FFT: Seversky and the IS-OUGHT gap

_{kairosfocus

May 1, 2017

Atheism, Control vs Anarchy, Food for thought, Politics, rhetoric, worldview}

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In the ongoing AJ vs ID discussion thread, major tangential debates have developed. One of these is on the IS-OUGHT gap, and it is worth headlining due to its pivotal worldviews importance (and yes, this is a philosophy issue). Let us start with Seversky, highlighting his key contention — which is commonly asserted:

Sev, 261: >>Origenes @ 258

The matter seems very simple to me: because fermions and bosons are completely indifferent about morality, it is not possible to ground morality for atheists/materialists.

You cannot logically derive “ought” from “is”. No one can, not even God. So, if our morality is God-given, how did He – or, indeed, any other being – derive it? Did He toss a coin?>>

Origines, 262 (to EA but relevant): >>Eric Anderson @259

Thank you for pointing out the typical materialistic response wrt morality.

EA: However, the squirming can eventually follow the direction it does for the rest of the materialist creation story: namely, at some point Characteristic X didn’t exist, and then at some later point Characteristic X “evolved.”

The majority of materialists fails to understand that materialism can only take us to the illusion of effective moral laws. Suppose that by ‘Characteristic X’ is meant organismal behavior which is consistent with the moral law “thou shall not steal”. Now, in a purely material universe, all sorts of physical stuff can contribute to X, but X can never be caused by the moral law “thou shall not steal”. The consistency with a moral law is happenstantial and not an intended result. There cannot be a moral law who is telling atoms how to behave. In a materialistic world the moral law “though shall not steal” has no power to reach down in the brain and rearrange neuronal behavior so as to comply with that moral law.

Illusion.

Given materialism, it can only be the case that it is as if a moral law is being respected. So, no, naturalism cannot get us to morality. It can only get us to the illusion of morality. It can result in behavior which, incidentally, is consistent with a moral law. But noticing this consistency is nothing more than the occasional observation of temporal happenstantial synchronicity between two totally unrelated things.>>

KF, 263: >>Seversky, if you have been keeping track that is not what is at stake. The issue is, we are patently inescapably morally governed, as for instance you implied by trying to correct and by expecting us to have a sense of duty to the truth and the right. Either that speaks truly or mindedness collapses into grand delusion. As, if such is a delusional perception in an actually utterly amoral world then delusion is at the heart of attempts to reason and be responsible — as Rosenberg implies but tries to put a rosy picture on. Absurd. So, we need to ask, what sort of world must we be in for such moral government not to be rooted in grand delusion. This points to world-roots that cannot be infinite regress or a chicken-egg loop. Finitely remote, necessary being root. As, were there ever utter non-being (which can have no causal powers) such would forever obtain. The premise that, on pain of grand delusion and absurdity, we are responsibly and rationally significantly free and morally governed, self-moved creatures then leads to the world root being a necessary being that is at the same time inextricably the root of moral government. Where, if we are not self-moved initiating causal agents, we have no true freedom to draw a LOGICAL, meaningful inference from grounds and/or evidence to the consequent or a warranted conclusion, we would be trapped in a delusion of rationality while actually being the GIGO-limited playthings of our computational substrates and their blind, mechanically driven and/or stochastic cause effect chains. We must be free and self-moved to be rational or responsible. Is and ought are not IS–> OUGHT, but instead that they are inherently inextricably entangled and utterly fused at the world-root. There is one serious candidate (if you doubt, kindly provide a coherent alternative: _____ ) i.e. the inherently good creator God, a necessary and maximally great being, worthy of loyalty and the reasonable, responsible service of doing the good in accord with our evident nature.>>

The immediate context for this is also well worth excerpting as a part of the spark for onward discussion:

HP, 256: >>The [subjective moralists] I have read . . . don’t say that “moral values and obligations are totally subjective.”, they claim that the individual values are subjective. A small distinction I realize, but an important one. And, I apologize in advance for not phrasing this as well as I would like.

My own personal belief is that our system of morality is a combination of objective and subjective. The most obvious objective aspect of our morality system is that the existance of this system appears to be universal amongst humans. Even psychopaths and sociopaths have a morality system. They just happen to be very different than that of the majority of the population. Of the other values (not killing, lying, stealing…) some may be objective and others subjective. Frankly, I don’t know. And I don’t really care. But the one thing that makes logical sense is that if there are objective morals, they are not independent of subjectivity. They are either strengthened by our experiences or they are weakened. Thus explaining the variations that we see in their application amongst different cultures.>>

Origines, 258:>>

hammaspeikko: The ones I have read, which I admit are limited, are more nuanced than that. They don’t say that “moral values and obligations are totally subjective.”, they claim that the individual values are subjective. A small distinction I realize, but an important one.

I have never heard about such a moral system. Individual values are subjective and non-individual values are not? Can you provide some more info?
The matter seems very simple to me: because fermions and bosons are completely indifferent about morality, it is not possible to ground morality for atheists/materialists.

Here is atheistic philosopher Alex Rosenberg:

Scientism can’t avoid nihilism. We need to make the best of it….

First, nihilism can’t condemn Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, or those who fomented the Armenian genocide or the Rwandan one. If there is no such thing as “morally forbidden,” then what Mohamed Atta did on September 11, 2001, was not morally forbidden. Of course, it was not permitted either. But still, don’t we want to have grounds to condemn these monsters? Nihilism seems to cut that ground out from under us. …

To avoid these outcomes, people have been searching for scientifically respectable justification of morality for least a century and a half. The trouble is that over the same 150 years or so, the reasons for nihilism have continued to mount. Both the failure to find an ethics that everyone can agree on and the scientific explanation of the origin and persistence of moral norms have made nihilism more and more plausible while remaining just as unappetizing.

[A. Rosenberg, ‘The Atheist’s Guide To Reality’, ch. 5]>>

EA, 259: >>Origenes:

The matter seems very simple to me: because fermions and bosons are completely indifferent about morality, it is not possible to ground morality for atheists/materialists.

I think your point is well made, and should be sufficient to make any materialist squirm.

However, the squirming can eventually follow the direction it does for the rest of the materialist creation story: namely, at some point Characteristic X didn’t exist, and then at some later point Characteristic X “evolved.”

This may not seem very intellectually satisfactory to the objective observer, but the materialist is perfectly happy to argue that morality evolved as a result of [insert made-up reason here]. It isn’t fundamentally different than any other system or characteristic evolving. No details. No particular reason or direction. It just did.

So while I agree with your general point, and Rosenberg’s frank admission, the entire issue becomes lost on the committed materialist. After all, the entire view of history and creation and all that this entails, is just — as you aptly noted — nothing more than a long accidental sequence of particles bumping into each other.

And those particles, so the thinking does, don’t have to ground anything. Not design, not functional complexity, not information. Nothing. Just wait long enough for the particles to bump into each other enough times, and — Ta Da! — here we are. Whether we are talking about molecular machines or morality, it is all the same in the materialist creation story.

Remember, this is all right in line with the Great Evolutionary Explanation for all things:

Stuff Happens.

It is really no more substantive than that.>>

So, how then do we come to be morally governed, and what does this imply about us and the world? END

Comments

F/N: Again, Plato's warning on pretty grim history:
Ath [in The Laws, Bk X 2,350+ ya]. . . .[The avant garde philosophers and poets, c. 360 BC] say that fire and water, and earth and air [i.e the classical "material" elements of the cosmos], all exist by nature and chance, and none of them by art . . . [such that] all that is in the heaven, as well as animals and all plants, and all the seasons come from these elements, not by the action of mind, as they say, or of any God, or from art, but as I was saying, by nature and chance only [ --> that is, evolutionary materialism is ancient and would trace all things to blind chance and mechanical necessity] . . . . [Thus, they hold] that the principles of justice have no existence at all in nature, but that mankind are always disputing about them and altering them; and that the alterations which are made by art and by law have no basis in nature, but are of authority for the moment and at the time at which they are made.-
[ --> Relativism, too, is not new; complete with its radical amorality rooted in a worldview that has no foundational IS that can ground OUGHT, leading to an effectively arbitrary foundation only for morality, ethics and law: accident of personal preference, the ebbs and flows of power politics, accidents of history and and the shifting sands of manipulated community opinion driven by "winds and waves of doctrine and the cunning craftiness of men in their deceitful scheming . . . " cf a video on Plato's parable of the cave; from the perspective of pondering who set up the manipulative shadow-shows, why.]
These, my friends, are the sayings of wise men, poets and prose writers, which find a way into the minds of youth. They are told by them that the highest right is might,
[ --> Evolutionary materialism -- having no IS that can properly ground OUGHT -- leads to the promotion of amorality on which the only basis for "OUGHT" is seen to be might (and manipulation: might in "spin") . . . ]
and in this way the young fall into impieties, under the idea that the Gods are not such as the law bids them imagine; and hence arise factions [ --> Evolutionary materialism-motivated amorality "naturally" leads to continual contentions and power struggles influenced by that amorality at the hands of ruthless power hungry nihilistic agendas], these philosophers inviting them to lead a true life according to nature, that is,to live in real dominion over others [ --> such amoral and/or nihilistic factions, if they gain power, "naturally" tend towards ruthless abuse and arbitrariness . . . they have not learned the habits nor accepted the principles of mutual respect, justice, fairness and keeping the civil peace of justice, so they will want to deceive, manipulate and crush -- as the consistent history of radical revolutions over the past 250 years so plainly shows again and again], and not in legal subjection to them [--> nihilistic will to power not the spirit of justice and lawfulness].
We need to learn from history, or we will be doomed to pay the same coin of blood and tears over and over again. And this time around -- as the chaos over No Ko shows -- nukes are in play. KFkairosfocus_{May 3, 2017
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Seversky:
{W. Haw.] Add a further uncontroversial assumption: an action is permissible if and only if it’s not the case that one ought to refrain from performing that action . . . [[We see] therefore, for any action you care to pick, it’s permissible to perform that action. If you’d like, you can take this as the meat behind the slogan ‘if atheism is true, all things are permitted’. [Sev.] See, now here’s the problem. You are smuggling intelligent agency into the argument. Permission can only be granted by a ‘permitter’. The natural world, in my view, is not an intelligent being. It can neither permit nor forbid anything so it is just as logical to say “‘if atheism is true, all things are forbidden’ as to say ‘‘if atheism is true, all things are permitted’, in other words, it does not follow logically at all.
All WH did was to say we are radically free: in absence of binding oughts, there are no limits we should not pass -- of course, absent might and manipulation make 'truth' 'right' 'rights' etc . . . nihilism. Your imagined smuggling in of a strawman fails. You do have to confront the onward meaninglessness of moral government and particularly its application to the responsibility we need to govern rationality. Also, the sense that we are governed is still there, so you have to confront pervasive, grand delusion in "mindedness." Which in turn on your known worldview reduces to GIGO-limited computation on a neural network substrate that magically pulls the FSCO/I of its organisation and programming out of lucky noise filtered incrementally through differential reproductive success, undirected drift etc. In short, you have let grand delusion and nihilistic mindedness loose just as warned against. Ruse and Wilson rather severely understate the damaging effects, but at least put the matter on the table:
The time has come to take seriously the fact [--> This is a gross error at the outset, as macro-evolution is a theory (an explanation) about the unobserved past of origins and so cannot be a fact on the level of the observed roundness of the earth or the orbiting of planets around the sun etc.] that we humans are modified monkeys, not the favored Creation of a Benevolent God on the Sixth Day . . . We must think again especially about our so-called ‘ethical principles.’ The question is not whether biology—specifically, our evolution—is connected with ethics, but how. As evolutionists, we see that no justification of the traditional kind is possible. Morality, or more strictly our belief in morality, is merely an adaptation put in place to further our reproductive ends. Hence the basis of ethics does not lie in God’s will … In an important sense, ethics as we understand it is an illusion fobbed off on us by our genes to get us to cooperate. It is without external grounding… Ethics is illusory inasmuch as it persuades us that it has an objective reference. This is the crux of the biological position. Once it is grasped, everything falls into place.
[ --> And everything instantly falls apart as this would set grand delusion loose in our mental lives. Even logical reasoning is guided by the conscience-driven urge to truth, right and justice, so once such a grand delusion is let loose it undermines the general credibility of conscious mindedness, setting up a cascade of shadow-show worlds. The skeptical spider has enmeshed himself in his own web. Thus, any such scheme should be set aside as self-refuting.]
[Michael Ruse & E. O. Wilson, “The Evolution of Ethics,” Religion and the Natural Sciences: The Range of Engagement, , ed. J. E. Hutchingson, Orlando, Fl.:Harcourt and Brace, 1991. (NB: Cf. a separate discussion on the grounding of worldviews and ethics here on, which includes a specific discussion of the grounding of ethics and goes on to Biblical theism; having first addressed the roots of the modern evolutionary materialist mindset and its pretensions to the mantle of science. Also cf. here on for Plato's warning in The Laws, Bk X, on social consequences of the rise of such a view as the philosophy of the avant garde in a community.]
Do you understand the chaos that is being let loose, a chaos that Plato -- reflecting on the collapse of Athens -- warned us against in no uncertain terms? KF PS: I see HeKS has spotted and spoken to much the same.kairosfocus_{May 3, 2017
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In what way could the truth of 1 + 1 = 2 depend on anyone or anything?
The truth itself? I don't know. The potential to know a truth - now that is a different question.
9. The irreducibility of the epistemic cut The concept of constraint is not considered fundamental in physics because the (internal, geometric reactive) forces of constraint can, in principle, be reduced to active impressed forces governed by energy-based microscopic dynamical laws. The so-called fixed geometric forces are just stationary states of a faster, more detailed dynamics. This reducibility to microscopic dynamics is possible in principle for structures, even if it is computationally completely impractical. However, describing any bridge across an epistemic cut by a single dynamical description is not possible even in principle. The most convincing general argument for this irreducible complementarity of dynamical laws and measurement function comes again from von Neumann (1955, p. 352). He calls the system being measured, S, and the measuring device, M, that must provide the initial conditions for the dynamic laws of S. Since the non-integrable constraint, M, is also a physical system obeying the same laws as S, we may try a unified description by considering the combined physical system (S + M). But then we will need a new measuring device, M', to provide the initial conditions for the larger system (S + M). This leads to an infinite regress; but the main point is that even though any constraint like a measuring device, M, can in principle be described by more detailed universal laws, the fact is that if you choose to do so you will lose the function of M as a measuring device. This demonstrates that laws cannot describe the pragmatic function of measurement even if they can correctly and completely describe the detailed dynamics of the measuring constraints.
Dynamics cannot explain the measurement function. Without a measuring entity, 1 + 1 = 2 would never exist, and its truth or falsity would never be known. In that sense, the truth would not exist, and is dependent on the measurement. /butting back outUpright BiPed_{May 2, 2017
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DaveS: I actually did mean that the truth of mathematical statements such as 1 + 1 = 2 is not dependent on God/the world-root, or whatever we choose to call it. At least that’s my opinion. In what way could the truth of 1 + 1 = 2 depend on anyone or anything? Opinion (conclusion of a material brain) Fair enoughmike1962_{May 2, 2017
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jdk #81, See, I have a very different take on Seversky's statement. I would first say that it's hard to smuggle in something that you are openly pointing to. The theists here regularly argue that an intelligent being at the base of reality is precisely (and uniquely) what is needed in order to ground objective moral values and duties. It is only as a result of intelligent agency that anything might be either forbidden or mandated, proscribed or prescribed. Regarding the statement, "if atheism is true, all things are permitted", Seversky may have picked up on a slight technical inaccuracy in the wording [1], but the correction doesn't change the ultimately meaning or validity of the underlying point one iota. To address Seversky's somewhat pedantic point, one need only restate the slogan as, "if atheism is true, nothing is forbidden". Contrary to Seversky's claim, it is not just as logical to say, "if atheism is true, all things are forbidden", because there is no logical parity between the underlying content of the two statements. One can be corrected to avoid a pedantic technical criticism and its content can be rationally justified. The same cannot be said of the other. And just to be clear, I'm not criticizing Seversky for the pedanticism, per se. I appreciate people pointing out confusing or technically inaccurate wording in conversations like this since that can only help to clarify the positions and arguments in the long run. The real problem is that the pedanticism is the meat of his comment while his larger claim has no real merit. When someone makes a substantive claim and you choose to respond, it's one thing to point out in the process that they've misplaced a comma, but it's another thing entirely if your whole response is centered on the misplaced comma while ignoring the larger valid point they've made. One thing I've pointed to many times in my discussions with people here is the Principle of Charity, which requires that you try to take the strongest and most reasonable version and interpretation of your opponent's arguments and statements and address that rather then trying to get yourself off the hook by looking for the weakest possible interpretation and attacking that. In my opinion and experience, Seversky has routinely failed in that regard. ----- [1] As a side point, the statement, "if atheism is true, all things are permitted" can be understood as saying that, in the absence of God, there is no higher moral law than human opinion, and so humans are free to permit all things for themselves. In any case, the statement usually takes the general form KF used because it references the statement in Dostoevsky's, The Brothers Karamazov, though translations of that typically begin with "If God does not exist" or "Without God" rather than "If atheism is true".HeKS_{May 2, 2017
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Thanks, HeKS. Yes I saw that and have just had time to skim it, and won't have much time for a thoughtful response for at least a day. But I'm glad you're still involved, and I haven't dropped out.jdk_{May 2, 2017
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Seversky at 70 says,
See, now here’s the problem. You are smuggling intelligent agency into the argument. Permission can only be granted by a ‘permitter’. The natural world, in my view, is not an intelligent being. It can neither permit nor forbid anything so it is just as logical to say “‘if atheism is true, all things are forbidden’ as to say ‘‘if atheism is true, all things are permitted’, in other words, it does not follow logically at all.
This is a good point. It is a category error to apply a descriptor to something to which it doesn't apply. The example a friend of mine used to use was asking, "Is the ocean humble or proud." Clearly it is neither, because the quality of which pride and humility are the nominal opposites just doesn't apply to inanimate objects such as the ocean. Note: I'm not jumping in here to defend naturalism: I am currently presenting and discussing a possible non-materialistic alternative to traditional theism (and naturalism)in another thread. But I think Seversky has a good point about the "anything is permitted" claim.jdk_{May 2, 2017
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jdk, BTW, I added a response in the other thread today. It's been a couple days since I last had time to respond so I figured I'd give you a heads-up. Obviously no need to rush on your own response. My time is pretty limited at the moment. Take careHeKS_{May 2, 2017
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jdk #76 Yup, that's how I did it.HeKS_{May 2, 2017
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hammaspeikko #75 You're welcome.HeKS_{May 2, 2017
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hammaspeikko #68 There is nothing wrong with jumping into the fray, but before taking an overly arrogant approach to the subject matter (as you've already started to do) you might want to familiarize yourself with some of the deeper issues involved, because most of the people engaging in the discussion have spent a lot of time thinking and talking about this subject over several years. The questions that Phinehas and others have asked you are serious and cut to the core of this issue. It is trivially easy to identify differences that humans consider morally significant between choosing to eat liver and choosing to rape and murder. The problem is that it becomes devilishly difficult to justify why these differences themselves matter in any ultimate sense if objective morality does not exist as a real feature of the world, or to justify intervention in the 'moral' choices other people make. If objective morality does not really exist, then nothing is truly morally wrong or impermissible and moral intervention can never be rationally justified (certainly not as a moral imperative), because it would only ever amount to forcing your own moral opinions on other people who have different moral opinions that, objectively speaking, cannot possibly be wrong or inferior to your own. This discussion is one about ultimate grounding. If no ultimate grounding exists for moral values and duties then you can point out that rape and murder involve violence, the suppression of someone's free will and a disregard for the value of life, but you can't offer any ultimate justification for why any of those things are truly wrong. Instead they just become socially taboo ... out of fashion among folks who consider themselves respectable ... contrary to some kind of utilitarian philosophy or another. There would be no objective difference between the moral status of rape and murder and voluntarily choosing to eat liver because morality would ultimately consist of nothing more than statements about personal or group preference rather than descriptive statements about how the world actually is. Where the discussion proceeds from there depends on the person. Many people consider it self-evident that certain things really are morally wrong, considering a belief in objective moral values and duties to be properly basic (i.e. capable of being rationally held without needing justification by appeal to more basic evidence) and the conversation simply becomes about what is needed to ground those moral realities, with God being the only serious candidate on offer. For those who don't hold a belief in objective moral values and duties to be properly basic, the discussion can become about establishing their existence as either a matter of logical necessity or as being the most rational conclusion based on other conclusions that are considered to be logically necessary. If you're looking for the latter then I suggest you take up jdk's offer in #12 to follow our conversation in the other thread. There are also a number articles on this site (some of which I've written) that will give you a good primer in the finer points of this issue. Just go to the main page and type "objective morality" into the search bar in the right column. Take care, HeKSHeKS_{May 2, 2017
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Yes, good job, HeKS @ 73. I looked at the page source, and it looks like you used the html code for , < and >, so that the software doesn't recognize the word "blockquote" between them as a tag. Is that how you did it?jdk_{May 2, 2017
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HeKs, thank you. I will try that next time I comment.hammaspeikko_{May 2, 2017
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The real trick is to be able to demonstrate how to add blockquotes without your demonstration itself turning into a blockquote. :)Upright BiPed_{May 2, 2017
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hammaspeikko #72 You do it like this: <blockquote>Quoted text goes here</blockquote> and it looks like this:
Quoted text goes here
HeKS_{May 2, 2017
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On a totally different subject, how do I place other people's comments in those indented boxes? They look so much cleaner than what I have been doing.hammaspeikko_{May 2, 2017
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"That is the problem with subjective morality. There is no objective moral compass which can tell us that any particular personal preference is wrong." If we need some objective moral compass to inform us that being raped and forced into slavery are things that we would not want for ourselves, humanity is screwed. Is it not possible that our entire moral system is based on a God given need for moral governance and a God given ability to empathize? It seems to me that these two characteristics of humanity is all that is needed to account for what we see around us.hammaspeikko_{May 2, 2017
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I suppose I ought to contribute something since my nom de plume is in the headline... kairosfocus@ 33
. . . with Will Hawthorne’s stinging rebuke to such thought in the blog, Atheism is Dead:
Assume (per impossibile) that atheistic naturalism [[= evolutionary materialism] is true.

I do so assume.

Assume, furthermore, that one can’t infer an ‘ought’ from an ‘is’ [[the ‘is’ being in this context physicalist: matter-energy, space- time, chance and mechanical forces]. (Richard Dawkins and many other atheists should grant both of these assumptions.)

So assumed.

Given our second assumption, there is no description of anything in the natural world from which we can infer an ‘ought’.

That's what I've been arguing.

And given our first assumption, there is nothing that exists over and above the natural world; the natural world is all that there is.

That's what I believe

It follows logically that, for any action you care to pick, there’s no description of anything in the natural world from which we can infer that one ought to refrain from performing that action.

We already agreed to that above.

Add a further uncontroversial assumption: an action is permissible if and only if it’s not the case that one ought to refrain from performing that action . . . [[We see] therefore, for any action you care to pick, it’s permissible to perform that action. If you’d like, you can take this as the meat behind the slogan ‘if atheism is true, all things are permitted’.

See, now here's the problem. You are smuggling intelligent agency into the argument. Permission can only be granted by a 'permitter'. The natural world, in my view, is not an intelligent being. It can neither permit nor forbid anything so it is just as logical to say "‘if atheism is true, all things are forbidden’ as to say '‘if atheism is true, all things are permitted’, in other words, it does not follow logically at all.

For example if atheism is true, every action Hitler performed was permissible. Many atheists don’t like this consequence of their worldview. But they cannot escape it and insist that they are being logical at the same time.

Who granted Hitler permission to do what he did? Not the natural world. Not atheism. What is actually impermissible is the argument that atheism somehow precludes the ability to form moral judgements.

Now, we all know that at least some actions are really not permissible (for example, racist actions).

I would agree but is it accurate to say we "know" or is just that the majority of us agree that certain human behaviors are harmful to others and should be curbed for the benefit of all?

Since the conclusion of the argument denies this, there must be a problem somewhere in the argument. Could the argument be invalid? No. The argument has not violated a single rule of logic and all inferences were made explicit.

You introduced the concept of intelligent agency without acknowledging that is what you were doing.

Thus we are forced to deny the truth of one of the assumptions we started out with. That means we either deny atheistic naturalism or (the more intuitively appealing) principle that one can’t infer ‘ought’ from [[a material] ‘is’.

I'm afraid not. Neither position is changed. It is still impossible to infer an 'ought' from an 'is'. And atheism doesn't preclude morality, it simply means that it is founded on something like intersubjective agreement rather than divine providence.Seversky_{May 2, 2017
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hammaspeikk said:
You were serious? I apologize. I didn’t think that anyone would seriously equate forced slavery a rape with the voluntary eating of liver.
He wasn't equating those two acts; he was correctly equating the fact that both people would be acting on their preferences. Under subjective morality, all one can ultimately be doing is acting on their preferences (even if it means long-game-social-theory preferences over short-gain preferences). Ultimately, both acts are engaged in due to personal preference, even though one is choosing a preferred meal and the other is choosing a preferred act of violence. That is the problem with subjective morality. There is no objective moral compass which can tell us that any particular personal preference is wrong.William J Murray_{May 2, 2017
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Mjoels: "HP you are very close to it. Reverse that thought. If morality is subjective, what makes those 3 different?" Let's see. Two of them (slavery and rape) are forced on others against their will, and involve violence. One is a personal preference. I believe in objective morality and presented a devil's advocate argument from the subjective perspective. And the best that my side of the argument can give is the equivalent of telling a woman who has been raped that she shouldn't complain because the rapist was just making a choice that was no morally different than selecting a meal at a diner. We really have to do better than this if we are to have a chance of convincing anyone of objective morality.hammaspeikko_{May 2, 2017
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HP you are very close to it. Reverse that thought. If morality is subjective, what makes those 3 different?mjoels_{May 2, 2017
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Phinehas: "You’re welcome. But more than making you laugh, I was looking to make you think. Whether I was successful or not in this regard is still an open question until you decide to close it." You were serious? I apologize. I didn't think that anyone would seriously equate forced slavery a rape with the voluntary eating of liver.hammaspeikko_{May 2, 2017
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HP:
Thank you for making me laugh.
You're welcome. But more than making you laugh, I was looking to make you think. Whether I was successful or not in this regard is still an open question until you decide to close it. Out of curiosity, should anyone read into the fact that you've adopted a troll as your moniker?Phinehas_{May 2, 2017
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Phinehas: "Would you like to eat liver?" I love liver. With Chianti and fava beans. "I know that I wouldn’t. It’s not very hard for me to say that this is immoral." Thank you for making me laugh.hammaspeikko_{May 2, 2017
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HP:
Would you like to be enslaved or raped? I know that I wouldn’t. It’s not very hard for me to say that these are immoral. But as your quote demonstrates, not everybody believes this.
Would you like to eat liver? I know that I wouldn't. It's not very hard for me to say that this is immoral. On the other hand, it would be a massive non sequitur.Phinehas_{May 2, 2017
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JaD: "Since we cannot prove that objective moral values exist then how can we say that slavery or rape is immoral?" Would you like to be enslaved or raped? I know that I wouldn't. It's not very hard for me to say that these are immoral. But as your quote demonstrates, not everybody believes this. "Furthermore, your belief that objective moral values exist is just your personal belief. How is anyone else obligated to follow your beliefs or personal opinions?" Are you saying that if I say that it is my "belief" that certain moral values are objective, others aren't obliged to follow my moral values, but if I "claim" that they are objective, others are obliged to follow them even though I can't support my claim with conclusive evidence or a logically sound argument? I prefer to be honest.hammaspeikko_{May 2, 2017
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DS:
What I’m asking is how this world-root could have any effect on mathematics, for example. Is it necessary that the world-root contemplate “1 + 1 = 2” eternally for it to be true?
Lacking a ground of all being, nothing would exist to add to anything else, the very concept of addition would be meaningless, and there would be nothing for which symbols could stand as representation. Nor is the point that the ground of all being "contemplates" the meaning. Rather, the ground of all being IS the meaning. The meaning of 1 + 1 = 2 inheres in the world-root, as does the meaning of the good. In this way, your "contemplation" is analogous to Divine Command Theory and how such get's hung up on the Euthyphro Dilemma. EDIT: Unless you mean by "contemplate" what WJM has said above. I shouldn't assume otherwise, I suppose.Phinehas_{May 2, 2017
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DaveS asks:
What I’m asking is how this world-root could have any effect on mathematics, for example. Is it necessary that the world-root contemplate “1 + 1 = 2” eternally for it to be true?
I guess that depends on what you mean by "contemplate". I take it to mean that god's "attention" is fixed upon creation, holding it in place, empowering it, manifesting it according to its fundamental laws and principles (reflecting god's fundamental nature). I wouldn't have any idea what something would look like without that fixed "contemplation" of God. I have no idea how one would ascertain what was "true" outside of that scenario.William J Murray_{May 2, 2017
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DaveS asks:
In that case, is it not possible that humans could discover this equation with no divine assistance? It’s not that difficult to understand.
In a world utterly created and empowered by God, tell me how how humans do anything without divine assistance?William J Murray_{May 2, 2017
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hammaspeikko @ 56, “Again, I believe that there are objective moral values, but I honestly can’t see how we prove this or how we can rule out that they are not objective.” Consider this:
Jonathan A.C. Brown, director of a centre for Muslim-Christian understanding at Georgetown praised slavery in Muslim societies and claimed that it is “not immoral for one human to own another human” and that “consent isn't necessary for lawful sex.” No riots ensued, so the content of his ideas does not matter. (emphasis added)
See more at: https://www.mercatornet.com/features/view/the-war-on-freedom-is-rotting-our-intellectual-life/19725#sthash.rEu3AuYc.dpuf Where are you trying to go with your reasoning? From what I can see you are saying or suggesting something like this: Since we cannot prove that objective moral values exist then how can we say that slavery or rape is immoral? Furthermore, your belief that objective moral values exist is just your personal belief. How is anyone else obligated to follow your beliefs or personal opinions?john_a_designer_{May 2, 2017
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