My views on objective morality

[Redbeard The Pink]

Word salad word salad word salad, word salad word salad, word salad. Word salad....
The Euthypro dilemma was originally conceived under polytheism, but the philosophical question it asks still applies to monotheism, and monotheism still falls short of an answer to it.

Asserting that it still applies does not make it so. Since you have no respect for philosophy (word salad, as you say) then maybe you should refrain from engaging in it. In other words, better to be silent and thought the fool, than speak and provide proof.

What, do I need to lay it out for you?


Actually, I probably do.


The Euthypro Dilemma is what I've already been describing (though I didn't know it was called that until I looked it up), and it asks whether the gods love the pious because it's pious or whether it's pious because they love it. The immediate response is that all the gods might not agree, to which the response is that the pious is only that upon which all the gods agree.


Monotheism sidesteps that part of the issue entirely, since there's only one god to decide what's pious, so he always agrees with himself (theoretically). This actually simplifies the question, and when applied to philosophical monotheism, the question looks like this:


"Is what's morally good commanded by god because it's morally good, or is it morally good because god commands it?"


If it's the first, then objective morality might exist, but god is not the source of it. If it's the second, then we're talking Divine Command Theory, which isn't morality.


So yeah...your god doesn't escape this problem, and you've failed to show otherwise.

[Mudhammam]

Why would I? Even if they weren't dead. I never subscribed to their ideas anyway.

I subsrcibe to research when it comes to morality, since I find that much more fascinating than any idea any philosopher ever had.

Research is great...

...When you understand what the data means.

Of course, making sense of the data is what philosophers do, and scientists too, even when they're ignorant of the fact that they're doing-- or disingenuously pretending that they're not doing -- philosophy.

[Mudhammam]

That dilemma does not apply to a monotheistic god whose essense is identical to his existence. Your trump card is the wrong suit.

...in which case reason continues to serve as the sole means for differentiating the good and bad natures of so-called revealed deities. (You have rendered God to be a completely redundant term that is indistinguishable from the highest possible Good).

[robvalue]

It comes down to definitions again. If we define morality so that animals can't possibly be capable of it, then they are not.

Honestly, I don't think it's well-defined. I feel it needs careful definition for any given discussion. Almost all the disagreement I see about it relates to what it actually means in the first place. "Everyone knows what it means" is not useful. I am always suspicious of people who state how obvious something is but won't state what it actually is; they'd rather argue for an hour over how obvious it is than spend 5 seconds just saying what it is.

[robvalue]

So....

Let's say that it is "objectively immoral" to get angry. So what? What difference does that make?

Same goes for everything. If it was objectively immoral to touch your foot, would you stop doing it?

I don't see it makes an ounce of difference. If something is objectively immoral, whatever that means, I don't care. I'll still make up my own mind about it. I'd only care if someone was enforcing consequences based on my behaviour, and even then, that wouldn't change my opinion about whether the thing was moral or not. I just might have to alter my behaviour to stop myself getting punished. Maybe I would, maybe I wouldn't.

[bennyboy]

Why would I? Even if they weren't dead. I never subscribed to their ideas anyway.

I subsrcibe to research when it comes to morality, since I find that much more fascinating than any idea any philosopher ever had.

Research is great...

...When you understand what the data means.

Of course, making sense of the data is what philosophers do, and scientists too, even when they're ignorant of the fact that they're doing-- or disingenuously pretending that they're not doing -- philosophy.

That's right.  Any system of analysis requires a philosophical foundation to carry any merit.  Science has as its foundation some very powerful assumptions, but these also serve to limit its scope to those areas of reality in which those assumptions can be known (or reasonably expected) to apply.

[Neo-Scholastic]

That dilemma does not apply to a monotheistic god whose essense is identical to his existence.  Your trump card is the wrong suit.

...in which case reason continues to serve as the sole means for differentiating the good and bad natures of so-called revealed deities. (You have rendered God to be a completely redundant term that is indistinguishable from the highest possible Good).

People use reason to know about moral objects the same way they about any other type of object. This requirement to use reason would also apply to the highest good or The Good. That does not make reason itself the desired good; but rather the means by which people conceive the good.

[LadyForCamus]

Asserting that it still applies does not make it so. Since you have no respect for philosophy (word salad, as you say) then maybe you should refrain from engaging in it. In other words, better to be silent and thought the fool, than speak and provide proof.

What, do I need to lay it out for you?


Actually, I probably do.


The Euthypro Dilemma is what I've already been describing (though I didn't know it was called that until I looked it up), and it asks whether the gods love the pious because it's pious or whether it's pious because they love it. The immediate response is that all the gods might not agree, to which the response is that the pious is only that upon which all the gods agree.


Monotheism sidesteps that part of the issue entirely, since there's only one god to decide what's pious, so he always agrees with himself (theoretically). This actually simplifies the question, and when applied to philosophical monotheism, the question looks like this:


"Is what's morally good commanded by god because it's morally good, or is it morally good because god commands it?"


If it's the first, then objective morality might exist, but god is not the source of it. If it's the second, then we're talking Divine Command Theory, which isn't morality.


So yeah...your god doesn't escape this problem, and you've failed to show otherwise.

Thank you! [emoji106]

[bennyboy]

I'm not sure sure I'm with the atheists on this issue. Something can be objective to one and subjective to another (or group of others). For example, the cost of an apple in a corner store is (let's say) 25 cents. This price is not set by me, and it is what it is. To the store manager, the value is highly subjective-- it's what he's willing to let an apple go for.

I don't see why morality should be any different. When theists talk about objective morality, they presumably mean it's objective TO PEOPLE, not to the God who is perfectly able to decide what acts he wants to deem moral and immoral.

So to a Christian, morality is objective because God sets it, and God is beyond man's ken and control. It's not because morality is magically self-existing in the fabric of spacetime.

[robvalue]

It's no more objective than using "kill everything that moves" as a moral code.

It's objective in that it (potentially) doesn't change; and indeed, is external to humans. The first point is more important, really. If it was external to humans but changing all the time on the whim of some alien, then that wouldn't be objective, except by taking snapshots. So it's assuming God doesn't change his mind about stuff. The bible has God changing his mind all the time, so I don't see much support for that.

They imply that it's the best moral code, but they don't say that. So instead they make out like it's the only one; which is why it becomes garbage and a factually incorrect statement. They don't say best, because then they have to define what best is in a non-circular way, and without making God redundant in the whole thing. Can't be done, in my opinion.