It is almost — almost — amusing but then quite sad to see how objectors to design theory play with logic and worldviews issues, then run away when the substantial issues are taken up.
Let me clip from the FFT, AJ vs Charles thread to pick up these matters, but to avoid making this utterly too long, let me point here on for the underlying questions of worldviews, first plausibles and self-evident plumb-line truths such as the first principles of right reason.
While we are at it, let us observe from the diagram on the right, how worldviews issues influence everything we do as a civilisation, and how the issue arises, on whether business as usual is a march of folly and needs to be turned from to move to a more sustainable, more sound alternative.
In our day, it is pretty clear that evolutionary materialistic scientism and its fellow travellers rule the roost, but that such is inescapably incoherent, self-refuting, self-falsifying and amoral, opening the door to ruthless nihilist factionalism.
So, it is a service not only to the ID community but the civilisation to say what is not politically corrupt today, the unmentionable fact that A is A.
So, now, let us proceed by clipping some posts in the relevant thread:
FFT5: The implications of the familiar extraordinary.
In this thread, there are arguments [posted] that . . . as an observable phenomenon . . . show that we are capable of significant choice and reasoning, i.e. we are responsibly, rationally, significantly free, conscious, en-conscienced, morally governed, communicating creatures. (Indeed, those trying to object are operating on the implicit premise that we are urged by conscience toward the truth and the right; and if we were not, this world would descend into a dark, chaotic ruin in short order. It is a good thing that something urges us on to the truth and the right.)
Locke, in Sec 5 of his essay on human understanding (and yes, I add scriptural references i/l/o his cites and allusions), aptly comments:
Men have reason to be well satisfied with what God hath thought fit for them, since he hath given them (as St. Peter says [NB: i.e. 2 Pet 1:2 – 4]) pana pros zoen kaieusebeian, whatsoever is necessary for the conveniences of life and information of virtue; and has put within the reach of their discovery, the comfortable provision for this life, and the way that leads to a better. How short soever their knowledge may come of an universal or perfect comprehension of whatsoever is, it yet secures their great concernments [Prov 1: 1 – 7], that they have light enough to lead them to the knowledge of their Maker, and the sight of their own duties [cf Rom 1 – 2 & 13, Ac 17, Jn 3:19 – 21, Eph 4:17 – 24, Isaiah 5:18 & 20 – 21, Jer. 2:13, Titus 2:11 – 14 etc, etc]. Men may find matter sufficient to busy their heads, and employ their hands with variety, delight, and satisfaction, if they will not boldly quarrel with their own constitution, and throw away the blessings their hands are filled with, because they are not big enough to grasp everything . . . It will be no excuse to an idle and untoward servant [Matt 24:42 – 51], who would not attend his business by candle light, to plead that he had not broad sunshine. The Candle that is set up in us [Prov 20:27] shines bright enough for all our purposes . . . If we will disbelieve everything, because we cannot certainly know all things, we shall do muchwhat as wisely as he who would not use his legs, but sit still and perish, because he had no wings to fly. [Text references added to document the sources of Locke’s allusions and citations.]
All of that is in the context of rebuking a lazy, sneeringly supercilious selective hyperskepticism that will scorn more than adequate warrant for ethical theism, because it shuns the premise of moral government: accountability on plainly recognisable duty, before our Maker, Lord, Governor and utterly just Judge.
But, that is a bit quick off the mark.
Let’s start with computational substrates, whether mechanically or electrically analogue or digital or neural network. For instance a ball and disk integrator as was used in tide table machines or naval gunlaying computers is clearly a cause-effect, blindly mechanical system. If it has a fault or is badly programmed, it will err, and it cares not, it is just like Monadology’s Mill-Wheels grinding away blindly. Leibniz:
[P]erception, and that which depends upon it, are inexplicable by mechanical causes, that is to say, by figures and motions. Supposing that there were a machine whose structure produced thought, sensation, and perception, we could conceive of it as increased in size with the same proportions until one was able to enter into its interior, as he would into a mill. Now, on going into it he would find only pieces working upon one another, but never would he find anything to explain perception.
There is no recognition of meaning, no perception, no purpose, just blind cause-effect chains externally arranged to yield the solution to certain differential equations. GIGO, and all that. Likewise, the old Pentium chip neither knew nor understood nor cared about the wired in errors that led to the early recall. And, a neural network is not in principle any different. (BTW this points to serious design inferences on the relevant hardware and software in bio-cybernetics systems, but that is a secondary point.)
The primary point has been highlighted by Reppert:
. . . let us suppose that brain state A, which is token identical to the thought that all men are mortal, and brain state B, which is token identical to the thought that Socrates is a man, together cause the belief that Socrates is mortal. It isn’t enough for rational inference that these events be those beliefs, it is also necessary that the causal transaction be in virtue of the content of those thoughts . . . [But] if naturalism is true, then the propositional content is irrelevant to the causal transaction that produces the conclusion, and [so] we do not have a case of rational inference. In rational inference, as [C S] Lewis puts it, one thought causes another thought not by being, but by being seen to be, the ground for it. But causal transactions in the brain occur in virtue of the brain’s being in a particular type of state that is relevant to physical causal transactions.
In short, a physicalist account of mindedness (much less, guidance by light of conscience) faces an ugly, impassable gulch.
In effect, rocks — even refined and carefully organised rocks — have no dreams; computation is not intentional contemplation.
At this point, evolutionary materialism and its fellow travellers — and nope you cannot properly, conveniently open up rhetorical daylight between some vague agnosticism and full-blown evo mat to deflect this — face an impassable gulch.
One, that brings out what was already highlighted: mindedness, consciousness, reasoned inference and conscience’s compass-pointing alike are all reduced to grand delusion on evo mat premises.
Grand delusion would collapse responsible, rational freedom and so falls into irretrievable incoherence and absurdity. Thence, the necessary falsity Pearcey and others have pointed to.
But in reality, rational, responsible, conscience-compass bearing consciousness is our first undeniable empirical fact. The fact through which we perceive all others.
This is the familiar extraordinary phenomenon, the pivot on which the project of building a sound worldview turns. In effect, unless a worldview is compatible with our being responsible, reasonable, conscience-guided and significantly free beings, it cannot even sit to the table for a discussion of comparative difficulties. It is silenced by being inconsistent with rationality. It is patently, irretrievably absurd and necessarily false. (Evo mat and fellow traveller ideologies, I am looking straight at you.)>>
So, we have to first face mindedness and the limitations of computational substrates.
FFT6A: Last evening, in FFT5, we looked at the familiar extraordinary; it is almost amusing to see how this has been almost studiously pushed aside. One hopes that the latest focus for hyperskeptical dismissiveness, heptades, will now settle down.
At this point, we have to deal with a key conclusion in 153:
. . . a physicalist account of mindedness (much less, guidance by light of conscience) faces an ugly, impassable gulch.
In effect, rocks — even refined and carefully organised rocks — have no dreams; computation is not intentional contemplation.
At this point, evolutionary materialism and its fellow travellers — and nope you cannot properly, conveniently open up rhetorical daylight between some vague agnosticism and full-blown evo mat to deflect this — face an impassable gulch.
One, that brings out what was already highlighted: mindedness, consciousness, reasoned inference and conscience’s compass-pointing alike are all reduced to grand delusion on evo mat premises.
Grand delusion would collapse responsible, rational freedom and so falls into irretrievable incoherence and absurdity. Thence, the necessary falsity Pearcey and others have pointed to.
But in reality, rational, responsible, conscience-compass bearing consciousness is our first undeniable empirical fact. The fact through which we perceive all others.
This is the familiar extraordinary phenomenon, the pivot on which the project of building a sound worldview turns. In effect, unless a worldview is compatible with our being responsible, reasonable, conscience-guided and significantly free beings, it cannot even sit to the table for a discussion of comparative difficulties. It is silenced by being inconsistent with rationality. It is patently, irretrievably absurd and necessarily false. (Evo mat and fellow traveller ideologies, I am looking straight at you.)
What sort of world do we have to live in for there to be creatures like us?
That’s rather like a point R W Hamming made in addressing a thought exercise that counter-balances one of the mythical paradigm cases of empirical investigation, the dropping of a musket-ball and a cannon-ball from the famous leaning tower of Pisa. And yes, the very same News who so many hyperskeptics sneer at brought this to attention:
Let us next consider Galileo. Not too long ago I was trying to put myself in Galileo’s shoes, as it were, so that I might feel how he came to discover the law of falling bodies. I try to do this kind of thing so that I can learn to think like the masters did-I deliberately try to think as they might have done.
Well, Galileo was a well-educated man and a master of scholastic arguments. He well knew how to argue the number of angels on the head of a pin [–> which is actually about location vs extension], how to argue both sides of any question. He was trained in these arts far better than any of us these days. I picture him sitting one day with a light and a heavy ball, one in each hand, and tossing them gently. He says, hefting them, “It is obvious to anyone that heavy objects fall faster than light ones-and, anyway, Aristotle says so.” “But suppose,” he says to himself, having that kind of a mind, “that in falling the body broke into two pieces. Of course the two pieces would immediately slow down to their appropriate speeds. But suppose further that one piece happened to touch the other one. Would they now be one piece and both speed up? Suppose I tied the two pieces together. How tightly must I do it to make them one piece? A light string? A rope? Glue? When are two pieces one?”
The more he thought about it-and the more you think about it-the more unreasonable becomes the question of when two bodies are one. There is simply no reasonable answer to the question of how a body knows how heavy it is-if it is one piece, or two, or many. Since falling bodies do something, the only possible thing is that they all fall at the same speed-unless interfered with by other forces. There’s nothing else they can do. He may have later made some experiments, but I strongly suspect that something like what I imagined actually happened. I later found a similar story in a book by Polya [7. G. Polya, Mathematical Methods in Science, MAA, 1963, pp. 83-85.]. Galileo found his law not by experimenting but by simple, plain thinking, by scholastic reasoning.
I know that the textbooks often present the falling body law as an experimental observation; I am claiming that it is a logical law, a consequence of how we tend to think . . .
This ties back to the view that mathematics is substantially the logic of structure and quantity, which we may freely explore because we are responsibly and rationally significantly free.>>
Again: What sort of world do we have to live in for there to be creatures like us?
What sort of world do we have to live in for there to be creatures like us?
This surfaces a key issue, that two truths x and y must be such that we never have y = NOT-x; that is in a coherent world all true statements — those that accurately describe facets of reality — will be mutually compatible. I note this, fully recognising that for many, this is actually quite a difficult point today; as, various ideologies have led to a conflation of truth with perception or opinion. Hence, a conversation I had today that turned on the concept, “my truth.” Language decay is an old problem, and Orwell pointed out what could be done through new-speak and double-talk. How many are two plus two, Mr Smith?
My answer was and is, that we already have perfectly adequate words for opinions and perceptions; so, there is no need to corrupt the meaning of the precious or even vital word, truth. The truth — as Ari noted long ago in Metaphysics 1011b — says of what is that it is, and of what is not that it is not.
This in turn brings us to the question of being and non-being, of possible and impossible being, of contingent and necessary being. Thus, of causal roots of the world, of reality. And it points to the issue of possible worlds: comprehensive enough descriptions of how things could be or are.
Impossible beings such as a square circle cannot exist in any possible world. As, core characteristics stand in mutual contradiction and cannot hold of the same thing, X, under the same circumstances. Here, squarishness and circularity.
By contrast, possible beings could exist in at least one possible world. Contingent ones would not do so in all possible worlds but would exist in at least one. I think, in 100 years there will be unicorns, as biotech will be there and people will be willing to pay to have one. Just as we seem to be seeing ever more miniature sized horses already.
Necessary beings must exist in any possible world, as they are frameworking requisites of a world existing. For instance, two-ness or distinct identity (equivalent) must be there for a distinct world to be. This is non-trivial, as distinct identity has three immediate corollaries: Law of Identity, Law of Excluded Middle, Law of Non-Contradiction.
That is, core logic is built into any possible world; including of course the logic of structure and quantity, i.e. mathematical realities. (NB: We already see here, a key reason for the awesome power of Mathematics in our world and especially in scientific work. [So much for the sneer that this thread has little or no relevance to Science.])
Back to us, as being able to significantly freely discuss our concerns responsibly and rationally, and having an inner compass-sense that insistently points to the truth and the right — conscience.
What sort of world must this be to allow such. and what must be in its frameworking structure?
First, we already saw that the denial of responsible, rational, significant freedom lets grand delusion loose and instantly ends in absurdity. Self-evidently, this is a world in which responsibly rational and significantly free, morally governed creatures are possible and in fact actual.
That’s already a huge result and it sweeps away all worldviews — their name is legion — that are incompatible with such creatures. This of course includes evolutionary materialistic scientism, its fellow travellers, radical subjectivism and radical relativism. (Cf. the chain of comments here on, above.)
Next, we face the implication of the IS-OUGHT gap, on many levels. A world with moral government has to be such that OUGHT is well-rooted in the fabric and framework of reality. Post Hume et al and post Euthyphro et al, that can only be in the very root of reality, i.e. there must be a necessary being that so fuses IS-ness and OUGHT-ness, that they are inextricably entangled in the roots of reality.
What sort of being is capable of such?
The answer is utterly challenging, and I have long thought it is best posed in light of comparative difficulties and worldview level inference to the best candidate explanation.
We need to look at serious candidates (as opposed to something like a flying spaghetti monster, which will not be a necessary being — made up from bits and pieces, i.e. composite.)
There is just one serious candidate, after centuries of debate: the inherently good Creator God, a necessary and maximally great being, worthy of loyalty and the responsible, reasonable service of doing the good in accord with our evident nature (thus, the law of our nature).
This is not an arbitrary imposition, if you doubt, simply put up a viable alternative: ________ (this is after all comparative difficulties analysis).
Prediction: hard to do.
This also has a further highly relevant implication. For a serious candidate necessary being will either be impossible as a square circle is, or else it will be possible thus would exist in at least one world. And, as it would be a frameworking reality, it would be present in every possible world, including our own — an actual world. (And yes, I am not saying THE actual world.)
The God of ethical theism as described, is a serious candidate [e.g. NB’s have no beginning or end, are eternal]. This means that God is either impossible as a square circle is impossible, or he is actual. And decades ago, the problem of evils used to be trotted out to make that argument, but that option is effectively dead post-Plantinga and in fact post Boethius.
Then, too, if one claims to be an atheist or agnostic, s/he implies knowing good reason to doubt or dismiss the God of ethical theism as impossible even as a square circle is impossible. It would be interesting to hear what such a reason is: _______ (esp. post, problem of evils as a serious view as opposed to a handy piece of intimidatory rhetoric).
So, now, we are at a very important threshold, the God of ethical theism is on the table as a serious candidate necessary being, root of reality that grounds a world in which responsibly and rationally free creatures such as ourselves are possible and indeed actual.
That is a momentous turning-point, and it would be interesting to see if we will hear of the viable alternatives, including reasons why such a God is an impossible being.>>
Of course, these two blanks were never ever filled in cogently. So:
FFT6C: It is worth noting the unresponsiveness to 219 and 178 above, especially at the points where objectors were directly invited to put up alternatives.
We can take it to the bank that UD is obsessively monitored by denizens of a penumbra of hostile sites. Denizens, more than willing to pounce when they see opportunity.
In short, the above blanks left unanswered speak to yet another hovering ghost or three in the room.
Here, first, the point that there is no necessary appeal to design inferences and debates to build a case for ethical theism adequate to ground commitment to such.
Second, that the atheistical objectors and their fellow travellers have no cogent answer to the need for a necessary being root to reality, nor to the point that the God of ethical theism is a serious candidate to be such (by utter contrast with the cartoonish flying spaghetti monster etc), nor to the onward point that such a serious candidate will be either ontologically impossible [as a square circle is impossible] or else will be actual.
Third, they have no cogent answer to the significance of the point that just to have a real discussion, we must implicitly accept that we are responsible, reasonable, significantly free and intelligent beings under moral government. Not least, conscience is the compass within pointing to the truth, the right and our duties of care towards such. Undermining this dimension of conscious mindedness by implying it is delusional lets grand delusion loose in our minds, ending in shipwreck.
So, we can see that the evo mat scientism picture of the world falls apart, and that there is no need to go out of our way to accommodate it. It is self-referentially incoherent and so self-falsifying.
Nor, should we yield to the trend to corrupt the concept, truth. (That, too, is part of the benumbing and warping of conscience, as say Orwell brought out so forcefully in his 1984.)
The astute onlooker will also note that we have had a worldviews discussion, not one pivoting on parsing Bible texts. Though, I have noted that this analysis is compatible with at least one key summary argument in Scripture, one that points to this sort of analysis as valid on the whole if soundly done.
Let me clip:
Rom 1:18 For [God does not overlook sin and] the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who in their wickedness suppress and stifle the truth, 19 because that which is known about God is evident within them [in their inner consciousness], for God made it evident to them.
20 For ever since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through His workmanship [all His creation, the wonderful things that He has made], so that they [who fail to believe and trust in Him] are without excuse and without defense.
21 For even though [d]they knew God [as the Creator], they did not [e]honor Him as God or give thanks [for His wondrous creation]. On the contrary, they became worthless in their thinking [godless, with pointless reasonings, and silly speculations], and their foolish heart was darkened.
22 Claiming to be wise, they became fools, 23 and exchanged the glory and majesty and excellence of the immortal God for [f]an image [worthless idols] in the shape of mortal man and birds and four-footed animals and reptiles.
24 Therefore God gave them over in the lusts of their own hearts to [sexual] impurity, so that their bodies would be dishonored among them [abandoning them to the degrading power of sin], 25 because [by choice] they exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen . . . .
28 And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God or consider Him worth knowing [as their Creator], God gave them over to a depraved mind, to do things which are improper and repulsive, 29 until they were filled (permeated, saturated) with every kind of unrighteousness, wickedness, greed, evil; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malice and mean-spiritedness. They are gossips [spreading rumors], 30 slanderers, haters of God, insolent, arrogant, boastful, inventors [of new forms] of evil, disobedient and disrespectful to parents, 31 without understanding, untrustworthy, unloving, unmerciful [without pity]. [AMP]
The passage goes on to highlight how the warping of mind and conscience ends up in a topsy-turvy world that approves evil and by implication disapproves the good. That alludes subtly to another text, from the prophet Isaiah:
Isa 5:18 Woe (judgment is coming) to those who drag along wickedness with cords of falsehood,
And sin as if with cart ropes [towing their own punishment];
19 Who say, “Let Him move speedily, let Him expedite His work [His promised vengeance], so that we may see it;
And let the purpose of the Holy One of Israel approach
And come to pass, so that we may know it!”
20 Woe (judgment is coming) to those who call evil good, and good evil;
Who substitute darkness for light and light for darkness;
Who substitute bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter!
21 Woe (judgment is coming) to those who are wise in their own eyes
And clever and shrewd in their own sight! [AMP]
This summary rings all too sadly true as we look out across the moral wasteland of our largely apostate civilisation that has so often deliberately turned its back on the truth and has refused to endure sound instruction. Instead, we have ever so often chosen to go out in the ways of cleverly constructed errors, leading many astray into ruin.
Given an onward exchange, I think I should note from Eta Linnemann on the undermining of theology:
Theology as it is taught in universities all over the world . . . is based on the historical-critical method . . . . [which] is not just the foundation for the exegetical disciplines. It also decides what the systematician can say . . . It determines procedure in Christian education, homiletics and ethics . . . . Research is conducted ut si Deus non daretur (“as if there were no God”). That means the reality of God is excluded from consideration from the start . . . Statements in Scripture regarding place, time, sequences of events and persons are accepted only insofar as they fit in with established assumptions and theories . . . .
Since other religions have their scriptures, one cannot assume the Bible is somehow unique and superior to them . . . . It is taken for granted that the words of the Bible and God’s word are not identical . . . the New Testament is pitted against the Old Testament, assuming that the God of the New Testament is different from that of the Old, since Jesus is said to have introduced a new concept of God . . . . Since the inspiration of Scripture is not accepted, neither can it be assumed that the individual books of Scripture complement each other. Using this procedure one finds in the Bible only a handful of unrelated literary creations . . . . Since the content of biblical writings is seen as merely the creation of theological writers, any given verse is nothing more than a non-binding, human theological utterance.
For historical-critical theology, critical reason decides what is reality in the Bible and what cannot be reality; and this decision is made on the basis of the everyday experience accessible to every person [i.e. the miraculous aspect of Scripture, and modern reports of miracles — regardless of claimed attestation — are dismissed as essentially impossible to verify and/or as merely “popular religious drivel”] . . . . . Due to the presuppositions that are adopted, critical reason loses sight of the fact that the Lord, our God, the Almighty, reigns. [Historical Criticism of the Bible: Methodology or Ideology? (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1993), pp. 83 – 88 as excerpted.]
There is nothing in historical-critical theology that has not already made its appearance in philosophy. Bacon (1561 – 1626), Hobbes (1588 – 1679), Descartes (1596 – 1650), and Hume (1711 – 1776) laid the foundations: inductive thought as the only source of knowledge; denial of revelation; monistic worldview; separation of faith and reason; doubt as the foundation of knowledge. Hobbes and Hume established a thoroughgoing criticism of miracles; Spinoza (1632 – 1677) also helped lay the basis for biblical criticism of both Old and New Testaments. Lessing (1729 – 1781) invented the synoptic problem. Kant’s (1724 – 1804) critique of reason became the basic norm for historical-critical theology. Hegel (1770 – 1831) furnished the means for the process of demythologizing that Rudolph Bultmann (1884 – 1976) would effectively implement a century later – after the way had been prepared by Martin Kähler (1835 – 1912).
Kierkegaard (1813 – 1855) . . . reduced faith to a leap that left rationality behind. He cemented the separation of faith and reason and laid the groundwork for theology’s departure from biblical moorings . . . . by writing such criticism off as benign . . . .
Heidegger (1889 – 1976) laid the groundwork for reducing Christian faith to a possibility of self-understanding; he also had considerable influence on Bultmann’s theology. From Karl Marx . . . came theology of hope, theology of revolution, theology of liberation. [Biblical Criticism on Trial (Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel, 2001), pp. 178 – 9.]
Another text has haunted me for months as I have pondered the path of our all too patently willfully perverse civilisation:
1 John 2:15 Do not love the world [of sin that opposes God and His precepts], nor the things that are in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. 16 For all that is in the world—the lust and sensual craving of the flesh and the lust and longing of the eyes and the boastful pride of life [pretentious confidence in one’s resources or in the stability of earthly things]—these do not come from the Father, but are from the world. 17 The world is passing away, and with it its lusts [the shameful pursuits and ungodly longings]; but the one who does the will of God and carries out His purposes lives forever.
18 Children, it is the last hour [the end of this age]; and just as you heard that the antichrist is coming [the one who will oppose Christ and attempt to replace Him], even now many antichrists (false teachers) have appeared, which confirms our belief that it is the last hour.
19 They went out from us [seeming at first to be Christians], but they were not really of us [because they were not truly born again and spiritually transformed]; for if they had been of us, they would have remained with us; but they went out [teaching false doctrine], so that it would be clearly shown that none of them are of us.
20 But you have an anointing from the Holy One [you have been set apart, specially gifted and prepared by the Holy Spirit], and all of you know [the truth because He teaches us, illuminates our minds, and guards us from error]. 21 I have not written to you because you do not know the truth, but because you do know it, and because no lie [nothing false, no deception] is of the truth.
22 Who is the liar but the one who denies that Jesus is the Christ (the Messiah, the Anointed)?
This is the antichrist [the enemy and antagonist of Christ], the one who denies and consistently refuses to acknowledge the Father and the Son. 23 Whoever denies and repudiates the Son does not have the Father; the one who confesses and acknowledges the Son has the Father also.
24 As for you, let that remain in you [keeping in your hearts that message of salvation] which you heard from the beginning. If what you heard from the beginning remains in you, you too will remain in the Son and in the Father [forever].
25 This is the promise which He Himself promised us—eternal life.
26 These things I have written to you with reference to those who are trying to deceive you [seducing you and leading you away from the truth and sound doctrine]. 27 As for you, the anointing [the special gift, the preparation] which you received from Him remains [permanently] in you, and you have no need for anyone to teach you. But just as His anointing teaches you [giving you insight through the presence of the Holy Spirit] about all things, and is true and is not a lie, and just as His anointing has taught you, [c]you must remain in Him [being rooted in Him, knit to Him]. [AMP]
In the end, that is the diagnosis, and the answer to the spirit of our age.>>
Now, why should we reject these diagnostic notes, given something like this from Plato 2350+ years past in The Laws, Bk X:
247, >>Plato, on the warping of the moral compass and where it leads a community i/l/o the collapse of Athens:
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].>>
But isn’t all this just an excuse to dress up right-wing fundy theocratic Christofascist totalitarianism in a cheap tuxedo?
Of Lemmings, marches of folly and cliffs of self-falsifying absurdity . . .
FFT7: But, isn’t the whole exercise of a pretended ID science an attempt to dress up dubious religion in scientific clothes, with intent to impose onward some sort of right-wing Christofascist theocratic tyranny that for instance robs women of their “rights” to their own bodies — and maybe would gaol them for even a miscarriage? Etc?
I am of course outlining a summary of trends of strawman caricature argument commonly encountered over the years.
A serious-minded glance above will rapidly demonstrate that the main discussion I have made so far under the FFT theme, has been PHILOSOPHICAL, not theological, first and foremost setting the worldviews comparative difficulties context for discussion. It is in that context that I then proceeded to show why evolutionary materialistic scientism and fellow travellers have been tried and found wanting as inherently incoherent, self-falsifying, necessarily false views. They cannot get us to a responsibly, rationally free, morally governed, warranting, knowing mind. So they fail the test of our being able to have a rationally guided discussion.
It will be quite evident above, that active objectors and those lurking from the penumbra of attack sites, have no real answer to this. That’s not new, I have seen that for years at UD and for decades elsewhere. Before me, the point traces back to the likes of Plantinga, C S Lewis and even leading evolutionary theorist J B S Haldane.
He aptly says:
“It seems to me immensely unlikely that mind is a mere by-product of matter. For if my mental processes are determined wholly by the motions of atoms in my brain I have no reason to suppose that my beliefs are true. They may be sound chemically, but that does not make them sound logically. And hence I have no reason for supposing my brain to be composed of atoms. In order to escape from this necessity of sawing away the branch on which I am sitting, so to speak, I am compelled to believe that mind is not wholly conditioned by matter.” [“When I am dead,” in Possible Worlds: And Other Essays [1927], Chatto and Windus: London, 1932, reprint, p.209.]
I invite the reasonable onlooker to scan above and see for himself, if there is a cogent answer forthcoming from the usual objectors or their backers across the Internet.
The truth will be evident, there is no non-incoherent evolutionary materialistic account of mindedness.
As for the associated amorality, radical relativism and reduction to nihilistic might and manipulation make ‘truth’ ‘right’ etc, that unanswered problem has been on record for 2350+ years, from Plato’s reflections i/l/o the collapse of Athens. If you want to see an example of the sort of misleadership that that toxic brew spews up, try Alcibiades as case study no. 1.
Resemblance to recent history is no coincidence, try out his parable of the mutinous ship of state.
Look above, to see if you can find a serious-minded grappling with such momentous issues and their implications. Try out the penumbra of attack sites. You will soon see why I have long been concerned about a civilisation-level march of ruinous folly that manipulates the public and democratic institutions only to lead us over the cliff. Luke’s real-world ship of state microcosm in Ac 27 should — should! — give us pause.
As one simple example I note that the right to life is the first, foremost, gateway right and so a civilisation that systematically dehumanises its posterity in the womb and warps medicine, nursing, pharmacy, law, law enforcement, government, education, media and more to promote and protect the holocaust of 800+ millions in 40+ years (and mounting up at a million per week now), is corrupting its soul through blood guilt, is utterly warping conscience to do so, and is wrecking the ability to even simply think straight and live by the truth and the right. It is setting itself up to be a plague upon the earth that morally taints the land, which will vomit us out.
If we do not repent of our bloody, soul-wrecking folly as a civilisation, we will ruin ourselves. And, whatever emerges from the bloody chaos and dark age to follow, will not see freedom as an important value, as liberty turned to libertinism and wicked, blood-guilty licence.
Yes, I am out and out saying we have become the enemies of sustainable liberty under just law that duly balances rights, freedoms and responsibilities.
If you want a personal motive, there it is. I come from a nation that wrecked its prospects for generations through irresponsible, wicked misleadership, agit prop, media shadow shows and blood shed. That includes a murdered auntie.
I know the hard way, that the lessons of sound history wee bought with blood and tears. Those who refuse to heed them doom themselves to pay the same coin over and over again in their futile folly.
(I have said as much, many times, but no. Those hell-bent on folly have to project garish caricatures unto those who dare stand athwart the path heading over the cliff and cry out, no.)
Anyway, the reader will simply not find a sober-minded response to such concerns.
After this, I set about a sounder foundation, several days ago now, which was of course studiously ignored. This was elaborated through pondering what sort of world has to be here for there to be creatures like us, then followed up.
All, studiously ignored in a rush to set up and knock over conveniently loaded straw men.
Let me clip key points from the last, FFT6C:
It is worth noting the unresponsiveness to 219 and 178 above, especially at the points where objectors were directly invited to put up alternatives.
We can take it to the bank that UD is obsessively monitored by denizens of a penumbra of hostile sites. Denizens, more than willing to pounce when they see opportunity.
In short, the above blanks left unanswered speak to yet another hovering ghost or three in the room.
Here, first, the point that there is no necessary appeal to design inferences and debates to build a case for ethical theism adequate to ground commitment to such.
Second, that the atheistical objectors and their fellow travellers have no cogent answer to the need for a necessary being root to reality, nor to the point that the God of ethical theism is a serious candidate to be such (by utter contrast with the cartoonish flying spaghetti monster etc), nor to the onward point that such a serious candidate will be either ontologically impossible [as a square circle is impossible] or else will be actual.
Third, they have no cogent answer to the significance of the point that just to have a real discussion, we must implicitly accept that we are responsible, reasonable, significantly free and intelligent beings under moral government. Not least, conscience is the compass within pointing to the truth, the right and our duties of care towards such. Undermining this dimension of conscious mindedness by implying it is delusional lets grand delusion loose in our minds, ending in shipwreck.
So, we can see that the evo mat scientism picture of the world falls apart, and that there is no need to go out of our way to accommodate it. It is self-referentially incoherent and so self-falsifying.
Nor, should we yield to the trend to corrupt the concept, truth. (That, too, is part of the benumbing and warping of conscience, as say Orwell brought out so forcefully in his 1984.)
The astute onlooker will also note that we have had a worldviews discussion, not one pivoting on parsing Bible texts . . .
It will then be no surprise to see that the grounding of ethical theism as a responsible worldview (by utter contrast with the radically self-falsifying and amoral evolutionary materialistic scientism and fellow travellers) does not turn on design inferences on empirical signs such as FSCO/I.
Evo mat scientism and fellow travellers are utterly incompatible with the responsible, rational freedom required to have a serious, fact and logic guided discussion seeking understanding of the truth. It rules itself out so soon as we must have a serious discussion.
We then address on comparative difficulties, how can we have a world with beings such as we are.
That takes us through the IS-OUGHT gap to issues of being and non-being and rootedness of a world with moral government. Which, repeat, is a condition of serious discussion.
That points to the only serious candidate for such a root, after centuries of debate. Candidate X was duly laid out, and the open invitation was given to put forth a comparable candidate Y that does not instantly collapse.
Silence.
Silence, for good reason: something like the flying spaghetti monster is simply not serious, never mind its appallingly common rhetorical use by those who should know a lot better.
Then, a second invitation to comparative difficulties discussion was given: part of X’s bill of requisites is necessary being. A serious candidate NB either is impossible (as a square circle is impossible) or it is actual.
The challenge was given, break X’s candidacy.
Silence, again.
So — as X = the inherently good creator God of ethical theism, a necessary and maximally great being worthy of loyalty and the reasonable, responsible service of doing the good in accord with our evident nature — it is clear that there is a very good warrant to adhere to ethical theism as a worldview.
Without even engaging design theory debates.
A point that needed to be put up on the table and warranted.
Which, it has.
That’s why at 220 and henceforth, I could freely write:
you will see the stage of argument in FFT6B just above. I wonder what our well-informed skeptical interlocutors will put up as alternatives? Especially, noting that THERE IS NO DESIGN INFERENCE in the argument to date, i.e. the design inference as such is demonstrably not an inherent, inextricable part of an argument to God as root of reality. Where, note, the case I am arguing here is not based in Scripture though it is compatible with it — truths will be compatible the one with the other. And of course, contrary to the talking points I heard today, the God of ethical theism is not automatically the devil, the author of evils and confusions.
Why then has there been such a hot debate over design, and why has it been laced with accusations about creationism in a cheap tuxedo and the like?
Simple: evolutionary materialistic scientism, from the outset in modern times [this is demonstrable historic fact], has tried to come up with a designer substitute that would plausibly put the creator-God out of a job. The idea is that if the world of life and onward the physical cosmos can be explained on naturalistic grounds, the perception of design can be dismissed while wearing the holy lab coat, and belief in God can eventually be made to seem to be the resort of the ignorant, stupid, insane or wicked.
That rhetorical stratagem has worked and has become institutionalised.
But at a terrible price.
First, it is ill-founded and credibly false, erecting falsity as the yardstick for judging truth. Where, science first and foremost must seek to discover the empirically grounded truth about our world.
Ill-founded, as there are credible, empirically warranted signs of design, which are copiously found in the world of life and in the structure of the cosmos.
Design theory is the empirically and analytically grounded scientific investigation of such signs, which in fact are not too hard to find. Start with the algorithmically functional text in DNA and the execution machinery of the cell that puts it to work. (This points to OOL and OO body plans. Design is evident in the tree of life from the roots up.)
Likewise, the corruption of science from definitions and outlines of its methods on up makes blatant falsity into the yardstick to judge truth by. Truth cannot pass the test of agreement with relevant falsity, and so the ideological imposition of evolutionary materialistic scientism inherently corrupts a pivotal institution of our civilisation.
So, those who hope to build a sound future will be found on the side of needed reformation of tainted science.
In that context, freed science can then return to its true path.
Such is being ruthlessly resisted because it threatens entrenched worldviews and power interests in many institutions. But, the only way to defend institutionalised and fairly obvious falsity is by means that cannot stand the cold light of truth, facts and logic. That is why we find the distortions, strawman tactics, stalking, stereotyping and scapegoating.
All of which are utterly corrosive to liberty, not just academic freedom.
And so, the time has come to find where one stands, why, even as our civilisation descends into chaos, confusion, folly, bizarre agendas and outright blood guilt all around us.
We stand at kairos.>>
We are at kairos, in the face of a civilisation hell-bent on a march of folly. It is time to think again, soberly. END
Comments
Armand Jacks:
North of the border, in the country repeatedly ranked in the top five places in the world to live.
LoL. Of course.
By people who have never actually lived in Canada.
By people who have lived in Canada but nowhere else.
I love polls/surveys.
Have you checked the trolls per capita figures?Mung
April 21, 2017
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TROLL, left standing to demonstrate the onward agenda of imposing might and manipulation make right and the underlying refusal to be accountable over misconduct. KF
Mung:
Armand Jacks, where were you when Barack Obama was in office?
North of the border, in the country repeatedly ranked in the top five places in the world to live. You?Armand Jacks
April 21, 2017
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Armand Jacks, where were you when Barack Obama was in office?Mung
April 21, 2017
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TROLL, left standing to demonstrate the incoherence of moral subjectivism and relativism, expecting others to be morally governed, accusing and projecting, even while continuing to act by the premise might and/or manipulation make right. KF
KF:
TROLL. It’s time for you to face the consequences...
Ooh, I cringe. Please tell me. What are the consequences for someone who points out the fact that someone else is a compulsive liar?Armand Jacks
April 21, 2017
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to AJ. (The rest of you shouldn't even bother to read this.)
I've been tempted to respond to your question to kf, but was able to resist, but now that he has brought your participation to a close, I have a few things to say.
1. You asked, "If we assume that there is no world-root IS to ground OUGHT, what type of world would you expect us to live in?
I think the common answer to your question given by many here is that ultimately you would expect a world where might makes right, and where anyone who truly followed the logical implications would be a nihilist for which anything is permitted.
Clearly, the world is not like that. Of course, there are places and times where brute power can force itself upon the world, and there are at times where some people psychopathologically appear to have no moral sense at all.
But for the bulk of humankind, across history and across cultures, human beings strongly feel, and willingly act in accordance with, moral and other cultural norms. On the other hand, as has been one of your main points, these moral and other cultural norms vary tremendously. Furthermore, even in our own culture, things which we now consider immoral (slavery, multiple wives, child brides, working on Sunday) were not considered immoral in the past
My take on this is that human beings have some common biological foundations: the ability to talk and think, the ability and need to make moral judgments, the need to have a social group to have positive feelings for and with whom to be innter-dependent, etc.
However, being dependent upon learning and culture and relatively free of instincts, and finding ourselves in radically different environments (physical, social, technological, etc.), we have had to create in our culture social, moral, and intellectual solutions that satisfy our basic underlying needs and abilities as well as the particular needs of the world we live in.
Also, because of our dependence on learning, once a culture gets established it tends to perpetuate itself (especially when outsides forces, such as contact with other cultures, technological advance, environmental changes) don't change the dynamics. Thus people tend to grow up thinking that their perspective is "right", and they teach their children that, and on it goes.
Education about the variety of human cultures can help someone being able to step out of their cultural upbringing, but only to a degree.
This appears to be the big issue that the people here fail to address. All the philosophy about the logical consequence of not believing in the is-ought connection are really pretty irrelevant to the lives of real people. The anthropological/sociological/psychological/biological perspective is really where the truth about human beings lies.
My quick 2 cents.jdk
April 21, 2017
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So what is critical rationalist going to say about Armand Jacks? Was it right for KF to ask, then demand he leave? Did he violate AJ’s rights? But how can a moral subjectivist say anything about anyone else rights?john_a_designer
April 21, 2017
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Way to win the argument, kf: refuse to admit that there are genuine issues being raised by someone with a different perspective than you, and then get rid of the person if they persist in disagreeing with you.
And you even have the audacity to delete some of AJ's posts.
Sad!jdk
April 21, 2017
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JAD, sadly so, but just maybe this thread can help him hit rock bottom and wake up to the grave errors of his might and manipulation make 'truth' 'right' etc ways. Kant's Categorical Imperative brings out that one way to detect an evil is that it cannot be universalised, it would end in absurdity, social disintegration or is outright impossible. That is evil parasites off good and profits from most not behaving like that. A world of liars, cheats, thieves, sadists and murderers would collapse in ruin. And we must not forget the great holocaust of our time: many are utterly warped in thought and deed because they are enmeshed in the bloodguilt of the 800+ million unborn children slaughtered globally since the 1970's, and now mounting up at a million more per week. Just think of what has happened to the seven mountains to sustain this and pretend that all is well. And this is just one example that taints, warps and opens our souls to hellish influences. And of course this is the same troll who has bent every rhetorical muscle to block us from looking at and following the example of Wilberforce as he led the global response to another great evil, slavery and its wicked trade that together had fully holocaust level death tolls. Let us instead first straighten out our thinking and sense of responsibility, that we may find a road to repentance, renewal and reformation before it is too late and our civilisation goes over the cliff leading to another dark age. KFkairosfocus
April 21, 2017
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Does Armand Jacks think he has an inalienable right to be here? To do what? Anything he wants? To obstruct and obfuscate? To make any kind of stupid and inane argument? To demand that we answer his inane, and as anyone can see, disingenuous questions? Is this his thread? Is this his blog? Is he the one who makes up the rules? What basis does a moral subjectivist have for demanding that anyone else respect his rights?
Interpersonal moral obligations assume there is some kind of objective moral standard, which is exactly the thing that subjectivists reject. AJ is either a hypocrite, a fool or both.john_a_designer
April 21, 2017
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TROLL. It's time for you to face the consequences of your favoured scheme and your misbehaviour, which you seem determined not to acknowledge -- and ironically hope to manipulate me on that quaint bourgeois notion, oh you ought not to lie. (Never mind, my truth is that you have indulged a trollish, threadjacking pattern of refusing to interact responsibly and pretending that answers to questions you pose have not been given. Even if you disagree with an answer and think it wrong-headed have the common courtesy to recognise that it is an answer. This latest twist on the "no evidence" talking point so beloved of atheistical hyperskeptics when presented with evidence is a disgusting, devillish twisted, ill mannered loutish tactic.) Games over, KFArmand Jacks
April 21, 2017
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F/N: It seems to be a commonplace notion that you do not need responsible, morally governed freedom for rational thought, discussion, decision and action. Hence, inter alia the notion that we can have a rational discussion on the premise that the sense of moral government is "subjective" or "relative," esp. after all, people and communities disagree so there.
The first grave error here is to imagine that we can ignore the fact that error exists, and can readily become entrenched. (Cf. the seven mountains diagram in the OP; it's there for a reason.)
Indeed, error backed by power -- might makes 'right' 'truth' etc -- can usurp the power of being the yardstick of judgement. When that happens, as truth accurately describes reality and error fails to do so, error entrenched as yardstick will lock out truth for truth will never line up with such a yardstick of folly.
And, frankly, the truly evil would delight to be in that position.
Until things go over the cliff (as is happening in Venezuela as we speak).
I could give a long list, I just point out how an ongoing holocaust is being cast as a right, perversions are being turned into identities and demands for privileged status and more. (Start with what is suddenly happening to bathrooms.)
Many can sense that things have gone topsy-turvy and chaotic, but few can spot the cynical manipulation of putting evil for good and good for evil, false for true and true for false, etc.
And of course, the march of ruinous folly then demands approval of evil under threat.
That is where our civilisation has reached, and it is suicidal.
Now, let us go back to the beginning, to set things straight.
If one is to reason, one needs the freedom guided by responsibility to truth and the right, that allows and motivates one to due care over what is so, what is not so, what ought to be and what ought not to be. Responsible, rational freedom to use understanding and knowledge to infer from grounds to consequences, including the general inductive case in which the points in evidence support but do not demonstrate the conclusion by logical entailment.
As a consequence, no system that is driven by mechanical cause-effect alone, is capable of reasoned inference. Ground and consequent inferred on logical principles is categorically, ontologically different from dynamic-stochastic cause-effect processes. As a direct consequence no GIGO-limited computational substrate . . . analogue, digital or neural network . . . can reason in itself. Mechanised calculation on programs (including stochastic influences) is simply not the same thing as a process of rational inference. The computational substrate is about energy and signal flows, forces, noise etc triggering cause-effect chains, much as we can see in the ball and disk integrator used in the old analogue gunlaying computers and illustrated in the OP. The ball, disk, cylinder and shaft neither know nor care that they are arranged to help solve a differential equation, nor are they concerned to get it right. That is the job of the programmer.
This has been repeatedly highlighted, pointed out and cited from others but it is and will be consistently ignored or dismissed or evaded by those entangled in evolutionary materialistic scientism and/or its fellow travellers due to their blinding worldview imposition that e.g. the "physical" facts fix all the facts.
In short error is being imposed as yardstick.
Let's go on.
It is a simple fact that we are inescapably bound by moral government, including our concerns and urges towards truth and right being exploited by those who would manipulate us.
If we were in a world where such were a systematic delusion, little more than a subjective perception or a drummed in socially relative perception, grand delusion would taint not only our moral life but our rational one and indeed our whole faculty of mindedness. And such gross error without a firewall would collapse the whole project of rationality into the untrustworthy chaos of general, borderline lunacy.
This is an example of how grand delusion leads to utter absurdity, revealing itself to be incoherent, self-falsifying folly.
The sane conclusion is, we are morally governed in our responsible, rational freedom, and we therefore need to ask, what sort of world can root that.
That's what the OP discusses, and it is so utterly repugnant to many objectors that they have resorted to every sort of rhetorical stunt to not go there. Because of where it points: we need a world-root IS that inherently grounds OUGHT. For which, obviously, there is just one serious candidate. Notice how, yet again, objectors cannot provide a coherent, cogent alternative at the table of comparative difficulties.
That speaks volumes.
Now, we have been demanded, on pain of trollish misconduct, to imagine a world without a root of moral government. I have consistently pointed out that rationality -- and indeed the rationality to structure and effect a world is implicated here too, it's not just OUR moral government -- requires such government so the demand is incoherent. Mindedness requires radical freedom and to be rational that freedom must be governed by responsibility to truth and right.
So, with all due respect, just to have an orderly coherent world already points to moral government involved in framing a good world, not a chaos.
Going further, what is feasible is to invent an incoherent, amoral ideology and try to impose it on the community. That has been tried many times and from the days of Alcibiades till now it consistently leads to marches of bloodily ruinous, often mass murdering folly. The past century is perhaps the most horrific cluster of such cases.
But of course, such does not fit with the error-driven yardstick of evolutionary materialists and fellow travellers, and they will bend every rhetorical muscle to twist, deride, dismiss, and worse.
Beyond a certain point, we are seeing the principle of the reprobate mind at work.
And, we should take due note of that.
I trust the point is clear enough.
KF
PS: Ironically, on the warped view we are discussing, there is one exception to the grand delusion: the sociopath. That alone should tell us something has gone seriously wrong.kairosfocus
April 21, 2017
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TROLL -- has used up his chances. Game over. Get your own blog. KFArmand Jacks
April 21, 2017
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TROLL -- used up his chances, is now descending to personalities. KFArmand Jacks
April 21, 2017
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TROLL -- already requested to leave threads I own, having used up his chance. KFArmand Jacks
April 21, 2017
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@WJM
We seem to have different goals.
Again, when faced with concrete moral problems we must make choices. Moral knowledge is knowledge about which choices we should make in those cases.
I don’t know about you, but what I want is to use the contents of moral knowledge to actually solve moral problems that people actually face. You seem to want to justify that knowledge.
IOW, what we want from ideas are their contents, not their providence.critical rationalist
April 21, 2017
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In short, objectors like AJ, CR and RVB8 think that KF, myself and others are attempting to show that morality is objective in nature. That is not what we are doing. We cannot show anyone that.
We are pointing out what the logical (not the observable or the apparent) consequences are for each premise when it comes to our existential nature (not the observable consequences to our behavior) and the nature (not the appearance) of debate about anything of consequence. The point of this is that once one realizes what subjective morality means to the moral nature of their behavior (and that of others), they might realize that (1) they do not act that way, (2) they cannot act that way, (3) they would not accept such behavior or rationalizations from others, and (4) there would be no reason to consider "what is moral" at all, only what ultimately serves one's own best interests, however they personally define that.
Existentially, subjective morality = no morality, just as compatibilist free will = no free will. Existentially, subjective morality = "Do as I will is the whole of the law." That may not be what anyone's personal, subjective morality claims, but that is the root authorization of any subjective morality. You get to adopt a particular subjective moral rule or discard a particular subjective moral rule because do as I will is the whole of the law. You get to pick and choose because you can because it's all subjective.
Why even bother with the pretense that you are discussing morality, when all you are really discussing is how you prefer yourself and others to behave?William J Murray
April 21, 2017
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WJM RE 48
WJM :"What the debate is about is what each premise means to the state of our existence and to the nature of discussion and debate about such things if true.
IOW, if moral subjectivism is actually the truth the nature of our existence,that means one set of things as the necessary logical consequences of such a state of being.
However, if moral objctivism is actually the truth the nature of our existence, that means an entirely different set of things must be true.'
This topic has been debated on this site ad nauseam (sp) and the objectors always , without fail, never address the argument. They always go and bring up irrelevant points that avoids the obvious point being made. Folks this is not difficult and it amazes me that people like AJ and CR never get it. What are the logical consequences!!!!! Why is this so hard to grasp?
No it is not about how things would be different, no it is not about how we can discern what is or is not objective moral values, no it is not about whether subjectivists cannot have moral values, etc, etc,etc, vomit, vomit some more, what is so hard to grasp here?
Thanks WJM and save this for future use when this same thing comes up again.
Vividvividbleau
April 21, 2017
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CR, I strongly advise you to read what WJM has counselled you, and consider your ways. KFkairosfocus
April 21, 2017
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[The following is something that I wrote back in 2010 on another site. I think many of the points are relevant to the “discussion” we are having here.]
I was just thinking. Maybe we (or just me) don’t understand DL’s [doctor(logic’s)] particular version of moral subjectivism correctly. Here is moral subjectivism as it is described by Keith Augustine in response to Theodore Schick’s critique of it.
First let’s start with Schick’s argument for rejecting moral subjectivism:
Premise 1: What makes something morally right is that a person believes it is morally right.
P2: Person A believes genocide is morally right.
P3: Person B believes genocide is not morally right.
4: Genocide is morally right (from 1 and 2).
5: Genocide is not morally right (from 1 and 3).
Of course, Augustine agrees that if premise 1 is true it leads to a hopeless contradiction. But, he then argues that he never claimed that he believes in premise 1. Please notice that he doesn’t claim that premise 1 is true or untrue, provable or un-provable but that it is something that he does not believe in.
Instead he responds with the following counter argument that also ironically leads to a contradiction.
P1: What makes something aesthetically better than some other thing is that a person believes that that thing is better than some other thing.
P2: Person A believes that rock and roll is better than country music.
P3: Person B believes that rock and roll is not better than country music.
4: Rock and roll is better than country music.
5: Rock and roll is not better than country music.
Then he explains his argument:
Now, again we have a contradiction; but does this mean that it is irrational for me to claim that rock and roll is better than country music? No, it is a rational claim. But it is a claim about my tastes and preferences. Similarly, it is perfectly rational for me to claim that genocide is morally wrong. But that expresses my emotional reaction to the action; it does not express some objective state of the world. It is rational because here premise 1 is false, just as it was in the example Schick provided. When I say that rock and roll is better than country music, it is tacitly assumed that I am expressing an opinion and not making a claim about the actual objective nature of rock and roll. Similarly, when I claim that genocide is wrong, I am not making an objective claim about the morality of an action; I am expressing an opinion.
http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/keith_augustine/moral.html
Do you see what Augustine has done? He hasn’t really answered Schick’s argument; he has turned the moral argument into an esthetic one. In other words, moral arguments are not really moral arguments. How can they be?
Now I’ll concede, as the subjectivist does, that the vast majority of people are repulsed by murder, rape and genocide. But what do you do then about someone like Ted Bundy who is not repulsed by rape and murder? Or, the Nazi’s who instituted genocidal polices?
Bundy justified his actions because he said that is how he found personal fulfillment. Those are his personal opinions, tastes and preferences. And, if morality is just a matter esthetic tastes then we have no moral grounds to condemn his behavior because there is no such thing as moral ground.
By the way it does not matter that the Nazi’s (at least some of them) were moral realists. The moral subjectivist (at least as described by K. Augustine) still has no way to condemn their actions morally.
It is absurd to describe this kind of thinking either moral or ethical. If Augustine’s argument is not a classic example of a category error I don’t know what is.
https://www.thinkingchristian.net/posts/2010/10/morality-without-god-would-i-care/#comment-24079john_a_designer
April 21, 2017
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YOU WERE ASKED TO LEAVE THIS AND EVERY THREAD I OWN. YOU HAD A CHANCE AND WASTED IT. GAMES OVER. KFArmand Jacks
April 21, 2017
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CR said:
Again, I’ve have yet to see anyone here address the following problem……
And you probably won't see it when I address it, even though your quote was apparently mis-attributed to me.
Unless you have a way to infallibly identify a source of moral truth and infallibly interpret it, it’s unclear how you have any recourse other than human reasoning and criticism when faced with actual concrete moral problems.
Humans operating in the physical universe don't have an "infallible" means of doing anything. Fallibility is in our human nature, so you're applying a standard that is both unreasonable and hyperskeptical.
You cannot reason about anything unless you have something to reason from and about. You cannot offer reasoned criticism unless you have something to critically examine in the first place, and an accepted and presumed binding means of criticism in the second place.
Reason and criticism must come second after we have established both the valid, binding nature of critical reasoning and have something to critically reason about.
Whether or not we have an infallible means of identifying a valid critical reasoning methodology, or infallibly identifying what we should apply such examination about, or a means of infallibly coming to right conclusions afterward is irrelevant because fallibility is an intractable aspect of everything we do.
At best, it seems you could say that there would be some objective value and duty we must adhere to, but what that is would be, in your terms, “just your opinion”. How else do you solve this problem? I’m still waiting for an answer.
We've answered this many times, but you seem to be immune to accepting the answer as an answer. There are objective moral values and duties that we ought adhere to; it is our position that they are literally sewn into the fabric of existence. Some are self-evident and easy to recognize, like "it is wrong to torture the innocent for one's personal pleasure". It takes no reasoning or critical thinking to sort that out; every sane person on Earth recognizes this as true.
Because they are sewn into the fabric of our existence, moral issues are usually recognized via a spiritual sensory capacity - the conscience - much as our other senses apprehend various aspects of the the physical world. I refer to the moral aspect of the world the "moral landscape".
The conscience (like any sensory capacity) is not infallible and not all moral situations are easily resolved. Some good rules and guidelines have been established by various individuals and cultures throughout history.
When the mind is uncertain or confused about its moral obligation in a situation, that is where critical reasoning comes in - to sort through the issue and see how more obvious rules might apply to that situation.
Now, everything I wrote above are not claims of fact, but rather my description of a worldview framework that establishes what morality is, how we perceive it, and how we proceed from there. I am not asserting that any of the above is true or factual; what I do assert, however, is that the above, or something similar, represents a theistic, natural moral law worldview that is necessary to ground a non-subjective morality that actually reflects how humans actually behave when they encounter a moral issue and provides a means for fruitful dialogue about morality.
IOW, “I believe that slavery is wrong” isn’t actually improved by saying “I believe that some moral authority says slavery is wrong”. You’ve just pushed the problem up a level without improving it.
That's because you don't understand what is being discussed. You think what is being discussed is how, in practice, the moral objectivist is qualitatively different from the moral subjectivist. It's like when AJ asks what a world would look like that is not grounded in an "is". You're both asking the same thing - what is the qualitative difference between how the two different situations would look to the observer.
The answer is: they may not look any different at all, but that's not the point. That they might "look" the same is entirely irrelevant to the point. That one cannot tell the difference between Joe and an android replica of Joe doesn't mean Joe and the android are "the same thing" for all intents and purposes.
What the debate is about is what each premise means to the state of our existence and to the nature of discussion and debate about such things if true.
IOW, if moral subjectivism is actually the truth the nature of our existence,that means one set of things as the necessary logical consequences of such a state of being.
However, if moral objctivism is actually the truth the nature of our existence, that means an entirely different set of things must be true.
If moral subjectivism is true, then at a fundamental level I have no logical reason to care about morality per se at all, but rather only care about how my actions are perceived by society and how such actions might best benefit me. If I feel a pain or conscience or empathy against doing a thing I reason will ultimately benefit me, I have every rational reason to justify the behavior and calm and benumb my disquiet and carry out the action best suited for my benefit. Also, I have no logical reason to worry about any actions that society or others will not ever be aware of, leaving me free to do anything at all as long as I'm relatively sure it won't be observed.
However, that's not how good, sane humans actually act in the real world. We do what is right regardless of if anyone is watching and do it even if think it will ultimately not benefit us. We will do what we know is right even if society disagrees and it will cause us social problems. We will even violate the law if for our moral duties if they are clear enough. Some of us will actually sacrifice our own lives for the cause of what is right, even in the teeth of public disgrace and humiliation. Good, sane humans always act - and must act - as if morality is objective in nature, as if by promoting the good they are serving something greater than themselves, their society, or even the majority of humanity if the majority of humanity is doing what is wrong.
Could people be programmed by evolution, chemistry and physics to act this same way, which seems in conflict with a putative "true state" of moral subjectivism? Certainly. A population of biological automatons could act exactly like free will individuals living an world with objective morality; but "behaving the same" belies an incredibly different actuality under the two scenarios.
None of that proves that morality is actually objective in nature; nobody here can prove it is. Nobody can prove that it is subjective in nature, either. Our arguments are not about "proving' anything, but are rather about showing the disparity between the logical ramifications (not the ramifications of appearances or behaviors) which describe the nature (not the appearance) of our existence under each premise.William J Murray
April 21, 2017
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Criticism obviously never comes first.
So, it's self-evident that criticism never comes first?critical rationalist
April 21, 2017
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CR: Having read what seems to be a “pile on” of your own, I’m still left without an answer to the criticism I raised regarding how human reasoning and criticism always comes first.
Criticism based on what? I have asked you this one month ago and you fail to answer.
Criticism obviously never comes first. And if it enters the picture at all then it needs a prior foundation. One cannot reason based on nothing. You seem to "overlook" that basic fact.Origenes
April 21, 2017
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@KF,
Having read what seems to be a "pile on" of your own, I'm still left without an answer to the criticism I raised regarding how human reasoning and criticism always comes first. Apparently, you think God has somehow written some moral truths on our hearts as source of last resort that cannot lead us astray (or for which we have no excuse to be lead astray) But, again, this is result of a conjectured idea that is the result of human reasoning and criticism, which always comes first.
Again, it’s unclear how “I believe that homosexuality is wrong” is improved by saying “I believe God decrees homosexuality is wrong and has revealed that to us by writing it on our hearts”. This just pushes the problem up a level without actually solving it. IOW, if we try to take an authoritative source seriously as an explanation for moral knowledge, it does not survive criticism.
Again, I’m suggesting that all knowledge, including moral knowledge, comes from conjecture and criticism of some sort. Unless I’ve missed some response in the above, nothing you’ve written here is incompatible with that explanation.
Have you noticed that both WJM and I (and for that matter, SB et al) have consistently argued that there are intelligible, self-evident moral truths that serve as plumblines that allow responsible evaluation of our behaviour, especially when used with the principle of coherence, a key first principle of right reason? Have you forgotten how often we have discussed yardstick cases such as how it is self-evidently wrong to kidnap, sexually torture, rape and murder a young child for one’s sick pleasure? Do you still not see how such a truth leads onwards to principles of law amenable to the moral government of our nature?
No, KF. I have not forgotten your examples of self-evident truths. You having presented them is key to the argument I'm presenting.
Again, when I suggested that all ideas are subject to criticism, why did you choose kidnaping, etc. as examples of self-evident truths, as opposed to other possible candidates? They were ideas you tried to criticize, but came back with none. If they were immune to criticism, you would have no reason to have selected them as examples, as opposed to other ideas. IOW, you yourself have presented a concrete example that is contrary to the idea that they are not subject to criticism.
Not currently having any good criticisms of an idea is not the same as being immune to criticism, which is what would be necessary for self-evident truths. As for the principle of right reason, it is abandoned by deciding some ideas are not subject to criticism.
For example, would you say that homosexuality is self-evidently wrong? Is that supposed moral knowledge immune to criticism as well? What about the rights of general artificially intelligent beings? Would they have the same “self evident” rights as human beings? What about moral problems that we have not even conceived of yet?
Again, the idea that any moral knowledge is immune to criticism is immoral because it excludes the possibility that progress can be made in these areas and others. Being fallible, we should expect alll of our knowledge to contain errors to some degree and be incomplete. It is immoral because it discounts and even vilifies our means of correcting errors.
Or perhaps you mean something other than “not subject to criticism” when using the term self-evident? But, if that were the case, how can they be a foundation that you say is necessary?
Furthermore, how is this not an argument from undesired consequences? The argument that Foundationalists who, when presented with criticisms that indicate a foundation is impossible. will choose nihilism, because they hold a bad philosophy of knowledge, is an appeal to undesired consequences.Nor am I a nihilist, despite our different world views.critical rationalist
April 21, 2017
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CR, BTW, when you hang around and tack on a comment after a thread has faded, you cannot reasonably expect that your arguments will be picked up and answered. The same holds for the just previous comment in which you again fail to understand the Agrippa Trilemma as it is called: infinite regress is impossible, circularity fails to warrant and so we are forced to address finitely remote first plausibles including key self-evident truths. Any number of times it has been pointed out that something like Neurath's Raft where by standing on part A one may fix part B then switch to B to fix A etc both has to have internal integrity and rests on the sea and the principle of flotation. We cannot avoid finitely remote first plausibles forming a faith-point, we can only evade comparative difficulties analysis, which is what moves us beyond question-begging. And no, with all due respect I cannot again go down a shopping list of points that are endlessly recycled with little or no responsiveness, there are other things that I have to take up, here, post snap election announcement. I suggest that the OP, outlines I just made and other remarks already in thread should be a slice of the cake with all the ingredients. Time to go back to sleep for a bit before another day. G'night. KFkairosfocus
April 20, 2017
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PPS: Let me clip onward from the already linked discussion of a self-evident moral yardstick. So, we can see what is being derided and dismissed without due consideration (and as an illustration of how our civilisation leads itself ill-advisedly into ruinous peril):
normally responsive people will at least grudgingly respect the following summary of such core, conscience attested morality from the pen of Paul:
Rom 2:14 For when Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law. 15 They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness, and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them . . . .
Rom 13:8 Owe no one anything, except to love each other, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. 9 For the commandments, “You shall not commit adultery, You shall not murder, You shall not steal, You shall not covet,” and any other commandment, are summed up in this word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” 10 Love does no wrong [NIV, "harm"] to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law. [ESV]
Where, John Locke, in grounding modern liberty and what would become democratic self-government of a free people premised on upholding the civil peace of justice, in Ch 2 Sec. 5 of his second treatise on civil Government [c. 1690] cites "the judicious [Anglican canon, Richard] Hooker" from his classic Ecclesiastical Polity of 1594 on, as he explains how the principles of neighbour-love are inscribed in our hearts, becoming evident to the eye of common good sense and reasonableness:
. . . if I cannot but wish to receive good, even as much at every man's hands, as any man can wish unto his own soul, how should I look to have any part of my desire herein satisfied, unless myself be careful to satisfy the like desire which is undoubtedly in other men . . . my desire, therefore, to be loved of my equals in Nature, as much as possible may be, imposeth upon me a natural duty of bearing to themward fully the like affection. From which relation of equality between ourselves and them that are as ourselves, what several rules and canons natural reason hath drawn for direction of life no man is ignorant . . . [Hooker then continues, citing Aristotle in The Nicomachean Ethics, Bk 8 and alluding to Justinian's synthesis of Roman Law in Corpus Juris Civilis that also brings these same thoughts to bear:] as namely, That because we would take no harm, we must therefore do none; That since we would not be in any thing extremely dealt with, we must ourselves avoid all extremity in our dealings; That from all violence and wrong we are utterly to abstain, with such-like . . . ] [Eccl. Polity,preface, Bk I, "ch." 8, p.80, cf. here. Emphasis added.]
We may elaborate on Paul, Locke, Hooker and Aristotle, laying out several manifestly evident and historically widely acknowledged core moral principles; for which the attempted denial is instantly and patently absurd for most people -- that is, they are arguably self-evident (thus, warranted and objective) moral truths; not just optional opinions.
So also, it is not only possible to
(a) be in demonstrable moral error, but also
(b) there is hope that such moral errors can be corrected by appealing to manifestly sound core principles of the natural moral law.
For instance:
1] The first self evident moral truth is that we are inescapably under the government of ought.
(This is manifest in even an objector's implication in the questions, challenges and arguments that s/he would advance, that we are in the wrong and there is something to be avoided about that. That is, even the objector inadvertently implies that we OUGHT to do, think, aim for and say the right. Not even the hyperskeptical objector can escape this truth. Patent absurdity on attempted denial.)
2] Second self evident truth, we discern that some things are right and others are wrong by a compass-sense we term conscience which guides our thought. (Again, objectors depend on a sense of guilt/ urgency to be right not wrong on our part to give their points persuasive force. See what would be undermined should conscience be deadened or dismissed universally? Sawing off the branch on which we all must sit.)
3] Third, were this sense of conscience and linked sense that we can make responsibly free, rational decisions to be a delusion, we would at once descend into a status of grand delusion in which there is no good ground for confidence in our self-understanding. (That is, we look at an infinite regress of Plato’s cave worlds: once such a principle of grand global delusion is injected, there is no firewall so the perception of level one delusion is subject to the same issue, and this level two perception too, ad infinitum; landing in patent absurdity.)
4] Fourth, we are objectively under obligation of OUGHT. That is, despite any particular person’s (or group’s or august council’s or majority’s) wishes or claims to the contrary, such obligation credibly holds to moral certainty. That is, it would be irresponsible, foolish and unwise for us to act and try to live otherwise.
5] Fifth, this cumulative framework of moral government under OUGHT is the basis for the manifest core principles of the natural moral law under which we find ourselves obligated to the right the good, the true etc. Where also, patently, we struggle to live up to what we acknowledge or imply we ought to do.
6] Sixth, this means we live in a world in which being under core, generally understood principles of natural moral law is coherent and factually adequate, thus calling for a world-understanding in which OUGHT is properly grounded at root level. (Thus worldviews that can soundly meet this test are the only truly viable ones. If a worldview does not have in it a world-root level IS that can simultaneously ground OUGHT -- so that IS and OUGHT are inextricably fused at that level, it fails decisively.*)
7] Seventh, in light of the above, even the weakest and most voiceless of us thus has a natural right to life, liberty, the pursuit of fulfillment of one’s sense of what s/he ought to be (“happiness”). This includes the young child, the unborn and more. (We see here the concept that rights are binding moral expectations of others to provide respect in regards to us because of our inherent status as human beings, members of the community of valuable neighbours. Where also who is my neighbour was forever answered by the parable of the Good Samaritan. Likewise, there can be no right to demand of or compel my neighbour that s/he upholds me and enables me in the wrong — including under false colour of law through lawfare; usurping the sword of justice to impose a ruthless policy agenda in fundamental breach of that civil peace which must ever pivot on manifest justice. To justly claim a right, one must first be in the right.)
8] Eighth, like unto the seventh, such may only be circumscribed or limited for good cause. Such as, reciprocal obligation to cherish and not harm neighbour of equal, equally valuable nature in community and in the wider world of the common brotherhood of humanity.
9] Ninth, this is the context in which it becomes self evidently wrong, wicked and evil to kidnap, sexually torture and murder a young child or the like as concrete cases in point that show that might and/or manipulation do not make ‘right,’ ‘truth,’ ‘worth,’ ‘justice,’ ‘fairness,’ ‘law’ etc. That is, anything that expresses or implies the nihilist’s credo is morally absurd.
10] Tenth, this entails that in civil society with government, justice is a principal task of legitimate government. In short, nihilistic will to power untempered by the primacy of justice is its own refutation in any type of state. Where, justice is the due balance of rights, freedoms and responsibilities. (In Aristotle's terms as cited by Hooker: "because we would take no harm, we must therefore do none; That since we would not be in any thing extremely dealt with, we must ourselves avoid all extremity in our dealings; That from all violence and wrong we are utterly to abstain, with such-like .") Thus also,
11] Eleventh, that government is and ought to be subject to audit, reformation and if necessary replacement should it fail sufficiently badly and incorrigibly.
(NB: This is a requisite of accountability for justice, and the suggestion or implication of some views across time, that government can reasonably be unaccountable to the governed, is its own refutation, reflecting -- again -- nihilistic will to power; which is automatically absurd. This truth involves the issue that finite, fallible, morally struggling men acting as civil authorities in the face of changing times and situations as well as in the face of the tendency of power to corrupt, need to be open to remonstrance and reformation -- or if they become resistant to reasonable appeal, there must be effective means of replacement. Hence, the principle that the general election is an insitutionalised regular solemn assembly of the people for audit and reform or if needs be replacement of government gone bad. But this is by no means an endorsement of the notion that a manipulated mob bent on a march of folly has a right to do as it pleases.)
12] Twelfth, the attempt to deny or dismiss such a general framework of moral governance invariably lands in shipwreck of incoherence and absurdity. As, has been seen in outline. But that does not mean that the attempt is not going to be made, so there is a mutual obligation of frank and fair correction and restraint of evil.
_________________
* F/N: After centuries of debates and assessment of alternatives per comparative difficulties, there is in fact just one serious candidate to be such a grounding IS: the inherently good creator God, a necessary and maximally great being worthy of ultimate loyalty and the reasonable responsible service of doing the good in accord with our manifestly evident nature. (And instantly, such generic ethical theism answers also to the accusation oh this is “religion”; that term being used as a dirty word — no, this is philosophy. If you doubt this, simply put forth a different candidate that meets the required criteria and passes the comparative difficulties test: _________ . Likewise, an inherently good, maximally great being will not be arbitrary or deceitful etc, that is why such is fully worthy of ultimate loyalty and the reasonable, responsible service of doing the good in accord with our manifestly evident nature. As a serious candidate necessary being, such would be eternal and embedded in the frame for a world to exist at all. Thus such a candidate is either impossible as a square circle is impossible due to mutual ruin of core characteristics, or else it is actual. For simple instance no world is possible without two-ness in it, a necessary basis for distinct identity inter alia.
But, widespread or even general acknowledgement of many or most of the above as more or less useful rules of conduct is not the same as to further acknowledge that the sort of wrong we are contemplating is bindingly, objectively, universally something that OUGHT not to be done. And indeed, many will boldly assert today that it cannot be proved that it is absurd to reject the notion that core moral principles are objective and universally binding. Indeed an actual argument made is oh, how can you PROVE that such a list of truths is coherent? . . .
--> This is how far we have now fallen.
--> FWIW, my onward response:
(My reply was, after several rounds:
"truths must all be so together, a key point of a coherent world: on distinct identity the triple first principles obtain and so no x is both A and not-A, and so too no two truths x and y can be such that y = NOT-x. In this context, each of the 12 being in turn directly credibly true on grounds of patent absurdities on attempted denial, they are immediately credibly coherent. Next, it so happens that the principles are in fact linked together in a chain so they are mutually supportive and relevant, in fact framing the basis for moral principles in governance."
The onward question was absolute certainty regarding coherence, to which I responded that not even Mathematics -- the logical study of structure and quantity -- post Godel is absolutely certain, and that the relevant degree of certainty is moral, where I would be confidently willing to cast the weight of my soul on the above, and would be prepared to bet the future of civilisation on them. [Indeed, whatever moral view we take, we are casting the weight of our souls and the future of civilisation on it. The ethical component of our worldviews is awesomely momentous.])
--> this is how irresponsible and careless we have become, weep for us.kairosfocus
April 20, 2017
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CR, Pardon such directness on my part, but it is clear that your problems with epistemology taint your discussions, including on moral truth. Have you noticed that both WJM and I (and for that matter, SB et al) have consistently argued that there are intelligible, self-evident moral truths that serve as plumblines that allow responsible evaluation of our behaviour, especially when used with the principle of coherence, a key first principle of right reason? Have you forgotten how often we have discussed yardstick cases such as how it is self-evidently wrong to kidnap, sexually torture, rape and murder a young child for one's sick pleasure? Do you still not see how such a truth leads onwards to principles of law amenable to the moral government of our nature? As in, did you not notice how in the discussion excerpted in the OP the rooting in the IS that grounds OUGHT in his goodness then leads us to understand that we are duty-bound to do that which is good and right in accord with our evident nature? As can be classically seen in the 2nd paragraph of the US DoI, 1776 and underlying sources and historically relevant context? I think it is increasingly clear that evo mat scientism's irrationality and amorality, joined to fellow travellers and silly indoctrination that projects "fascist" or "theocrat" or the like on any who question a historically ruinous agenda, has led to a spirit of contempt-laced folly that imagines that marching over what history warns us is a cliff is wisdom, and those who object can only be ignorant, stupid, insane or wicked. No wonder our civilisation is in such deep and worsening trouble. KF
PS: Just to inform us (and to demonstrate the force of the general point), here is Cicero in De Legibus, C1 BC:
—Marcus: . . . the subject of our present discussion . . . comprehends the universal principles of equity and law. In such a discussion therefore on the great moral law of nature, the practice of the civil law can occupy but an insignificant and subordinate station. For according to our idea, we shall have to explain the true nature of moral justice, which is congenial and correspondent [36]with the true nature of man. We shall have to examine those principles of legislation by which all political states should be governed. And last of all, shall we have to speak of those laws and customs which are framed for the use and convenience of particular peoples, which regulate the civic and municipal affairs of the citizens, and which are known by the title of civil laws.
Quintus. —You take a noble view of the subject, my brother, and go to the fountain–head of moral truth, in order to throw light on the whole science of jurisprudence: while those who confine their legal studies to the civil law too often grow less familiar with the arts of justice than with those of litigation.
Marcus. —Your observation, my Quintus, is not quite correct. It is not so much the science of law that produces litigation, as the ignorance of it, (potius ignoratio juris litigiosa est quam scientia) . . . . With respect to the true principle of justice, many learned men have maintained that it springs from Law. I hardly know if their opinion be not correct, at least, according to their own definition; for “Law (say they) is the highest reason, implanted in nature, which prescribes those things which ought to be done, and forbids the contrary.” This, they think, is apparent from the converse of the proposition; because this same reason, when it [37]is confirmed and established in men’s minds, is the law of all their actions.
They therefore conceive that the voice of conscience is a law, that moral prudence is a law, whose operation is to urge us to good actions, and restrain us from evil ones. They think, too, that the Greek name for law (NOMOS), which is derived from NEMO, to distribute, implies the very nature of the thing, that is, to give every man his due. For my part, I imagine that the moral essence of law is better expressed by its Latin name, (lex), which conveys the idea of selection or discrimination. According to the Greeks, therefore, the name of law implies an equitable distribution of goods: according to the Romans, an equitable discrimination between good and evil.
The true definition of law should, however, include both these characteristics. And this being granted as an almost self–evident proposition, the origin of justice is to be sought in the divine law of eternal and immutable morality. This indeed is the true energy of nature, the very soul and essence of wisdom, the test of virtue and vice. But since every discussion must relate to some subject, whose terms are of frequent occurrence in the popular language of the citizens, we shall be sometimes obliged to use the same terms as the vulgar, and to conform to that common idiom which signifies by the word law, all the arbitrary [38]regulations which are found in our statute books, either commanding or forbidding certain actions.
Atticus. —Let us begin, then, to establish the principles of justice on that eternal and universal law, whose origin precedes the immeasurable course of ages, before legislative enactments were in being, or political governments constituted.
Quintus. —By thus ascending to first principles, the order of our discourse will be more methodical, so as to conduct us by agreeable gradations to the practical bearings of the subject.
Marcus. —You wish, then, that we should seek for justice in its native source, which being discovered, we shall afterwards be able to speak with more authority and precision respecting our civil laws, that come home to the affairs of our citizens?
Quintus. —Such is the course I would advise.
Atticus. —I also subscribe to your brother’s opinion . . .
--> It seems we have to be sent back to the pagans, to understand what we had and so contemptuously, shamelessly and carelessly discarded to our grave loss and potential ruin.kairosfocus
April 20, 2017
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CR, I find you here trying to indulge in a piling on tactic. Consider this a warning. KF
PS: Given your tendency to inject your themes cross-purpose to just about any thread you intervene in, no I will not try to answer any and every thing you choose to bring up. I have tried to respond to what has seemed germane at the time.
As for a blanket question as to how one solves specific moral questions, surely you know that that is unlimited and utterly expansive. That said, any reasonably morally educated person knows there are general principles applicable to particularities rooted in the value of the individual, though I distinctly recall that when this was raised you took occasion to run off on all sorts of tangents and claims.
The general answer is that one's senses are trained by reason of use to discern the good from the evil, across a lifespan and in a sound community across the generations.
As for Plato's conclusion that we need philosopher-kings, that is secondary to the primary issue I have highlighted, the dangerous inherent instabilities of democratic governments (especially in a morally degenerate community -- note The Laws Bk X). So, as I have actually posted in OP's here, we need to stabilise democracies, as say the rise of the US Republic with a DoI on key principles and a Constitutional framework illustrates. Undergirding such, I argued that only when general literacy, printing (and thus widespread moral training through Scripture and the rise of newspapers) multiplied by spiritual reformations and heart-softening, morally transformational revivals, did a reasonable stable form of democracy become possible. This means, not until v late C17 - 18, which, surprise -- NOT, is just when such emerged. And indeed we do need people of high competence, high intelligence and high character in leadership, with accountability and transparency before an informed, responsible public. In Plato's time, likely, only a lawful state based on good kings restrained by a corpus of sound law [and maybe with a significantly independent judiciary], was feasible as a long term solution, save with minor little centres that were not the heart of empires with great wealth and great military power. But then I doubt that you seriously interacted with that discussion or the underlying history.
--> I do not write this to entertain all sorts of tangents, but just for record, showing an outline of what a serious solution looks like.kairosfocus
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AJ, continuing the deceitful tactic leads to the point where I now ask you to leave this thread and any thread I own. You were already warned. KFkairosfocus
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@WJM
Please notice, the implications this has for atheism. If atheistic materialism/naturalism is “true”* then is does not provide any grounding for human rights. So our atheist interlocutors do not, indeed cannot, support human rights. And it does not matter whether they believe that or not, they cannot rational argue otherwise.
Again, I've have yet to see anyone here address the following problem......
Unless you have a way to infallibly identify a source of moral truth and infallibly interpret it, it's unclear how you have any recourse other than human reasoning and criticism when faced with actual concrete moral problems.
At best, it seems you could say that there would be some objective value and duty we must adhere to, but what that is would be, in your terms, "just your opinion". How else do you solve this problem? I’m still waiting for an answer.
IOW, “I believe that slavery is wrong” isn’t actually improved by saying “I believe that some moral authority says slavery is wrong”. You’ve just pushed the problem up a level without improving it.critical rationalist
It is almost — almost — amusing but then quite sad to see how objectors to design theory play with logic and worldviews issues, then run away when the substantial issues are taken up.
FFT5: The implications of the familiar extraordinary.
In this thread, there are arguments [posted] that . . . as an observable phenomenon . . . show that we are capable of significant choice and reasoning, i.e. we are responsibly, rationally, significantly free, conscious, en-conscienced, morally governed, communicating creatures. (Indeed, those trying to object are operating on the implicit premise that we are urged by conscience toward the truth and the right; and if we were not, this world would descend into a dark, chaotic ruin in short order. It is a good thing that something urges us on to the truth and the right.)
Locke, in Sec 5 of his essay on human understanding (and yes, I add scriptural references i/l/o his cites and allusions), aptly comments:
All of that is in the context of rebuking a lazy, sneeringly supercilious selective hyperskepticism that will scorn more than adequate warrant for ethical theism, because it shuns the premise of moral government: accountability on plainly recognisable duty, before our Maker, Lord, Governor and utterly just Judge.
But, that is a bit quick off the mark.
There is no recognition of meaning, no perception, no purpose, just blind cause-effect chains externally arranged to yield the solution to certain differential equations. GIGO, and all that. Likewise, the old Pentium chip neither knew nor understood nor cared about the wired in errors that led to the early recall. And, a neural network is not in principle any different. (BTW this points to serious design inferences on the relevant hardware and software in bio-cybernetics systems, but that is a secondary point.)
The primary point has been highlighted by Reppert:
In short, a physicalist account of mindedness (much less, guidance by light of conscience) faces an ugly, impassable gulch.
In effect, rocks — even refined and carefully organised rocks — have no dreams; computation is not intentional contemplation.
At this point, evolutionary materialism and its fellow travellers — and nope you cannot properly, conveniently open up rhetorical daylight between some vague agnosticism and full-blown evo mat to deflect this — face an impassable gulch.
One, that brings out what was already highlighted: mindedness, consciousness, reasoned inference and conscience’s compass-pointing alike are all reduced to grand delusion on evo mat premises.
Grand delusion would collapse responsible, rational freedom and so falls into irretrievable incoherence and absurdity. Thence, the necessary falsity Pearcey and others have pointed to.
But in reality, rational, responsible, conscience-compass bearing consciousness is our first undeniable empirical fact. The fact through which we perceive all others.
This is the familiar extraordinary phenomenon, the pivot on which the project of building a sound worldview turns. In effect, unless a worldview is compatible with our being responsible, reasonable, conscience-guided and significantly free beings, it cannot even sit to the table for a discussion of comparative difficulties. It is silenced by being inconsistent with rationality. It is patently, irretrievably absurd and necessarily false. (Evo mat and fellow traveller ideologies, I am looking straight at you.)>>