Do you think having a belief and obeying the rules make you less 'human' and ...

Turtwig

Jakkass wrote: »

You're no longer discussing the Judeo-Christian God if we go on this tangent.

So you're only argument that morality is derived from God is because the bible says so?

I've already explained my views concerning how evolution works in this.

Yeah, and these were a strawman. Please just read up on the topic. Please...

philologos

Malty_T wrote: »

So you're only argument that morality is derived from God is because the bible says so?

Your solution, that God must have an external moral standard is fallacious, because it assumes an infinite regress of moral sources. I'd find that much more unlikely. The ball's in your court though on that one.

Malty_T wrote: »

Yeah, and these were a strawman. Please just read up on the topic. Please...

How?

I said that evolution provides us the biological ability to hold moral systems. It does not itself provide us an external measure of what is right and wrong though. Claiming that evolution itself is a source of morality is just absurd.

You're still strung up about me asking doctoremma about eugenics and Social Darwinism. That was only to clarify more about what she was saying, not to put forward an argument.

Sam Vimes

Jakkass wrote: »

You're still strung up about me asking doctoremma about eugenics and Social Darwinism. That was only to clarify more about what she was saying, not to put forward an argument.

Are you clear now that eugenics and social Darwinism have nothing to do with what she was saying? And if so, why is that?

doctoremma

Jakkass wrote: »

his is what I meant when I said to doctoremma that humans have a great way of justifying immoral behaviour.

Justifying "immoral" behaviour is not the same as calling the resultant behaviour "moral". Acknowledging that there was a reason for doing something "bad" does not make it "good".

Turtwig

Jakkass wrote: »

Your solution, that God must have an external moral standard is fallacious, because it assumes an infinite regress of moral sources.

No I based it on the question that if God was the source of morals why did He endow them to animals and human in such a mundane messy relative way?

If God is the source, one would have wonder why he chose such a crazy path to implant morals into humans and other animals. The only valid argument that I can presently see is that morals are independent of God and that he has no control over how they evolve between societies, only that he can help guide people because he has a higher sense of morals than anyone else that lives on Earth.

Turtwig

Jakkass wrote: »

I said that evolution provides us the biological ability to hold moral systems. It does not itself provide us an external measure of what is right and wrong though. Claiming that evolution itself is a source of morality is just absurd

You haven't really given an explanation as to why it is absurd. You just keep repeating this line.

philologos

I've made clear why it is.

There is a difference between evolution as a biological phenomenon, and Moral Zeitgeist as an ethical phenomenon.

Biology doesn't determine what is moral behaviour from what isn't. Only ethical codes can do irrespective of whether they are contrived by humans, or revealed by God.

Biology does however, tell us about how our brains are capable of moral behaviour. There's a difference, and it's a fallacy to say that there isn't.

Sam Vimes

Malty_T wrote: »

You haven't really given an explanation as to why it is absurd. You just keep repeating this line.

In fairness he has explained why he thinks it's absurd. It's because he thinks that when people say that evolution explains the origins of morality they mean social Darwinism and Eugenics. They of course don't mean that but if I thought that I'd consider it absurd too

Sam Vimes

Jakkass wrote: »

I've made clear why it is.

There is a difference between evolution as a biological phenomenon, and Moral Zeitgeist as an ethical phenomenon.

Biology doesn't determine what is moral behaviour from what isn't. Only ethical codes can do irrespective of whether they are contrived by humans, or revealed by God.

Biology does however, tell us about how our brains are capable of moral behaviour. There's a difference, and it's a fallacy to say that there isn't.

Do you think that a god must be invoked to explain our subconscious compulsion to seek out food?

And if not, why must a god be invoked to explain our subconscious compulsion to look out for the interests of our friends and family?

Both are subconscious compulsions and both increase an organism's ability to survive so why can the first be chosen by natural selection but not the second?

Are you saying that it is impossible for the compulsion to look out for our friends and family to evolve? Because that's a scientific claim.

And if it's impossible for such a compulsion to evolve, how do you explain the fact that penguins will put themselves at risk to prevent a grieving mother from stealing the young of another? Did god implant into them the knowledge that stealing another's young is wrong?

doctoremma

Jakkass wrote: »

Your solution, that God must have an external moral standard is fallacious, because it assumes an infinite regress of moral sources. I'd find that much more unlikely. The ball's in your court though on that one.

More unlikely than a divinely-inspired moral code when there is a perfectly sensible biological answer?

Jakkass wrote: »

I said that evolution provides us the biological ability to hold moral systems. It does not itself provide us an external measure of what is right and wrong though. Claiming that evolution itself is a source of morality is just absurd.

I'm not sure you have understood exactly what I/we am/are saying - apologies if we are both missing each other.

I can't conceive of a mechanism whereby the capacity to engage in "moral" behaviour developed if the group of animals wasn't actually engaging in "moral" behaviour. Natural selection hasn't been acting to "set the stage" ready for us to invent a moral code. Natural selection would ensure that only one system survives particularly well - do unto others, don't kill everyone etc. This is now what we call a moral code but only because we've got massive brains and too much time on our hands

Natural selection didn't favour groups of animals who were exercising good "moral" choices. It favoured groups of animals who were behaving in a way that we now recognise as appropriate for species survival e.g. not killing everyone else. There was no need for it to be a conscious effort based on a common perception of what is "right" and what is "wrong". Quite simply, the group of animals which acted in a manner which we now label as "morally correct" was the one which survived to the detriment of the other groups.

The label "moral" is one which we are applying retrospectively.

Soul Winner

Sam Vimes wrote: »

Of course it's ridiculous but it's not ridiculous because there are aliens involved, it's ridiculous to suggest that anyone would consider massacring someone's family to be moral.

But that is my point. From your perspective it is ridiculous to suggest that anyone would consider massacring someone's family to be moral. But to a species that has evolved a moral code which includes massacring other peoples families it's not. Suppose that everytime they massacred a family, dormant eggs were free to hatch from the corpses of the dead bodies which enabled a new generation of aliens to hatch using the corpses as food? Would the fact that because the massacring of the family promoted more life be a sufficient reason to adjudge the act of massacring OK or moral? If your answer is no, then why? If your answer is yes then you have shown that moral values are subjective not objective.

Sam Vimes wrote: »

I don't want myself and my family to be killed for the exactly the same reason that you don't want yourself and your family killed. We both want to live and we both love our families. We both have the same values in that case because we are both human beings and in many many cases, if something is good for you it's also good for me. It is mutually beneficial if neither of us kills the other person's family.

I agree with that, but to an alien race out there who had a different moral value system that held that massacring families was moral they would probably see things differently.

Sam Vimes wrote: »

I can tell you with absolutely 100% certainty that we will never meet a race of aliens that considers massacring people moral in the same way that helping the poor is moral and my reasoning has nothing to do with our inability to get to their planet; I know that we will never meet such a race because if such a race ever comes to exist it will last only weeks before driving itself to extinction.

Yeah but what if the aliens, after so much massacring generated so many other generations of other aliens that it became incumbent on them to massacre more families in order to keep the tally of life and death on a balanced scale? Let's say that they could control the birth rate by sterilizing certain aliens so that their dormant eggs could not hatch and produce more aliens after death? Can you really be 100% certain that on one single planet in the vastness of our universe, an alien race like this could not have evolved?

They say: "All is fair in love and war." But maybe all is fair when it comes to the survival of a species. If that is true for us and a time comes when this kind of culling might be necessary in the process of our evolution in order to keep our species going, would you still feel the same way about people massacring other people's families? Or even humanly killing other people's families as long as our species survived? If yes then objective morals do exist and no matter what it is always going to be wrong to kill others so that others may live. Or if your answer is No, then your objection to people massacring other people's families now is just a subjective opinion which has no real meaning or value in the greater scheme of things. Tis one or the other.

Sam Vimes wrote: »

If god had indeed imparted objective moral values on us they would all the the same down the the very last detail but that is obviously not the case. Certain moral "opinions" are common across the whole species (the sane members anyway) because certain things are fundamental to our functioning as social animals, if we did not all share these values we would have to go and live alone in caves and kick our children out as soon as they were big enough to be a threat to us. Our entire civilisation would collapse. The fact that human beings share many common goals is not evidence of a deity in any way.

You sort of answered my question above just there. So the only real value that is worth holding onto is that our species survives no matter what. My question to that is: WHY???

The whole point of my post was to show that objective moral values do indeed exist, but in a universe without God only subjective moral values exist, because in a universe without God there would be nothing absolute onto which we could anchor our moral compasses for direction and purpose, which would render everybody's moral value system as valid as the next person's. I mean, who is going to stand up and call something immoral because they say it is? And if they say that: 'its not because they say it is, it just is.' Then what is the real reason that makes it immoral? Who is it that decides the moral-ness and immoral-ness of something in a universe without God?

Sam Vimes

Soul Winner wrote: »

But that is my point. From your perspective it is ridiculous to suggest that anyone would consider massacring someone's family to be moral. But to a species that has evolved a moral code which includes massacring other peoples families it's not. Suppose that everytime they massacred a family, dormant eggs were free to hatch from the corpses of the dead bodies which enabled a new generation of aliens to hatch using the corpses as food? Would the fact that because the massacring of the family promoted more life be a sufficient reason to adjudge the act of massacring OK or moral? If your answer is no, then why? If your answer is yes then you have shown that moral values are subjective not objective.

We're getting into a very ridiculous area now but if that was the only way for a particular species to survive then that would be considered perfectly normal and moral. We could land on their planet and tell them that its wrong but their perfectly valid response will be that their species would cease to exist if this were not done. I can only assume that if there were such a species then massacring wouldn't even be necessary; people (aliens) would willingly submit to it because the alternative is the extinction of the species. Their priorities would be different to ours.

When you think of it it's not all that different to sending off a subset of our people to die in a war for the greater good. Even countries that don't have conscription still have many many people willing to join the army and lay down their lives.

Soul Winner wrote: »

They say: "All is fair in love and war." But maybe all is fair when it comes to the survival of a species. If that is true for us and a time comes when this kind of culling might be necessary in the process of our evolution in order to keep our species going, would you still feel the same way about people massacring other people's families?

Perfectly moral behaviour is a luxury we are allowed because of the comfort in which we live. Even the most vehement christian would do whatever it takes to protect his loved ones in a time of crisis. But that doesn't make such actions moral, it means that they are justified given the circumstances.

Soul Winner wrote: »

Or even humanly killing other people's families as long as our species survived? If yes then objective morals do exist and no matter what it is always going to be wrong to kill others so that others may live. Or if your answer is No, then your objection to people massacring other people's families now is just a subjective opinion which has no real meaning or value in the greater scheme of things. Tis one or the other.

You seem to think I have a problem with the idea that everyone on the planet (sane people anyway) would share a view that a particular thing is wrong. I have no problem whatsoever with that idea because we are all members of the same species and we all share common goals. I simply see no connection between that and whether a Jewish guy walked on water 2000 years ago

Soul Winner wrote: »

You sort of answered my question above just there. So the only real value that is worth holding onto is that our species survives no matter what. My question to that is: WHY???

It's not so much that our species survives but that as many people as possible are as happy as possible as much as possible. My question is: what more is required?

Soul Winner wrote: »

The whole point of my post was to show that objective moral values do indeed exist, but in a universe without God only subjective moral values exist, because in a universe without God there would be nothing absolute onto which we could anchor our moral compasses for direction and purpose, which would render everybody's moral value system as valid as the next person's.

Do you think that all sane humans have a desire to live?

If so, do you think that the existence of a god is a prerequisite for a desire to live?

And if not, do you think that it is totally outlandish to think that anyone who has a desire to live will reach a conclusion that killing is wrong?

Sam Vimes

btw Jakkass, since you're thanking posts could you answer my questions please?

chozometroid

astroguy wrote: »

I don't think the beauty should be removed at all. Given that we will all die soon, I think we should marvel at the fact that we are here at all and have evolved the consciousness to ask these questions. What I meant was that religious faith teaches people to accept what they have, with the promise that there will be a better place. My point is that, when you die that will be the end, so enjoy life as much as possible.
I would say that the fact that we are only here because of self-replicating entitites such as DNA is all the more reason to hold this viewpoint.

I really don't see the point of enjoying life when you just happen to exist for a time. Who or what is experiencing the enjoyment anyways? It only matters from the point of view of the illusory "self" created by neurons which will vanish momentarily as if it had never been.

What if on a different planet, a humanoid species similar to us in intelligence, had a lifespan of only 5 minutes. They are born, eat surrounding vegetation, mate with partner(quickly), reflect on their life, and then die an extruciatingly horrible and painful death as the norm. Should this species of humanoids have a desire to live, or to enjoy life "as much as possible?"
Does lifespan affect the value or beauty of an intelligent life? If so, why?

Or, if there are no intelligent beings capable of forming an opinion over some evolved utopia of plant and animal life, is it still remarkable in any way?

Sam Vimes

chozometroid wrote: »

I really don't see the point of enjoying life when you just happen to exist for a time. Who or what is experiencing the enjoyment anyways? It only matters from the point of view of the illusory "self" created by neurons which will vanish momentarily as if it had never been.

So what if it will vanish momentarily? Does that make a movie any less enjoyable?

It is a miracle of nature that I am here. Carl Sagan said it much better than I could: ""I find it elevating and exhilarating to discover that we live in a universe which permits the evolution of molecular machines as intricate and subtle as we". I consider myself incredibly lucky to be given a chance to experience this universe and I am going to experience as much of it as I possibly can while I can. Then I will go on in the memories of my loved ones.

On the other hand, if I believed that this life was followed by a second eternal life where there was no suffering and nothing but joy, then I wouldn't really see the point of enjoying this life, especially since there is a very real threat that I could do something in my life to jeopardise my place in that paradise and earn myself eternal torture. In comparison to that, this life full of pain and cruelty and suffering and evil seems positively diabolical and I'd want to get it over as quickly as possible so I could start living my real life.

chozometroid

Sam Vimes wrote: »

So what if it will vanish momentarily? Does that make a movie any less enjoyable?

From who's perspective?

I consider myself incredibly lucky to be given a chance to experience this universe and I am going to experience as much of it as I possibly can while I can. Then I will go on in the memories of my loved ones.

I agree with the part in blue. The life we have is a great gift indeed, and it shouldn't be wasted.
I disagree with the part in red. You will not "go on" in anyone's memories. What does that even mean?

On the other hand, if I believed that this life was followed by a second eternal life where there was no suffering and nothing but joy, then I wouldn't really see the point of enjoying this life, especially since there is a very real threat that I could do something in my life to jeopardise my place in that paradise and earn myself eternal torture. In comparison to that, this life full of pain and cruelty and suffering and evil seems positively diabolical and I'd want to get it over as quickly as possible so I could start living my real life.

I see this life as a probationary period where we are given the chance to develop a relationship with our Creator, and demonstrate our love for our fellow brothers and sisters. Then we have the opportunity to be united with our Father in heaven along with the rest of His children.
There is no reason not to enjoy this life, even with an eternal afterlife awaiting. Enjoying this life gives us an appreciation for God's creation. It is part of our development process, and helping others to enjoy their lives is a way we can reflect the nature of Christ and give them a demonstration of God's love.
Wanting this life to end prematurely is an insult to the gift of life God gave us. We are abandoning our lost brothers and sisters and "dropping out" of God's school of life.

Sam Vimes

chozometroid wrote: »

From who's perspective?

How do you mean? From the perspective of the person watching the movie

chozometroid wrote: »

I agree with the part in blue. The life we have is a great gift indeed, and it shouldn't be wasted.

So why does it matter how you came to be given this gift?

chozometroid wrote: »

I disagree with the part in red. You will not "go on" in anyone's memories. What does that even mean?

That you'll be remembered, the only way any human being can be sure we'll go on

chozometroid wrote: »

I see this life as a probationary period where we are given the chance to develop a relationship with our Creator, and demonstrate our love for our fellow brothers and sisters.

Right, so why bother with anything that doesn't serve those goals? I see this life as the only life I'm ever going to get and therefore vitally important to me but you see it as a form of probation, a test to be taken to try to qualify for you're real life. As far as I'm concerned that makes this life all but worthless and the longer you live the more you risk losing your place in the paradise hereafter

chozometroid wrote: »

There is no reason not to enjoy this life, even with an eternal afterlife awaiting.

But there is a reason not to enjoy this life if there is no afterlife awaiting?

chozometroid wrote: »

Wanting this life to end prematurely is an insult to the gift of life God gave us. We are abandoning our lost brothers and sisters and "dropping out" of God's school of life.

So your reason for not killing yourself today is so that you don't insult someone else?

PDN

Sam Vimes wrote: »

So your reason for not killing yourself today is so that you don't insult someone else?

I am going to be charitable and assume that your error was in not taking time to read Chozometroid's post properly, rather than anything deliberate.

He said killing oneself is an insult to the gift of life God gave us, not to other people. He then went on to say that this would be abandoning those who are lost.

He did not say that this was his only reason for not killing himself.

If people respond to what is actually posted then these threads could well generate more light and less heat.

Fanny Cradock

Ravi Zacharias tells of an encounter he once had on a plane. On a flight, I presume, to or from somewhere in S.E. Asia he struck up a conversation with the woman sitting next to him. After the usual exchange of small talk and pleasantries they began to reveal a little more about themselves. Long story short: it transpired that this woman – who coincidentally was also a Christian – had been working in Vietnam with a child protection organisation or some such. She told how one night on a particular street where some men would go to consume a cocktail of spirits and snake-blood – a mixture that utterly unhinged their minds and opened them to all manner of depravity – she had to wrestle out of the hands of a man a child (or was it a toddler?) whom he was sexually ravaging.

While an individual is very unlikely to plunge to such depths of depravity, as a Christian I think we are on a slippery slope if we deny that there is an overarching morality that says some things are always wrong irrespective of societal mores or whatever one believes about the moral evolution of our species. From yesterday, through to today and for every day after there are some deeds that are always wrong.

J. Budziszewski has more to say on all this in a talk he gave entitled Natural Law, Moral Truth, and Conscience. This autobiographical article about his turn form nihilism towards Christianity makes interesting reading.

(P.S. the audio site appears to be down at the mo, but it's well worth a listen.)

booksale

Havent been on this thread these days and found out the interesting debate here. Delighted to learn a lot here.

Yes, for belief, I did mean 'religious belief', for rules, I did mean 'rules of that religion'. More precisely, I mean, the Christianity belief and Christianity rules because this is a Christianity board.

Living a life within God's boundaries seem very safe, but there's the boundaries... and the boundaries are God's, not yours.

Making God's. rules yours, making your not a human, as GOD is not a human (yes, I know Jesus was once a human, but he is SUPER human you know what I mean.

Anyway thoughts and debates appreciated.

Soul Winner

booksale wrote: »

Havent been on this thread these days and found out the interesting debate here. Delighted to learn a lot here.

Yes, for belief, I did mean 'religious belief', for rules, I did mean 'rules of that religion'. More precisely, I mean, the Christianity belief and Christianity rules because this is a Christianity board.

Living a life within God's boundaries seem very safe, but there's the boundaries... and the boundaries are God's, not yours.

Making God's. rules yours, making your not a human, as GOD is not a human (yes, I know Jesus was once a human, but he is SUPER human you know what I mean.

Anyway thoughts and debates appreciated.

If God exists and you are in and doing His will, then how more human can you get?

Sam Vimes

Fanny Cradock wrote: »

While an individual is very unlikely to plunge to such depths of depravity, as a Christian I think we are on a slippery slope if we deny that there is an overarching morality that says some things are always wrong irrespective of societal mores or whatever one believes about the moral evolution of our species. From yesterday, through to today and for every day after there are some deeds that are always wrong.

I would tend to agree but I see no connection between that and believing that a Jewish guy raised from the dead 2000 years ago. What's always wrong is harming another person for no overriding good reason and within that there are many levels of wrong based on the severity of the harm done

Every sane person on the planet wants to avoid suffering for both himself and his loved ones so all you have to do is ask: would you like that done to you?

The golden rule of morality makes sense independently of the existence of god. You don't have to believe in a particular holy book to tell someone that child rape is wrong

Fanny Cradock

Sam Vimes wrote: »

I would tend to agree but I see no connection between that and believing that a Jewish guy raised from the dead 2000 years ago. What's always wrong is harming another person for no overriding good reason.

Every sane person on the planet wants to avoid suffering for both himself and his loved ones so all you have to do is ask: would you like that done to you?

The golden rule of morality makes sense independently of the existence of god. You don't have to believe in a particular holy book to tell someone that child rape is wrong

Well, I didn´t claim that one needs a holy book to arrive at such a decision. Just to be clear: I don´t believe that the irreligious are automatically immoral or amoral people. I could name many a non-believer who is a shining example of what it is to be a selfless and caring individual.

While the golden rule is useful, it certainly isn´t binding. People break it every day and there is nothing in say that X is always wrong no matter what. From an evolutionary perspecrive, presumably anyone attempting to protect their tribe, progeny or themselves is justified in taking whatever measures are necessary to do so no matter the effects.

I´m sorry to drop the G-bomb, but the Nazis found ways around this rule with disturbing ease - they dehumanised humans. The golden rule was never applicable to Jews, Gypsies, the disabled and whoever else they had a beef with. I think it´s quite plausable to suggest that the golden rule is more like a selective suggestion when you analyse it. (From the audio link)

"From a biological point of view he seems completely normal. He has hands and feet and a sort of brain. He has eyes and a mouth. But, in fact, he is a completely different creature, a horror! He only looks human, with a human face, but his spirit is lower than that of an animal. A terrible chaos runs rampant in this creature, an awful urge for destruction, primitive desires, unparalleled evil, a monster, and subhuman."

Again, unless you invoke a moral imperitave there is nothing to say that X is always wrong.

Sam Vimes

Fanny Cradock wrote: »

While the golden rule is useful, it certainly isn´t binding. People break it every day and there is nothing in say that X is always wrong no matter what. From an evolutionary perspecrive, presumably anyone attempting to protect their tribe, progeny or themselves is justified in taking whatever measures are necessary to do so no matter the effects.

It's binding on anyone who wants to live in a society. You can't just go around harming whoever you want, it doesn't make you popular

Fanny Cradock wrote: »

I´m sorry to drop the G-bomb, but the Nazis found ways around this rule with disturbing ease - they dehumanised humans. The golden rule was never applicable to Jews, Gypsies, the disabled and whoever else they had a beef with. I think it´s quite plausable to suggest that the golden rule is more like a selective suggestion when you analyse it. (From the audio link)

They didn't find a way around the rule, they ignored it. They wouldn't like someone else to class them as sub human for the purposes of doing them harm and yet they did it to others. As long as somebody is sane you can tell them that what they're doing is wrong on the basis that they wouldn't like it done to them. People can ignore this rule but they can also ignore god's rules. That's not the same as redefining right and wrong to suit, it's knowing something is wrong and doing it anyway

And yes people can convince themselves that something is acceptable when it's not but they can do the same with god's rules. All manner of wrong has been committed throughout history by invoking the authority of one god or another, in fact in many cases the only justification possible for the given action is that it's god's will because it otherwise makes no sense

The only moral imperative you need to tell someone they're doing wrong is that they're doing something to someone else that they would not like done to himself

I can acknowledge that objective morality given by a god would be a lot easier to deal with and a lot more cut and dried but there are three problems with it

1. I'd change a few bits of biblical morality before accepting it as the objective standard
2. When the morality is corrupted by someone with an agenda it's far more dangerous because someone's agenda is being treated as the infallible word of god
3. Arguing that objective morality given by a god would be superior unfortunately does not mean that such a thing exists or can be shown to exist. In the absence of proof of a specific god, subjective morality based on the golden rule etc is the best we've got

philologos

Sam Vimes wrote: »

It's binding on anyone who wants to live in a society. You can't just go around harming whoever you want, it doesn't make you popular

It makes you incredibly popular if it's the right group of people. Since when is popularity a decent basis for ethical behaviour?

PDN

Jakkass wrote: »

It makes you incredibly popular if it's the right group of people.

So sad, but so true.

Sam Vimes

Jakkass wrote: »

It makes you incredibly popular if it's the right group of people. Since when is popularity a decent basis for ethical behaviour?

I was being facetious. But what you're talking about is of course in group morality, something that seems to be ingrained in our psyches and which makes perfect sense if moral senses evolved but not so much if morality was imparted on us by god

You don't absolutely have to treat people you'll never meet again well, that is unless you live in a society that punishes people who harm others as we do. A society where people don't have to carry a gun at all times is better for everyone and in order to live in that society you have to forego any desire you might have to do harm to whoever you feel like. Yes people still harm others anyway but again, that's not an ignorance of right and wrong, it's knowing right from wrong but doing wrong anyway and that can and does happen no matter which kind of morality you're following. Both what you call subjective morality and supposedly god given objective morality only work if people are willing to follow the rules, whether those rules are the ones written in a holy book or the ones that are meant to make life as good as possible for as many people as possible as much as possible without any mention of divine authority

Fanny Cradock

Sam Vimes wrote: »

It's binding on anyone who wants to live in a society. You can't just go around harming whoever you want, it doesn't make you popular

Hold on a minute... isn't that exactly what the Nazis did in their society. They chose to egregiously harm a number of minorities and majority of their society encouraged it (tacitly or otherwise) and applauded them for it. Sadly these goons aren't the exception to the golden rule.

They didn't find a way around the rule, they ignored it. They wouldn't like someone else to class them as sub human for the purposes of doing them harm and yet they did it to others. As long as somebody is sane you can tell them that what they're doing is wrong on the basis that they wouldn't like it done to them. People can ignore this rule but they can also ignore god's rules. That's not the same as redefining right and wrong to suit, it's knowing something is wrong and doing it anyway

I'll have to disagree with you. Clearly even the Nazis had some grasp of morality. For example, I would wager that they never considered it right to kill a fellow Nazi, a good Nazi. Their slaughter was made possible because they sufficiently dissociated their targets from what people though of as ordinary decent human beings. Even with this attempt Budziszewski suggests that they could never fully succeed in reclassifying these people as a separate species to humanity and hence the many psychological traumas noted in prison guards.

Even if you are correct and they did simply ignore the rule. What can we then say of the worth of the golden rule? Again, it seems to me to be more of a suggestion - one that has and will be ignored depending on the gain to be made.

And yes people can convince themselves that something is acceptable when it's not but they can do the same with god's rules. All manner of wrong has been committed throughout history by invoking the authority of one god or another, in fact in many cases the only justification possible for the given action is that it's god's will because it otherwise makes no sense

They can indeed! None of us is immune to corruption or error. However, you miss the point of my argument in your response. That we may not always agree on what is moral or that we can sometimes convince ourself that what is immoral is actually moral (as the Nazis did) says nothing about the overarching moral law. All we have said is that morality is either relative (which is quite worrying) or that there exists an overarching morality but we aren't very good at sticking it.

The law (as opposed to a rule) stands over against us irrespective of our actions or our beliefs. Therefore, the Nazis will always be wrong even if they won the war and we were all convinced that it was a good thing to kill Jews.

The only moral imperative you need to tell someone they're doing wrong is that they're doing something to someone else that they would not like done to himself

Yes, I'm sure that sounds good from the comfort of your leafy Dublin suburb. Unfortunately life doesn't afford many the luxury of such sensible thinking. Obtaining your desire is often at the expense of other people. Read the Gulag Archipelago and tell me how the golden rule applies to prisoners who had too few resources for all of them to survive. Those who were able to best able to steal, intimidate, terrify and kill their fellow prisoners often had the advantage when it came to survival. You know a thing or two about evolution, no? I wonder how you square the golden rule with such a situation.

I can acknowledge that objective morality given by a god would be a lot easier to deal with and a lot more cut and dried but there are three problems with it

1. I'd change a few bits of biblical morality before accepting it as the objective standard
2. When the morality is corrupted by someone with an agenda it's far more dangerous because someone's agenda is being treated as the infallible word of god
3. Arguing that objective morality given by a god would be superior unfortunately does not mean that such a thing exists or can be shown to exist. In the absence of proof of a specific god, subjective morality based on the golden rule etc is the best we've got

1) Fair enough - challenge away. I'd be wary of anyone who claims that they categorically know best.
2) It's largely irrelevant. I'm repeating myself again, but that doesn't say much about an overarching morality existing or not, only that we can pervert it.
3) Well, then I think we are screwed. Under the correct circumstances (however fanciful or unlikely) it might be that any action is acceptable if the end (protecting your interests) justifies the means (screwing someone over).

Sam Vimes

Fanny Cradock wrote: »

Hold on a minute... isn't that exactly what the Nazis did in their society. They chose to egregiously harm a number of minorities and majority of their society encouraged it (tacitly or otherwise) and applauded them for it. Sadly these goons aren't the exception to the golden rule.

No that actually isn't what they did, they didn't harm whoever they wanted. As you say yourself:

Fanny Cradock wrote: »

I'll have to disagree with you. Clearly even the Nazis had some grasp of morality. For example, I would wager that they never considered it right to kill a fellow Nazi, a good Nazi. Their slaughter was made possible because they sufficiently dissociated their targets from what people though of as ordinary decent human beings. Even with this attempt Budziszewski suggests that they could never fully succeed in reclassifying these people as a separate species to humanity and hence the many psychological traumas noted in prison guards.

The nazis didn't forget what right and wrong were and they didn't just kill whoever they wanted, they decided to apply their morality only to their in-group. The problem is not teaching people right from wrong, it's teaching them to apply that morality to people outside their own group. Unfortunately our evolutionary instincts largely don't work that way so we have to use the higher reasoning ability that evolution has also given us to overrule our tendency to favour our in-group and apply our morality to everyone. Having said that, a certain amount of it is necessary even today, it's what has prevented me from hopping on a plane to Haiti. Yes it would be great for me to help but you can't help everyone, you have to choose who you help.

It's the same logic that allows people to have abortions.You don't have to tell them that killing is wrong because they already know that.What you need to tell them is that they are in fact killing and not just having some cells removed. This ability to convince ourselves of what we want to think is ingrained in our psyches and it applies whether the morality supposedly being followed is "subjective" or objective. Objective morality is a great idea but it has never been shown in practice to work any better than any other kind.

Fanny Cradock wrote: »

Even if you are correct and they did simply ignore the rule. What can we then say of the worth of the golden rule? Again, it seems to me to be more of a suggestion - one that has and will be ignored depending on the gain to be made.

One can assume that many of them were religious and they ignored those rules too so what worth are they? The fact is that both subjective and objective morality work just as well as long as the rules are followed but in some cases people are not all too inclined to follow either of them. You say:

Fanny Cradock wrote: »

ll we have said is that morality is either relative (which is quite worrying) or that there exists an overarching morality but we aren't very good at sticking it.

So what good are objectively perfect rules if people don't follows them?

And for that matter what good is claiming to have objectively perfect rules when you have no proof that the supposed source of them exists? Until you do that your book is no more binding on me than any other form of morality

Fanny Cradock wrote: »

The law (as opposed to a rule) stands over against us irrespective of our actions or our beliefs. Therefore, the Nazis will always be wrong even if they won the war and we were all convinced that it was a good thing to kill Jews.

I'll tell you one thing that suggests to me most strongly that the bible is the work of men and that's the whole "chosen people" thing. On god's command the Jews could essentially kill whoever they wanted. That is so very clearly the in-group morality of primitives being given the authority of a god and this in-group morality is now what you're fighting against as the outcome of "subjective morality". If you're looking for a guide to try to get people to overcome in-group morality and apply their morals universally the old testament is not the greatest example.

Fanny Cradock wrote: »

Read the Gulag Archipelago and tell me how the golden rule applies to prisoners who had too few resources for all of them to survive

Only if you tell me how well they followed your objective morality. When people need to survive they will do whatever it takes, god or no god.

Fanny Cradock wrote: »

1) Fair enough - challenge away. I'd be wary of anyone who claims that they categorically know best.

I think you know the few bits I'm going to point out

Fanny Cradock wrote: »

2) It's largely irrelevant. I'm repeating myself again, but that doesn't say much about an overarching morality existing or not, only that we can pervert it.

Indeed. And when you present me with an overarching morality that cannot be corrupted you might have a point. It's the least I'd expect from an omnipotent being tbh.

Fanny Cradock wrote: »

3) Well, then I think we are screwed. Under the correct circumstances (however fanciful or unlikely) it might be that any action is acceptable if the end (protecting your interests) justifies the means (screwing someone over).

Then maybe we're screwed. Personally I just think you have a misunderstanding of human nature in that people on the whole will tend to do good unless they are pushed into doing wrong but pointing out that you think we're screwed without your god unfortunately has nothing to do with whether he exists or not, although it does go a long way to explaining part of the desire people have to believe and why it was thought up in the first place. The extreme example of this is of course creationists who deny the plain facts because they think that if evolution is true a situation much like the one you describe will occur but the same logic is applied to belief in all religions that claim to be the sole source of morality

Fanny Cradock

Sam Vimes wrote: »

No that actually isn't what they did, they didn't harm whoever they wanted. As you say yourself:

What are you talking about? I never said they harmed whomever they wanted. Instead I said they harmed a number of minorities. Please read what I said. You initial point - however facetious - is refuted by the weight of history.

Sam Vimes wrote: »

The nazis didn't forget what right and wrong were and they didn't just kill whoever they wanted, they decided to apply their morality only to their in-group. The problem is not teaching people right from wrong, it's teaching them to apply that morality to people outside their own group. Unfortunately our evolutionary instincts largely don't work that way so we have to use the higher reasoning ability that evolution has also given us to overrule our tendency to favour our in-group and apply our morality to everyone. Having said that, a certain amount of it is necessary even today, it's what has prevented me from hopping on a plane to Haiti. Yes it would be great for me to help but you can't help everyone, you have to choose who you help.

Again, I have to ask what you are talking about? Just like I never claimed that the Nazis killed whomever they wanted (I'm sure they would have loved to bombed Churchill for starters), I also never stated that the forgot what right and wrong was. In fact I clearly stated that they had some grasp of morality.

Sam Vimes wrote: »

One can assume that many of them were religious and they ignored those rules too so what worth are they? The fact is that both subjective and objective morality work just as well as long as the rules are followed but in some cases people are not all too inclined to follow either of them.

Please try to read my posts. I never claimed that objective morality functioned better than subjective morality. (How would you differentiate between the two?) Indeed, I said that objective morality exists beyond our flawed interpretations and false assuredness of our own morality. I also said that killing Jews is wrong even if the world thought otherwise.

Really, if you keep misquoting me and placing words in my mouth - something you have done a number of times in this post - I'm not going to continue with this debate.

Sam Vimes wrote: »

So what good are objectively perfect rules if people don't follows them?

Humm.. I notice that you didn't bother to answer my question.

I'm talking about a moral law, not a rule. The distinction is that a law is an irrefutable fact irrespective of our subjective opinions. Furthermore, a law is universal and immutable no matter what we say or think. Again, this flows into the much broader discussion about Christian eschatology and about God being a God of justice (and mercy).

Sam Vimes wrote: »

And for that matter what good is claiming to have objectively perfect rules when you have no proof that the supposed source of them exists? Until you do that your book is no more binding on me than any other form of morality

I don't have proof for a lot of things - practically nothing, in fact. For example, I don't have proof that you exist, that the earth is round or that the statement "killing babies for fun is always wrong" is true. There is, however, evidence for such things. Firstly, You could start by looking at your own position and why the golden rule you keep mentioning is worth a damn if it's all subjective. Secondly, you might want to start reading/ listening to what some people have to say on the matter. I've previously listed a link, but there are many great minds that have attempted to tackle the issue - Aquinas for start.

Sam Vimes wrote: »

I'll tell you one thing that suggests to me most strongly that the bible is the work of men and that's the whole "chosen people" thing. On god's command the Jews could essentially kill whoever they wanted. That is so very clearly the in-group morality of primitives being given the authority of a god and this in-group morality is now what you're fighting against as the outcome of "subjective morality". If you're looking for a guide to try to get people to overcome in-group morality and apply their morals universally the old testament is not the greatest example.

Well you better start re-reading because the bible documents the Israelites' sins (and God's judgement) as much as it does their victories. They may have been chosen (and I suggest you view this in light of the NT) but they were far from perfect or ever-blessed in victory.

Sam Vimes wrote: »

Only if you tell me how well they followed your objective morality. When people need to survive they will do whatever it takes, god or no god.

Mercy! Perhaps I'm not explaining myself well enough, because you clearly aren't getting it. An overarching and immutable morality isn't contingent on me or any other human and how accurately we follow it. It stands over against us in the face of our subjective interpretations. Get it? Objective morality simply is.

Yes, people will almost always do whatever it takes to survive (except in some cases of a spectacular dignity and generosity that seems quite irrational), but again where is your golden rule in such cases? Unless rule is measured against something - an objective truth - then it is merely a suggested course of action - the golden suggestion - meaning the morality of any given situation could potentially be overturned given the (in)correct circumstances. This is opposed to a moral law which remains whether you like it or not (and again this hints at a discussion towards Christian eschatology and the nature of God).

Sam Vimes wrote: »

Then maybe we're screwed. Personally I just think you have a misunderstanding of human nature in that people on the whole will tend to do good unless they are pushed into doing wrong but pointing out that you think we're screwed without your god unfortunately has nothing to do with whether he exists or not, although it does go a long way to explaining part of the desire people have to believe and why it was thought up in the first place. The extreme example of this is of course creationists who deny the plain facts because they think that if evolution is true a situation much like the one you describe will occur but the same logic is applied to belief in all religions that claim to be the sole source of morality

Or perhaps we in the West have been living through an unparalleled period of prosperity and you don't really understand the consequence of your own words: "when people need to survive they will do whatever it takes". Again, I've not stated that people won't do good (and this begs the question what is "good"? Is something considered good if it's beneficial for you? Me? The majority? The minority?) if given the option. Indeed, this, I believe, is a hint at the existence of an (imperfect) adherence to a moral law. In the same way I believe that a universal outrage at an injustice is also an echo of something beyond subjective morality.