os, I wish I hadn't been dragged out of this for a while by travel and meetings.
Let me reiterate what I told dl a bit ago: I don't doubt for a moment that you have an excellent moral code. I have no reason to doubt that you have intuited moral truth, just as the rest of us do (or at least should). It doesn't require a belief in God for a person to do that. I don't agree with Holopupenko that you have no right to make comments regarding morality. You have a moral position, and there's no reason you cannot hold it.
I agree with him in this aspect: your moral position, if it's based on a relative morality, can apply only to yourself. You cannot coherently expect another person to pay it the slightest attention, because you have no basis for doing so. They may share your moral intuition, in which case you agree without discussion or dispute. If you want to persuade someone, though, or if you want to apply moral force to a situation (saying "you should," or "you ought") you have nothing to appeal to. You have only your moral preference (and I don't think you've showed us yet that your morality is anything other than a preference for which you feel willing to sacrifice). Your moral preference has no hold on me. doctor(logic) said it's just a matter of taste; and his tastes have no purchase on the decisions I make.
And yet there is from both of you the language of "should," either explicitly or by implication, which is the attempt to apply moral force. You can't coherently do that on the basis of moral relativism.
Tom, you've laid out the issue very well, but I see a weak link; if you can fix it, you'll have a stronger argument in my mind:
If you're like most people, you'll have an easy, quick, intuitive response to all of these, for they are easy and obvious moral questions. . . . But if even one moral situation is clearly right in all circumstances . . . then there is at least one objective moral value.Why does an easy, obvious, and/or extensive ("most people") response to a moral question mean that there is an objective morality? It's not at all like a mathematical proof, is it (which would really be objective)? Or even a scientific law. It seems to me that these traits (easy, obvious, and extensive) could easily be part of a relativistic morality. What forces us to see them only as part of an objective morality?
Tom,
There are three problems with your analysis.
First, Paul is correct that the general uniformity of intuition in your list of moral scenarios doesn't mean that those intuitions are objectively correct. Objectivity is reserved for things from which we can eliminate personal bias. That's what prediction is for, and morality predicts nothing apart from human moral feelings.
Second, you say:
I think it's wrong because it's wrong, not because it some people hold it as a preference.Here, you suggest that a consistent moral relativist should do a study of moral opinions, and use popularity to determine whether something is right or wrong. Of course, that's not the moral relativist position. It is not the relativist's position that popularity overrides intuition, but that cultural norms shape moral intuitions over a lifetime.
Third, you say that the moral relativist cedes all moral authority when stating a moral argument. However, this is wrong because moral authority does not rest in the person making the moral claim, but in the receiver's values.
When Bob tells me X is wrong, I do NOT find Bob's words compelling because I regard Bob as a privileged moral authority. Rather, Bob's words are morally compelling when they resonate with my own values. Bob's words are an appeal to the authority of my own moral intuitions. Bob's moral force does not derive from Bob's belief that morality is objective, nor from his belief that he has found the magic portal to moral reality.
For example, if Bob happens to be 5 years old, he may make a moral claim, and that claim may be morally persuasive to me. Yet Bob, being only 5, doesn't have the foggiest idea what moral realism is. He may not even understand the situation he spoke of. Bob's words were a happy accident. 5-year-old Bob is not a moral authority, and yet he can be morally persuasive.
The idea that moral authority rests with the person making the moral claim is illusory. It rests with the recipient's values.
That said, there are ways in which the claimant can weaken that authority. One way is by suggesting cheating is widespread.
Suppose Fred tells you to conserve water, and you find Fred's claim compelling because his claim finds authority in your own values. Then suppose Fred gets caught wasting large amounts of water. Whether Fred's claim is less compelling to you may depend on whether you think water waste is widespread. If so, you may believe that water conservation does nothing but harm your own interests. In which case, Fred's hypocrisy would reduce his persuasiveness because his claims will no longer hold as much authority to your own values.
So, this argument that moral relativists have no moral authority in a moral debate doesn't get any traction. No one who argues a moral position has moral authority in a debate. The authority rests with the values of the receiver. When I make a moral appeal, I do not expect it to work because you think I'm a moral authority. I expect it to work because you respect your own moral values, and my appeal resonates with your values.
A couple of other notes.
If morality is relative, then so is moral progress. Thus, one can believe that the end of slavery was moral progress, even if someone else (or even a majority of others) disagrees.
I added a word to your quote:
For morality to be more or less [absolutely] correct it has to be more or less correct in reference to a real standard, and not to a shifting standard of personal relative morality.What is the value of an absolutely correct standard of moral reference?
Suppose that through some logical method, we discovered the absolute standard of moral reference. Suppose that this moral standard demanded that we give the reverse answers to all the questions in your moral survey. How would you react? Would you decide that it was okay to round people up and shoot them? I don't think you would. Again, moral authority rests with your intuitions, not with any external entity.
Hi DL,
Au contraire. You just assume that it is impossible for a person to have an emotional reaction to acts that he knows someone else is committing.
No I'm not. I didn't say this at all.
I said he is not suffering. I see now that you want to make his emotional reaction a suffering and a reason to respond. I have no problem with that,as you now elevate the observance of the immorality back beyond taste and preference. We do not suffer emotional distress when we find out that the Japanese are big on Karaoke.
But it is a proven fact that you are wrong about this.About what I didn't say? I doubt it.
People have empathy and mirror neurons, and they can place themselves in another person's shoes. And they feel emotions even when they are not directly affected by the acts in question.Now let me be sure that I've got this straight. You are saying that one's immoral acts actually affect the observers even though they are not the direct victims of that immoral act?
So it's not merely that the observer does not prefer the action, or has a distaste for it, but he is actually physically, chemically, neurologically changed by observing immorality?
Is this what you are telling me?
This sounds pretty objective and predictive to me.
The facts do not support your view that oughts are not feelings. Instead, it teaches us that oughts are known by feelings, and you have yet to show that oughts are anything more than feelings about actions.Oh, I think the facts do show this. I feel I shouldn't have gotten a speeding ticket. I even feel bad that I got it. That does not mean the police ought not have penalized me.
The criminal feels he ought not go to jail or suffer for his crime. But he is wrong. His feelings do not define what others ought to do.
I haven't shown that morals are more than a feeling? I don't need to since you just did.
Hi DL,
That's what prediction is for, and morality predicts nothing apart from human moral feelings.
Doesn't it predict altered brain states?
The idea that moral authority rests with the person making the moral claim is illusory. It rests with the recipient's values.
Who is suffering this illusion? Nobody is saying the authority rests with the claimant.
Relative progress:
http://www.moralrelativism.info/
...alprogress.html
DL:
Since you refuse to retract your earlier unsubstantiated accusation, you admit not only that you were wrong but (let’s see, who’s keeping count?) again employ fallacies rather than sound arguments to impose your personal opinions and stifle the views of others. I note this for the record and will reference this link for future use.
But enough about your M.O. ... You note: “It is not the relativist’s position that popularity overrides intuition, but that cultural norms shape moral intuitions over a lifetime.” Cultural norms… hmmm. Okay, then please explain why at no time in history, not in any culture nor geographical area nor political setting have honor, bravery, or fidelity been understood or avoided as “evil”? In other words, what is it about the nature of these that makes them independent of who, what, where, when, how, and how many? You made the assertion, so the onus is on you.
(Segue to Monty Python’s King Arthur screaming, “Run away!... and to Paul grumbling to himself in the background, “It’s all neurons, anyway!...”)
Holopupenko, when you speak of "earlier unsubstantiated accusations," I don't know what you're pointing back to; and without those specifics, it looks rather like carping rather than being substantive. You may know what you're talking about, but these threads are too complex for the rest of us to keep the references straight.
Sorry, Tom:
I'll provide the link as soon as I find it (from a few days ago): DL accused me of promoting "Catholic dogma" in the comments to this blog.
Tom:
DL’s accusation at 11.23.07 - 1:26 pm (here) was:
Holopupenko is spouting Catholic dogmas, and he gets away with it because he reached the “right” conclusions, i.e., that Christianity must be correct.My initial response was here, with a follow up here. My request (quoting) is:
… the only place I made a related comment was to state that it is indeed the teaching of the Catholic Church that reason and faith can never truly contradict one another. Apart from that, could you please provide specific references in these comments where I (a) promoted Catholic dogmatic teaching, and (b) that indeed it is formally dogmatic teaching of the Church?Commenting guidelines 3, 4, and especially 8 apply to this case.
dl,
"Paul is correct that the general uniformity of intuition in your list of moral scenarios doesn't mean that those intuitions are objectively correct."
What you are saying then is that we cannot know with confidence that it is wrong to round up all the homosexuals, put them in concentration camps, and shoot them. We can know it only in a relative way, and we might be wrong about that (it might really be a right thing to do sometimes).
Let me ask you this. Suppose this question were put to you in another context, where God was not part of the discussion. Could you or would you be able to say that this action toward homosexuals is definitely wrong? Would you be able to say that we can know that it is wrong? If not, what can we say about it with some degree of confidence?
It is not the relativist's position that popularity overrides intuition, but that cultural norms shape moral intuitions over a lifetime.
I think that is a matter of personal preferences writ large; cultural norms are a set of shared, long-term personal preferences. Look at the way attitudes toward women's equality, and racial discrimination, and (more recently) homosexuality have changed in our culture. Those are personal preferences being stamped on a large population, aren't they? Now, if we're going to call any of those changes moral progress, what are they progressing toward?
Third, you say that the moral relativist cedes all moral authority when stating a moral argument. However, this is wrong because moral authority does not rest in the person making the moral claim, but in the receiver's values.
Strategically that might be how you could approach it: appeal to common values. But that's not a matter of authority, that's a matter of rhetorical approach.
Charlie,
I said he is not suffering. I see now that you want to make his emotional reaction a suffering and a reason to respond. I have no problem with that,as you now elevate the observance of the immorality back beyond taste and preference. We do not suffer emotional distress when we find out that the Japanese are big on Karaoke.Ah! You have no problem with this. Great!
So, if person A believes person B is acting immorally, then person A feels emotional distress. This is the case whether or not A's belief is true. This is also the case whether or not A's emotional reaction is inverted relative to C's emotional reactio0n to B's acts (i.e., A is distressed by B's act, C enjoys it).
Now, if A suffered emotional distress without otherwise being aware of B's act, then you would have something objective on your hands. But you don't have that. A feels distress only when he imagines the experiences of B (and/or B's victims), independent of whether B even exists. (I could tell you a false story that generates moral outrage.)
The emotional distress A feels is a reaction to A's own beliefs, nothing more.
So it's not merely that the observer does not prefer the action, or has a distaste for it, but he is actually physically, chemically, neurologically changed by observing immorality?He is physically changed when he believes he sees immorality. As above, this is about the witness's own imagination and empathy, not about what actually happens. The witness isn't Obi Wan Kenobi feeling a disturbance in the Force, and later finding the immoral act.
Is this what you are telling me?
This sounds pretty objective and predictive to me.
Besides, this is at most a prediction about the feelings of the witness (as I said earlier), not about the act itself.
The criminal feels he ought not go to jail or suffer for his crime. But he is wrong. His feelings do not define what others ought to do.Ah, but the criminal's feelings determine what the criminal thinks others ought to do. And my feelings determine what I think I (and others) ought to do. And your feelings determine what you think you and others ought to do.
I feel I shouldn't have gotten a speeding ticket. I even feel bad that I got it. That does not mean the police ought not have penalized me.I don't get this. Don't you mean you feel that you shouldn't have been speeding?
Tom:
Regarding your 11.26.07 - 10:01 pm comment, where did I claim OS has “no right to make comments regarding morality”? Perhaps you had this in mind (from 11.26.07 - 2:50 pm):
“… you can't complain "when some commenters attack others instead of responding respectfully..." Well, actually you can complain, but what difference does it make in a totally morally relative world? If all of morality is subjective preferences or personal values, then your claim is irrelevant in the broader scheme of things. As soon as you complain you contradict yourself: any moral relativist, sooner or later, will cry "no fair!" You can have no binding, no objective, no serious moral claim on anyone—ever—if you want to be consistent and true to your moral relativism.
Tom,
What you are saying then is that we cannot know with confidence that it is wrong to round up all the homosexuals, put them in concentration camps, and shoot them.You are hijacking the language of morality to run exclusively under your own banner.
I know that it is wrong to kill homosexuals in the same way that I know when I feel cold. Right and wrong do not connote absolutes except in your worldview. In my worldview, they refer to subjective feelings, and have always done so.
Imagine that you had said:
What you are saying then is that we cannot know with confidence that we feel hot or cold in the office today.That doesn't work. Of course, we are very confident about whether an act (performed by ourselves or others) is right or wrong to ourselves!
What we cannot do is leap from knowledge of how we feel about a thing to the belief that those feelings reflect something about the thing itself. There's a procedure for establishing this, and morality fails that test.
Suppose this question were put to you in another context, where God was not part of the discussion.FYI, God is not part of the discussion when it comes to morality as far as I am concerned because, as far as I can see, God cannot determine morality just by his opinion.
Could you or would you be able to say that this action toward homosexuals is definitely wrong? Would you be able to say that we can know that it is wrong? If not, what can we say about it with some degree of confidence?I can say that this action towards homosexuals is definitely wrong to me, and that I will oppose such action with force if necessary. However, this is subjective knowledge. I see no way that all rational beings will in general find that the act is wrong. If they have empathy for homosexuals in the right measure, they will feel it is wrong, but empathy is not objectively good, only subjectively so.
Most importantly, I think you have brushed off too quickly the idea that moral authority rests in the values of the receiver. For me, this is a new insight. I think I got this at an intuitive level, but never formally expressed it.
If you disagree, I would like to see some demonstrations of moral authority that do not lie in the values of the receiver.
Sorry that I didn't have time to comment on moral progress. Gotta run.
Hi DL,
So, if person A believes person B is acting immorally, then person A feels emotional distress.Because he feels somehting is wrong. It doesn't distress him to find out that Canadians prefer Salt and Vinegar flavoured potato chips.
This is the case whether or not A's belief is true.That's right, he can be mistaken. As I've always said. And as I demonstrated with the criminal and my speeding ticket. The feeling does not determine the ought.
Now, if A suffered emotional distress without otherwise being aware of B's act, then you would have something objective on your hands. But you don't have that.Right. You have to perceive something to be aware of it. I can't subjectively experience the objective truth of the sunset without eyes.
And my feelings determine what I think I (and others) ought to do.Right, you are trying to make your descriptive use a normative one. But only yours. Which is equal to all others. And contrary to many. There is no real "ought" when each determines what it is.
I don't get this. Don't you mean you feel that you shouldn't have been speeding?
No, I feel I shouldn't have been given a ticket.
Interview a few cops about this.
The speed limit is unecessarily low, I am an experienced driver, traffic always exceeds the limit here, there were no other drivers to be endangered, I was in a hurry, this is nothing more than a cash grab, tickets don't provide incentive, it is not a safety issue, etc.
These are the rationalizations for my feeling that I shouldn't have gotten a ticket and I am emotionally upset that I did and feel I should have been given some leeway. The cop may or may not be able to convince me, based upon our shared values, that I ought not have been speeding that he ought to ticket me but if I don't agree then it is both right and wrong for him to ticket me - this is not possible.
My feeling does not actually determine what I ought to have been doing or what the police ought to do. Feelings don't determine oughts.
DL:
Here’s another example of you apparently refusing to back up accusations or assertions: on 11.26.07 - 9:59 (this comment string) I asked you “where did I claim ‘all [Hitler’s] followers were moral relativists’?” So far, you have not answered.
Is this what your moral relativism permits you to do with impunity—falsely accuse people or attribute to them things they never said? Is this a new tactic of deflection from the problems of your position—refusing to respond responsibily in order to leave that false accusations or attributions to work to your advantage?
Charlie,
So, if person A believes person B is acting immorally, then person A feels emotional distress.Not all preferences or feelings are moral preferences or moral feelings respectively. This isn't an argument against my position because I never said that all preferences are moral preferences.
Because he feels something is wrong. It doesn't distress him to find out that Canadians prefer Salt and Vinegar flavoured potato chips.
Right. You have to perceive something to be aware of it. I can't subjectively experience the objective truth of the sunset without eyes.This, too, misses the point. Your statement here says nothing about the distinction between subjective and objective. When is a subjective feeling or sensation a signal of an objective thing? If we both look at a tree, and you say it's beautiful and I say it's ugly, is it objectively one or the other? No. Those are subjective judgments about objective things. It is possible for us to have a subjective reaction to an objective thing. An appearance of theft can be objective, but the feeling about is not.
Hi DL,
Your statement here says nothing about the distinction between subjective and objective. When is a subjective feeling or sensation a signal of an objective thing?
Actually, I think you've missed the point again. You claimed as evidence against the objectivity of morality the fact that an unperceived event does not trigger a reaction. But that is not an argument against objectivity because we know that other objectiviely existing things need to be perceived to be experienced as well.
Not all preferences or feelings are moral preferences or moral feelings respectively. This isn't an argument against my position because I never said that all preferences are moral preferences.That makes sense. So saying that morals are merely feelings and preferences might be misleading. What happens when you are talking about feelings and preferences as morals though? Let us see...
An appearance of theft can be objective, but the feeling about is not.
Right again. And that's why feelings don't determine oughts.
See morals aren't descriptions of feelings at all.
Hey DL,
re: not all preferences are moral preferences.
Just what is a moral preference?
doctor(logic), you wrote,
I know that it is wrong to kill homosexuals in the same way that I know when I feel cold. Right and wrong do not connote absolutes except in your worldview. In my worldview, they refer to subjective feelings, and have always done so.
...
What we cannot do is leap from knowledge of how we feel about a thing to the belief that those feelings reflect something about the thing itself. There's a procedure for establishing this, and morality fails that test.
I don't think so.
You're talking about the validity of perception here, which must be examined on two levels. I'll take them one at a time. You'll probably agree with the first, which is the level of qualia or personal experience. If I feel cold, that is, in technical terms, incorrigible knowledge for me. I cannot be wrong. If I feel cold, I feel cold, or at least I feel something that I interpret as being a sensation of being cold. No one can intervene in my experience, test my feelings, and say, "no, you do not feel cold." And I cannot contradict my own feelings. So my private experience of feeling cold is not open to testing or to correction.
My experience of revulsion upon considering the proposition, "All homosexuals should be rounded up into concentration camps and then shot," is similar. If I feel revulsion, neither you nor I can correct me and say that it is not revulsion that I feel.
Now, you have quite confidently and repeatedly said that morality is just a private emotional response, as in your 9:52 am comment this morning:
The emotional distress A feels is a reaction to A's own beliefs, nothing more.
You will allow that this emotional response, private though it is (as are all emotional responses) is often based on experiences shared with a community, and beliefs gained by that experience; but it must still be a private response. You have said that your moral intuition, feelings, sensitivities, etc. are (to repeat the above) "subjective feelings."
I'm racking my memory to see where it is that you've actually established that as a fact. You've argued that it's possible, and I think you've argued based on your atheism that it's the only feasible way of understanding morality, but neither of those is sufficient to establish your conclusion as a fact, when theism/atheism are at issue. You're really quite dogmatic about it, though, and quite absolutist.
And then we have to consider this part of what you have written:
What we cannot do is leap from knowledge of how we feel about a thing to the belief that those feelings reflect something about the thing itself. There's a procedure for establishing this, and morality fails that test.
What is this procedure? How do we leap from phenomena to noumena? How do we leap from experience to the ding an sich? I hope you're familiar with the terminology I'm using; if not, we're going to have to back up and cover some important territory together. Because I'm going to argue that the arguments you use to support your alleged disconnection between moral awareness and real morals can be used in the same way to support a disconnection between your perceptual experience and the reality of your physical body.
I'll let you respond before I proceed with that. Except for one thing: how on earth can you say that I am "You are hijacking the language of morality to run exclusively under your own banner," when you are so dogmatic yourself?
Holopupenko, I may have used my wording carelessly, but your answer to your own question in your 10:03 am comment is correct, that is what I had in mind.
Because I'm going to argue that the arguments you use to support your alleged disconnection between moral awareness and real morals can be used in the same way to support a disconnection between your perceptual experience and the reality of your physical body.
I think we've had this discussion before. I believe this is tied to Holo's often quoted phrase from DL where he says we can only know our thoughts.
Tom,
There are two extremes that may arise if we fail to appropriately choose criteria for objectivity. On the one hand we have what you refer to here:
Because I'm going to argue that the arguments you use to support your alleged disconnection between moral awareness and real morals can be used in the same way to support a disconnection between your perceptual experience and the reality of your physical body.On the other hand, if we choose the criteria for objectivity incorrectly, nothing whatsoever will be subjective.
Ideally, we should find definitions and tests that straddle these two bad outcomes.
First, let me say what I mean by objective versus subjective. I take a systems approach: An observer perceives an attribute of an object. That attribute is either a part of the object itself (objective), or is an artifact of the object-observer system (subjective).
(I'm ignoring the whole bundles versus substances issue at this point.)
Example: I see the Mona Lisa and find it beautiful. This is not because the painting is objectively beautiful. The painting does have objective attributes like size and color and structure, and when I perceive these things, I get a positive emotion. That emotion is not a part of the painting. It is an artifact of the painting-DL system.
Okay, now on to the tests themselves.
Let's look at temperature. Suppose a rock feels hot to the touch. Is that feeling of hotness just an artifact of how we view rocks of a certain composition or shape? Or are we sensing something in the rock itself?
There are a number of ways we can try to isolate ourselves from the identifying attributes of the rock. We can hide the rock and several other objects behind thin sheets of metal, and see if we can sense which item is behind which sheet. If we can successfully identify hot items based on sense of heat alone, then I can conclude that heat is a property of objects independent of ourselves (because it is independent of any other objective source of information about the thing).
We can also observe predictive relationships between objects that are hot and and neighboring objects. For example, suppose subjectively hot and cold items are placed on tables for 5 minutes, then removed. Then the tables are randomized so we, the test subjects, do not know which table each item was placed on. If we can predict which tables held the hot items versus cold items (based on the warmth of the tabletops), then we have good reason to believe that the attribute we sense is objective, i.e., part of the items themselves. If heat was just a subjective personal reaction to the other objective attributes of an item, then we would not expect heat attributes to govern interactions between one non-observer object and another.
These tests are passed by all those things regarded as uncontroversially objective: heat, weight, length, odor, and even mathematical results. However, these tests are failed by subjective tastes like the aesthetics of art, food, music, smell, etc.
I cannot sense the beauty of a painting when the painting is hidden by a screen. Nor does the beauty of an object determine its interactions with other objects.
Morality fails these tests in the same way. I cannot sense evil behind a screen. And an evil act has no effect on objects beyond those physical parameters that described the act in the first place. Stolen gasoline burns just as well as legally purchased gasoline.
Morality is exactly like aesthetics, and appears to be nothing more than the aesthetics of what one ought to do.
At this point, we might regard morality's failure to pass these tests as inconclusive. That is, we haven't proven morality to be objective, but we haven't proven it to be subjective. However, we can actually go further than this. As neuroscience and psychology reveal how people come to have moral tastes, we learn that morality is indeed in the beholder, and not in the beheld act itself.
The other thing you can do is exempt morality from these sorts of tests of objectivity. Unfortunately, if you do that, then you can can make an exception for anything we normally consider subjective, like taste in food or music. You can even reach an extreme in which every sense a man has must be regarded as either objectively correct or else malfunctioning. For example, if your favorite color is blue, that's not your subjective opinion, but a defect in your ability to sense objective color aesthetics, because, say, red is objectively prettier. If you take this route you will face the irony that, in order to show that objective morality is not an illusion, you have to show that the objective-subjective distinction is an illusion.
If we can successfully identify hot items based on sense of heat alone, then I can conclude that heat is a property of objects independent of ourselves (because it is independent of any other objective source of information about the thing).
In this situation, heat is allowed to "leak" from behind the sheet of metal so it is being perceived. Contrast this with this next statement.
I cannot sense the beauty of a painting when the painting is hidden by a screen.
This is because the beauty isn't allowed to "leak" from behind the screen in a similar way. If this were an apples-to-apples test you would allow the beauty to be perceived to the same extent that the heat is being perceived.
Hi DL,
Your latest objectivity test is a failure, as SteveK points out. There are so many defeaters to it that I won't even bother starting to type them.
I was remembering that other time you tried to cook up a test for objectivity...
http://www.haloscan.com/comments...8094246/
#197733
And how easily that one was defeated ...
http://www.haloscan.com/comments...8094246/
#197736
And further explored ...
http://www.haloscan.com/comments...8094246/
#197748
and
http://www.haloscan.com/comments...8094246/
#197764
And since we're talking about predicitons and feelings ...
http://www.haloscan.com/comments...8094246/
#197749
(the above are consecutive responses in the same thread, no need to follow each link)
Why is it you are so sure that morality is not a reality when you have no valid test? Why do you keep appealing to invalid tests that are cobbled together on the fly? You aren't just trying to defend an a priori metaphysical requirement, are you?
By the way, I'm still curious about just what differentiates preferences/feelings from moral preferences/feelings.
As I try to grapple with this I come up with nothing but cirularity and question-begging.
And then there was the time that DL claimed that we invented God to ground morality.
Two interesting points there:
1) My fulfilled prediction that DL would also posit that we invented God for any number of different observations depending upon the argument at hand
2) My argument, alluded to above, as to why this again demonstrates the objectivity of morality.
http://www.haloscan.com/comments...8094246/
#197801
Charlie & SteveK:
It’s no use: you’re not going to get very far. DL’s “inventions” are a minor problem, for DL is not telling the truth: the latest two incidents are here and here. This is driven by his moral relativism, which permits (in his words) power over others: “my moral feelings take priority over the feelings of others” as asserted here.
Also, as a reminder, DL has categorically asserted that criticism of his thinking process is off limits as analyzed here with original assertions here.
Thanks for listing and referencing where DL’s reductionist view of reality gives rise to his moral relativism.
Edited (very slightly) By Siteowner
SteveK is on the right track, dl. Your test only works on properties that can be abstracted from an object. Can the morality of an act be abstracted from the act? Is there any way even to conceive of a test that works on that principle?
You may say that this is proof of your point--that morality by its nature cannot be tested and found to be objective. The problem is that there is subjectivity in everything else you have named as being objective. Ultimately what makes those things objective, in your view, is that there is agreement among observers on things like how to read the instruments and interpret them. It's intersubjectivity you are talking about. Science doesn't escape that; it ultimately comes down to people agreeing on the observations and interpretations.
So if there is at least one act that people can generally agree is definitely moral or immoral, then we have intersubjective agreement. I think I've provided some examples above.
It need not be universal agreement, by the way. There are people who would not be able to affirm the hot or cold results you spoke of. Blind people cannot read the instruments. People with Hansen's disease can't feel the warmth or coldness. We consider these people to be missing a normal function or faculty, and we don't consider their judgments normative. There are some people who would not go with the consensus morality, who might not, for example, agree that it is a moral act to provide one's own infant child with adequate nutrition. We call those people sociopaths or psychopaths. They are missing a normal function or faculty, and we don't consider their judgments normative.
Back to a prior question: are you or are you not familiar with phenomena/noumena, and Dingen an ihnen (singular Ding an sich)?
I need to respond to a couple questions you asked yesterday morning, dl:
If morality is relative, then so is moral progress. Thus, one can believe that the end of slavery was moral progress, even if someone else (or even a majority of others) disagrees.
I added a word to your quote:
For morality to be more or less [absolutely] correct it has to be more or less correct in reference to a real standard, and not to a shifting standard of personal relative morality.
What is the value of an absolutely correct standard of moral reference?
Suppose that through some logical method, we discovered the absolute standard of moral reference. Suppose that this moral standard demanded that we give the reverse answers to all the questions in your moral survey. How would you react? Would you decide that it was okay to round people up and shoot them? I don't think you would. Again, moral authority rests with your intuitions, not with any external entity.
Your answer on moral progress just pushes the question back on level. You still don't have progress, you just have people "believing" there's progress, and no particular basis for that belief. So you cannot firmly say that the abolition of the slave trade was an actually good thing; it's just something on which you think your feelings have won the day. That's not progress, that's taste. Moral progress is still ruled out.
What's the value of an absolutely correct standard of moral reference? For one thing, it rules out the supposition you tried to introduce. God is not evil; he is intrinsically good, and would not do what you suggested.
Steve,
In this situation, heat is allowed to "leak" from behind the sheet of metal so it is being perceived. Contrast this with this next statement.Steve, yes, the whole point is that we can devise a screen through which ONLY heat passes.
I cannot sense the beauty of a painting when the painting is hidden by a screen.
This is because the beauty isn't allowed to "leak" from behind the screen in a similar way. If this were an apples-to-apples test you would allow the beauty to be perceived to the same extent that the heat is being perceived.
The fact that we cannot do this with beauty or evil shows us that those things are not inherent in what is behind the screen. Those things are subjective constructions of our own make-up. They are artifacts created from the objective properties of what is behind the screen, and not objective properties of what lies behind the screen.
Tom,
A question: Even if you believe that there is an objective morality pre-determined by God, how does that matter in your interactions with others? What I mean is, even if you are right about that, DL is right about how moral interactions play out, or are negotiated, between people. Your believing that there is an objective morality doesn't matter if others don't believe it too--and that makes morality relative in practice, even if not in theory.
Hi OS,
To what does your screen-name refer?
You are referring here to DL's consistent reductionistic scientism. Having a theory about how something works is fine, but it is not a theory about reality or truth. DL thinks that it is, because he thinks science addresses all of reality.
By the way, OS, I think you have it backwards.
Since everyone, you moral relativists not excluded, believes that their morality is a basis for judgment, I would say it is obvious that morality, in practice, is normative and not descriptive.
Hi DL,
1) What are moral preferences?
2) If morality is a feeling what is empathy?
3) What are mirror neurons and how are they triggered?
DL:
Steve, yes, the whole point is that we can devise a screen through which ONLY heat passes.
The fact that we cannot do this with beauty or evil shows us that those things are not inherent in what is behind the screen.
Yes we can do this with beauty and evil and I know that you are smart enough to see this. The question we are all asking is why do you pretend not to see it for the sake of our discussions here?
We sense heat first and so we design a device to help us detect it more accurately/consistently by filtering out some of the emotions and making it more objective. We "program" a device (in this case the sheet metal) to suit what our mind senses BEFORE the device is built. The fact that we sense it universally to begin with is enough to conclude that it is real.
We also sense beauty/evil and so we can design a device to help us detect it just like heat. It can be a visual system or a system based on mathematics or colors or some other patterns.
We've been over this before. Remember our discussion about the balance scale built to detect mass? The scale doesn't tell us mass is a real property of the object in question. We already know this. If we didn't then we couldn't design/build the scale to detect it.
Charlie,
Perhaps having a sense of morality is normative, but the content of that morality is descriptive.
SteveK, I think you're saying that beauty as well as evil are objective (since we can build a detection device for both, as you claim). Is that true? Furthermore, would you say the success of this "detection device" (kind of an artifical construction, but I think I get how you and DL are using it) is sufficient and/or necessary for establishing the objectivity of that which is detected?
Charlie, I'm waiting for an Inter-Library loan copy of one of the articles you referred me to, when I get it I'll reply to you about it.
Paul:
SteveK, I think you're saying that beauty as well as evil are objective (since we can build a detection device for both, as you claim). Is that true?
I'm merely applying DL's criteria equally to both heat and beauty. I would not say either are objective because we can build a detection device. They are objective to some degree (that sounds fuzzy, I know) prior to the device, otherwise why would we get the idea in our head to build such a device? How would we know our device worked if not for the fact that we sorta knew what the result might look like before we got started?
Furthermore, would you say the success of this "detection device" (kind of an artifical construction, but I think I get how you and DL are using it) is sufficient and/or necessary for establishing the objectivity of that which is detected?
No.
Regarding objectivity vs. subjectivity, you might find these two posts insightful (here and here). I did.
Steve,
We also sense beauty/evil and so we can design a device to help us detect it just like heat. It can be a visual system or a system based on mathematics or colors or some other patterns.I'm afraid this doesn't work. Yes, we could make a device with the same subjectivities, but that doesn't make it objective.
I'm sure you know the old adage "A watched pot never boils." It's sort of the reverse of "Time flies when you're having fun." Is this objective or subjective?
Well, we could make a clock that runs faster when its cameras see a pot boiling. That way, pots would take longer to boil as measured by the clock when the camera can see them.
What's the problem with this?
The problem is that you cannot predict that a pot is being watched by the amount of standard clock time it takes to boil.
Your pot-watching clock isn't measuring time that's predictive of anything, except, perhaps, the way an observer might feel if he is watching the pot at the same time.
Those with boiling saucepan fetishes will actually experience time passing more quickly as they watch it boil. Does that mean they are objectively wrong because they disagree with the standard machine?
Let's try beauty. Suppose we build a machine that detects beauty using image analysis algorithms that are tuned to match your personal taste in art. On paintings that the system was trained on (or paintings similar to the training set), this machine will agree with your own sense of beauty. (Though, it may well disagree with my own.)
Suppose we show the machine "Scream" by Munch. You love it, but the machine doesn't. What do we conclude? Do we conclude that the machine is wrong or that you are wrong? I expect you would "rig" the machine to match your opinion, and call everyone else defective for not agreeing with you.
Of course, the same goes for morality. You could make a machine with scene recognition and a bunch of algorithms designed to recognize immorality. What happens if you disagree with the machine?
Objective measures do not work by fine-tuning sensors and screens to match our own subjective opinions. They work by seeing that certain properties of external objects have effects on other external objects independent of humans viewing their interactions. The objective attributes rub off not only onto things with subjectivities, but onto things that don't have subjectivities (like tabletops).
Heat, mass, dimension, and chemical composition "rub off" onto other non-mental things. Even logical conclusions can be isolated from our personal bias using artificial symbol manipulations. Yet beauty, morality and gastronomic taste cannot be isolated. They are always deeply intertwined with subjective mental perception.
Tom,
Ultimately what makes those things objective, in your view, is that there is agreement among observers on things like how to read the instruments and interpret them. It's intersubjectivity you are talking about.Not at all. My standard could be applied by a single individual. That individual merely has to show that the attribute in question "rubs off" from one object to another in a manner that would be coincidental if it were not an attribute of the object itself.
If density is subjective, then it's rather coincidental that subjectively dense objects subjectively sink in a pool of water, right? If heat is subjective, isn't it a coincidence that subjectively hot objects make their tabletops subjectively warm, even when we hide from ourselves which tabletop the item was on?
If an individual can hide everything but that single attribute and still predict objects with that attribute, then he can show that the attribute is objective.
This is the basis for saying that a subjective sense signifies an objective attribute.
Yet beauty and morality don't have this property. Beauty and evil don't "rub off" and cannot be isolated. The objective physical properties that make up a beautiful painting rub off, but not the beauty itself. Smear a finger smudge of paint from the Mona Lisa onto a traffic cone, and the cone doesn't suddenly get more beautiful. Place the cone in the presence of the painting, and it's as ugly tomorrow as it was today.
My case here is much stronger than intersubjectivity.
Back to a prior question: are you or are you not familiar with phenomena/noumena, and Dingen an ihnen (singular Ding an sich)?Yes, I am basically familiar with the term.
What's the value of an absolutely correct standard of moral reference? For one thing, it rules out the supposition you tried to introduce. God is not evil; he is intrinsically good, and would not do what you suggested.Tom, this is not a good excuse for dodging the question. You've dodged it before by saying God isn't subjectively evil to you. But actualities don't invalidate suppositions.
If you say to me "Suppose you are a millionaire..." it would be pretty lame for me to brush off your argument by saying "But I am not a millionaire!!"
The refusal strikes me as very odd. It's a pretty simple supposition. In fact, it is one that I can understand because, to me, your God is evil. Is it so hard to put yourself in a position in which God demanded something you considered to be subjectively evil?
Charlie,
1) What are moral preferences?Moral preferences are tastes or preferences about actions that I take, that others take, or for particular outcomes of action.
If I can have a taste or preference about colors, foods, sounds, music, why not about outcomes or actions (of myself and others)? If apes can have moral feelings, surely humans can too.
2) If morality is a feeling what is empathy?Empathy is the ability to put yourself in another's shoes and feel what they feel, whether those feelings are moral or not.
3) What are mirror neurons and how are they triggered?I'm not an expert on biology, so here's the Wikipedia page:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mir.../ Mirror_neurons
Presumably, they work by correlating actions of one's own body to the actions of others. If I stick my arm out and rattle a tree limb, those neurons trigger when I see another's arm stretch out and rattle a tree limb. Not surprising since those same neurons would trigger when I merely imagine myself reaching out and rattling a tree limb.
DL:
Yet beauty and morality don't have this property. Beauty and evil don't "rub off" and cannot be isolated.
Is a chair objectively a chair? Yes. I don't think the property of "chair" can rub off and be isolated.
Your criteria is all philosophy. Nothing objective about it, per your own definition.
I'm afraid this doesn't work. Yes, we could make a device with the same subjectivities, but that doesn't make it objective.
I never said the device made it objective. I said the opposite really. My comment to Paul:
"I would not say either are objective because we can build a detection device"
You are the one clamoring for a measuring device to confirm objectivity. Are you so confused as to think the concept of heat is subjective to begin with? Do you mistake heat for time or time for distance?
Truth be told the machine confirms your perception of heat in that particular situation. You are not confirming that heat is an objective property at all. You knew that before building the machine.
Steve,
Is a chair objectively a chair? Yes. I don't think the property of "chair" can rub off and be isolated.What is a chair? It's not a property. It's a bundle of attributes. It has dimension, weight, color, location, odor, shape, etc. All of these things can be isolated.
Are you so confused as to think the concept of heat is subjective to begin with? Do you mistake heat for time or time for distance?Are you saying that the distinction between objective and subjective is determined by our infallible gut instincts on the matter?
Truth be told the machine confirms your perception of heat in that particular situation. You are not confirming that heat is an objective property at all. You knew that before building the machine.
If you think that, then you can just say so. It would be helpful to know that this is one of your a priori assumptions.
Of course, I don't accept that assumption. My assumption is that we intuit a distinction between subjective and objective, but that this intuition is not incorrigible when it comes to particulars (we can be wrong about whether something is objective or subjective). From there I devise tests that isolate my conclusions from my bias.
DL,
Thanks for your answers. If you don't mind my saying, they seem a little less sure all of the sudden.
This one, for instance, doesn't seem to be saying anything:
Moral preferences are tastes or preferences about actions that I take, that others take, or for particular outcomes of action.I don't think this works. When you said that morals are just preferences and feelings I demonstrated that this was not so and you created a new category, telling me that "not all preferences and tastes are moral preferences and tastes". By the same token, not all preferences or tastes about actions are moral preferences or tastes about actions.
Do you feel distress when people have a preference for actions like kissing on the cheek rather than shaking hands? Or performing the Bird Dance at weddings?
Would people travel half-way around the world to stop such actions?
Again, what distinguishes moral preferences and tastes from others?
If I can have a taste or preference about colors, foods, sounds, music, why not about outcomes or actions (of myself and others)? If apes can have moral feelings, surely humans can too.
This is a mighty fall from before. Who ever denied you the right to have a preference for actions? Your claims were much stronger than this.
You can have all the feelings you want about the outcomes but you aren't answering the question in its context, however. How does having a preference justify reducing morality to nothing but this preference?
You say morals are nothing but feelings and tastes (like tastes in music).
But they can't be that, because we don't consider ourselves to be suffering when people exercise their tastes and preferences outside of our direct experience - but you say we do when they exercise their moral tastes.
Why? Asks I.
Because not all tastes are moral tastes.
What's the difference? I ask again.
And I don't think you've actually tried to answer me by saying that moral tastes are about actions (there are non-moral tastes about actions too, right?) and especially by mentioning apes (?).
What is there about this definition that distinguishes moral preferences and tastes from other preferences and tastes such that we feel our moral preferences are normative and that they define "ought" and that we suffer events which don't affect us?
No question-begging.
Empathy is the ability to put yourself in another's shoes and feel what they feel, whether those feelings are moral or not.
That sounds like a pretty good description of a label we have for a quality or ability of being. Now what is that thing? Why do we share another's feelings? And then, why does this feeling become normative?
I have a dread of public speaking and I can empathize with others who have to give speeches. But this does not mean that I think we ought not have speeches, or that people who like making speeches, or those that require them, are wrong. Empathy does not lead to ought any more than feelings do.
Is empathy a brain state? And if so, what triggers it? Is the trigger a feeling as well? Then morality is a feeling derived from a feeling? And whence the original feeling? What causes it?
As you asked:
When is a subjective feeling or sensation a signal of an objective thing?
When is your regression of causes and feelings finished, and at what point is it initiated?
I'm not an expert on biology, so here's the Wikipedia page:
Thanks for that admission.
Presumably, they work by correlating actions of one's own body to the actions of others.How is it that you keep reporting that these mirror neurons, which are inferred, only possibly exist in humans, and about which you only have presumptions, are enough to account for our moral feelings?
How, in any case, would they account for morality?
And, as I asked, what causes them to activate? If, for the sake of argument, a mirror neuron is caused to fire, which causes a feeling, which we interpret as a moral ought, then what was it that caused the neuron to fire? Just a belief, as you implied earlier?
The emotional distress A feels is a reaction to A's own beliefs, nothing more.So where are mirror neurons and empathy now? Are they just beliefs as well?
Holopupenko-style digression: Where is that skeptical inquirer who said that all rational beliefs had to be based upon repeatable, falsifiable, experimental data, that all knowledge had to be of this rational kind, and that explanations had to preferentially predict the outcome? That doesn't sound like the situation we have regarding mirror neurons and empathy explaining morality.
I asked:
Now let me be sure that I've got this straight. You are saying that one's immoral acts actually affect the observers even though they are not the direct victims of that immoral act?
So it's not merely that the observer does not prefer the action, or has a distaste for it, but he is actually physically, chemically, neurologically changed by observing immorality?
Is this what you are telling me?
This sounds pretty objective and predictive to me.
...
Doesn't it [morality] predict altered brain states?
You answered he is only changed by his beliefs. Is this still your position?
You also asserted:
So, if person A believes person B is acting immorally, then person A feels emotional distress.
And you support this with the existence of empathy and mirror neurons. But you don't even know that mirror neurons exist, or that they create empathy, or, then, what is the cause of empathy or what it is (beyond describing its results).
He is physically changed when he believes he sees immorality.
The belief caused the physical change?
Hi SteveK,
Thanks for those links.
Sometimes it just seems so easy ...
If one takes OS’s claim: “I think I’m a pretty ethical person, and that’s good enough for me” (11.26.07 - 4:26 pm) and sets aside, just for a moment, the self-referential, self-satisfying and non-rigorous nature of such a claim, one can understand why OS makes the frank admission that he DOES merely stand by while the moral atrocity of abortion takes place: “I am pro-choice, so yes, I do stand by while what Holo describes happens.” (11.25.07 - 5:40 pm) In such a context, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s aphorism is quite pointed: “Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.” The only things that matter personally for OS are those he himself believes are “ethical”—there’s no attempt to check against an outside source. It’s not that he might be silent and “stand by” while Krystalnacht or pedophilia or abortions take place—OS will be silent and “stand by” if such things aren’t important to him personally. OS (and DL) are trapped.
Now, DL won’t let anyone check outside themselves because DL’s front-loaded “check” is limited to an MES-reductionist vision of reality: his crude ontological equivocation and hence unquestioning material reductionism as well as his reduction to “intuition” is not just plain silly but deadly as well, for DL’s moral relativism is all about the naked exercise of power over others: … my moral feelings take priority over the feelings of others… (11.26.07 - 1:18 pm)… which also permits him to lie to achieve his ends and to put off-limits criticisms of his thinking—summarized here. It is the mark of a sad and obsessed individual to reduce reality to fit their own epistemological constraints in order to, among other things, exercise raw power over others.
“Pursue the good, avoid what is evil” is the First Principle of what is technically termed “Practical Reason” (governing the moral sphere)—which mirrors the First Principle of “Speculative Reason,” i.e., Non-Contradiction. It is literally impossible to deny either of these First Principles because in doing so one would appeal to them: if one decries the moral “ought” of “pursue good, avoid evil,” one decries it because one believes (in a disordered way, of course) that it is good to do so. Hitler pursued what he thought was “good,” just as OS believes it is “good” to stand by while the atrocity of abortion takes place, and why DL finds it amusing (i.e., “good”) to laugh about positivists who suggest killing those who don’t accept their views would be a “good” thing. Which, leads to my next point.
Most of the discussions in this thread have concentrated around acts generally considered to be evil, and why one ought not to carry out such acts—with atheists and moral relativists asserting and alleging that such acts aren’t “evil” and in any event subject to their own personal view. But a whole other side of morality has been largely absent—the pursuit of the good. If there is (as these guys claim) no objective good or evil, then good cannot be pursued except in a self-referencing (and hence self-centered) sense: there is, in fact, a preferential approach to evil as a “removal of moral bounds and constraints” together with the “good” relegated to the subjective and hence not morally obligatory.
DL is an excellent example: as noted above (with references) he permits himself to lie and refuses to permit criticism of his thinking, but he also supports abortion, transhumanism, euthanasia, pornography, etc., i.e., all those things generally viewed as evil. But if the good is not or cannot be objective “good,” then there is nothing to compel DL to jump in the water to save a drowning man (C.S. Lewis’s example) or to stop the lynching of a homosexual. The latter is an interesting case not only because DL has no objective reason to stop such a lynching (hence, why should anyone be “persuaded,”—to what possible end… because DL “wants” it that way?), but if DL does think one ought to (?!?) stop the lynching it’s not so much to stop the evil act itself (remember: it’s not “evil” objectively) but to permit evil (homosexual acts) to continue unimpeded. It is at best a compassionate “feeling” he may have, but a false compassion. There is no objective reason (as DL admits to) for his acting one way or another, so the locus of acts which DL pursues or supports are the ones noted above, i.e., those which are, in fact, evil.
If one thinks this is just idle speculation, then one should conduct an empirical comparison of those acts pursued and considered “good” by atheists and moral relativists vs. those considered good by critical thinkers. And, note just how open atheists are about jettisoning objective morality in order to pursue what they view as “good” but which in reality is quite evil:
“I had motives for not wanting the world to have meaning; consequently assumed it had none, and was able without any difficulty to find satisfying reasons for this assumption… The philosopher who finds no meaning in the world is not concerned exclusively with a problem in pure metaphysics; he is also concerned to prove there is no valid reason why he personally should not do as he wants to do… For myself, as no doubt for most of my contemporaries, the philosophy of meaninglessness was essentially an instrument of liberation. The liberation we desired was simultaneously liberation from an certain political and economic system and liberation from a certain system of morality. WE OBJECTED TO MORALITY BECAUSE IT INTERFERED WITH OUR SEXUAL FREEDOM.” (emphasis added) [Aldous Huxley, “Confession of a Professed Atheist,” Perspective on the News, vol. 3 (June 1966), p. 19.]
SteveK:
In his response to you (11.29.07 - 1:33 am) DL asserts:
What is a chair? It’s not a property. It’s a bundle of attributes. It has dimension, weight, color, location, odor, shape, etc.This is amateurish reductionism, for DL is claiming the chair (or any extra-mental object) is merely the sum of its sensory-accessible properties… which, with sleight-of-hand, DL renames “attributes.” Note just how non-rigorously DL does this: he merely assumes “attributes” (?!? what’s that, DL?) bundled together are the object.
Well, let’s assume he’s correct and see what happens: if a chair (“chairness” is a universal concept—the essence of that object, i.e., that by which we have knowledge of that object’s “whatness”) one minute, and the next minute someone puts a deep gouge in the chair (or saws off 1/2 inch from one of the legs so its still stands), then is it still a “chair”? According to DL: no—it can’t be a chair because it doesn’t share the “bundle of attributes” with the original chair… and any critical thinker could be excused for giggling at such nonsense. If, on the other hand, DL asserts, “yes, it is a chair” then he must have in mind a concept (a universal) of what any chair is. But, isn’t there a difference between the concept (the sign that points to the “whatness”) and the accidental attributes of any chair?
Now, a chair is actually (in technical terms) an “accidental unity,” i.e., the wood (material cause) could have been used to make a boat (the formal cause) by a man (efficient cause) using a hammer, saw, nails, and glue (instrumental causes) to reach the goal in mind (final cause) of making a boat. A human being, on the other hand, is not an “accidental” but a “substantive” unity. DL is DL whether he was just born, a teenager, a grown-up, or an old man. Yet, per his own disordered logic, that can’t be the case because there’s no such thing as DL the substance, there’s only at one and only one instant in time a “bundle of attributes” that he’s chosen to call “DL.” Once that “bundle of attributes” changes (let’s say, graying hair) then it’s no longer DL, is it?
Thinking not thought through.
However, let’s not forget that this whole discussion with DL is moot because DL cannot have any knowledge of extra-mental objects. Why? Because he has asserted (categorically): “the only things we can know are the ideas in our minds.”
Holo writes,
"The only things that matter personally for OS are those he himself believes are “ethical”—there’s no attempt to check against an outside source. It’s not that he might be silent and “stand by” while Krystalnacht or pedophilia or abortions take place—OS will be silent and “stand by” if such things aren’t important to him personally."
But this is true for everyone, Holo. I could as easily say that you would be silent and stand by while the right of women to choose what happens to their bodies is threatened, or while the civil rights of gays and lesbians are threatened--those things don't matter to you personally; in fact, you are against them, personally. This just points out differences in our moral standards. I support choice for women, you don't; we agree on the immorality of pedophilia, etc.
OS:
You note: “This just points out differences in our moral standards.” Are you suggesting the difference makes the rule, i.e., are you suggesting that just because differences exist does this mean nothing in morality can be objective? You’ll have to demonstrate that with a sound argument.
Moreover, you also have to deal with the following problem (one which DL refuses to deal with): Never, ever in any culture or geographic location or time period have fidelity and bravery been understood to be “bad” or “evil”—in fact, quite the opposite is the case. Yet, you imply there are always differences... when, in fact, I just provided an example where you can’t find a single example to the contrary. I bet you would even have a hard time imagining a place, time, situation, etc. where “bravery” would be promoted as a vice.
Here is an example of why your thinking leads to atrocities—because it really is scientifically, philosophically and morally incoherent: Former Chinese President Jiang Zemin during a trip to Washington, D.C.: “The theory of relativity worked out by Mr. Einstein, which is in the domain of natural science, I believe can also be applied to the political field. Both democracy and human rights are relative concepts and not absolute and general.” Pure, unadulterated, unabashed equivocation over the kinds of subject matter studied by physics and moral philosophy. The implication? You protect demonstrators, we shoot them… and who’s to say who and what is right? Einstein himself worried that people would illicitly extend the Theory of Relativity into realms where it doesn’t belong, and later bemoaned the fact that it should have been named the Theory of Invariance because it posits an absolute value for the speed of light irrespective of the frame of reference.
Holopupenko,
Interesting rant there. My favorite part was the bit about how I support "all those things generally viewed as evil," which presumably includes murder, rape, incest, genocide, and spreading false dogmas through religion.
Well, if it's any consolation to you, I think you're sweet too.
I also think you're the one who lacks the ability to think critically because your entire set of moral judgments are based on your own personal feelings. You don't accept your morality as it is because Catholicism teaches so, you accept Catholicism because it matches your morality.
“chairness” is a universal concept—the essence of that object, i.e., that by which we have knowledge of that object’s “whatness”Thanks for the dogmas. They're ridiculous. We've been over this before. Your primitive ideas failed then and fail now. Philosophers generally don't hold your view any more, not that this stops you from spouting it as if it were authoritative fact. Of course, the Catholic church probably thinks it is.
Just because a thing is defined as a bundle of attributes does not mean the definition is so brittle that a red chair is no longer a chair, or a chair with a gauge in it it no longer a chair. But nice of you try try and slip that one by. In fact, neural networks create exactly these kinds of fuzzy definitions.
Actually Holo I did respond to your examples of fidelity and bravery in an earlier comment. I said that the differences lie in how you define the terms (ie, does the definition of "bravery" include a soldier killing in battle? Does "fidelity" mean having no more than one wife?) and you did not respond.
Jiang Zemin was right: Democracy and human rights are relative. We have the rights others give us.
DL:
I’m sorry your ignorance of what Catholicism, the Catholic Church, faith, and philosophy are so breath-takingly inane—and I again challenge you to prove to us you’re not lying by providing verifiable references that I’m promoting Catholic dogmatic teaching. (You are, albeit indirectly, by your unsubstantiated assertions insulting any Protestant and Orthodox Christians listening in.) Catholicism is about proclaiming the Good News of Jesus Christ and about promoting and protecting the Deposit of Faith—not with philosophical understandings of the world:
“Even when it engages theology, philosophy must remain faithful to its own principles and methods. Otherwise there would be no guarantee that it would remain oriented to truth and that it was moving toward truth by way of a process governed by reason.” (Fides et ratio §49)In other words, the Catholic Church refrains from making any philosophy official because she does not want to endanger the autonomy of philosophy. Her restraint is based on a respect for philosophy and natural wisdom, and for the truth that they can attain. A philosophy based on authority would not rest on its own evidence, and hence it would not be philosophy. Christian faith understands itself to be based on truth, and therefore it does not need to fear any other expressions of truth. In its view, the more understanding the better… which is in stark contrast with your vision of reality and exercise of raw emotional power over others: my moral feelings take priority over the feelings of others… (11.26.07 - 1:18 pm).
Holo, I don't understand why you aren't responding to what I am saying about your objective standard--fidelity and bravery. My model is this: A group (a society) develops a concept of something they call "bravery" or "fidelity." Their concept includes a designation of these things as morally good. But the concept (or definition) of these things changes from society to society, so although the designation of "good" may not change, but the underlying definition does.
The fidelity-bravery question is best resolved by saying (and I'll have to look up the source on this) that they have different manifestations but they share recognizable characteristics. In no culture are cowardice and unfaithfulness generally considered praiseworthy.
doctor(logic),
Tom, this is not a good excuse for dodging the question. You've dodged it before by saying God isn't subjectively evil to you. But actualities don't invalidate suppositions.
If you say to me "Suppose you are a millionaire..." it would be pretty lame for me to brush off your argument by saying "But I am not a millionaire!!"
Actualities regarding God are in a different category, for his attributes are necessarily what they are. To suppose the Christian God is evil would be on the same order as supposing he makes his money as a Starbucks barista. I'm not interested in suppositions about any other god, because if we go down that route we're going to run into a horde of other difficulties besides the ones you want to introduce, and it's not worth our time.
If you think the Christian God is evil, then you disagree with him. I'll let you and him figure out who is right.
As to your discussion on subjectivity and objectivity, I'm going to come back to that later, hopefully this afternoon or early tomorrow. In the meantime, let me ask you this:
Consider two actions:
1. A mother providing adequate love, care, shelter, nourishment, etc. to her newborn baby.
2. A mother grinning in glee while she lets the baby starve, gaining pleasure from watching and hearing the baby cry, and occasionally getting extra pleasure by burning the baby in various places with her cigarette.
Now, is one of those mothers (and her actions) morally more right than the other? Or are they morally equivalent?
Let me ask that a different way: suppose you met someone who said they were morally equivalent, or that (2) was morally better. How would you view that person's morality?
Also in the meantime, remember how I said this same thing about Jacob's postmodernism? I think Holopupenko was accurate in applying it here as well:
DL’s moral relativism is all about the naked exercise of power over others: … my moral feelings take priority over the feelings of others…
os, this is not true for everyone if there is (and yes, there actually is) a God who defines morality. His moral standards take priority over all persons' feelings, standards, etc.
I'd like to see the source on that, Tom.
Tom, you start with an assumption: That everyone agrees on what is "love, care, shelter, nourishment" for a baby. Having experience in child welfare, I know that there is NOT agreement on those things. In additionl, there is a culture (sorry I don't have a citation) that treats its babies very roughly--not quite the way you describe, but certainly in a way we would consider abusive or at least negligent. They, however, consider it a positive way to treat babies. They consider it morally correct. So, again, there is no objective morality in your examples.
Let's assume for the sake of argument that there is some moral practice, P, that is universal. Tom would say, I think, that its universality makes it an objective morality (or, Tom, does it come from God? I'm confused here. Anyway . . . .).
But universality doesn't make something objective. Even for a scientific fact, like apples fall to ground off of trees, and not upwards, it's not the mere universality of everyone's agreement that makes the fact objective, it's the absence of bias, and having more people agree that apples fall merely makes the likelihood that any individual's bias is cancelled out by the opposing bias, so that the consensus reached is more likely not to be biased in one direction or the other.
But this doesn't apply to morality because morality is a choice, and a scientific fact is not. The presence of choice makes the possibility of reducing bias impossible. Choice *is* bias. So I don't see how morality can be objective in the sense of unbiased.
Or, perhaps, Tom really means "absolute" instead of "unbiased" when he uses the term "objective."
OS & Anon:
The both of you are being silly again—grasping for straws, and then using those to build goofy straw men.
First, I specifically worded my example to be hard on me—not on you guys: I said ALL cultures at ALL times in ALL places view bravery/fortitude (not foolhardiness, not cowardice—which are on opposite sides of the virtue of bravery/fortitude) in a positive light… nay, ALL people encourage and promote bravery. So, the both of you need to rethink your position—especially you, OS, whose model is manifestly not the one I presented.
Second, with respect to fidelity—but taking a step back for a broader view—there is something that causes us to know the difference between right and wrong—and objectively so. (The very fact that moral relativists commenting here and complaining like inconsistent hypocrites settles that quite nicely, thank you very much.) While it is true that some differences exist in moral details, there is certainly a commonality of moral principles in ALL cultures. In some cultures it is “appropriate” for men to have more than one wife and in some only monogamy is appropriate. But all agree that a man doesn’t just take any woman he pleases any time he pleases. Some cultures have put people to death for certain beliefs or behaviors that today we might tolerate. But no culture puts people to death randomly… well, except for the possible exception of atheist cultures like the former Soviet Union—but that was clearly pathological. Here’s the C.S. Lewis quote I believe Tom was looking for—one that cannot be rationally denied:
“Think of a country where people were admired from running away in battle, or where a man felt proud for double-crossing all the people who had been kindest to him. You might as well try to imagine a country where two and two made five.” [The Case for Christianity, New York: Touchstone Books, 1996. p. 5]OS: With respect to your 11.29.07 - 12:27 pm comment you provided beautiful support for the undeniable First Principle of Practical Reason I noted above (pursue the good, avoid evil): that a culture treats children (in your morally relativistic view hypocritically, by the way) “roughly” in order to achieve a good puts your relativism in the dustbin of hubris. ALL people pursue a good. Reasonable people and those given to critical thinking can disagree over a wide range of moral acts… but NONE disagree-or ever have disagreed—over fidelity (writ large), charity, prudence, justice, mercy, bravery, etc., etc. being objective goods.
os, I asked a question and you changed it before you answered it (actually, you changed it and then you did not answer it, because you addressed something else).
Let me ask it again: do you believe 1 is better than 2, 2 is better than 1, or they're both morally about equal? And what would you think of someone who thought 2 was better than 1? (Please re-read the original 1 and 2 so that you answer according to the way they were asked, not according to some re-write of the questions.)
Since you brought up the question of cultural differences we can even throw that into the mix. What would you think of a culture that thought 2 was better than 1?
DL:
Are you saying that the distinction between objective and subjective is determined by our infallible gut instincts on the matter?
If you think that, then you can just say so. It would be helpful to know that this is one of your a priori assumptions.
Of course, I don't accept that assumption. My assumption is that we intuit a distinction between subjective and objective, but that this intuition is not incorrigible when it comes to particulars (we can be wrong about whether something is objective or subjective). From there I devise tests that isolate my conclusions from my bias.
Oh, brother. The only difference between you and I are the test methods. For some reason you think your test methods solve the problem in every case. They can't and you know it, yet you pretend they do. Induction, remember?!
Your test methods can't solve the problem we have before us. They can't determine if, in a given situation, my methods lead to truth or if yours do. This is metaphysics. Induction, remember?!
How do you propose solving this? If you tell me we must use your test methods I'm gonna cry so don't disappoint.
“... [When I was an atheist] my argument against God was that the universe seemed cruel and unjust. But how had I got this idea of just and unjust? A man does not call a line crooked unless he has some idea of a straight line. What was I comparing this universe with when I called it unjust? If the whole show was bad and senseless from A to Z, so to speak, why did I, who was supposed to be part of the show, find myself in such violent reaction against it? ... Thus in the very act of trying to prove that God did not exist—in other words, that the whole of reality was senseless—I found I was forced to assume that one part of reality—namely my idea of justice—was full of sense. Consequently atheism turns out to be too simple. If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning: just as, if there were no light in the universe and therefore no creatures with eyes, we should never know it was dark. Dark would be without meaning.” (C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity)
Materialist: Why is it not necessary and sufficient for the mind to be merely a physically-emergent property of the brain in order to explain moral obligations and imperatives? In other words, is it not sufficient that the brain is an exceedingly complex, self-organizing, physical system and therefore capable of understanding and imposing the moral imperative that innocent children should not be harmed?
Critical Thinker: Consider the following scenario: In a room there are three persons: (1) an innocent and helpless infant, (2) a man causing the infant to suffer and who apparently doesn’t believe it is wrong to hurt infants, and (3) a woman who is certain it is wrong for anyone to cause intentional harm to an innocent and defenseless infant. Clearly, all three persons—from the materialist perspective—are composed of the same basic stuff, i.e., matter only. Question: what material difference(s) or physical processes(s) can explain (a) the moral difference between the act of torturing the infant and the act of saving the infant from torture, and (b) the difference between the moral convictions of the man and woman?
Tom, you are asking what I think personally about your examples (1) and (2), you are asking for my personal opinion. Why? Whether I think (1) is more moral than (2) is a product of my culture and time in history. My point is that in another culture or at another time, I would very likely think differently; I would think according to the norms of that time and place, and my morals would be shaped by such. If I were raised in the culture that considers rough child rearing practices to be good, then I would think that rough child rearing practices were good.
That's a question-begging answer.
Holo,
Just because we know what justice is doesn't mean our knowledge comes from some source outside ourselves.
Tom, I answered your question as requested, but with a qualification. I don't think that begs the question.
I have a question for you: How do you know what it is exactly that God has determined is moral? I assume your knowledge comes from the Bible, but where exactly? And how do you interpret ambiguous points?
Holo:
"... [When I was an atheist] my argument against God was that the universe seemed cruel and unjust. But how had I got this idea of just and unjust? A man does not call a line crooked unless he has some idea of a straight line. So I developed a device to test my intuition of cruelty and injustice. The device informed me that my intuitions were incorrect - the universe was not cruel and unjust. The device told me that these are my personal feelings of emotion that I assigned to activities I experienced within the universe. The device also told me that God did not exist and so I'm back to being an atheist again." (S.C. Louis , Mere Metaphysics)
The ironic elephant in the room is that DL uses his intuitions to formulate test methods to confirm his other intuitions because, intuitively, these test methods seem right.
OS:
Regarding your comment from 11.29.07 - 2:39 pm, you’ve got to be kidding, right? Are you telling me you learned it was wrong to steal because such knowledge came from inside you (?!?)… or perhaps because you learned from personal experience way back in play school that taking something without asking brought sanction? Are you buying into DL’s idealism and Plato’s innate ideas (assuming you know what these mean)? Do you realize you’ve literally just declared yourself closed-minded? AND, you’re still avoiding the problem of explaining the unerring consistency of bravery as a moral virtue (as opposed to vice) over ALL times, places, and cultures.
Anyway, the following has DL’s emotional and intellectual needs written all over it, but it also applies to OS and Anon’s “cultural/societal” hang-up regarding the origins of morality.
Moral relativists think of morality as a human (cultural) invention because (1) certain moral conventions differ from one another, and (2) moral views are often culture-specific. This, of course, is not completely true as noted above regarding fidelity, bravery, prudence, justice, etc., but these folks persist in propagating such a fallacy because it serves their presuppositions.
Anyway, the question of whether or not a moral convention is objectively true cannot be resolved by any inquiry into the causal genesis of the belief’s being held. To think otherwise is to commit the genetic fallacy. Social convention is typically used to intimidate people (who know morality is objectively-based)—arguing that the group in which you were raised influenced your thinking, and that therefore it’s not objectively valid. But even though we often learn certain aspects of morality through social or cultural conventions, this does not demonstrate that morality is reducible to cultural constructs or conventions. We also learn things like mathematics and logic through social institutions, but we know that math and logic are not reducible to society. This objection confuses how we acquire knowledge with the nature and truth content of that knowledge.
The genetic fallacy is to focus on the origin of the idea or person, or upon the psychological state of the person rather than on the merits of the argument: focus on the origin of a belief, not its content. To repeat: when anyone tries to disqualify a belief based on its origin (its genesis), they have commit the genetic fallacy. Any challenge posed this way is beset with problems because it is fired at the wrong target: there’s a difference between what causes or motivates a person to believe and what justifies the belief. It is not important how someone came to hold the view they hold; all that is important is the soundness of the arguments for which they hold their view.
Let’s turn their fallacious argument back upon them: American atheists born in America are educated in a school system where naturalism and secularism are the prevailing philosophies. Is it any wonder why they believe in no God? If they had been born in Saudi Arabia they would probably be a Muslim theist. Is naturalism therefore false? Of course not! The truth-value of naturalism, Christianity, and Islam must be determined on the merits of those views themselves. Atheism doesn’t get a free “get out of argument” card: it has to demonstrate (as opposed to merely prove) based on sound arguments without referring exclusively to the MESs and mathematics that its position is at least a viable one.
How about psychological influences? Can someone be biased and still be accurate, or emotionally crippled and still be correct? Of course. Does it follow that even if someone cannot rigorously defend (with the best tools moral philosophy has to offer) cannibalism, pedophilia, female circumcision, pornography, homosexuality, etc. as being evil, that these practices aren’t objectively wrong? Of course not. What if I take it a step further—intentionally weakening my position, i.e., that for someone it is merely “comforting” that these acts are understood to be evil. Is that person merely fantasizing? Of course not: to think so is crooked logic. Assessing the psychological condition of a person who accedes to moral objectivity is not going to get any closer to the truth. The question of whether or not a belief is comforting is logically independent of the question of whether or not the belief is true.
All this, by the way, applies to faith in God as well.
Now, since we’ve just seen how fallacious moral relativists’ “challenges” to moral objectivity are, can you imagine how silly they look to people well-versed in moral philosophy and faith?
os,
Rather than giving me your personal opinion you asked why I wanted it. Then you said, in essence, you have no personal opinion, you only have your culture's opinion, and you don't seem to think too highly of it, because you believe you would have another opinion in another culture. I'm wondering if you have an opinion you are willing to own as yours.
The reason I think you're begging the question is because your answer implies that the only source of moral knowledge is cultural, and that there is no actual moral truth behind that cultural information. You answered by re-stating your assumptions, not by giving me an answer to the question that was before you.
I'll answer the why question you asked later, if you don't mind.
How do I know exactly what God has determined is moral? I count on the truth of His Word, and the reasons for that are many--look through the "Evidences" category of the blog. That doesn't mean that I think every issue is clear. The Ten Commandments are clear enough, though, and so is the command to love one another (to name some examples).
Where things are unclear, that takes some work, but it's work not done in a vacuum. For example, the Bible doesn't say how big a house one should own, but there are principles regarding selflessness, giving, stewardship, and so on that can inform a decision like that. The Bible speaks straightforwardly about these gray areas, by the way, at the end of the letter to the Romans and 1 Corinthians, where the one overarching principle is to do what does good for others.
Further on Holopupenko's excellent point on the genetic fallacy:
If you are a relativist who thinks your beliefs regarding moral truth can be fully explained by reference to your cultural circumstances, imagine yourself being born into 15th-century Spain. Chances are you would be an absolutist rather than a relativist. It's not just your opinion on certain moral details (homosexual practice, abortion, capital punishment, etc.) that are determined by your cultural circumstances. It's also the fact of your being a relativist rather than an absolutist.
If your relativism is fully explained by your cultural circumstances, though, that could hardly be a sufficient ground for its being true. Relativists won't commit to the actual truth of their moral positions; why do they try to commit to the actual truth of relativism?
Sorry Tom, I don't understand what you mean by this: "If your relativism is fully explained by your cultural circumstances, though, that could hardly be a sufficient ground for its being true." Please explain.
I agree with this, though: "It's not just your opinion on certain moral details (homosexual practice, abortion, capital punishment, etc.) that are determined by your cultural circumstances. It's also the fact of your being a relativist rather than an absolutist." But doesn't that support the relativist's argument?
Even Livescience.com knows where the boundaries are. DL should take a lessen from them regarding his claims surrounding prediction, statistics, superstition and irrational belief.
The Body/Mind Connection
Medical science is only beginning to understand the ways in which the mind influences the body. The placebo effect, for example, demonstrates that people can at times cause a relief in medical symptoms or suffering by believing the cures to be effective - whether they actually are or not. Using processes only poorly understood, the body's ability to heal itself is far more amazing than anything modern medicine could create.
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Near-Death Experiences and Life After Death
People who were once near death have sometimes reported various mystical experiences (such as going into a tunnel and emerging in a light, being reunited with loved ones, a sense of peace, etc.) that may suggest an existence beyond the grave. While such experiences are profound, no one has returned with proof or verifiable information from "beyond the grave." Skeptics suggest that the experiences are explainable as natural and predictable hallucinations of a traumatized brain, yet there is no way to know with certainty what causes near-death experiences, or if they truly are visions of "the other side."
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Intuition
Whether we call it gut feelings, a 'sixth sense,' or something else, we have all experienced intuition at one time or another. Of course, gut feelings are often wrong (how many times during aircraft turbulence have you been sure your plane was going down?), but they do seem to be right much of the time. Psychologists note that people subconsciously pick up information about the world around us, leading us to seemingly sense or know information without knowing exactly how or why we know it. But cases of intuition are difficult to prove or study, and psychology may only be part of the answer.
and others...
This is exactly what I believe though: "...your answer implies that the only source of moral knowledge is cultural, and that there is no actual moral truth behind that cultural information." That doesn't beg the question, it answers it!
I have many opinions I am willing to own as mine, but even as I own them as mine, I acknowledge that they are the product of many influences: time, culture, intelligence, experience, education, etc. For example, I think spanking children is wrong; that's my opinion. It's also the product of being raised in the 20th century in the Northeastern US, having studied a great deal of developmental research, and having attended some of the best schools in the country, which happen to be liberal.
Sorry I keep appearing as Anon; I forget to type "ordinary seeker" in when I use this computer.
Holo,
If I think that morality is relative, then I think that how it develops is an explanation of why it is relative. If you think that it exists somewhere as an absolute, then you think how it develops is irrelevant. Don't see how we could avoid that difference...
Then, os, you would not affirm the following as true:
"The mother who grins in glee while she lets her baby starve, gains pleasure from watching and hearing the baby cry, and occasionally gets extra pleasure by burning the baby in various places with her cigarette, is acting in a less morally commendable manner, with a less morally commendable attitude (in regard to what is stated here), than the mother who lovingly provides adequate love, care, shelter, nourishment, etc. to her newborn baby."
By what you have told me, you cannot affirm this as a true statement. It is a contingent statement at best, depending on who says it; and the person who says it can at best say,
"That's only my opinion. Other might disagree, and I have no right or place to say that my opinion is any better or more correct than theirs. If they think the torturing mother is as morally commendable as the loving mother, I have no grounds for disagreeing with them. Their opinion is as good as mine; they are just as 'right' as I am, to the limited extent that being 'right' actually means anything in this context."
Do I understand you correctly? I think this conclusion necessarily follows from what you have said.
Regarding your 4:35 answer to Holopupenko, you're confusing some categories. You can use cultural explanations to show how different people come to believe different things. The question of absolute morality is not just about believing or knowing, though; it's about what actually is.
There is believing and there is being. Now, if it is in fact true that (P) there is no moral absolute (a question that is in the category of being), then (Q) cultural particularities could explain differences in beliefs regarding morality. But you can't turn that around backwards and use cultural differences to prove there are no moral absolutes.
Given P, Q could arise, but P is neither necessary nor sufficient for Q to arise. Q Another situation, for example, (R) differing cultures only imperfectly understand the moral absolute, could lead to Q. Therefore Q does not entail P (cultural particularities do not entail relative moralities).
So if you think morality is relative, yes, the way it develops is relevant to you; for you must be able to come up with some explanation for its appearing as it does in differing cultures. If you could not come up with something like Q, you would not be able to affirm P. But that serves as very little support for your position. It shows that your position may not be impossible, and that's about all it shows.
Tom, I think you misunderstand what it means to believe that morality is relative. You write,
"That's only my opinion. Other might disagree, and I have no right or place to say that my opinion is any better or more correct than theirs. If they think the torturing mother is as morally commendable as the loving mother, I have no grounds for disagreeing with them. Their opinion is as good as mine; they are just as 'right' as I am, to the limited extent that being 'right' actually means anything in this context."
My thinking is more like, "This is my moral opinion. Others may disagree, and I can often understand why, given their culture, place, and time. They certainly have a right to their moral opinion, and I must respect that; however, because I think my moral opinion is, well, more moral, I have an obligation to not only act in accord with my own opinion, but also to try and convince others to act according to my opinion in areas in which I feel that it makes a great difference."
Tom, re: your P and Q: I see what you are saying but I wasn't offering what I said as a proof. Frankly, I'm not terribly interested in proofs, which I know is an unpopular opinion here. Instead of trying to prove that morality is relative, I'd like to know more about why you think morality is absolute (other than because you believe in God.) What morals do you believe to be universal truths? Would you say the Ten Commandments are morally absolute?
I don't think that's much different than what I wrote, os, and in fact the position you've just stated (at 7:54) is pretty much what I've learned from Paul, you and some others who hold to moral relativism.
I'm trying to get your answer to a specific question here. Regardless of whether I understand your position correctly or not, I want to know whether you can affirm as true the first italicized statement I gave in my 5:10 pm comment. I said I don't think you can, and indeed, even in this recent comment you have not. You've just said you can affirm it as your opinion, which is not the same thing. You haven't shown that you have an actual ground for disagreeing with someone who holds a different opinion.
You think your opinion is "well, more moral." What does that actually mean (and that's a serious question, not a rhetorical one) when everyone can have their own opinion?
I have a blog post cooking to deal with your 8:05 questions...
When I say it is "more moral" I mean it is more in keeping with my values. If I value justice, then ensuring civil rights for gays and lesbians will seem more moral to me than not offering civil rights to gays and lesbians. If I value human life, then not supporting capital punishment will seem more moral to me. And so on.
One thing that troubles me about your example is that it is black and white. Much of what happens in life that requires moral choice is not so clear. For example, what if (1) was a mother feeding her dirty, unchanged baby a bottle of formula while he lay in her arms, and (2) was a mother feeding her clean, changed baby a bottle of orange drink while he sat in an infant seat? What is the more moral choice then? Mother (1) is providing her baby with more appropriate, nutritious food and is providing physical contact so necessary to babies, but the baby is dirty and unchanged. Mother (2) is providing much less nutrition to her baby and is not providing any physical contact, but her baby is clean and changed. This is much more like a real life moral choice.
Tom,
Actualities regarding God are in a different category, for his attributes are necessarily what they are... I'm not interested in suppositions about any other god, because if we go down that route we're going to run into a horde of other difficulties besides the ones you want to introduce, and it's not worth our time.Even if it were necessarily true that God is purely good (I don't see that at all), you're missing the point.
Suppose God is necessarily, perfectly, absolutely good. However, our moral intuitions are only subjectively good, and so our good could be God's evil and vice versa.
Tom, whether or not your personal intuitions line up perfectly with God's was supposed to be irrelevant here. The fact is that not everyone's does.
Now I am asking you how God's moral position overrides mine. You say:
If you think the Christian God is evil, then you disagree with him. I'll let you and him figure out who is right.Yes, yes, God will murder me for disagreeing with him. Yet I'm sure you think there's something deeper to morality than coercion because you have said as much.
So I am trying to put you into my shoes. Suppose God says you should hurt someone you love. How do you resolve this? Do you hurt that person you love because you know God is necessarily good and so therefore you should disregard your own moral intuitions?* Or is it better to be objectively evil than to obey an objectively good command that you find subjectively evil?
I think a lot of theology is motivated by the feeling that "Any benevolent God worth worshiping would not do or mandate something I find significantly immoral." This enables the theologian to selectively re-interpret scripture or develop his own religion based on his own moral principles.
Just look at your response. You refuse to even consider the possibility that God's morality might depart significantly from your own. The differences you permit God to have are just the differences between your present morality and a morality you already consider to be more ideal. In fact, I quite expect that when you read the question with the asterisk, you assumed that God's plan in asking you to hurt your loved-one would result in a subjectively better outcome from your perspective, even if you could not yet see it.
This thought experiment reveals the nature of moral argument and persuasion. A god who is objectively good, but subjectively evil to me is not someone I ought to obey. He can coerce me, and I will probably obey, but then that negates the point of moral objectivity. Moral objectivity isn't persuasive. If God says it is better that the people that I love are killed, I'm not persuaded by the fact that God sets some absolute good. No one wants to obey the good just because it is defined objectively (and arbitrarily).
It seems to me that a theist's definition of God is almost always twisted to line up with his own subjective morality. God's objective ideal good is his subjective ideal good because God would never do anything (subjectively) evil.
This is why the problem of evil is not persuasive to you. You will claim that any act that is subjectively evil from your perspective leads to some hidden outcome that would be subjectively preferred by you if you knew all the details that are hidden from you. If that's the case, then your moral intuitions are infallible, but you just lack information. Is God rewarding your faith with infallible intuitions?
I understand the question I asked is black and white. That's intentional, and here's the reason for it. If morals are all relative, then they are all relative. If at least one instance of an issue on which there is an absolute morality, then not all morals are relative. And if not all morals are relative, then the cultural explanation starts to crumble. But I'll write more on that tomorrow. I'm about done here tonight.
"More moral" means more in keeping with your values. I'm afraid you still haven't said that you can affirm that one statement as true...
Well, I guess I'm not quite done tonight.
Suppose God says you should hurt someone you love. How do you resolve this?
He wouldn't--except possibly in the sense that a surgeon hurts in order to heal.
Just look at your response. You refuse to even consider the possibility that God's morality might depart significantly from your own.
No, I just assume that God's is right. I grant that the answers are not always clearcut, and the right answer is not always easy to discern. I just wrote something to os about that. But as far as we discern God's guidance correctly, our morals are correct; as far as we are confused about God's guidance, we are confused; and as far as we get his guidance wrong, we are wrong. All of those are possible, and we learn as we go. Some of God's guidance is abundantly clear, though, such as the Ten Commandments and the priority of love.
In fact, I quite expect that when you read the question with the asterisk, you assumed that God's plan in asking you to hurt your loved-one would result in a subjectively better outcome from your perspective, even if you could not yet see it.
No, an objectively better outcome from God's perspective, if God were guiding me to do it.
A god who is objectively good, but subjectively evil to me is not someone I ought to obey.
If he is objectively good you ought to obey him; if he is subjectively evil to you then your subjective take on morality is objectively false, and you ought to pursue what is objectively true instead.
It seems to me that a theist's definition of God is almost always twisted to line up with his own subjective morality. God's objective ideal good is his subjective ideal good because God would never do anything (subjectively) evil.
Boy, have you got that backwards, and I mean that not only theologically but also experientially. We theists spend a whole lot of energy trying to get our mixed-up subjective morality to line up with God's objective morality!
Tom,
If they think the torturing mother is as morally commendable as the loving mother, I have no grounds for disagreeing with them.This statement does not even work for music. Just because you like Jazz doesn't mean I have no grounds for disagreeing with you that Jazz is good.
To sum up your argument, it looks like this:
1) Assume moral relativism, wherein moral claims are subjective opinions.
2) One moral opinion is objectively no better than any another.
3) Objectively, it is always wrong for someone to impose his preference on another with a different preference.
4) Moral relativists aim to impose what they see as their own mere opinions on others.
5) Moral relativists are guilty of violating rule (3).
--
6) Therefore, relativists are objectively immoral (i.e., inconsistent with objective moral laws).
The obvious error here is that (3) contradicts (1). According to (1), there is no objective moral law, least of all a law that one ought not impose one's preferences on another person with differing preferences.
You find fault with moral relativists by importing a rule from a moral realist interpretation. We're guilty of violating your objective moral laws.
You haven't actually seen my argument here yet. This was not it. I've just been asking questions and trying to get os to clarify his position relative to my questions. Any argument you've seen so far has just been to try to clarify and narrow the question....
I haven't watched it yet, but I suspect it's real good so everyone watch it (DL that means you!)
Greg Koukl - Moral Relativism
Hi DL,
From Tom,
We theists spend a whole lot of energy trying to get our mixed-up subjective morality to line up with God's objective morality!
Boy, it would be nice if you heard it that time and quit pretending otherwise.
Tom, Holopupenko, and SteveK,
Excellent work here yet again.
Thanks for the links, Steve. The Koukl speech sounds soooo familiar.
===
At about 13:00 Koukl addresses the myths of tolerance and moral neutrality which I think speak very well to OS' concerns and what has been heard here as counters.
There are a few punchlines, but if you could hang on to at least 24:00 you'll hear the point I brought up several threads ago. At 25:00 is one of Holopupenko's recent points about "good".
Oh heck, guys, just listen to the whole thing. Intuition, evil, judging, it's all there.
"Who can really believe that[moral relativism]? Who can really think that way? Here's the answer: nobody can, and nobody does."
"People believe in morality so deeply that it comes out even when they're trying to deny it."
"The answer to guilt is not denial. The answer to guilt is forgiveness. Did you ever stop to consider that the reason you feel guilty is because you are guilty?"
Thanks again, Steve.
OS,
I meant it when I asked about your name.
What are you seeking?
===
DL,
Do beliefs change people physically, chemically and neurologically as you said above?
What makes preferences (about actions) moral preferences (about actions)?
I am starting to think that I have no choice but to think you don't know and haven't given it any thought.
Charlie,
I'm seeking understanding.
Of what?
Of everything.
Understanding everything is very ambitious.
What is understanding where there is no truth?
I figured you'd go there, Charlie, which is why I avoided answering the question in the first place.
Understanding doesn't require truth. I am, for example, trying to understand the perspective of fundamentalist Christians. I'm trying to understand the perspective of those who believe there is an absolute truth. I'm trying to understand the worldviews of those who think differently about the world than I do.
Charlie,
Do beliefs change people physically, chemically and neurologically as you said above?Yes, this is a scientific fact.
What makes preferences (about actions) moral preferences (about actions)?All preferences about actions are moral preferences. Some are stronger than others.
If I prefer cricket to soccer, that is a preference about actions whenever I am given the opportunity to play one or the other. If given the choice between playing the two, I will choose to play cricket because it will give me the greatest pleasure, assuming I also have a moral preference for acts that give me pleasure.
If the people inviting me to play cricket are unpleasant to me, I may choose to play soccer instead, assuming my preference for pleasant company is stronger than my preferences for playing cricket over soccer.
If my homework is due the next morning, I may choose to do my homework instead of play either game (and forgo my pleasure today) because I strongly prefer to find myself later having graduated with honors than having scraped-by with 51% and having played lots of sports.
I suspect that every non-moral preference becomes a moral preference when it is tied to action. If I am in prison, and the PA system plays jazz, my preference for dance music is going to be frustrated, but it does not translate into action. However, if I'm now talking about the shared radio in my office, it's going to play dance or rotate styles or play nothing at all because I have the power to translate my preferences into actions. It has become a moral preference. If my coworkers will retaliate for their loss of Jazz, then I have to reevaluate my actions in terms of how I prefer the consequences.
I have a preference not to be mugged, for my friends not to be mugged, and for people to walk the streets without fear of being mugged. I also have a rather primitive preference for punishing people who violate my preferences. Prosecuting muggers achieves these goals. It does not matter that the mugger's preferences are objectively as good as mine. The issue is what do I do? That's a subjective decision. If the mugger mugs, I prosecute. With that fact in mind, the mugger might decide he prefers not to mug after all.
My preference for cold foggy weather is not much of a moral preference if I am trapped on a small Pacific isle. Yet, if I can choose where to go and live, then it becomes a moral preference because if I ought to be happy, and cold foggy weather makes me happy, then I ought to move where the weather is cold and foggy.
Is that clear enough for you?
By making all preferences moral preferences, you equate morality with preference. Is that your intention? Seems to me it guts the meaning of morality. But we've discussed this previously.
Tom,
In that post you reference you say:
For if you go back to previous discussion here, you'll see that choices are preferences based on accidents of time and location, not on what's really right or wrong.You are begging the question about what's "really right or wrong". For you, there is only right and wrong if it's objective and absolute. But the argument here isn't whether right and wrong exist, but whether right and wrong are absolutes.
Good catch. You're right about that, in a way; although I think the point is valid if rephrased this way:
... you'll see that choices are preferences based on accidents of time and location, and thus, since these accidents drive the preferences, there cannot be such a thing as really right or wrong in their regard.
Hi OS,
I figured you'd go there, Charlie, which is why I avoided answering the question in the first place.
Obviously.
The list of things for which you can seek without seeking truth is far short of "everything". Asking Tom why the actual truth and theory of morality matters when all you care about is the pragmatic play is not seeking to understand everything.
===
Hi DL,
Is that clear enough for you?Sadly enough.
Do beliefs change people physically, chemically and neurologically as you said above?
Yes, this is a scientific fact.
I agree.
So what is a belief and where does it come from - what is its source? If my belief that a person is immoral causes my belief, which causes my distress, what was the actual source? When I say, as per your requirement, that there is a predictable, observable result (physical, chemical, neurological change) when good/evil is presented to the sensory mechanism then why is this not evidence of the ontological existence of the moral quality?
All preferences about actions are moral preferences. Some are stronger than others.So, with OS, you are stating that morals are somehow the stronger preferences. How does one determine this?
Why is it that you feel no distress over south Pacific islanders who may prefer cold foggy weather? Why do we not send aid to them to eradicate this evil? You must feel empathy.
If given the choice between playing the two, I will choose to play cricket because it will give me the greatest pleasure, assuming I also have a moral preference for acts that give me pleasure.Wait.
You said the preference for the action was the moral preference, but here you've made it contingent upon another moral preference - that of pleasure.
You do this again later. Is feeling pleasure then the "ought" and not the preference for the action or its outcome?
You've reduced morality to nothing but pleasure-seeking.
Having done so, and having made your preferences for recreational activities, radio stations and weather the equivalent of morality you really ought to recuse yourself from any discussions of the issue.
You have no right using the words "evil/good", "right/wrong", "moral/immoral" when those words mean so very little to you. At the very least you ought to tell people that this is what you mean by morality when you discuss its objectivity so that they can rightly dismiss your opinion as irrelevant to the conversation.
Charlie writes,
"The list of things for which you can seek without seeking truth is far short of "everything". Asking Tom why the actual truth and theory of morality matters when all you care about is the pragmatic play is not seeking to understand everything."
Charlie, you think this because you believe there is an absolute truth. everything. Since I don't believe there is an absolute truth, I see no reason I can't seek to understand "everything" without seeking truth.
Hi OS,
The "truth" doesn't need to be "absolute"to be part of the search.
But when you limit the quest to understanding the exercise and not the reality then you are either
1) purposely limiting understanding to less than everything, or
2) claiming to know the absolute truth that you deny exists (that there is no proper theory or understanding beyond this pragmatic level).
Charlie:
Did you ever stop to consider that the reason you feel guilty is because you are guilty?
I remember this from the video. There were several good points made in that video.
The primary point that we should focus on (in my opinion) is the logical point. Doctor(logic) should appreciate this. Either there is objective morality in some sense or there is none.
Koukl blows away the myth of moral neutrality and tells us what it all means.
The logical endgame, the Poster Child, the role model, of the latter, as Koukl stated, is what we call a sociopath.
I know DL and others don't think they are sociopaths because they aren't! Their conscious mind won't let them conclude that there is no objective morality. They aren't brave enough to live it out because THEY KNOW it just isn't true.
DL talks a moral game his mind won't let him live out. He's a wolf in sheep's clothing. A charlatan.
"People believe in morality so deeply that it comes out even when they're trying to deny it."
We witness this fact here on Tom's blog.
Charlie,
What do you mean by "...limit the quest to understanding the exercise and not the reality?"
SteveK,
I haven't watched the video (and I don't plan to), but moral neutrality and moral relativity are entirely different.
OS:
They are different, I agree. The point is nobody is morally neutral. Duplicitous, yes, neutral no. Relativists are not morally neutral - at least I've never met one. Sociopaths are morally neutral.
HI OS,
,blockquote>What do you mean by "...limit the quest to understanding the exercise and not the reality?"
I mean the motivation behind this:
1)
Even if you believe that there is an objective morality pre-determined by God, how does that matter in your interactions with others? What I mean is, even if you are right about that, DL is right about how moral interactions play out, or are negotiated, between people.
2) Your believing that there is an objective morality doesn't matter if others don't believe it too--and that makes morality relative in practice, even if not in theory.
ordinary seeker | 11.28.07 - 10:11 am | #
[numbered by Charlie]
1) If we are understanding-seekers then part of the understanding would be whether or not morality is objective and whetehr or not it is a reflection or mandate of God's being and will.
2) The believing that it is objective matters if we want to understand whether or not it is objective.
If we don't need to know this answer it is either because we choose not to understand everything, or already know that there is no answer (which is a truth claim).
OS,
Your point about moral neutrality is akin to your claim to ontological neutrality, in that they are both false. You live out your belief that you know the truth even as you claim there is no truth.
Charlie,
Re: your 11:36am post: The point I am making is that the exercise and the reality are the same.
Re: your 11:38am post: I live out the believe that I know *my* truth.
OS:
You are confused in your thinking—and directly contradict yourself:
Understanding doesn’t require truth.Really? Didn’t you just make a claim that you consider absolutely “true”? Surely you understood what you just asserted and why you asserted it… and yet you claim such understanding has no truth content. That’s really incoherent. Rather than trying to understand what others hold to be true, perhaps you should start with understanding what you yourself are trying to say.
Oh, but you did try to clarify this, didn’t you? I live out the belie[f] that I know *my* truth. “Your” truth?!? Then why should anyone be persuaded if it’s merely your “truth”? What’s the point? Why are you commenting here—to here “your” truth? The only consolation you can offer yourself is there are others—they walk among us—that share such incoherence (strength—and “truth”—in numbers, I guess?!?) For example, physicists, like DL, can be the worst at thinking critically in philosophical terms—here are just two examples (here are more, and I have tons more in my notes):
(1) Mano Singham, a physicist at Case Western Reserve University, denied that science is “goal-directed and thus progressing toward the ‘truth’… [T]o be valid, science does not have to be true.” [“Letters to the Editor,” Physics Today, June 2002, page 51.] That’s not silly—it’s stupid. Who in their right mind would fly an airplane designed by a person sharing Singham’s view? If science does not need to be true, why has Prof. Singham pursued a career in science? Is he asserting a scientific truth... and if so, why? What does he teach his students… or more appropriately, why do parents pay tuition for their children to be taught such drivel?
(2) And here’s a nice example of the genetic fallacy (see my 11.29.07 - 3:23 pm comment above) from physicist Wade Rowland: “All scientific knowledge is culturally conditioned. None of its laws or facts [is], strictly speaking, objective.” Science is “rooted in consensus” and “socially constructed,” “Scientists do not discover laws of nature, they invent them.” Indeed, “reason is a human invention,… a process that takes place according to rules of logic that we make up.” In addition to being fallacious, it’s echoes neo-Kantian & postmodern porridge—quite an example of mental gymnastics breaking its own neck. Better to stand silent before such foolishness: Let it hear only its own shrill voice.
Now here, OS, is something quite predictable (did you get that, DL?) and expected coming from you given your own understanding isn’t “true”: I haven’t watched the video (and I don’t plan to)…. Ah yes, we can’t let challenging assumptions get in the way of (not)understanding without truth, can we? (That was actually hard for me to formulate!) You speak, OS, in the true spirit of the bozo theologians who held a purely Aristotelian understanding of the cosmos and hence refused to look through Galileo’s telescope to see the moons of Jupiter… sigh. Are you sure you’re really seeking understanding? Sorry, not without challenging yourself and most definitely not without truth… you’re beginning to sound like Jacob the postmodernist—truth is relative… with DL as your tag-team partner who seeks power over others.
Edited By Siteowner
OS:
Can you imagine a person getting up in front of Congress and giving a 1-hour speech about how much they (personally) prefer vanilla ice cream so much that they are proposing a law that will outlaw the consumption of any other flavor? Ridiculous isn't it?
Yet this is what DL wants us to believe. He wants us to believe there is no meaningful difference between moral preferences and any other preferences.
SteveK,
I don't quite agree with DL; I said before that I think morals are ideas about which we feel so strongly that we are willing to sacrifice for them.
Anyway, attempts to legislate morals should, I think, come after consensus, not before.
Holo,
Is it possible for you to attempt to make a point without any personal criticism?
I said before that I think morals are ideas about which we feel so strongly that we are willing to sacrifice for them.
Now you know why God did what he did and why Christians can identify with the theology.
OS:
Your ideas are YOUR own--not mine. YOU are responsible for them. If I were to claim your thinking is confused and incoherent, and not explain why, that would be little more than hot electrons coming from me. But, I criticize you for the words/ideas you expound here: I point to your words and either use them against you to bring out the contradiction or I show how they fail. If that is what you feel is "personal critcism" in order to deflect that criticism, then I think you need to rethink some things. But then I'd ask are you getting as defensive as DL and declaring off-limits criticisms of your personal thinking? Be honest with us: is this perhaps the first time you are actually sensing something definitely in error about what you're saying?
OS:
Anyway, attempts to legislate morals should, I think, come after consensus, not before.
Ironically, the first few people to think like this are violating their own rule. It's a wonder anything gets changed at all. You should thank God there are hypocrites out there that believe this but don't live it out - or should you be thankful?? Hmm....
By the way, OS, if I follow your lead, then please stop imposing YOUR morality on me. I can't believe you're making a moral claim against me (leaving aside that, in fact, I was criticizing your ideas and your thinking) when you've emptied morality of truth content.
Please, I'm trying to take YOU seriously... but you seem to be saying everything you can to make it impossible to do so.
OS, attempts to legislate morals should come after consensus? I'd like to see you paint a thought picture of how that would have affected the history of the U.S. Civil Rights movement. The 1964 Voting Rights Act was clearly and undeniably wrong by that principle. So was Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation. (So was Roe v. Wade; but then, I think that one was also immoral on other principles.)
I edited out some of Holopupenko's personal attacks in his 12:02 comment. It didn't add a thing to the argument, Holo. Please don't let that creep back in again!
Hi OS,
Charlie,
Re: your 11:36am post: The point I am making is that the exercise and the reality are the same.
I know. A claim about the absolute truth. There is nothing more to morality to understand because there is nothing more to morality. Done and done.
Re: your 11:38am post: I live out the believe that I know *my* truth.
ordinary seeker | 11.30.07 - 11:55 am | #
Funny how *your* truth is *absolute* truth.
OS,
You made the same claim in your original efforts on this thread. One can enjoy the good things of God without believing in God - so why worry about the belief. In fact then, it doesn't matter whether or not there is a God.
Do we get the same result if we go through the procedure?
You need not worry about acquiring any further understanding because:
1) You don't really care to understand everything or,
2) You already know there is no God.
Is it possible for you to attempt to make a point without any personal criticism?
Not that you are doing anything wrong, or that it would be good to follow OS' request. And OS wouldn't try to impose her morality on you, or anything.
It is, after all, just a preference.
Actually, Holo, it was your criticism of DL that I found annoying. Not only is it unnecessary, but it gets in the way of following your argument.
Maybe this will help: Imagine "truth" as being something like those pictures that you can see different things in if you look at them in different ways--like the picture that can be two people facing each other, or a vase. "Truth" is that sort of thing, writ large (many things can be "seen" in it.) It is not definitively a picture of any one thing--it is not the faces, it is not the vase, it is not both the faces and the vase (because both can't be seen at the same time.) If you "see" it from one point of view, you see it one way, but if you "see" it from another point of view, you see it another way. If someone tells you the other "picture" is there, you can often make yourself see it, but it isn't what you would see on your own.
OS:
I agree with you, OS, that you can see many different things in a picture. The question we are addressing is what do you see when you look at it the same way?
Forget about the details of who is seeing things correctly and who isn't. You don't need the details in order to arrive at a conclusion. Just look at the logic!
If Joe and Sue look at a situation differently then I fully expect there to be differences of opinion. But that doesn't negate the fact that one of three things is true:
a) Joe is wrong
b) Sue is wrong
c) Both are wrong
Logic dictates this fact because there is only one reality to experience - even if Joe and Sue are not around to experience it.
If we manage to get Joe and Sue to look at a situation in the same way (and they still disagree) then the same logical conclusions are true. Joe or Sue or both are wrong. If they agree then they are either both wrong or both right.
You can't avoid it. To avoid this is to jettison the basic principles of logic. Again, you don't need the details of the argument in order to arrive at a conclusion. Just look at the logic!
I get you, OS.
It's like a defect in vision, or an inability to see the whole picture.
Some can see the vase and the faces. Just as some see that while there are practical limitations to our apprehension of morality, and that there are times where morals are played out relativistically, there is also the objective nature of the morality in the first place.
Likewise with seeing only the naturalistic side of life and missing out on God.
Some can only see the vase. Others also see the face.
OS:
Actually, I misspoke above. You can avoid the logical conclusions above by admitting:
a) the rules of logic are flexible and changeable; or
b) there are multiple realities - one for you and one for me.
I don't like the idea of either one.
SteveK, another possibility is that both Joe and Sue are right.
SteveK,
I meant, Joe and Sue disagree, and both Joe and Sue are right. Joe sees the faces. Sue sees the vase. They disagree. Both are right.
I meant, Joe and Sue disagree, and both Joe and Sue are right. Joe sees the faces. Sue sees the vase. They disagree. Both are right.
There is no logical contradiction if they are gazing upon two different things, or in two different ways. That is why I said in the same way.
No two people look at things in the same way.
No two people look at things in the same way.
Forget about this and instead ask if there one reality? If yes, then conflicting perceptions of reality, when adjusted for their imperfections, can't stand up to scrutiny. One or both must be wrong.
Do you realize what you are advocating? Holo touched on it when he quoted physicist Wade Rowland:
“All scientific knowledge is culturally conditioned. None of its laws or facts [is], strictly speaking, objective.” Science is “rooted in consensus” and “socially constructed,” “Scientists do not discover laws of nature, they invent them.” Indeed, “reason is a human invention,… a process that takes place according to rules of logic that we make up.”
This appears to be the world you live in and it's scary. If it is, just say so and I will stop conversing with you because it is pointless to continue.
Oops..the first line is OS, the rest is me.
"No two people look at things in the same way."
Hi ordinary seeker,
If this is true, then why are you trying to convince SteveK of it - to look at this thing the same way as you?
I said earlier I was going to write a blog post today on this topic. I haven't forgotten; I just ran into unexpected business at work today, and it looks like I'll get it posted tomorrow morning.
Aaron Snell,
I am not trying to convince SteveK to look at it the same way that I do, I an asking him to try and understand how I look at it.
SteveK,
I'm not sure whether there is one reality. There's no way to know, since we are all, every one of us, trapped in our own reality.
Hi Aaron,
I don't mind OS asking me to shift my perspective and look at it like OS does. I mind him concluding that we are both correct if I still see things differently.
Speaking of Aaron and Koukl - how's the book?
OS:
I'm not sure whether there is one reality. There's no way to know, since we are all, every one of us, trapped in our own reality.
Sounds like a paraphrase of what C.S. Lewis said in Mere Christianity. Holo quoted a portion of it above.
What if there is someone outside our reality with the ability to see things clearly? What if that someone told us through creation and/or revelation some things we could never know on our own?
This is what makes Christianity so powerful. It takes our understanding of reality and makes sense out of it.
This is ironic:
Maybe this will help: Imagine "truth" as being something like those pictures that you can see different things in if you look at them in different ways--like the picture that can be two people facing each other, or a vase. "Truth" is that sort of thing, writ large (many things can be "seen" in it.) It is not definitively a picture of any one thing--it is not the faces, it is not the vase, it is not both the faces and the vase (because both can't be seen at the same time.)
os intends us to take this as the truth, in fact os wants us to see it "definitively" that way!
Sure, there are situations in which multiple perspectives exist. Lots of them. But do they define all of reality? If two people look at that picture and see different things, is it also true that they don't see different things?
If it is true that we can look at morality and see it two different ways, is it also simultaneously true (at the same time and in the same relation) that we can look at morality and not see it two different ways?
The picture thing is an analogy. Don't try to run the analogy farther than it has legs to carry it.
OS:
Sorry about adding in the DL stuff--I'll try to keep his errors focused on him. The rest, however, remains.
You are, in fact, contradicting yourself--and Aaron was spot on: YOU made the a claim that YOU believe to be ABSOLUTELY TRUE: "No two people look at things in the same way." That's NOT necessarily true--but getting into that would complicate the immediate point.
Immediately relevant and which pretty much everyone wants to understand is why you make the claim just quoted as an ostensibly absolute truth, and then deny it? Your claim is self-stultifying, in fact, because it appeals to a truth you believe applies to everyone. Yet, above you claim "truth is not necessary for understanding."
You're not being productive of anything--truth, knowledge, understanding, reason, preference, morality, etc.--nothing... with that approach. I'm sensing you're trying to stop the conversation so that you can close in upon your personal vision of things. I agree with SteveK and Charlie--that's scary. I don't know if you were observing the so-called discussions with Jacob the postmodernist, but your approach mirrors his: chaos. Now, I bring DL's position in NOT to complicate the issue but to show what the inevitable outcome is: IF there is no objective truth, no objective morality, and everything is reduced to preference, then violence is inescapable--which is precisely what is standing behind DL's approach to morality, namely, power over others.
And, I disagree with you that you are "seeking" knowledge IF you maintain your current vision of truth. I'm not sure what you're feeling. I'm not sure what's happened earlier to you that might make you fear the infinite adventure that embraces and envelops Tom, SteveK, Charlie, I and many others. While I don't take it as an affront, the condescending implication is nonetheless that we don't SEEK knowledge just because we are persons of faith. We do--but knowledge can ONLY be based on truth. Christ made an absolute claim that made Him infinitely vulnerable: He claimed not that He "knew" or "had" the way, the truth, and the life. He claimed uniquivocally I AM (echoing all the way back to the O.T. YHWH) the Way, the Truth, and the Life. So, why don't you take Him for His word and (pardon the crude metaphor) kick the tires, check under the hood, take a spin? But do so without prior expectations or impositions about what YOU want reality to be for YOU. If you a priori eliminate any possibilty for truth, it means you turn your back on "seeking" before you even start. If you turn away from the light, you can't make demands to "see the light" (see His face)--and, worse, you run into your own shadow, which means you can't even see your own face.
I don't know what else to say... perhaps I've already said too much.
SteveK,
Why does it bother you that we could both be correct?
OS:
Why does it bother you that we could both be correct?
When viewed from the same perspective and in the same way (one reality). That part is important because there is nothing wrong with it otherwise. To answer your question, it results in a genuine logical contradiction or the existence of multiple realities.
OS:
I'll jump in for SteveK:
Because you can't be both correct regarding contradictory (not to be confused with contrary) propositions:
(1) You cannot both walk through a doorway and not walk through a doorway at the same time and in the same manner... unless you eliminate truth.
(2) You cannot claim murder of innocents is both "good" and "evil"... unless you (per Dawkins) eliminate both good and evil as objective concepts.
(3) You cannot claim bravery is both a virtue and a vice because (a) you have no empirical evidence to support you, or (b) you simply a priori eviscerate these concepts to serve your personal purposes.
(4) AND, you cannot claim "truth is relative" because it appeals to the truth it denies... unless you eliminate not only logic, but the very foundations that make logic possible: the First Principles... which would ONLY be productive of chaos.
Now, I'll throw in a bit of knowledge that comes from faith: who do you think is interested in chaos and in "divide and conquer" and in discord and in stopping all seeking by having us turn inward upon ourselves?
Holo,
I don't believe it's absolutely true that there's no absolute truth. I don't know whether there may in fact be an absolute truth. I don't care if there is; it seems irrelevant to me and to how we actually live our lives here on earth. Everything that informs my beliefs--my intelligence and my experience in the context of my time and place (ie, culture)--tells me that truth and morality are relative (although I think we come close to universal agreement on some issues). However, because of the unknown element and because I refuse to completely negate anyone else's truth, I allow the possibility that there is also absolute truth. I know that's complicated, non-linear and illogical, but I believe creative thinking is not necessarily linear or logical.
I never said I am seeking knowledge, I said I am seeking understanding, and understanding comes in many ways through many different avenues.
You do know the new science of chaos demonstrates that there are patterns in what appears chaotic?
I don't follow your reasoning that non-absolute morality leads to violence.
I've made no assumptions about whether any of you are seeking knowledge.
How do you know whether I've "looked under the hood, kicked the tires, given it a spin."
I don't know whether there may in fact be an absolute truth. I don't care if there is; it seems irrelevant to me and to how we actually live our lives here on earth.
You don't care??? OK, I'm done conversing with you now, OS. I give my time to people who actually care.
About that Greg Koukl video--if you're like me you would rather listen while driving than watch while sitting still. You can download the audio here.
Hi Charlie,
Do you mean Relativism? Quite good, actually. Were you listening that Sunday?
I am not trying to convince SteveK to look at it the same way that I do, I an asking him to try and understand how I look at it.
Help me out here, OS. How exactly is asking SteveK to try and understand how you look at it not trying to convince him to look at it the same way you do? For him to "understand how you look at it" means he must, at least temporarily, adopt your view.
I don't believe it's absolutely true that there's no absolute truth.
Is that absolutely true, or isn't it?
However, because of the unknown element and because I refuse to completely negate anyone else's truth, I allow the possibility that there is also absolute truth.
You know that picture to which you referred earlier, the one with the vase and faces? It doesn't exist. At all. That's my truth.
How does that sit with you?
I know that's complicated, non-linear and illogical, but I believe creative thinking is not necessarily linear or logical.
If "complicated, non-linear and illogical" is your definition of creative thinking, please don't think creatively when you're behind the wheel of a moving vehicle
Hi Aaron,
I listen to the podcasts during the week, but not live on Sunday.
===
Hi OS,
Why does it bother you that we could both be correct?
You can't both be correct if your views are contradictory. There is absolute morality v. there is not. There is no way these are both correct.
I don't know whether there may in fact be an absolute truth. I don't care if there is; it seems irrelevant to me and to how we actually live our lives here on earth.You don't care, and yet you claim to be seeking to understand everything. This doesn't work.
However, because of the unknown element and because I refuse to completely negate anyone else's truth, I allow the possibility that there is also absolute truth.We covered your so-called belief that you accept everyone's view as potentially valid. We discovered that you don't when you said of Hell, "oh well, if I'm damned I'm damned".
This is what becomes of atheism when you try to defend it. We get people who claim to verify and test everything such that they can't even believe they are not brains in vats - and yet credulously accept whatever fits their world views.
We get people saying that theories are predictive if they are predicted to be true, that the only knowledge you can justify is that which is demonstrated through induction, which is unjustifiable itself. And who say that preferring cold foggy days is an example of a moral position.
And now we have you denying that there is a reality, that we can see the same universe and communicate about it (even though you keep trying to show us yours) and saying "I seek to understand everything, except the things about which I neither know nor care."
Very Dawkinsian there.
By the way, we've seen your appeal to absolute truths (truths about the absolute) when you say that relative morality is all there is and that you can enjoy God's creation and beneficence even if there is no God.
We also have this claim about an absolute truth:
You know things are good because you experience them as good. No God needed for that.
Again, you can't know that you can experience goodness without God unless, alas, you know that there is no God.
And,
Nothing is good or bad until one makes it so.
And,
That's just your opinion, Tom. You have *made* God, Christianity, and absolute morality good.
OS:
You stated:
I don't believe it's absolutely true that there's no absolute truth. I don't know whether there may in fact be an absolute truth. I don't care if there is; it seems irrelevant to me and to how we actually live our lives here on earth.Indeed, as with SteveK, you've lost me as well. Farewell, and God's speed to you.
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