Board index ‹ Morality

[Slayer]

> By my observations, people perceive that life has and should have meaning. They feel an inner drive for significance, and to find purpose.

I agree, I feel inner drive, and it's explainable with subjectivism.

> Even in science we look for meaningful cause and effect, not meaningless c&e.

So what? Nothing to do with objectivity.

> We have an unshakeable sense of right and wrong, of fairness, of joy and despair.

No we don't. Not everyone does, and hardly anyone who does agrees on everything about right and wrong, gains joy or suffers despair from the same, or even similar things. This is also explainable with atheism and subjectivism.

> We live by causality, information, rationality, and intelligence. We see a world of beauty, complexity, and incredible coordination amidst the "chaos".

Give examples please. You're just asserting things. What incredible coordination, and what chaos?

> To say that all of this has come about by chance to me doesn't connect with reality. To say that value is only imputed and opinionated, TO ME, doesn't make sense. I don't see, in science, information coming from anything but an intelligent source. I don't see, in real life, personality coming from impersonal chance, meaning coming from chemicals, and the kind of purpose I see inside people stemming from ascriptive opinion.

No one cares if you don't see it that way. You're not making a convincing argument. It's all appeals to intuition and appeals to experience. Nothing convincing at all.

> By my observations and thought, it makes far more sense that personality comes from the personal, information comes from intelligence, morality comes from an integral moral source (just as forces in the universe come from core principles), purpose comes from an inherent teleology, and goodness and evil can only truly exist if there is an objective reference point. To me, that makes sense.

That's nice, but if this is all you're going to do, then we're wasting time. It may be nice to simply imagine that the world is this way, but you've given me no piece of information that I can't explain without the assumption of a god.

[jimwalton]

Actually, I wasn't expressing an opinion and nice assumptions, but giving the evidences from my experiences and observations (and that's what science is) of why the moral argument makes sense to me. It neither surprises me that you are not convinced and that you disagree. But at least part of the objective is reasoned discussion so that we see each other's point of view and understand its foundations and evidences. It's likely that we're not going to progress much further from here because we are obviously working from different sets of presuppositions, and drawing different conclusions from the evidence at hand, which is OK. Again, scientists do it all the time, as well as philosophers and theologians.

> What incredible coordination, and what chaos?

The incredible coordination I was speaking of is the fine-tuning we see in nature and our world, and the chaos I was speaking of was Chaos theory (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaos_theory)

> No one cares if you don't see it that way. You're not making a convincing argument. It's all appeals to intuition and appeals to experience. Nothing convincing at all.

Actually, I was giving evidences, not opinion. We have no scientific proof that information can come from anything but an intelligent source, etc. Every example we have of an information system (such as DNA) comes from an intelligent source.

> It may be nice to simply imagine that the world is this way

Hm. I haven't imagined, but observed it, and given you both the examples and the evidences. You, in rebuttal, have done neither of those but basically said, "Well, I disagree." I'm going to stick with the position supported by evidence rather than opinions. You claim that I have not made a convincing argument, but you haven't made an argument at all.

[Eric the Great]

You've done an excellent job of describing the subjective nature of our morals without even hinting that they are objective.

They must be taught to each generation, makes sense for subjective not for objective. Objective morals would be agreed upon from birth.

They change with time. Subjective morals do, objective morals might I suppose but it would make less sense.

"societies have differences between their moralities, ", check for subjection, mark against objective.

> No country admire military deserters;

You mean rebels who fight with us against whatever evil we are fighting? Pretty sure the side that gets the new troop likes them and the side that looses troops considers it a crime.

> no country respects double-crossers.

Absolutely not true. We count on double-crossers to help us, to get us information, to spy for us. These are noble people risking their lives. Oh, you mean we hate double-crossers on our side. Sounds much more subjective than objective. Our feelings about the morality of their actions directly depend on subjective circumstances (like who's side they are on) not on the action itself. Assassinate our president, war crime, we assassinate yours, special ops doing its job and getting a medal.

> It's why the nations can bring war criminals to trial, because we all know that these things are crimes.

Actually we can bring war criminals to trial because we won. Winners get to decide who the criminals are. It is like pirates. If you are a pirate sanctioned by the side that wins you aren't a pirate. However, if you picked the wrong side you get tried as a pirate.

The difference between rebel and terrorist, moral and immoral, right and wrong is decided by the winning side, not some objective set of rules.

[jimwalton]

Thanks for good conversation.

Because morals must be taught to each generation doesn't give evidence that they are subjective. We have to teach each generation math, but 2 + 2 = 4 never changes. Having to make each generation aware of truth doesn't negate that it is truth.

Good points about double-crossers. Obviously a bad example on my end, except that we know they are double-crossers, and despite that they help us, we still acknowledge that they are turncoats against their own. And you're right that we all agree that double-crossers on our side are despicable. It was just one of many examples I've given that we have a law of right and wrong inside of us, upon which we all agree. The civilizations of history, while different, have broad bases of agreement on fundamental moralities. Even despite differences of moral aspect, we all have a sense that some things are right and some things are wrong. I would assert that the most reasonable explanation for an inbuilt sense that there is such a thing is that it is not the result of socialization, but that it is inherent in human nature. And the evidence that there is widespread agreement between cultures and individuals across history about the core rights and wrongs gives evidence that the position I have taken has credibility.

[Eric the Great]

> because we all know it was wrong.

Because a large majority of people that won the war believed so. If he had won the war there would have been no trial. Everyone didn't know he was wrong, just the winning side did.

> That's what I'm talking about. We all know that gassing 6 million people is wrong.

No, everyone didn't know that. This is the part you keep glossing over. "We all"....no. You just listed people who thought it was okay, so its obviously not all. A majority, sure. A majority agrees on subjective morals, everyone would have to agree for them to be objective morals.

The very fact that our idea of morals changes over times and is decided by the winner of a war shows that they are subjective.

> But Robert Jackson, prosecutor there who later rose to being on the U.S. Supreme Court, said, “There is a law above the law.”

A claim by another person supporting your views is not proof or evidence or anything. It is simply the winners deciding what was right and wrong and saying it was obvious from the beginning. Ironic coming from a country that imprisoned its Asian population and deprived them of their assets and freedoms. Where were your objective morals then?

[jimwalton]

Objective morality is not an irrefusable force on us all, like gravity, but a built-in sensor. We have to choose to follow the morality that is in us, and we can just as easily choose to disregard it. That doesn't mean it isn't there, only that it doesn't constrain us. Which means also that everyone doesn't have to agree for them to be objective morals, because people can go against the built-in sensor and create their own subjective markers, which people do all the time. Again, that doesn't prove the sensor wasn't there.

> Ironic coming from a country that imprisoned its Asian population and deprived them of their assets and freedoms. Where were your objective morals then?

Agreed, and that was a wrong thing to do. You and I and everybody knows it. It was an action grounded in fear, executed with rash disregard for human rights, and an unwarranted maltreatment of our own citizenry. Our sense of objective morals tells us that it was wrong.

[Slayer]

> Actually, I wasn't expressing an opinion and nice assumptions, but giving the evidences from my experiences and observations (and that's what science is) of why the moral argument makes sense to me

And you've refused to answer many of my objections to said evidence. You've simply picked a few points of my reply and then said I'm not offering an argument - which I don't think is true, because I refuted some of your evidence and you've done nothing to support them.

> The incredible coordination I was speaking of is the fine-tuning we see in nature and our world,

Fine tuning? Give examples. Our world may seem fine tuned to you, but that's because we evolved to live in it - and yes, life permitting conditions are unlikely in a universe, but that doesn't mean a god created it. That logic simply doesn't follow.

To me, the fine tuning argument is an argument against the existence of God, because it's exactly what we'd expect if those conditions arose naturally, even if it was unlikely. It needs no God to work.

> Actually, I was giving evidences, not opinion. We have no scientific proof that information can come from anything but an intelligent source, etc. Every example we have of an information system (such as DNA) comes from an intelligent source.

What scientific proof? DNA doesn't work like that. I think you're just working from misconceptions.
http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CF/CF003.html

> Hm. I haven't imagined, but observed it, and given you both the examples and the evidences. You, in rebuttal, have done neither of those but basically said, "Well, I disagree." I'm going to stick with the position supported by evidence rather than opinions. You claim that I have not made a convincing argument, but you haven't made an argument at all.

Yes I have. I'm not surprised that you're being as dishonest as to ignore my rebuttals, cherry pick the reply, and then tell me I'm not offering an argument - It's a common theist tactic, and it's incredibly distasteful.

I'll paste some of my rebuttals, and we can discuss them.

> By my observations, people perceive that life has and should have meaning. They feel an inner drive for significance, and to find purpose.

I agree, I feel inner drive, and it's explainable with subjectivism.

I want to know if you're allowing this evidence to stand, and what your rebuttal is - otherwise that's no longer evidence for your worldview.

> Even in science we look for meaningful cause and effect, not meaningless c&e.

So what? Nothing to do with objectivity.

Again, are you still considering this as evidence, and if so, what is your reply to my objection?

> We have an unshakeable sense of right and wrong, of fairness, of joy and despair.

No we don't. Not everyone does, and hardly anyone who does agrees on everything about right and wrong, gains joy or suffers despair from the same, or even similar things. This is also explainable with atheism and subjectivism.

This is the final objection I'd like a reply to. If you can't reply, or are simply going to ignore them again, then don't waste your time.

[jimwalton]

I traced back through the conversation to find your evidences that you say you've given that I've avoided. Here's what I came up with:

- "I think things are evil because I think they're evil, and that's my opinion."
- "I don't have to think your values are of any merit."
- "some moral statements are practically intersubjectively true"
- "I'm just not scared to admit that I believe that the meaning and value I place on people and actions is ultimately the result of my opinion"
- "[Subjective morality] accounts for all of the different moral positions we've seen in civilizations over the thousands of years, and evolutionary ethics accounts for why we feel like there is some objective standard, or that humans have transcendent value. It also accounts for some of the extreme similarities we find in human moral thought."
- "We feel like people have value because we've evolved as social animals"

There. That's what I see. Not a stunning case of evidence presented, but I'll offer my rebuttal. I see no evidence beyond a reasonable doubt that morality would arise at all given the evolutionary chain. EVIDENCE 1: Though we can attempt to extrapolate a sense of right and wrong on any other sentient beings in the world, there is no doubt that the sense humans have of right and wrong, fairness and unfairness, stands in a league by itself. We, of all beings, show conscience and morality. And while certain details of right and wrong vary from culture to culture and throughout history, the fact that we all share an inner sense of such to be is evidence of a Law of Nature unique to humanity.

EVIDENCE #2: We all admit to an inner knowledge of concepts of right and wrong, despite our debates as to their source, purpose, and content. The universal metaphysical phenomenon of morality, whether subjective or objective at this point, stands outside of the basic evolutionary mechanisms of food, reproduction, sleep, survival, and water.

EVIDENCE #3: Not one proponent of evolutionary ethics has explained how an impersonal, amoral first cause through a non-moral process has produced a moral basis of life, while at the same time denying any objective moral basis for good and evil. It’s odd that of all the permutations and combinations that a random universe might afford we should end up with the notions of the true, the good, and the beautiful? In reality, why call anything good or evil? Why not call it orange or purple? That way, we settle it as different preferences.

EVIDENCE #4: All talk of right, wrong, and meaning are ultimately absurd in subjective naturalism. If life is random, then even imposed and subjective morality is incongruous, an introduction of meaning into a system devoid of all possibility of meaning. If life is random, there is no such concept as meaning, and any attempt to implant one is contradictory. By definition, even our subjective musings, let alone conclusions, have no purpose. It's like trying to build a skyscraper out of water alone. There is no stability of shape to generate the structure you propose.

We can start with those.

Examples of fine tuning:

- The speed of light, the strong and weak nuclear forces, and the strength of gravitational force all must fall within very narrow limits if intelligent life of our kind was to develop
- Flatness. The existence of life seems to depend very delicately on the rate at which the universe is expanding. Stephen Hawking says that “reduction of the rate of expansion by one part in 10^12 at the time when the temperature of the Universe was 10^10 K would have resulted in the Universe starting to recollapse when its radius was only 1/3000 of the present value and the temperature was still 10,000 deg”—much too warm for comfort. Hawking concludes that life is possible only because the universe is expanding at just the rate required to avoid collapse.
- John Polkinghorne: “We know that there has to have been a very close balance between the competing effect of explosive expansion and gravitational contraction which, at the very earliest epoch about which we can even pretend to speak (called the Planck time, 10^-43 sec. after the big bang) would have corresponded to the incredible degree of accuracy represented by a deviation in their ratio from unity by only one part in 10^60.”

There are hundreds more examples.

> DNA

In response to your "talk origins" link, it's a bit shallow because there are different kinds of information. There's random data, and that doesn't require an intelligent cause. It's most of what the link is talking about. But there is also ordered data (binary sequences of 1 2 1 2); ordered data doesn't necessarily require an intelligent cause either. And example of ordered data would be snowflakes: always hexagonal. DNA, however, is informational data. There is NO EXAMPLE of informational data in the history of the universe that does not come from an intelligent source. Even Carl Sagan has admitted such. He has said all we need is one message with information in it from outer space and we’d be able to recognize the presence of intelligence, therefore admitting that only intelligence can explain intelligibility. But such an evidence is still elusive and non-existent.

[Slayer]

That's hardly my argument, and I feel like you know that, but you're just being dishonest.

Here's an example of some evidences off the top of my head:

1. We have evidence that animals have developed many of the key emotional functions that seem to be behind moral thought, like empathy, pride, social living, protection of family and species, etc.
2. Ethics being the result of evolutionary predispositions explains why so many of the things that seem inherently good have survival benefits as well (such as not killing people, loving family, caring for one another, etc.)
3. Evolutionary ethics can easily explain why it seems like everyone is tuned in to some objective standard without making the assumption that it actually exists.
4. People with psychological and neurological issues don't seem to tune in to that same moral standard - which leads me to believe that the apparent moral standard is the product of the brain and human psychology.

You're 4th evidence isn't evidence of moral objectivity, it's a reason you disagree with the philosophy of moral subjectivity.

As to your argument that descriptive words like good and evil are absurd, I disagree. I'm not saying that these things are merely arbitrary opinions, I'm saying that they're opinions, but that we form those opinions based on reasons. Discussion of morality can be productive because we can discuss the reasons we hold the opinions we do, and hope to help each other understand and agree.

As to all your fine tuning examples; they can be refuted by saying either, it looks fine tuned for life because life arose out of those conditions and evolved. Who are we to say, had the conditions been different, that some other type of life wouldn't have formed? Or by saying that it's logically ignorant to say: these things seems too unlikely to be the result of chance, therefor my God did it. It doesn't explain anything, and it's a non sequitur.

The moral argument consists of 2 premises and a conclusion, and we've only been talking about one premise - that objective moral values exist, and I want to talk about the other premise - that if they exist, God is necessary to explain them.
Most professional, and academic philosophers are both Ethical Naturalists, and atheists. This means that they believe in an objective moral standard, but don't believe in God.

I think that even if you could demonstrate that objective moral standards do exist, the other premise remains undefended, and illogical.

How do you deal with things like the Euthyphro Dilemma, for example?

[jimwalton]

Thank you VERY MUCH for you examples of evidences. I'm quite confident you didn't write those before, so I appreciate seeing them now. I wasn't being dishonest; I can't find those statements anywhere in your previous writings.

While I easily accept that scientific study has revealed emotional functionality in animals, and those emotional responses possibly form the basis of what we call moral thought in humans, what has yet to be substantiated is that there is verifiable moral properties in the thinking of any life form other than humans. Emotional foundations are still a far cry from moral determinations.

I'm also aware that there is a strong movement today to create a bridge from evolutionary theory to morality as a social construct, and while such links are possible, to me they fail. In a system governed (I shouldn't even use the word governed because it connotes design and purpose) by naturalistic mechanisms operating on random genetic mutation, driven by laws (where did THEY come from so refined and perfectly tuned?) of physics, chemistry, and biology, it (to me) is illogical (as I explained) to chart a progression from random to purposeful when "random" is the only player in the system. And while we look backward to say, "Hey, maybe these things just happened to come about because they help us survive," to me that regressive logic. If we start at "Z", of course we can contrive a way we got from "A" to where we are now. But if we start at "A", and there is nothing else, "Z" isn't even a concept let alone a possibility.

> Evolutionary ethics can easily explain why it seems like everyone is tuned in to some objective standard without making the assumption that it actually exists.

I agree, but to me it's more logically consistent to contemplate that if everyone *seems* tuned into some objective standard, then it stands to reason that there is some objective standard.

> People with psychological and neurological issues don't seem to tune in to that same moral standard - which leads me to believe that the apparent moral standard is the product of the brain and human psychology.

Yeah, I would say that if you force a car to turn left when the destination is to the right, it's no surprise that the destination is never reached. People with mental incapacities are able to cut off proper flows and directions. And since morality is a choice to follow conscience, and not predetermined like the law of gravity, the path to conscience can be contravened. And it doesn't even take a mental patient to impair the path to the conscience.

> As to all your fine tuning examples; they can be refuted by saying either,

I know they can be refuted. All arguments can be refuted. To me they make sense and are stronger than the arguments against. It's true that we find ourselves where we do, and so we can easily say, "Well, it just must-a worked out that way because here we are!" And while that point is correct, how is it relevant? If we're playing poker, and I produce a royal flush, we'd all laugh and scream, and I'd take the pile. But if I did it again (even though there is just as much mathematical probability as the first time), you'd look at me real funny. And if I did it a 3rd time, I better be ready to run. Why? Because random probability would be far less an acceptable explanation than that somebody was messing with odds with interference.

Your next argument rings the same way to me: "Well, it could have just as easily ended up differently." But it didn't. It ended up this way, and to cruise through the "what ifs" is idle speculation. The evidence shows incredible fine-tuning. It's not at all improbable that an intelligent, personal being has created by fine-tuned, intelligent, purposeful, and personal picture that we see. On the other hand, on the atheistic hypothesis according to which these constants have their values by chance (that is, those values are not the result of anyone’s choice or intention) it is exceedingly improbable that they would be fine-tuned for life. This seems to offer support for theism: given theism, fine-tuning is not at all improbable; given atheism, it is; therefore theism is to be preferred to atheism. That's all I'm saying. It's not a non sequitur at all.

> Most professional, and academic philosophers are both Ethical Naturalists, and atheists. This means that they believe in an objective moral standard, but don't believe in God.

I know this is the case, but it doesn't prove anything. Most academics believed in a flat earth 600 years ago. We live in a very godless age, but that doesn't mean it's evidence that God doesn't exist. It's only evidence that most academics don't believe in God.

> How do you deal with the Euthyphro Dilemma?

It's a false dilemma, positing the only choices as (1) divine command theory or (2) good is independent of God, and God is not the basis of ethics. But there is at least one other alternative: God's commands are good not merely because God commanded them, but because they reflect his perfectly good nature. The Bible never affirms that there is an independent reality of good outside of God’s character, nor that commands are good merely because they come from the mouth of God. Rather than the commands of God being arbitrary, or that they exist outside of his being, and he must discover them and conform to them, those commands flow necessarily from his perfect nature. It is God's nature that is the standard by which actions are judged as good, and God's nature that is the basis of morality (we could call this Divine Nature Theory; it would be more concordant to Biblical teaching).