an invitation to chat with mark about morality
And I’d like to think that even among my critics I’ve shown pretty well why simply saying “morality is a result of evolution” is not a good response as far as the moral argument is concerned.
I’ve had a few chats with Mark over on his posts about morality, because I always feel compelled to explain to Christians that absolute morals don’t exist. However, when it comes to conversations with Mark, we’re on different communication planets. He thinks my view is contradictory:
And again we come to our great conflict. In one hand you tell me that slavery is always wrong, no matter what the context, and thus that the God depicted in the Old Testament is evil. Then with the other hand you tell me that progress is an illusion and that moral truth doesn’t exist. And somewhere in the middle of telling me that there is no real right and wrong we can judge progress by you say that “we never have enough evidence required to evaluate the least harmful approach.” Does this mean that you do believe in some moral truths, that we can reason our way to find evidence to understand those truths, and that finding the “least harmful approach” to life is one of those truths? The very same truths you immediately reject the existence of just a couple sentences later?
To some extent, I can understand his confusion because I keep using words like ‘right’ and ‘wrong’, instead of being consistent with ‘less harmful approaches’ and ‘more harmful approaches’. However, I feel that no matter how I explain my position to him, he will never understand, and I thought it might be nice to invite anyone else who is interested in discussing morality to pop over and try enlightening him on a different manner of thinking on this topic. Because I despair of his grasp of any non-religious point of view on ‘morality’ when he thinks that any of the conversations have gone well:
The last few posts have been really neat: it’s been a pleasure to write them and I’ve been happy with all the discussions they spawned in the comments.
The Moral Argument: What Good is Christianity in Solving it?
The Moral Argument: Evolution is an Answer to the Wrong Question
Please note this post isn’t a sneaky way to draw attention to the fact that Ark isn’t sticking to his recent non-religious declaration.
LOl…best of luck with this one. He thinks circumcision should be allowed and that many young men in Africa because of traditional circumcision rite of passage ritual is a problem of the African medical conditions.
Mark is like a younger version of Fide but with veggie-saurs thrown in for good measure.
You can’t talk morals with these people. They believe in the bible. They are ethically impaired, which should be a recognized psychological disorder.
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I can’t tell whether it’s just a personal thing with Mark, but he just never seems to understand what I’m saying, so I’m hoping someone else can give him a better understanding in terms he actually gets.
Did you see I mentioned you? I tried to link to the relevant post where you declared your non-religious intention but it’s impossible to find anything on your blog.
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Oh, and yes I did see you trying to drag my name through the mud ….again…but reserve the right to withhold from commenting. 😉
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That’s not true! I explicitly stated that my intention was never to draw attention to your lack of discipline. 😉
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Of course. I understand perfectly. And this from someone who announced to the world that they believe I am..er….let me try to remember….
….Ark’s an idiot at the best of times,
Ho hum..I might have to seek therapy because of such ”compliments”.
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Oh my goodness, did you read that somewhere? I can’t imagine where. Maybe Ruth edits comments to cause conflict? 🙄
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Let me try that again…
LOl…best of luck with this one. He thinks circumcision should be allowed otherwise it is tantamount to banning Judaism and Islam.
That many young men in Africa who die every single year because of the disgusting practice of traditional circumcision – a rite of passage ritual – is a problem of the ”African medical conditions”.
But he does think female circumcision should be outlawed, although this has nothing to do with sexism apparently.
Mark is like a younger version of Fide but with veggie-saurs thrown in for good measure.
You can’t talk morals with these people. They believe in the bible. They are ethically impaired, which should be a recognized psychological disorder.
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Eh? Why did you post that twice?
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Because the first comment was a bit haywire. You can delete the first one if you like?
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Dammit- I can’t argue with this post 😛
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You could chastise me for being unable to make my case clearly enough, and then potentially opening Mark’s blog up to unwelcome attention .. only if you want though. 😉
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Your point is well made. Mark is choosing to muddy the waters as to give the false impression your system is as arbitrary as his. Further, he’s operating on the presupposition that religious morality isn’t a man-made construct. If he were correct, we’d still be behaving and living as we did 2000 years ago.
There is no concrete Christian morality, except perhaps for the 10 commandments, but they even find a way around that one to justify the death penalty.
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Ooh, and as for the argument issue with Mark, it’s virtually impossible, and that’s a question of basic linguistic definitions. If you want to proceed, the only chance you have is if you ask him to define words as he goes, because the religious have a tendency to lean towards ambiguity.
Take their use of the word ‘natural’ in the anti-gay debate, i.e. Homosexuality is not natural. If you point out that it exists in nature, so they can’t be referring to biology, they’ll ad-hoc some obscure (religious) “natural-law” point into the debate.
What’s the trick? Dissimulation. They try to make their argument sound scientific/biological, once it’s disproven they have to admit they were talking religion.
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“they’ll ad-hoc some obscure (religious) “natural-law” point into the debate.” Yes, I’ve come across that all too often. It’s moronic but I know how they’re reaching such childish conclusions. I have no idea what processes Mark’s brain goes through to completely misunderstand every single illustration I give him. I suspect it’s not just basic linguistic definitions, but styles of thinking. He’s a picture thinker and no amount of words can redraw the images for him.
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Put it on a grid. What’s his motivation? Goal? Psychosociological background? Once those are clearer you can decide whether a discussion is worthwhile or not.
I decided against discussions with askthebigot because she’s attempting to use fabricated controversy to further her internet notoriety. I’m not lending my name to that.
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I’ve named and shamed her for that (although I doubt she feels shame). I probably won’t be able to stop myself from commenting on her next offensive post though.
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Interesting. The conversation lends some support to my theory that all Theism/Atheism disputes boil down to the dispute between Rationalism and Empiricism. I think Mark’s objection is valid. You seem to want to be an anti-realist or quasi-realist (?) about moral terms, but just can’t bring yourself to do it. But Mark’s not off the hook. His property-of-God model is a form of subjectivism – the subject of reference is just God. God exemplifies the property; it describes him, but it does not define him as it is dependent on his nature in total. I think there are massive problems with this model as you begin to consider it in terms of all the “Omni’s”, but those are the problems of dualism, not the problems of moral subjectivity.
So let me invite you, come on over to the dark side. We have cookies, because they taste good at Welcome parties. We don’t have them three meals a day, because they aren’t good for your heart if they are eaten as a rule. Besides, we know that too much of a good thing is no good at all, and we’re the only ones with a good explanation for why that is. And, you’ll end up here anyway (it wouldn’t be the dark side otherwise, would it?) since you will need your ethics to do some work for you someday.
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Thanks for the comment. I’m not sure I fully understand it though. Perhaps you can talk Mark’s language and help him out the hole – I hope you pop over to see him! Is nihilism the dark side? I definitely skirt around the issue because I find pre-defined terms confuse the conversation with their baggage, particularly for Christians engaged in thought suppression and sin paranoia.
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I’m working on my own excavation. This is hard stuff, harder than epistemology, I think. Any subject in which emotivism – in this case, the idea that the speech at the Rotary dinner proclaiming, “John Smith is a humanitarian with exemplary moral character,” is the equivalent of the statement, “Og like!” – is fraught with confusion. Nihilism is nihilism, and the dark side is anti-realism. Nobody likes us and we don’t like anybody. Reason enough to subscribe, but beyond that it is a better account of what people actually do. Deontologists give some people a break and others they don’t in similar circumstances. Utilitarians fail to push the fat man onto the track. Etc.
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Well, I guess it’s interesting for a ponder. But it has no usefulness in terms of daily living. What’s the fun in sitting in a cave when you can be out in the sunshine?
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Some of us are Trogs? I like spelunking every now and then; there’s cool stuff to see and it keeps the surface in perspective.
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I hadn’t realised, you’ve clearly panniferied it well.
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Please tell Keith Google Translate rejected his entire comment; the only thing they were able to put up in the adjacent box was WTF?
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Haha, I’m not familiar with his work, and it’s so difficult to separate the earnest eccentric from the trogs in WordPress.
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I’ve never met Earnest Eccentric. Do you have a link?
Oh…and don’t you dare…
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Yes, here it is.
http://attaleuntold.wordpress.com/
Don’t dare what?
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Just that…groan…you are getting predictable in your old age.
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Me? I’m just following instructions. I wouldn’t have thought of that slapstick joke, but you practically begged me to do it. I’m just obliging your tired sense of humour. 😉
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He’s a lost one. The delusion is too strong for him to ever see light.
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No-one is lost John. We can guide the sheep to the safe haven. 😀
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Baaa
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Good luck with that. I’m taking the more assured path of just starving the delusional of fresh meat, and letting them quietly die off…
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Well, except for your best buddy SOM. 😉
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Hey, that’s community service! Someone has to entertain the prisoners 🙂
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LOL
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You have a lot of patience!
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Morality has 20/20 hindsight, therefore it is absolute (duh, of course that was wrong to do). In the future, we may discover thing that we do now are immoral, therefore morality is relative (this is nice, but oh, it hurts someone down the line). If a person can argue that slavery is absolutely wrong, but admit that, at one point, it was considered acceptable, then they must adopt the relative framework, because it is impossible to know, even if there exists an absolute framework to discover, whether or not you have fully discovered that framework.
I do object to your characterizing morality as purely based upon the care/harm factor. According to The Righteous Mind, there are also liberty/oppression, fairness/cheating, loyalty/betrayal, authority/subversion, and sanctity/degradation. Naturally, the last three sets you likely put little to no stock into, but I would imagine your sparring partner is much more invested. As a synopsis, the thought is that morality is important, evolutionarily, for group cohesion, and that conservatives engage with all of these aspects equally, whereas liberals put much more into care and fairness, somewhat less strongly into liberty, and essentially nothing to the latter three. The libertarian is similar to the liberal (surprise!) except he takes everything out of care and drops it into liberty. Think social darwinism. So, if you want to engage with him, you’ll have to find some way to acknowledge that these aspects of morality even exist, even if you think they’re meaningless in modern society.
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Thanks for the info. I don’t want to engage with him anymore because he truly doesn’t seem able to understand me. You should pop over and give him your views. As to your objection, I’m not clear how degrees of harm don’t fit in with all the areas you mention. The subject of ‘morality’ is subject to way too much overthink.
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Thanks Violet. You gave it your best shot. Based on his feedback and other blog postings (I’ve run across his blog before), I don’t think he’ll be able to see the error of his ways. I could be wrong. From my POV, no matter how immoral-inhumane his god is/was, he will justify it and claim that the god God and Christianity is responsible for all moral-humane advancement of humanity. Another SOM.
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But you’re so much more interesting to talk to.
The trouble with reducing everything to some flavor of care/harm (to the individual or to the group) is that there are aspects which you simply don’t recognize to be real. Describing everything as “harm” masks the fact that you severely discount the sacred and authority aspects of morality, just as describing things as moral masks the fact that he only thinks of morality as an absolute reality separate from humanity, or how there is only one definition of god, and that is the Christian God.
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Okay, I see what you mean, given your recent comment to Mark about sexual urges. But I think that just confuses the issue. If you take it only at it’s basic ‘harm factor’, if two consenting adults engage in a sexual act as part of their expression of appreciation for each other, where’s the harm? If they’re not ‘allowed’ to express their chemical appreciation for each other or forced into sexual acts with a type of person they don’t have genuine chemical appreciation for, there are a whole range of potentially harmful outcomes. I don’t see where culture-driven or personal reactions have any relevance here – they should have no impact on so-called moral judgements.
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But that’s the thing though, you do only take it as a basic harm factor, while for him, sanctity largely outweighs harm. While that belief that it violates sanctity remains, you’ll never be able to sway him with protestations of how much harm is inflicted, because he just doesn’t care as much about harm as you do.
I agree with you that the sanctity aspect of morality is largely bunk, the refuge of religion, but if you believe that morality is relative, you must grant that some people will put stock into it. They believe it is degrading to the society|spirituality|group to violate their norms. A secular version of violating sanctity might be doing drugs, depending on how you look at it. Let’s say something like heroin. You can apply the feeling you (probably) would have over a family member getting addicted to get a feeling for how fundamentalists view homosexuality.
I was addressing his claim that the existence of moral impulses suggests there are absolute morals which we are granted (gut) knowledge of. I suggested that the variance of (gut) moral feelings on the subject would make it impossible to say that there is any single absolute morality. The standard response to this would be that he knows that they feel they are doing wrong, which is the mark of a presuppositionalist, and is the most infuriating kind of apologetic, because what it comes down to is that he read in a book that says anyone who disagrees with him is wrong. At this point, you’re administering medicine to a dead person. I’m curious to see his response.
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I skimmed through the comments there, but this from Mark’s last comment stood out:
“The commands attributed to God about slavery in the Old Testament strike me as maintianing the value of human life, compassion, and forgiveness (especially in regards to the commands to never make someone a slave against their will, to never kill or seriously injure a slave, and to set your slaves free with a pile of gifts after six years of labor)”
He also states: “The western powers of the 1800s traveled to Africa and took slaves by force, kidnapping them from their homes and taking them across the sea. In the Old Testament the Israelites are forbidden from making anyone a slave without that person’s consent (Exodus 21:16, Deuteronomy 24:7). But wait, why would anyone ever voluntarily become a slave? Because in those days a slave was someone who had sold themselves into slavery in order to pay off a debt. Slaves exchanged their freedom for money, essentially. They get free room and board, their debts get paid off.”
And yet it doesn’t occur to him that at least half of “God’s” chosen were slaves, property — women and girls. I have no desire to have discourse with what appears to be a hyper-religious, dopamine addict. Based on what I’ve seen with the dialog between you two, it’s a waste of time. But did he miss Numbers 31, one of many, many inhumane scriptures? What happen to the 10 Commandments? Moses (by the blessings from the god God) told his army to kill all the married women, men, and boys (the enemies of the god God), and steal all their property, but keep the girls for themselves. I don’t recall this god allowing women or girls to be set free with a pile of gifts after six years of labor, nor protected from serious injury (mostly by their slave masters (husbands). Did these girls owe a dept, and did they give consent to be slaves?
-Roland de Vaux, archaeologist and priest
http://www.nobeliefs.com/DarkBible/darkbible7.htm
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That’s an excellent point, I hope you don’t mind me pasting it over there for him to ponder. Christians wear huge blinkers when it comes to the subject of slavery in general, and I’ve seen his kind of argument before, so I expect there are legion of Christian ‘academics’ churning out historical fiction for their benefit.
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Ooops, I posted my reply to you in the wrong place (Ignostic Atheist ) Was doing so from email. No, I don’t mind you pasting that, although I do see that Mark has paid you a visit.
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I don’t have too much interest in commenting on a post where it seems 70% of the already existing comments consist of heaping abuse on myself: but an invitation is and invitation, and I try not to decline.
If by “right” and “wrong” you simply mean “less harmful” and “more harmful” then I need to ask two questions: how do you define “less harmful” (less physically harmful? Less emotionally harmful? Do you define it in a utilitarian sense, so that killing 100 to save 1,000 would be the less harmful option?)? Secondly I’d have to ask why you believe anyone else should share your values. I do share your values in general (though my system of ethics is different so we’d likely disagree on some issues) but you’ve yet to explain why our sharing values is anything that actually reflects reality as opposed to being a coincidence of evolution, genetics, and culture. If two people happen to like chocolate ice cream, that’s fine, but that doesn’t mean that everyone everywhere needs to prefer it to others.
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Hi Mark, I was hoping the post would inspire people to pop over to yours and continue the discussion in terms you might be able to relate to better. I can understand your reluctance to come over here. I think we’ve discussed all the points you bring up again ad nauseam, and neither of us seems to understand the other very well. As a final stab at helping you understand, I’ll point you to a pack of dogs. There are social norms they follow to get along together. I’m so sure this will help you:
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-ethical-dog/
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I read through the article, and I’m afraid to say that I’m not seeing anything I don’t already know. What did you think I would get out of this article? What idea did you think this artcile would communicate that is particularly relevant to the discussion at hand? I don’t say this sarcastically (thought I’d point this out because it’s hard to tell on the internet) but in earnest.
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I shouldn’t be surprised, I guess. Just that we do things for reasons other than divine inspiration. Unless the dogs have their own doggy Bible …
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You saying that makes me dissapointed in my communication abilities. I thought we settled that ages ago. The whole point of my post on why evolution is not a defeater to the moral argument is that evolution only explains why we have moral impulses, not why we should obey them. The question at hand is whether those moral impusles are merely the result of evolution, or do they also actually tell us something about the nature of reality? I believe they do. You believe they don’t. As I’ve said, I’m fine with that…but I also see that you often behave in ways that are contrary to those stated beliefs.
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To work with this impulse business, I for one am repulsed at the thought of engaging in gay sex, but I do not let my personal distaste get in the way of treating homosexuals like humans. I understand that, by and large, they feel the same way about heterosexual encounters. So, seeing as these moral feelings vary in the populace, the heterosexual finding homosexuality distasteful, or vice versa, or the bisexual which appreciates both approaches, or even the asexual who can’t find interest in either, on what grounds might you declare homosexuality to be immoral if the existence of moral impulses implies that they are God-given (and therefore we should obey them)?
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I wouldn’t at this point even necessarily say that our moral impulses are God-given. At this point the only argument I’m trying to make is that those who believe in objective moral truth believe that our moral impulses are actually moral senses: senses in the same way that our eyes are ears are senses. The idea is that our moral senses give us insight into moral reality: naturally if there is no moral reality then our moral senses are nothing more than moral impulses. If they are senses then we must proceed with some caution: our eyes can fool us, and so can our ears, and I think our moral senses are much the same.
As to the homosexual thing, I can’t speak for you personally but any distaste I have for homosexual intercourse comes from a sense of fear (I do not like foreign objects being shoved into my orifices, so fear of the act itself as imagined is what I mean: I’m not scared of homosexuals as individuals), and some disgust. But these seem to me to be physical responses and not moral ones, much the same as I’d feel if I heard that some people like chugging gallons of mayonnaise (I hate mayonnaise, for context). Sexual morality is something that I feel is very debatable in moral terms because our moral senses don’t tell us much (or often give competing sensations). Much easier is cases of rape, murder, or molestation. These things almost everyone can “see” are wrong. The question is whether that is a result of us observing actual deviation from an objective standard or merely subjective moral impulses created by evolution for the survival of the species.
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There are multiple ways to arrive at objective morality, not exclusively the idea that we sense a absolute moral reality. Using logic is another way you can objectively come to a conclusion. Popular consensus works fairly well. Perhaps you meant, “Those who believe in absolute moral truth.” If our moral “sense” can fool us, then what stops someone from saying that everyone else is being fooled? How do you prefer to go about remedying this misunderstanding, using logic or popular consensus? If you use logic or consensus to resolve moral dispute, then why assume there is an absolute moral reality when, whenever push comes to shove, we rely on other means for resolution?
So disgust does not strike you as a moral response? Interesting.
The fact that we can all agree on certain moral questions would tend to speak more in favor of an evolutionary explanation than the idea that we have a sense which can be fooled that receives this information. If that sense can be fooled, then it should sometimes be wrong but usually right on a random basis. It should be just as random as our other senses, misinterpreting sounds and seeing things out of the corner of our eyes. But when was the last time you thought that maybe rape or molestation would be ok?
This idea of a sense that receives information on morality must also account for communicating the issue about which the moral situation is about. You make a lot of assertion about this external moral reality that we sense, but unless all of morality hits us at once, every time we “listen in” (in which case, why do we need to assume an external moral reality if it’s all there all the time?), it must choose what it sends to our sense. If that’s the case, then it must be waiting for information that we send in order to respond to our sense. Not so much a passive moral reality anymore.
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“If that sense can be fooled, then it should sometimes be wrong but usually right on a random basis.”
I disagree. Our sense of sight can be fooled, but we wouldn’t say that our sense of sight is right and wrong on a random basis. Rather we would say it is generally trustworthy but recognize that sometimes it can fool us (hallucinations, optical illusions, etc.)
I’m all for using reason and debate for discovering what is and isn’t moral: however that requires a belief that there is a real answer to be found, and that the answer is logical and objective in nature. I readily admit that people coming to consenses on an issue could be caused solely by evolutionary processes. My main goal in my series was to point out that if you believe this is the case then you must recognize that our moral senses do not give us real information about the real world (ie, “slavery is wrong” as a statement of objective fact as opposed to a subjective opinion). In such a case it doesn’t make much sense to try and change someone’s mind on the morality of an issue by logic. They will feel the way they do based on their culture and brain architecture regardless of logic.
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Ok, so it would be safe to say that the basis of your objection to evolutionary morality would be, in that case, “… that our moral senses do not give us real information about the real world (ie, “slavery is wrong” as a statement of objective fact as opposed to a subjective opinion).” I would have to object to the arbitrary line drawn here. You have no other senses which give you objective data, why on earth would you expect a moral sense to be any different? The way objective data is made objective is by confirming the results with others and by their logical arguments. In that case, it makes absolute sense to try to change someone’s mind with logic, because to turn subjective data into objective requires it.
And you so readily admit that your moral sense can be fooled, so it can be assumed that you agree that morality is a subjective experience. However, you also claim that belief in objective moral truth necessarily implies belief that moral impulses are, in fact, moral senses of that truth. In order to be objective, your moral sense must not have the possibility of being fooled. So, even if there is an objective moral truth, your sense of it is subjective, and must run the gauntlet before it may be considered objective. The belief that there is an external objective moral truth doesn’t change the fact that, in practice, you must arrive at real, usable objective morality the same way that everyone else does: through logic and consensus.
And the great thing about this relative, objective morality? You can judge prior cultures and make yourself feel righteous, feeding off of their silly backward beliefs. Slavery is bad, and we can know that because we acknowledge that people who are different are just as capable of feeling pain and emotional suffering as we, ourselves are. American slaveowners didn’t acknowledge that, and neither did ancient Hebrew slaveowners. While Hebrew slaves, which were more like servants, were freed after seven years, non-Hebrew slaves, which were the large majority, could be kept indefinitely, and, as we all know, could be beat to death and the owner would face no legal repercussions, so long as the slave survived a couple of days after the abuse. So yes, slavery is objectively bad, because we now know that those that were once perceived as different are just the same as us. We know their experience because we are also human, and it is possible to empathize.
If they were literally different, it could be argued that their slavery is beneficial. Dogs, for example, benefit greatly from their devotion to a master, receiving food and a home, something other members of the genus don’t enjoy, and, as pack animals, are genetically led to submit themselves to the will of a leader. This is why the slavery of a dog is not morally reprehensible. So much so, that it is not even called slavery. Humans are not dogs though. We are not prone to appreciate the iron hand of a master, no matter the culture in which we are raised. We know that feeling powerless and at the whim of another is degrading, and we know that over time, a human can develop a dependency on their owner thanks to Stockholm syndrome. This is not a full human. And if someone feels otherwise, then we have the logical arguments and near universal consensus to overrule his point of view, the very same way you would try to change his mind. If you behave morally as though you are the product of evolution, then why postulate an unnecessary external morality?
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“So yes, slavery is objectively bad, because we now know that those that were once perceived as different are just the same as us.”
Well said, IA. In her article “Relying On Human Goodness”, Margaret Wheatley wrote:
“Oppression never occurs between equals. Tyranny always arises from the belief that some people are more human than others. There is no other way to justify inhumane treatment, except to assume that the pain inflicted on the oppressed is not the same as ours. I saw this clearly in South Africa, after apartheid and during the Truth and Reconciliation Commission hearings. In those hearings, white South Africans listened to black mothers grieving the loss of their children to violence, to wives weeping for their tortured husbands, to black maids crying for the children they left behind when they went to work for white families.
As the grief of these women and men became public, many white South Africans, for the first time, saw black South Africans as equally human. In the years of apartheid, they had justified their treatment of blacks by assuming that the suffering of blacks was not equal to theirs. They had assumed they were not fully human.”
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Thank you. Sometimes I feel like I’m just ranting; it’s good to know I’m making at least some sense.
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“Sometimes I feel like I’m just ranting”
LOL — I know the feeling.
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“In order to be objective, your moral sense must not have the possibility of being fooled.”
I disagree: I feel we can have objective evidence for things even if there is a chance our senses could be fooled. For example, I would say that I have objective evidence that the computer I’m currently posting this comment with exists, because I can see and feel it.I recognize that my senses could be fooling me, but I find it more likely that the computer exists than the idea that I’m hallucinating it: and even if I was hallucinating it I wouldn’t then decide that all computers everything don’t exist.
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Dude, your own personal senses are, by definition, subjective. Don’t you think that anyone who is hallucinating thinks it’s awful real? If you can make things objective by just saying you’ve put some thought into it and you think it’s pretty real, then there’s nothing at all for us to talk about.
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I’d like to see your definition of subjective, as it is apparently different from mine. How do you define objective or subjective? I define objective as a fact that exists apart from feeligns or opinions, and subjective as something that is based on feeligns and opinions instead fo facts. For example, the statment “I am typing” is objective: it is either a fact about reality, or it isn’t. The statement “the Green Mile was the best movie ever made” is subjective: it isn’t a statement that can be proven “right” or “wrong.”
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Wikipedia is so useful.
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Going by that definition of subjectivity, and given our previous discussion, then I’d have to say that by your own logic nothing can be known to be objectively true at all. If our senses can only provide us subjective information then we can’t ever know that anything is objectively true, whether that be the existence of morality or the existence of the universe. Would you consider yourself a believer in solipsism?
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Sure, if I take the solipsistic view that I can only be sure that I exist, then there is only subjectivity. However, if it’s true that only I exist, and everyone is an aspect of my imagination, then objectivity as I know it is a function of my subconscious challenging my beliefs. Which means that solipsism doesn’t matter; you exist and this is your reality, you don’t have a choice in it.
You may just be a brain in a vat, but you can consider reasoned arguments and come to an objective conclusion. But no, your senses are not objective, you can never be sure of what you experience. The key is consensus and replication, and if you reject those in favor of claiming that what you feel (or sense, same thing) is the real Truth, then you are living an undoubtedly subjective life, solipsism or no.
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“The key is consensus and replication”
But surely if our senses cannot be trusted at all then consensus and replication won’t change our situation one bit. How can I trust that there really is a consensus, since the only way I can know there is a consensus is through my senses? And no matter how many times I replicate something I only know the outcome (indeed, I only know that I replicated it at all) through my senses. I agree that the idea that our senses can give us insight into objective facts is one we take on faith, but if we don’t accept that idea than we must live without holding any objective facts whatsoever besides “Cogito Ergo Sum.”
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Solipsism is only an issue if you permit it to be. You definitely exist in your reality, the question is, are you going to live it? In order to live it, you have to assume that your senses are usually reliable. This is not to say that they are always reliable, but this is all you need to assume, because doing so permits you to know, thanks to their constant presence, that others exist and there are independent minds that surround you and make their own judgements about the world.
If the world is an illusion, and you are the only being existing, then it does not matter. You still make the same assumption and live the same life, view the same things that your subconscious agrees upon as being objective. What is objectively true in your solipsistic universe is objectively true, because objectivity is relative to reality, not the other way around.
Honestly, it’s like wondering what existence means if everything turns out to be a two dimensional hologram – it doesn’t matter to the question at hand. What matters is that calling your senses objective does not make them so. The best you can get is that they usually reflect objective reality, which means that they are occasionally subject to your personal whims, miscalculations, and oopsies, which means that they are subjective. And this means that, even if there is an external moral fabric that we sense, which I very highly doubt, the interpretation of it varies between individuals, and we are left with using secular techniques to resolve conflicting moral readings. Couple this with the fact that morality has evolved along with society over time, rather than holding steady about this external moral reality, and there is even greater cause for skepticism.
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I agree with you completely as far as solipsism is concerned. When I said that our senses are objective I meant that they are the only conduit by which any objective facts exterior to our own selves could be discovered. In other words, when I say that morality is objective I mean it in the same sense that I say “this computer is objective:” I say it knowing that it’s possible that nothing besides myself exists.
It is true that moral interpretation varies between individuals, but to say that we are left with secular techniques only is to assume that God does not exist. If God exists, and if he is the embodiment of Good, then he can reveal himself to us and we can learn from him. This is what the Christian believes, and what I believe as well.
I would also quibble somewhat with the idea that morality has steadily evolved along with society. I would say that situations have changed, but values have not. In many cases we see a degrade in morality: the slavery of the 17 and 1800s was far more brutal, far more dehumanizing, and carried out on a far greater scale than slavery during the height of the Roman Empire. More people have been killed by their own governments or died in warfare in the 20th century than any other century: arguably more than all the previous centuries combined. And even in modern times the sex slave trade has grown larger than it ever has been before. Do you really believe that there is less cruelty and exploitation today than there was in previous centuries?
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So your solution to not having to acknowledge objective secular moral methods is to invoke a god. Whelp, I guess that’s that: God is the alternative to secular morality, imagine that.
So, which sense do you use to tap into God, and how is that not subjective?
PS: If we had highly educated teacher, accountant, physician slaves like ancient Rome, I bet the South would have appeared a lot more kind to their slaves too. Romans were just as cruel to their uneducated slave labor.
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“So your solution to not having to acknowledge objective secular moral methods is to invoke a god. Whelp, I guess that’s that: God is the alternative to secular morality, imagine that.”
I believe your misunderstanding my point. I totally acknowledge that objective secular moral methods exist! I’m glad they do. I was merely pointing out that they are not our only possible option when it comes to discovering objective moral truth if such truth exists.
If God exists then it is possible that he would communicated through certain individuals (prophets, so to speak). As a Christian I believe God became a man so that he could reconcile all humans to the Good. I don’t expect you to take my word for it, but there is nothing internally illogical about such a belief.
I’m sure that Romans were cruel to their uneducated slave labor, but my greater point was that the claim that morality has evolved or progressed over time is one that is debatable.
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You do? I distinctly recall you insisting that objective morality requires a sense of an external morality.
And please don’t confuse a highly connected and highly populated world with media that capitalizes on focusing on your fears and the worst parts of humanity with a world with less than a tenth the population that burned people at the stake for heresy, permitted women no rights to speak of, kept slaves, claimed divine mandate to thrones and used it to defend their worst actions. You’ve been watching too much Fox if you think the world today is less moral than the righteous people of the middle ages or the Romans, who were so very kind to (a few of) their slaves.
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“You do? I distinctly recall you insisting that objective morality requires a sense of an external morality”
Can you point out where I did so? I don’t recall making such a statement.
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Yes: but I never said that objective morality requires a sense of external morality. In theory external morality could exist on it’s own. And there is certainly nothing in this statement that discounts secular attempts to discover objective moral principles.
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No, you’re saying, in that quote, your argument is that people who believe one thing should logically admit another. That, if objective morality is real, then we must be sensing an external, absolute moral reality. It seems you’ve given up that angle and admitted that objective morality is not necessarily absolute. This is good progress.
For a preview of where I’m going with this: “Objective morality does not preclude the existence of subjective morality,” followed by, “Subjective morality is, by its nature, relative,” followed by, “If objective morality is the communal amalgamation of subjective moralities, then objective morality is relative.”
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“That, if objective morality is real, then we must be sensing an external, absolute moral reality.”
Actually I was just saying that what I and most other moral realists believe is that our moral impulses are actually senses: but there is nothing that would require this to be true by necessity.
If that’s where you are going, perhaps I can save us some time by cutting to your chase:
““If objective morality is the communal amalgamation of subjective moralities, then objective morality is relative”
I agree entirely with that statement. That is why I do not believe that objective morality is the communal amalgamation of subjective moralities. I believe it is something external to and independent of humanity as a whole.
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And we’ve determined that unless the sense is flawless, and the source is flawless, then this sense is just another aspect of you and subject to your irregularities. It is subjective. So, why do you have to stretch so far as to postulate a separate, intangible moral reality sensed by an unknown moral sensor, when you admit that secular methods of explaining morality do the job? Why do you argue over it? I get that you believe that there is a god who is the measure of goodness, and that he whispers to you the right things to do and makes you feel bad if you are bad, but simply saying that you believe it doesn’t mean anything. Suggesting that your paradigm works on top of the secular paradigm just means that yours is extraneous and can be ignored if it doesn’t offer anything new.
Also, taking a conclusion and saying, “I don’t like the conclusion, therefore the premise is false,” is quite weak. The conclusion follows the premises – your job is to show the premises are false, or that the conclusion does not follow.
Also, it would be infinitely more useful if you were to describe your belief as absolute morality, rather than objective.
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“when you admit that secular methods of explaining morality do the job?”
Ah, I see what the problem is here. I thought when you said secular methods you meant secular methods at determining objective morality, when really you mean secular methods of explaining subjective morality.
I feel that this conversation is about to go in another circle: I thought we settled this “unreliability of the senses” business. Our physical senses are unreliable, yet we continue to believe in the existence of an objective world. Why should the moral senses be singled out as being too unreliable to give us knowledge?
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Why should the assumed moral sense be singled out as reliable enough to give you knowledge without correlating with other sources? If you’re going to just say that your repeated subjective experience is objective, then anything goes.
And no, I meant objective morality.
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I’m not singling it out: I’m bundling it with my other senses: taste, touch, sight, etc. I’m simply treating it the same as I treat the others.
If you meant objective morality….then I am very confused. I’m fine with using secular methods to try and discover aspects of objective morality. What’s your problem with it exactly?
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And you treat your other senses as objective, when reliance on your personal senses defies the definition of objectivity.
My problem is that you on one hand admit that secular methods are capable of forming objective morality, but on the other you say that objective morality implies an external moral reality. The question is, if secular methods do the job, for what reason must you assume an additional, extraneous paradigm? If there is a reason, then secular methods of explaining morality are not adequate.
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“My problem is that you on one hand admit that secular methods are capable of forming objective morality, but on the other you say that objective morality implies an external moral reality. ”
Well yes, objective morality does imply an external moral reality. How is that statement contradictory to saying that this external moral reality can, at least in part, be discerned through secular methods?
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Probably because we can find many examples where people who believed they knew this absolute morality did horrible things. You have vastly differing morality sets in different regions around the globe. At some point you’ve got to look at the situation and acknowledge that, if there is indeed an absolute moral reality, then nobody seems to have an objective grasp of it (except, of course, you and your particular group). What is more likely than us having a shoddy sense of a moral reality, is that there is none at all, and the way our culture has come to terms on moral issues, through reasonable discussion about the issues, is the way that we define morality.
If there is an absolute morality that we all sense, then morality should converge, and should have done so from the dawn of mankind. Instead we end up with a paradigm in which strong, testosterone pumped men dominate women for millennia, treating them like property rather than fellow human beings. Is it possible to say objectively that such an arrangement is harmful? Most certainly. Is it possible to explain why, while an absolute moral code lingers in our senses, informing our actions, that this situation could persist for so long? Absolutely not.
I will grant you that, if there is such a thing, then secular methods should, indeed, discern it. However, if there is such a thing, arguing over it would be like arguing over the difference between sweet and spicy. Rational discussion would be extraneous – virtually everyone would agree, not just now, but through all human history. It is plain to see that this is not the case.
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I don’t claim to have a perfect grasp on the nature of objective morality. I don’t claim to understand a majority of it. But I do believe it exists, and that we can come to understand. Perfecting that knowledge takes a lifetime.
Yes, many people have held many different ideas on what this objective “Good” is. However I would not say that they are so wildly different as you think. I can’t think of any culture that valued cowardice over bravery, who held traitors in high esteem and despised loyalty, or who had no concept of justice. Most of the moral differences we see between people is in terms of what they value as most or least important. Some cultures value compassion over justice, while others hold that loyalty is greater than either. These different interpretations of what the Good is lead to different outcomes and beliefs. Even the Huaorani Indians, who were so violent that at one point 60% of Huaorani deaths were due to murder, valued justice, loyalty, and love: that was the reason they were so driven to take revenge on those who killed their relatives. What they lacked was understanding, what we would call ethics.
I also disagree entirely that arguing about objective morality is like arguing about the difference between sweet and spicy. Unless, of course, you believe that sweet is objectively worse or better in flavor than spicy. To say that morality is objective is, by definition, to say that it is not a matter of taste: that we can have real answers about whether one action is morally superior to another.
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Love your reply to Mark. I think it hits so much more clearly everything I couldn’t get across to him. However, let’s be clear about dogs:
http://www.theguardian.com/science/2011/jul/17/dog-training-john-bradshaw-animal-behaviour
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Awwww, Violet, don’t make me read!
Alright, noted, focus less on pack behavior of dogs and more on how they are always, always, always happy to see you. 😉
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always, always, always happy to see you.
I couldn’t resist — http://youtu.be/JC5DXGIC8s8 —
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Oh, I found that really upsetting. We left our dog behind in Argentina (didn’t want to potentially kill her on 14 hour flight, and then subject her to life in a cold country and city centre flat). I’m desperate to see her but kind of dreading it in case she does something like that and we have to leave her again …
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I saw a post on the Kindness blog where a doggie got to interact with his caregiver via Skype while he was away. In one of the images, it showed a very content pooch, sound asleep on the computer keyboard, next to the monitor. Was precious.
Btw, the Dog Whisper is one of my favorite shows, and I don’t watch that much TV, so that should tell you something. I tend to be more of a cat person, as they require much less maintenance, but I love dogs, too. Sorry that this went OT, but I have to share just one more video — you know — to make up for the last one that backfired. *grins*
— http://youtu.be/kI4yoXyb1_M —
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“evolution only explains why we have moral impulses, not why we should obey them” Because in large groups of people we discuss and evaluate actions and tend to attempt to agree on the least harmful courses of actions. These are called civil laws. Not everyone follows them. Indeed, they vary from country to country – so you can execute 500 people based on a one hour trial in Egypt, and that’s moral to some. Most of us follow most of the laws in the our countries because broadly we agree they make society a better place to live in. The little ‘moral’ actions that don’t fall within the realms of civil law work on exactly the same principles. Anyway, we’ve discussed all this before:
1. Evolutionarily, I don’t have the urge to randomly murder (loving parental role models that kept me alive, empathy evolved for social living makes it an abhorrent notion)
2. Logically, it’s not a good idea to randomly murder (messy, unpleasant, don’t want anyone doing it back to me etc, empathy makes me think of how it would affect others)
3. Therefore, I shouldn’t randomly murder.
There’s your ‘should’ – no gods involved.
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I’m aware. What confuses me is that you’ll make comments like this and then turn around and say things like “slavery is always wrong” no matter what the context is. What if a society decides, as a group, that slavery is acceptable and is useful for the betterment of society? What if a society decides (as many Middle Eastern societies have) that women are inferior to men and should have fewer rights? From what I’ve read that you’ve written I would think that you would say they are wrong to do so. This is what confuses me: if morality a matter of civil agreement, evolutionary impulses, and pragmatism then it shouldn’t matter whether people are enslaved, oppressed, or exploited as long as the majority agree that the system they have is best. Yet that seems to matter to you, and I agree that it does matter: but the only context in which it mattering would make sense would be one in which there is some objective moral standard that exists apart from society.
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Slavery is ‘wrong’ by today’s standards, and I can’t envisage a scenario in which it would be justified. People living in generally closed societies thousands of years would have little opportunity to reflect on the wider ramifications or to envisage a different structure to life. Slavery was part of the culture because of the relative ignorance. Presumably you don’t believe your god was relatively ignorant. The Bible condemns divorce, the Bible condemns eating pigs – nowhere does it condemn slavery but it encourages ways of being both slaves and slave masters. You may argue the men who wrote the Bible were well-meaning and progressive by some of the standards around them, but you can’t be so deluded as to believe it’s the work of an omniscient benevolent deity.
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As I’ve said before, you don’t need to believe the Old Testament was inspired to be a Christian. But all this is besides the point: your argument here might be a good one if you’re trying to convince me not to trust the moral authority of the Old Testament. The question at hand, however, is whether or not anything is really wrong in an objective sense. If slavery is ‘wrong’ only because your current culture condemns it and you personally dislike it then what would you have to say to a culture that praises it and individuals who approve of it? Say, the plantation owners in the American south in 1835?
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These kind of questions just illustrate how little you’ve understood everything else I’ve said! The logical reasons – what are the negative outcomes of slavery? How is it influenced by the logic of the Golden Rule?
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Let me put it this way: people who have lived in slave holding societies have had logical reasons why such societies are superior to non-slave holding societies. I would argue that their reasoning is false because humans have certian objective rights that are not served by either being slaves or owning slaves. It seems like you would agree with me and say that having slaves is illogical. However by what grounds do you say that it is illogical? Presumably because you believe that a society without slaves is a society with less harm towards humans. Now I believe that it is good to seek a society with less harm towards humans because I believe that humans have objective moral value and dignity. You have stated that you believe it is good to seek a society with less harm towards humans because of evolutionary, cultural, and practical forces. But if this is the case then the concept of “wrong” is purely subjective and changes based on an individuals genetics, culture, and personal power, which would imply that for some individuals a society where most human beings are harmed but they personally benifit is just as “good” as a society where less people are harmed would be for you.
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I think Ignostic has satisfactorily covered most of this but:
“would imply that for some individuals a society where most human beings are harmed but they personally benifit is just as “good” as a society where less people are harmed would be for you.”
This is an illustration of just how little you’re understanding of what I say. It completely violates the Golden Rule and basic empathy. We understand that all other humans (and maybe animals to at least some degree) experience and feel the same as us. Of course this is a possible scenario but the people in charge of this society would either have to be all lacking empathy or be obliviously ignorant of the pain they’re causing.
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But some individuals, duo to the structure of their brain architecture, do not experience empathy (psychopaths and sociopaths). You’ve stated that the reasons to prefer outcomes that result in less harm to others are practical (I’ll get hurt by others if I hurt others), emotional (I have empathy towards others and don’t like to see them hurt), and cultural (my culture teaches me that actions which harm others are bad). However it is easily conceivable that there are individuals who are in a position where they can get away with an action that harms others, that naturally lack empathy towards others, and that exist in a culture that doesn’t value “not harming others” in certain contexts (such as rape in certain sections of Africa and the Middle East). For example, a tribal patriarch, living in a certain culture which values women as having fewer rights than men, who lacks empathy due to a variation in brain architecture, may rape a 12 year old girl and get away with it without cultural condemnation, legal action, or feelings of guilt. By your stated definition of what makes an act moral such an individual would be doing nothing “wrong.” I would say that such an individual would still be committing an act that is wrong, and I think you would agree with me. Therefore it seems that there is something more to morality then empathy, cultural consensus, and brain architecture.
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So, in an isolated planet where no empathy exists and people are too ignorant to evaluate harmful outcomes, they wouldn’t judge that to be immoral? So what?
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I agree: they wouldn’t judge it to be immoral, but it would still be an immoral action because there is an objective standard of Good that the act is in deviation of. But you claim that you don’t believe in an objective Good. If there is no Good then it is not a matter of them not judging it immoral: it wouldn’t be immoral period. It would follow then, if there is no objective Good to judge actions by, that a psychopath in a position of power raping a 12 year old girl and getting away with it is not doing anything wrong. Do you agree with this? If you do, fine, we’ll agree to disagree, but if you don’t then you need to re-evaluate your beliefs about morality, as your stated beliefs would logically lead to that conclusion.
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I’m sorry Mark but you’re the only person who would logically come to that conclusion. I’m judging it by harm done. The harm to the child would still be done, regardless of whether anyone present recognises it. You can’t remove your knowledge from the equation and replace it with an imaginary Good.
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I totally agree that the action would still be wrong because it is wrong for such harm to come to a child. However that statement does require an objective standard of what is right and what is wrong. You told me that such an objective standard was unnecessary because right and wrong could be determined using 1) personal empathy 2) pragmatism and 3) cultural consensus. Have you now abandoned these criteria for judging right from wrong? If so, what have you replaced it with?
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Mark, think about it. I can’t undo my empathy, knowledge or cultural training. I’m always judging harm based on these and asking me to evaluate an imagery situation without them is nonsensical. “Imagine a world where no eyes exists, no visual apparatus to see. There nothing there, because they can’t see it! Look, God exists!”
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So you are saying that form the point of view of the person in question they did nothing wrong, but from your point of view they did do something wrong. This is logically consistent with believeing that morality is subjective rather than objective in nature, true. Still, I must ask, do you believe your moral perceptions should be binding on the actions of others? I only aks because some of your earlier comments seemed to lean in that direction.
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Do you really enjoy having the same conversation for a week? I said that there are LOGICAL REASONS that can be explained to almost anyone with a pinch of empathy (most of the world). That’s why most of us agree with our civil laws. Or campaign to change them if there’s reason for imporvement.
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No, I really don’t enjoy having this same conversation! But I’m willing to keep at it as long as you are, because I really want to get to some kind of understanding here. I thought we were about to come in for a landing where we could agree to disagree, but now you’ve gone and brought up logic again. If morality is subjective in nature (ie, what is wrong for you may not be wrong for someone else as implied by your last comment) then logic has nothing to do with it. It would be like trying to logically prove that mayonnaise tastes better than ketchup, or that Downtown Abbey is better than Breaking Bad. Tell me, how exactly would you prove to the man in the example I gave (one that has no empathy, is in a position to get away with his actions, and lives in a culture that condones it) that his actions are logically wrong?
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With regards to mayonnaise and Downtown Abbey, personal preferences have no harmful outcomes for other sentient beings – so it’s a painfully ridiculous comparison.
“Tell me, how exactly would you prove to the man in the example I gave (one that has no empathy, is in a position to get away with his actions, and lives in a culture that condones it) that his actions are logically wrong?”
Are you a parent? Do you have a pet or another person you wouldn’t like to see harmed? At some point within human society people love another sentient being so much that they need to protect and shelter them from harm. In times when humans had to struggle for survival, fighting for food and land for their own people, they could paint the opposition as evil and standing in the way of their own survival. You’re right that people have done brutal things in the past and still continue to do them in some cultures and some isolated cases within our own cultures. I’m concerned as ever that I need to explain this to you: you could ask the man involved if he would like someone treating his own daughter or someone he loved in such a manner and ask him to apply the logic of the Golden Rule; you could present him with studies demonstrating the harmful outcomes in later life for people who have been abused as children, and demonstrate how this affects the progress of society and better living conditions for all, including him. I suspect given your comments here that you are one of the estimate 5% of the population who are unable to empathise, and that is why this is all such a troubling concept for you.
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I am a bit insulted that you still think I lack empathy. As I’ve made clear multiple times, I have empathy towards others. I think harming others is wrong, and it hurts me when I see that others are hurt. But the person in my hypothetical scenario has no empathy. This man doesn’t care about other people, and he lives in a society that doesn’t value women as having the same rights as men. Why should he care that studies demonstrate harmful outcomes for people who have been abused? He doesn’t share your value that we should seek the least amount of harm for someone.
Now it seems to me that you are saying that his actions are still wrong, regardless of what he feels about it, what his culture thinks about it, and whether he can get away with it. I agree with you (I don’t know how I can empathize that point enough!) but I also would like to point out that the only way that position makes sense is morality is objective rather than subjective: if right and wrong is a real thing and not simply a construct of the mind. Yet you claim to believe that morality is nothing more than a social construct created by evolutionary and cultural forces. It is this contradiction that puzzles me, and that keeps me trying to understand your point of view better.
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Apologies if you feel insulted, but it would be nothing to be insulted by, in my opinion. It’s common enough and worth acknowledging it’s a possibility, given your stance on this. But obviously I accept your understanding of your own mind.
You keep telling me what I said, in ways that I didn’t, which may be confusing you:
“you claim to believe that morality is nothing more than a social construct created by evolutionary and cultural forces”
Nope. Morality is measurable by unbiased analysis of the consequences of our actions. Do our actions have positive or negative outcomes on ourselves and others? Obviously there are areas of dispute where there is a fine balance (euthanasia, for example) but broadly human beings are in agreement. Obviously I can’t force someone like the man in your example to agree with me, especially if he’s had no socially ‘normal’ empathetic role models in his life, but I can still demonstrate the outcomes and ask which deliver more favourable outcomes for all involved.
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“Morality is measurable by unbiased analysis of the consequences of our actions. Do our actions have positive or negative outcomes on ourselves and others?”
But this only makes sense if there is an objective standard of “positive” and “negative” by which to judge actions. If there is no such objective standard, then why your definition of positive and negative outcomes be binding on those who disagree with you?
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“But this only makes sense if there is an objective standard of “positive” and “negative” by which to judge actions.”
Em, no it doesn’t.
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Alright, then why should someone who doesn’t share your values be bound by your own subjective idea of what is “positive” and what is “negative”?
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Interesting take. Conversely, why should anyone share the values of your particular version/interpretation of religion?
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I’d say that it’s a very personal decision. My series on the blog (the series where violetwisp and I started this conversation) was intended not as a specifically Christian apologetic but as an explanation of what the moral argument is. The issue at hand was whether or not objective moral truth existed at all, how we come to have beliefs about that issue, and whether our actions are consistent with our stated beliefs. I did have one post about Christianity, but it was mostly describing how Christians believe objective moral truth works rather than an argument as for why someone should become a Christian.
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My apologies, I entirely misunderstood. I’ve gone to read what you wrote, and I’ll take it from there. I can however say already that I do see some technical problems with your reasoning- that’s not to say that Violet’s is necessarily a thorough counter-argument, but she’s kind of on the right track even if she gets lost in the detail. At least from my strict schizoid perspective 🙂
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Well I’d be happy to hear any technical criticisms you have to my approach.
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If by “right” and “wrong” you simply mean “less harmful” and “more harmful” then I need to ask two questions:
If you are going to ask a question then at least wait for a damn answer, for the gods’ sake.
Don’t provide an answer to your own question before the person has had chance to answer in her own right. Such comments merely demonstrates to all that you are not really interested in listening to a response or care about genuine dialogue.
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Or perhaps such comments demonstrate he read the post? Just a thought, as that’s pretty much what I said. 😉
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Then simply make the case and don’t ask a question.
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Or apologise for your snippy, uncalled for comment? Asking a rhetorical question for polite clarification doesn’t need to elicit a strop. Say sorry to Mark. 🙂
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Fair enough. On behalf of extinct Pointy-Tooth vegetarian baby dinosaurs that went on the Ark ( not me) with Noah and his incestuous family, I am really really sorry and will go off for some serious self reflection.
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Good boy!
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Dog biscuit?
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Pig swill, if you’re lucky.
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Violet, I apologize for my emotive comment about Mark appearing to be a hyper-religious, dopamine addict. I am on edge as a very Catholic, conservative Supreme Court of the U.S. begins (today) to review the Hobby Lobby and Conestoga Woods cases, where attorneys argue their religious freedom is being violated by the Obamacare contraceptive mandate.
Should they win, corporations will be considered people of faith, and doctors will be forbidden to discuss family planning options, i.e., contraception. It’s an all out assault on women and the well being of society. Should they win, ramifications are daunting. The irony is that Hobby Lobby gets most of its products from China, who is pro-abortion and pro-contraceptive. This is not about religious freedom or their conscience. It’s about controlling other people (women) — slaves.
Mark believes that his god is good and yet, he can’t see the bigger picture. I read Mark’s counter to your last post. He replied that not all Christians are OT believers. Still he tried to justify the goodness of his god by referencing OT scriptures.
I’m not trying to go OT bringing up a pro-choice—pro-birth issue. I’m just using that as an example — making a point that he cannot separate the OT and NT when it comes to determining that his god is the representation and standard of moral good. Jesus pointed to the OT god (his daddy) as the only one true (good) god. And the inferior status of women in the OT (who had fewer human rights than other slaves) is clearly reflected in the NT.
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Yikes, sounds awful! I’ll keep a look out for it on the news. I can understand why comments like his could set you off, but no need to apologise. It’s still nicer than most of the comments from other people (men).
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Oy!
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Victoria, I’ve found you something to take your mind off all this – a Christian reflecting on how the Bible should be read (inspired by my post on Dr God, no less):
http://stevenhpape.wordpress.com/2014/03/25/a-little-light-reading
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Thank you. I’ll check it out. I’ll admit that I have my good days and bad days (I live in the Bible Belt). When I see people trying to make the Bible out to be moral, I can get triggers — not only as a woman who’s had personal experiences, but also as a human rights activist. I see the enormous harm the Bible and Christianity has done on a global scale. On days like this, it’s probably best for me to stay out of the debate arena.
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It must be really difficult living there. I’ve found my ire against religion has fallen significantly since leaving a superstitiously (not in any way theologically) Catholic country. The ignorance drove me spare there. I don’t have any kind of religion in my face back here in Scotland, unless I go looking for it in WordPress.
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Yes — you’re very fortunate. I was reading an article yesterday that the U.S. is 50+ years behind the UK and other European countries when it comes to religion’s effects of society. If the Supreme Courts decides in the favor of these religious corporations, it will put us back even further and possibly (probably) America will be well on its way to becoming a 3rd World nation.
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“These taking a few verses attacks are aiming at a small minority.”
Why did I not find that blog post comforting. 😀
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Was it wickedly sinful of me to send you there? Maybe the debil made me do it. (can’t remember Ruth’s exact words)
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Hahaha — needed a hit of dopamine at my expense? Amazon.com has a nice selection of vibrators.
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Oh no, this is much better! 😀
http://quinersdiner.com/2014/03/25/morality-isnt-dictated-by-liberal-elites/
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I particularly want to do a looooong post based on this quote:
“Catholicism, my religion, believes the same things today as it did 2000 years ago, and will continue to believe the same 2000 years hence, since our Truth flows from God, not man.”
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OMGoogle — this will be a post I look forward to. Sometimes I miss stuff in my reader when it has glitches and duplicates new posts multiple times, but I’ll be sure to keep a lookout for future posts of yours.
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The were the bad, bad debil. 😀
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There it is!
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He makes us do bad, bad things.
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Y’know like, keepin’ slaves, and killin’, and abusin’ people.
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Well Ruth, you know what the ‘good’ book says: “Woe to those who call evil good and good evil” Is 5:20 Seems this good god is needin’ a trip to the woodshed? After all, ‘he’ is apparently pro-corporal punishment, and according to Proverbs 23, striking ‘him’ with a rod will give wisdom and save his soul from hell.
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I’d say, Dickhead.
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Oh well, I guess that answer is about as sensible as Mark’s question.
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More so.
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