Subjectivist Cowardice on Display
| November 6, 2018 | Posted by Barry Arrington under Intelligent Design |
JDK wrote in a comment to my last post: “I just believe it is true that there is no Truth that we can know.”
I replied by stating that the fact that it is evil to torture a baby for pleasure is certainly true. And I challenged JDK: “Deny that. I dare you.”
JDK refused my dare and ran for cover.
JDK’s statement and my statement are mutually exclusive. They cannot be both be true. So it should be easy for JDK to deny my claim if he truly believes his claim. Yet he refuses to do so. Why? Because at bottom he is a coward. He comes into these pages and makes bold claims about the unknowability of truth. And when confronted with the loathsome repugnance of his moral squalor, instead of standing by his claim, he tucks tail and runs.
Maybe I am wrong. I will give JDK another chance just to make sure. Here goes.
JDK, you say “there is no Truth that we can know.” I say we can know with absolute certainty that it is evil to torture a baby for pleasure. Go ahead, deny my claim. I dare you again.
BA, try E = “error exists.” To deny this is of course directly refutes itself by instantiating an error. That is, to assert ~E means that it is an error to assert E, thus both showing that at least one error must exist, that the error must be ~E, and that E is undeniably and thus self-evidently true, warranted to utter certainty. Thus also, knowledge here exists to utter certainty, we here clearly know a pivotal truth. Subjectivist and/or relativist views such as JDK asserted are at once swept away as equally certainly false. That such have been institutionalised and entrenched in our day speaks saddening volumes on the suicidally self-destructive state of our civilisation which again and again stubbornly brushes aside truth, duty or even prudence in pursuit of advantages and agendas. Moreover, it is equally self evident that in our life of responsible rational freedom and intellectual activity, we are and must be governed by duties to truth, right, fairness and more. KF
PS: I see that the leading nation of that civilisation has apparently decided collectively to further pursue chaos. Plato’s parable of the ship of state and Acts 27 have a few things to say to us, cf. here: http://kairosfocus.blogspot.co.....-case.html I also draw attention to Festus’ correction to the Jerusalem elites in Ac 26:15: ” 16 I told them that it was not the custom of the Romans to hand over any man [for punishment] before the accused meets his accusers face to face and has the opportunity to defend himself against the charges.” This, it seems, we have forgotten and if we proceed as we have seen in all too shocking detail, we will sow dragon’s teeth.
This by itself wins A/Mat in Self-Defeating Wonderland of the Year Award.
Andrew
hi kf, we can’t now that error exists because we cannot know that it is true that either E or not E is true. 😉
Not that we should care, given that there is no such thing as Truth in the first place.
Jack’s a coward? Not according to his subjectivist standard. How dare you Barry! However, if there really are no interpersonal standards of any kind I don’t see why Jack would feel insulted. (Unless, of course, he prefers to feel that way.)
Mung, that error exists will be true independent of our warranting it. Besides what you just heard is the sucking sound of rationality itself going down the drain. KF
1. One of the principles of constructive civil discourse is to honestly try to understand other’s view, and one of the techniques is to make statements back that demonstrate this, such as “If I understand you correctly, you think … – is that correct?” Another principle is to not call people names.
These are principles that are utterly foreign to Barry.
When Barry shows some signs of being able to do done some of these things, he can get back with me.
2. At the beginning of Barry’s last post, I suggested he go back and read the original Saudi post here: https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/bob-argues-with-a-saudi-about-whether-it-is-good-to-execute-homosexuals/
Later I particularly suggested he read posts 1 and 10 there, which he show no indication of having done.
We went through these topics there, and given my points in paragraph 1 above, I see no sense in going through them again.
Some relevant posts in the original threads are at 1, 10, 39, 47, 49, 54, 58, 59, and 75.
JDK, pardon but with all due respect what you have stated is patently incoherent. As such it cannot be understood, it can only be seen to be incoherent. Yes, it sounds nice and tolerant to hold to our ignorance of truth and to our inability to warrant such objectively, but in fact that is a surrender of the point of rationality. Notice, yardstick knowable truth no 1 is that error exists. It has two effects, first to demonstrate that truth and knowable truth are actual. Second, it shows that error is possible so we must be prudent. Next, it is in fact plainly self evident that to torture a baby for one’s sick pleasure is wrong. Moral truths can be known, and this one is pregnant with many implications. Implications that ground a framework of moral law. KF
kairosfocus:
Atheists are the most rational among us, my friend. Should we not then look to them for what is rational and what is not rational?
JDK
Another principle of constructive civil discourse is that respondents should be honest and answer hard questions. The “uncivil” name calling that you complain about is the product of your uncivil evasions.
JDK:
If I understand you correctly, you think it is not evil to torture a baby for pleasure – is that correct? Yes or no?
re 9 and 10: see 6, paragraph 2.
es58 @ 10:
JDK replied to you with his standard cowardly evasions.
It is all nuance-y and subtle, you see. He can’t answer a straightforward question.
No, it is not nuance-y and subtle JDK. Here are the two statements again.
JDK: “There is no Truth that we can know.”
Barry: “We can know with absolute certainty that it is evil to torture a baby for pleasure.”
If your statement is true, mine is false. If my statement is true yours is false.
Why don’t you nut up and take a stand?
Answer, because you are a coward. You cannot bring yourself to affirm the moral squalor that results from your claim. But you won’t back away from the claim either.
Not only are you a coward, you are evil. Some things absolutely must be not only un-doable but also unthinkable. My claim is one of these. But you are unwilling to say that. You say it is unthinkable for you, but not for someone else. That is monstrous. Of such holocausts are made.
JDK
I read it yesterday. It’s irrelevant. Barry’s question persists, (as do all of mine, none of which were answered). Let’s face it. You are afraid to provide honest answers to honest questions.
kf
This is very good.
I presented the case that the pursuit of truth is a necessary moral commitment, using similar logic.
However (with some work) – the same could be done by pointing out that since “error exists” – this also means it is objectively true that “evil exists”.
If good vs evil are objectively known, this is the basis of the natural moral law (which must also be objective).
SA, Josiah Royce was very smart, long ago now. I have found that duty to truth, reason and justice are inescapable, naturally evident laws of responsible rational freedom. We may break, but at a cost. From these several principles of the natural moral law can be seen, too. KF
kairosfocus:
What’s more, people like jdk know this to be true as evidenced by their own words and actions.
kf
KF yes, but I will propose that it is not possible to break the law which affirms the moral goodness of adherence to truth. That law is necessary for human life, and in terms of pure logic – it cannot be broken.
A person cannot make an absolute commitment to falsehood.
Logically, it’s not possible.
Thus, adherence truth is a necessary moral norm.
Truth is equated to good – conformity to truth an intellectual virtue.
Truth has a greater value of goodness than does falsehood. Seeking truth is seeking goodness – thus a moral value.
Mung
jdk affirms that he respects the truth but at the same time denies that it has basis in objective reality.
That is saying that ‘true’ is interchageable with ‘false’ — they’re equal values that are chosen for subjective reasons.
But reality itself dictates that we choose truth – it’s not subjective that there are truths. It’s based in reality.
I hope it’s clear that we have been talking about transcendent truths, and primarily moral values, when we say they are “objective”.
Clearly it is an objective truth, in the non-transcendent sense of the word, that I can’t walk through a brick wall.
JDK
4 things are very clear JDK:
1. You said this: “There is no Truth that we can know.”
2. I said this: “We can know with absolute certainty that it is evil to torture a baby for pleasure.”
3. And then I said this: “Go ahead, deny my claim. I dare you again.”
4. You are too cowardly to respond honestly to my challenge.
jdk claims that
Other than the fact that you have never personally walked through a wall makes you claim that it is objectively true that it is completely impossible for anyone else to do so?
Many people regard the following passage as proof that Jesus walked through a wall:
jdk, you may try to further claim that science somehow proves that it is completely impossible for a person to walk through a wall. Yet, if you did claim as such, you would, once again, be wrong in your supposedly ‘scientific’ claim.
One of the many mysteries of quantum mechanics is quantum tunneling. In fact, quantum tunneling lays behind many modern technological miracles.
Yet, quantum tunneling refutes your belief that it absolutely impossible for one object to pass through the ‘barrier’ of another object.
Simply put, the ‘miracle’ of physically going through a supposedly impenetrable barrier is what lies at the basis of the much on modern technology. And directly refutes your supposedly ‘scientific’ claim that it is completely impossible for you, or any other person, to potentially do the same.
jdk
I am proposing that there is an objective moral obligation necessarily aligned with every statement of truth. It’s an example of the objective, natural moral law.
Sa, by break, I do not mean destroy, but disobey. Perhaps with temporary advantage but always to ultimate detriment; especially if the unlawful behaviour becomes sufficiently widespread. Yes, I am pointing to one of the points in the categorical imperative. KF
KF
Yes, agreed and good clarification – thank you.
Sa, I should have been clearer. My comment at 19 was in response to your statement at 18 that “jdk affirms that he respects the truth but at the same time denies that it has basis in objective reality.”
I consider a brick wall an example of objective reality. However, your 22 clears up any confusion about this that I might have had about what you were referring to. You were referring to truth about objective moral values, which is of course what we have been discussing, but I mistakenly thought you might have been talking more generally than that. All is clear to me now about this little interchange.
Barry to JDK:
JDK, perhaps I can make it easier for you by asking a question that you can identify with.
Moral assertion: It is evil for Islamic bigots to murder homosexuals? Is that a truth that you can know?
UD Editors: Mr. Robbins’ false flag BS deleted
jdk states
To which the question is begged, ‘and exactly how do you know that statement is true?’
Your claim in and of itself presupposes that truth can be known.
Moreover, your statement is very similar to the liar’s paradox that Gödel used to prove his first incompleteness theorem
Simply put jdk, Godel’s incompleteness theorem has proven that the truthfulness of any system of logic or numbers necessary exist separate from, i.e. transcendent of, that system of logic or numbers, no matter how certain we are that it is true.
Of note, Gödel was a Christian:
When I wrote, “There is no Truth that we can know”, ba replied,
Assuming we understand that I am talking about “objective, transcendent truth”, with a capital T, as we are, I have responded to that point twice recently.
The same type of reply applies to your comment.
JDK,
Ignoring the 500 pound gorilla won’t make him go away. Dodge and ignore all you like. You are not fooling anyone.
Here’s the challenge again:
You said this: “There is no Truth that we can know.”
I said this: “We can know with absolute certainty that it is evil to torture a baby for pleasure.”
And then I said this: “Go ahead, deny my claim. I dare you again.”
At least you didn’t call me a coward this time. Thanks.
Isn’t it clear that I am not going to answer you?
Lakoff points out how important framing is. As I pointed out in another post (which I have pointed to but you haven’t read, or at least registered), your question is loaded with assumptions that I don’t accept. I will talk about these things from within my framework, not yours.
It’s like the old question, “Have you stopped beating your wife? – yes or no?”
I’m not interested in this rhetorical game you want to play.
If you actually wanted to have a discussion, you would respond to some of my posts, not just dismiss them, and you would show some interest in understanding a point of view different than your own. (I mentioned some of this in post 6 above.)
But as I said in post 1 of the original Saudi post, “This is human life, Barry, not armchair philosophy.”
I am interested in real people and the role morals play in their lives. I am not interested in the loaded word-game puzzles you think are so compelling.
So you can quit asking me your question.
JDK,
You are utterly shameless. Thank you for coming into our pages and demonstrating the moral cesspool of subjectvism. Thank you for finally admitting that you will never answer the question.
You’re welcome, Barry.
However, I don’t think there is any “finally” here: I have consistently explained why I think questions such as yours are loaded, and have always answered with some explanations of why I think that, and what I do think. I was just more explicit in 31 because you were obviously making a point of asking over and over, and I thought I’d help bring that to an end.
But I’m glad to provide an opposing view. Think about how boring it would be here without some people to be appalled at.
And there may be some people who lurk and have benefitted from what I have to say, or perhaps have learned something from watching how people such as myself are treated.
You reply to to my comment is pure nonsense.
To presuppose a truth can be known is to presuppose that ‘The Truth’ can be known.
Your position is equivalent to the insanity of someone believing that pieces of a puzzle can exist but there can be no overarching puzzle to which the pieces belong.
What sane person would take lessons about right and wrong from anyone who acts this way?
Actions speak louder than words, while words speak louder than contrived hypothetical actions. You seem like mean, angry, abusive people. But let’s talk about actions.
In 1195 Pope Celestine III ordered a jihad, I mean crusade, against the pagans in Latvia. Something in the objective natural moral law said that it was a good idea to start kllling people and “converting” others by force. Blood was spilled. Lives were ruined. If you believe in Satan then surely he was pulling the strings.
And that was just one war.
In the 20th century women were enslaved to do laundry. Ireland is still digging up skeletons of women and infants where they were tossed in mass graves like garbage.
Let those images sink in. I hope that every time someone hears the words “objective morality” and “natural moral law” they picture blood-splattered knights surrounded by carnage and mass graves full of the bodies of slaves and their babies.
OA,
a decree by a pope is simply not the moral law of our nature manifest in things like our undeniable duties to truth, right reason, justice etc.
There is a natural law theory of just war, which is sometimes a necessary act in the face of otherwise un-stoppable aggressors. In the face of say a Hitler, what is your counsel otherwise than to fight?
Perhaps, the following from that Bible-thumping fundy — NOT! — Cicero may help:
To such, your answer is: _________ ?
KF
PS: Today, I had to speak to the relevance of this, cf. here.
ba writes,
This is a somewhat accurate analogy. Due to various human limitations, our life presents us with millions of puzzle pieces to consider and integrate into our understanding, but we have no way, ever, to step back/up/out and come anywhere close to seeing all of the puzzle. (And some of the pieces are not accessible in any way, such as those which lie outside our universe, in whatever sense that might have meaning, and if in fact such pieces exist.)
On the other hand, the puzzle analogy is not very accurate, because everything we experience, including our own internal experiences such as our feeling and thoughts, is incorporated into our holistic system of understanding: our own personal worldview. To take a trivial example, while hiking in the woods I might “see” all the beauty and peace of undisturbed nature, someone else might see the possibility of timber harvest, and someone else a potential golf course.
So there is no way any one of us can see all the different interpretations of the raw data – all the puzzle pieces, so to speak.
There is a nice line in the Dylan song “High Water” that is relevant:
This is really the big problem in our discussions here – the real 600 pound gorilla. Many of you here have the idea of an immaterial realm, including God, deeply embedded in your personal worldview, and everything you experience is seen in that context. Other of us do not have that: we have different foundational beliefs with which we structure our understandings of our experiences.
If we are willing, we can abstractly learn about other points of views, but we can’t really be someone else: we can’t open up our minds to every conceivable point of view. That is why it is useful to discuss different points of view in a constructive environment: it broadens one’s perspective of the breadth of humanity and also helps one evaluate, refine, and strengthen one’s understanding of one’s self.
But there isn’t just one puzzle. There are as many different puzzles as there are people.
[Total trivia, which I’m documenting just for the record, to myself. I’ve liked the Dylan line for a long time, but just assumed “George Lewis” was just a name. Fact number two: I’m reading George Eliot’s 1875 novel “Daniel Deronda”. Eliot (real name Mary Anne Evans) was a remarkable author noted for her realism and psychological insight. She was also an unorthodox, free-spirited woman who lived with the English philosopher and writer George Lewes for many years in a common-law marriage. A website on Dylan lyrics says that George Lewes is the George Lewis of the Dylan song. So what are the chances of my coincidentally bringing the Dylan lyric and the Eliot novel together into my life this evening. Who could have seen that puzzle piece falling into place?]
JDK
Barry did not ask a “loaded” question. You really ought to go back and check the meaning of that term.
If moral subjectivism and relativism are true (which itself is a self-refuting claim) what is the basis for human rights? Where do our rights come from? Many moral subjectivists or anti-realists argue that we are the ones who invent human rights. For example, J.L. Mackie entitled one of his books, Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong. However, how can metaethical claims about morality and ethics possibly be true if such statements are ruled in error and therefore false a priori? That’s what Mackie (and others) have argued with his so-called error theory. It follows from that kind of thinking that there can be no such thing as universal human rights. We should be very concerned where all this is leading, because, the rights you presently believe you have and believe are protected by law can be taken away. So called rights according to the subjectivist and relativist are really ad hoc and arbitrary.
It seems rather pointless to reason with a person who doesn’t understand basic logic. Self-refuting and contradictory propositions cannot possibly be true. That is a self-evident truth.
Why should I, or anyone, else trust a person who has no basis, therefore, no real belief or respect for human rights?
Old Andrew:
Something in the objective natural moral law said that it was a good idea to start kllling people and “converting” others by force.
The objective natural moral law forbids murder and converting people by force. I assume that your ignorance on the matter stems from your lack of intellectual curiosity.
Old Andrew:
The objective natural moral law forbids murder and converting people by force. I assume that your ignorance on the matter stems from your lack of intellectual curiosity.
jdk states:
Apparently jdk agrees that the puzzle pieces, i.e. truths that we currently know, are being put together in such a fashion so as to, at least, let us know that there is indeed a overarching puzzle being put together, i.e. to let us know that there is some ultimate “The Truth” to the overarching puzzle to which the individual pieces are somehow conforming.
But jdk also holds that man, from his finite perspective, has no way of ever knowing what the final puzzle will look like.
I guess he views us as being much too small to ever see what the final picture of the puzzle actually is.
I disagree with jdk.
Although the finite mind of man is separated from the infinite Mind of God by an infinite degree, God has, none-the-less, given the finite ‘made in the image of God’ mind of man the capacity to, at least, grasp ‘The Truth” of the final picture of the overarching puzzle to which the individual pieces of the puzzle of this universe are now conforming.
And indeed we do know, via quantum mechanics and general relativity, that it is true that the universe is not self originating nor self sustaining but that the universe was created and is sustained, i.e. is ‘contingent’, on something that is outside of the space-time and matter-energy of this universe.
Moreover, we also know that it is true that the universe is not governed by different legislation in different places, and that the universe is therefore not ‘schizophrenic’ in its operation but that there is indeed an overarching pattern, i.e. a “The Truth”, to the puzzle to which the pieces of the puzzle are somehow conforming.
Even atheists themselves presuppose that the overarching pattern of “The Truth” to which the pieces of the puzzle are now conforming is graspable by the mind of man.
That quest of man to find out exactly what that overarching pattern, i.e. “The Truth”, to the puzzle actually is, is generally known as the search for the “Theory of Everything”.
Atheists presuppose that “The Truth” of the puzzle will be an overarching mathematical truth.
Yet, as was mentioned previously, Godel proved, with his incompleteness theorem, that the presupposed ‘Theory of Everything” can never be based in mathematics alone, but that it is necessary to postulate something else, a “Mind”, that is giving truthfulness to mathematics in the first place. As Dr. Bruce Gordon succinctly put the situation for atheists:
Of course, the main, even final, goal in the quest for the much sought after “Theory of Everything”, (i.e. the quest to find “The Truth” of the final picture of the puzzle), is to unify Quantum Mechanics and General Relativity into the a single overarching theory.
All efforts thus far, since they rely solely on math but ignore the necessity of God to ‘breath fire into the equations’ so as to give the equations a universe to describe in the first place, have, unsurprisingly, failed.
Yet, I hold that by allowing the Agent Causality of God ‘back’ into the picture of modern physics, as the Christian founders of modern science originally envisioned, (and I might add, with the closing of the free-will loophole, quantum mechanics itself now demands), then a empirically backed reconciliation, (via the Shroud of Turin), between General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics readily pops out for us in Christ’s resurrection from the dead.
That is to say, to complete the puzzle analogy that we are currently using, that the final picture of the puzzle, i.e. “The Truth”, to which all the millions of pieces of the puzzle are conforming, is centered on Christ’s resurrection from the dead.
Verses:
re 39:
From Wikipedia
jdk
You’re asking the right question. You post a quote referencing a name. That evening you read a book that tells you who the named person was.
That’s like reaching into one puzzle box, selecting a piece, and then going to an entirely different puzzle box and selecting a piece that matches exactly with the first.
I think you have to look for deeper reasons and meaning for such things. Something more than pure chance and blind matter at work in the course of life.
jdk
Ok, yes. You affirm that there is an objective reality. This is a truth affirmation. This means, truth claims are rooted in objective reality. We validate truth through objective means.
Truth, however, is a function of reason, the intellectual virtues and of the quality of “goodness”. These are the foundations of moral values.
Since truth is rooted in objectivity. So also, moral values which are built upon the value of truth.
This concept is embedded, ingrained in human nature. It’s not optional. It’s not subjective.
It is impossible to do any kind of rational process and declare that truth and falsehood are subjective – interchangeable, of equal value.
jdk @44
I already know the meaning of a loaded question, which is why I raised the issue. Barry’s challenge does not qualify as a loaded question under the Wikipedia definition or any other. You cannot use that as an excuse for refusing to answer his challenge.
If you disagree, please explain exactly how Barry’s challenge is “loaded” by using his own words and relating them to the principles involved. Please do not let this be another example of how you also avoid my questions.
Stephen writes,
I have a number of reasons for not answering Barry’s question, some of which I mentioned in 31, and some of which I didn’t. That the question is loaded is not the only reason. I will address the “loaded question” issue, though.
Barry’s question is, “We can know with absolute certainty that it is evil to torture babies for pleasure.” Yes or No?
Barry’s question assumes that “evil” exists as an objective, transcendent moral category. He has made that clear. It also assumes that we have the capability to know those objective transcendent moral truths with certainty. Therefore his question presupposes the truth of the very metaphysical issues upon which we disagree: the existence of objective, transcendent moral truths and the ability of human beings to access that transcendent realm.
Therefore his question is loaded with the assumption that his view on the general metaphysical issues are correct.
This meets both of the criteria above: “a rhetorical tool [that] attempts to limit direct replies to be those that serve the questioner’s agenda” and “the facts are presupposed by the question, and [are] an entrapment, because it narrows the respondent to a single answer, and the fallacy of many questions has been committed.”
Going further, the link in the Wikipedia article to the “fallacy of many questions” is relevant:
This issue is quite complex, involving many different philosophical subjects. To boil it down to a single question that incorporates within it Barry’s views on these matters, but not mine, makes it a loaded question of the “many questions” sort.
The fact that I disagree with the assumptions embedded in the question is one reason I am not going to answer it.
Silver Asiatic and jdk, this is semi-related to the puzzle piece analogy:
JDK
Barry’s question is, “We can know with absolute certainty that it is evil to torture babies for pleasure.” Yes or No?
Barry’s question assumes that “evil” exists as an objective, transcendent moral category. He has made that clear. It also assumes that we have the capability to know those objective transcendent moral truths with certainty. Therefore his question presupposes the truth of the very metaphysical issues upon which we disagree: the existence of objective, transcendent moral truths and the ability of human beings to access that transcendent realm.”
The above seems to me that your saying that you believe that we cannot know with absolute certainty that is is evil to torture babies for pleasure. If so why not come out and say that?
Vivid
Readers,
Given JDK’s explanation at 48, if he were not a gutless coward, instead of refusing my challenge he would have responded as follows:
BARRY’S CHALLENGE:
You said this: “There is no Truth that we can know.”
I said this: “We can know with absolute certainty that it is evil to torture a baby for pleasure.”
And then I said this: “Go ahead, deny my claim. I dare you again.”
JDK’S RESPONSE BASED ON THE PRINCIPLES HE SET FORTH IN COMMENT 48:
Barry, I can’t answer the question because it is all just so nuance-y and complex. Maybe we cannot know with absolute certainty that it is evil to torture a baby for pleasure. It all depends on what one means by the word “evil.”
JDK, anyone who will not stand up and say that with absolute certainty he knows it is evil to torture a baby for pleasure is either a fool, a coward, or an aggressively evil person, or perhaps all three.
re 50 and 51: It appears neither of you addressed the issues I brought up in 48. Perhaps Stephen will?
JDK
At the moment i dont see how the issues you brought up changes anything I wrote.
“Therefore his question presupposes the truth of the very metaphysical issues upon which we disagree: the existence of objective, transcendent moral truths and the ability of human beings to access that transcendent realm.”
I trust I got that right, if so your position is still the same. Since you do not hold to these presuppositions you do not believe we can certainly know that it is evil to torture babies for pleasure.
Vivid
Vivid,
JDK has descended into Insane Denial Mode. Time to move along.
re:53. I can’t assent to the presuppositions, so specific questions which are based on those presuppositions are meaningless to me.
And since Barry is incapable of and/or entirely unwilling to even entertain my framework for understanding our moral nature and moral judgments, I can’t try to answer within my framework.
So I won’t answer Barry’s loaded question.
JDK
Incorrect. You are just using the term “loaded” to mislead your readers into believing that Barry’s question is unreasonable. A loaded question is one, among other things, that assumes guilt on the part of the person being asked.
The question “Do you still beat your wife,” for example, is loaded because it prematurely assumes guilt. To assume that evil exists, on the other hand, is not to load a question because it implies no guilt on your part. It simply claims that the existence of evil can be known with a specific example and asks if you agree.
Now we all know that you don’t agree and that you don’t think it is objectively wrong to torture babies for fun. We just want you to be honest enough to admit it. So far, you have not demonstrated that kind of honesty.
No, it doesn’t meet the criteria. The facts about your position are not presupposed in Barry’s question. On the contrary, the point of his question is to *get the facts* about your position, not to presuppose them. You just don’t want to provide the facts because they expose your impoverished philosophy. Not because Barry is being mean to you.
Rhetorical tools to serve an agenda are logically permitted as long as they do not presuppose the facts about your position. (notice the word “and” in the formulation). There are millions of questions that can be fairly asked in a yes or no fashion that do not entrap the one being questioned. Barry’s question takes the form of “Do you accept my claim or do you not.” It is a perfectly reasonable question that does not involve entrapment.
Totally irrelevant. There are no “tricks” or “complex presuppositions,” and you know the meaning of all the words being used.
No, it doesn’t.
This is madness. The question is ASKING if you disagree with those assumptions. You either know that it is evil to torture babies for fun or you do not. Why not just disclose the truth: For your part, you do not know that it is evil to torture babies for fun. Why are you afraid to tell the truth about what you believe?
re 55: aha, now I am also insane.
I agree, Barry: you should move on.
BA77 – fascinating talk, thanks.
JDK
“. I can’t assent to the presuppositions, so specific questions which are based on those presuppositions are meaningless to me.”
JDK Barry has a point this does sound a bit crazy. After all what was the purpose of your post 48 if you did not know what he meant by his question?
Your actions belly your words.
Vivid
Bely not belly LOL
re 59:
When I wrote, “I can’t assent to the presuppositions, so specific questions which are based on those presuppositions are meaningless to me”,
Vivid repleid
I think it should be fairly clear that two different meanings of “meaning” are involved here.
Yes, I know what Barry’s question means. In fact, in 48 I described my understanding of the broader context of what it means: “evil” exists as an objective, transcendent moral category, and we have the capability to know those objective transcendent moral truths with certainty. Within this context, the meaning of his question is clear.
However, when I wrote that his question was meaningless to me, I meant that since I don’t accept his presuppositions, his question has no significance or relevance to me: a question about something I don’t believe in can’t have a meaningful answer.
To be flippant, it’s like asking whether unicorns are pink. I know what the question means, but since unicorns don’t exist, there is no possible answer to the question: it’s a meaningless question.
I think this distinction should have been obvious, and I’m a bit surprised vivid made the objection he did. Hopefully this explanation clears things up.
re 56, concerning loaded questions:
Stephen writes,
Implying guilt on someone’s part is just an example of how a question can be loaded. In general, a question is loaded when it contains an “controversial or unjustified assumption” such that any answer to the question assents to the truth of the assumption.
In Barry’s case, the question contains the assumption that objective transcendent moral standards exist and that human beings can know them with certainty. It then asks whether a certain action meets the criteria of “evil”. Since I don’t believe the assumptions are true, any further question about any action is just not meaningful.
This is why the question is loaded: acknowledging the question about the action implicitly endorses the assumptions.
Later, Stephen writes,
Yes, I disagree with the assumptions. I have been clear about that. I do not believe objective transcendent moral standards exist, and consequently, I don’t believe we have some ability to know them with certainty (as we can’t know something that doesn’t exist.)
Therefore, to me, Barry’s question is not meaningful (see 61 for response to vivid on that phrase), loaded as it is with assumptions with which I do not agree.
JDK
There is nothing controversial or unjustified about the proposition that evil exists. Now if I were to say, “Do you agree that the evil Ruth Bader Ginsburg should not be on the Supreme Court” that would be a loaded question because in that context, the word evil is controversial. Do you understand?
Again, there is nothing controversial or unjustifiable about that statement. You are confusing “controversial” and “unjustified” with “debatable.” A debatable assumption is not a loaded assumption. Study my example above of a true way of loading a question with the word “evil.” Barry’s question does not do that.
Of course. That means that you also don’t believe that we have the ability to know that it is objectively wrong to torture babies for fun. I know your position, and I have stated it, even as you refuse to state it.
I have already refuted this point several times – even in this exchange.
“A person cannot make an absolute commitment to falsehood.”
Not while remaining (long) a person. For commitment to falsehood is self-negation. If it is true that the person exists then commitment to falsehood is commitment to personal non-existence.
This is why certain theological schools of thought openly label subjectivism and its cousin moral relativism as a death cult.
That the majority of subjectivists and relativists don’t recognise it as such has of course no bearing on the truth of the label.
Weighing in a bit late here, but while some moral relativists may say that there are no absolute truths, their conversation will evidence nothing but the most perfunctory doubt about the ideas they push. Their War on Certainty is always against other people’s certainty, and never their own.
ScuzzaMan
Very good point. Even the act of making a commitment “I will do [whatever]” – has foundation in truth. In the first place, the person affirms the truth to himself. Even if the goal is nothingness or to rebel against truth – a commitment to truth is necessary.
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