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RE: Atheism and morality
July 4, 2013 at 12:33 am
(July 3, 2013 at 9:05 pm)Inigo Wrote: No, the reverse is true. My belief that Xing is wrong contradicts your belief that Xing is right if and only if we are talking about the same morality. So, my belief that Xing is wrong is the belief that morality instructs us not to X. Your belief that Xing is right is the belief that morality instructs us to X. These beliefs contradict. But they are beliefs about one morality.
If my belief was that morality1 instructs us not to X, and your belief was that morality2 instructs us to X then our beliefs do not contradict.
Xing in your example is confusing. Can we use a real example?
Abortion. Essentially 2 sides of the argument. The first is that the rights of the unborn child trump everything else. the second that the woman's right to choose trumps all.
If that is a dispute over the same moral issue then the role of your God is merely to flag up that abortion is a moral issue and then the individual comes down on one side or the other.
Doesn't seem like much of a role - seems far more like a decision to be made by an intelligence, us, independently. That decision would be made on the basis of upbringing probably more than anything else.
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RE: Atheism and morality
July 4, 2013 at 3:43 am
(This post was last modified: July 4, 2013 at 4:13 am by genkaus.)
(June 30, 2013 at 6:50 pm)Inigo Wrote: My confidence in the truth of atheism has been shaken by my reflections on the nature of morality. Perhaps my reflections are poor and I am making some very great mistake. But I think that morality may require a god. That doesn't show a god to exist, of course, for perhaps morality is an illusion. But it reduces its credibility to some extent.
This is your mistake right here. Atheism's credibility would remain unchanged by any reflections on morality.
(June 30, 2013 at 6:50 pm)Inigo Wrote: Here is why I think morality requires a god. first, however, I want to distinguish between moral phenomena and morality itself. I use the term 'moral phenomena' to refer to moral sensations (so, the deliverances of our moral sense) and moral beliefs. I take it as beyond question that moral phenomena exist. But it does not follow that morality itself exists, for morality is not a sensation or a belief. it is the thing sensed, the thing believed. To believe an act to be wrong is to believe the act has the attribute of wrongness. One has the belief, but whether the act really has that feature - indeed, whether such a feature exists at all - remains an open question.
Second mistake. You regard "morality" as some sort of physical aspect of the world - referring to moral "phenomena" or "sensations". As if morality were an aspect of the the universe like shape or color, which can be sensed of felt. This creates a false dichotomy where if it exists, then it exists independently and as an aspect of reality and if it doesn't then it is illusory.
(June 30, 2013 at 6:50 pm)Inigo Wrote: Anyway, here was the though that first set me off doubting atheism. Morality is normative: it instructs, favours, commands. It is not enough for it to appear to do these things. A morality that does not instruct or favour or command is no morality at all. Morality actually does these things. This seems to be a conceptual truth about morality. Yet, for the life of me I find it hard to conceive of how anything other than an agent could do such things.
Morality "does" nothing of the sort - no more than books "educate", maps "guide", law "punishes" or guns "kill".
(June 30, 2013 at 7:54 pm)Inigo Wrote: No. I am saying that real moral instructions would have to be the instructions of a powerful supernatural agent of some kind because this is what it would take for there to exist instructions with which everyone has reason to comply whatever their interests.
In that case there can't be any "real" moral instructions. Even the instructions given by supposed powerful supernatural agents have required independent reasons to ensure complicity.
(June 30, 2013 at 11:15 pm)Inigo Wrote: 1.Morality instructs/favours/commands
2.Only an agent can instruct/favour/command
3.Morality is an agent
That’s the first step. Obviously this leaves open that morality might be us, our communities, or whatever.
Premise 1 is incorrect. That, due to non-specificity of an agent we confer agency upon the concept of morality does not automatically make it an independent agent.
(June 30, 2013 at 11:15 pm)Inigo Wrote: Next step.
2.Only the commands/instructions/favourings of a supernatural agent who controls our fate in an afterlife would confer reasons to all to whom they are applied.
Prove it. Prove afterlife and that only the instructions of a supernatural agent could possibly confer the necessary reasons.
(July 1, 2013 at 12:34 am)Inigo Wrote: You then accuse me of lacking originality. That's untrue and irrelevant. To my knowledge nobody has defended quite the view I am defending. For the view I am defending is not that morality is composed of the commands/favourings/instructions of the Judaeo Christian god, but that morality is the composed of the commands of a vengeful god who is not perfectly morally good. My arguments, if anything, only underscore the non-existence of the Christian god. But anyway, the originality of an argument has nothing to do with its soundness or validity. So I'm unsure why you mentioned it unless you're just a horrible person.
Actually, your argument is so unoriginal that it has its own name - the Divine Command theory.
(July 1, 2013 at 3:44 am)Inigo Wrote: Normative moral philosophy is that part of ethics concerned with figuring out just what it is that morality instructs us to do and be. And the truthful answer is that I do not know exactly what morality instructs us to do. My method of figuring this out is going to be exactly the same as yours (I assume). I will consult my moral sense and that of others and try to systemise its deliverances.
Then you are starting odd on the wrong foot. Your moral sense would be the result of descriptive morality of your society and therefore any normative moral code you come up with as a result would be a reflection of that.
(July 1, 2013 at 3:44 am)Inigo Wrote: Metaethical inquiry is investigation into what morality actually is. Strictly speaking every normative moral theory is compatible with every metaethical one. And what I am doing here is arguing that the metaethical view that morality is composed of the commands/favourings of a god is very plausible. In fact, I think it by far the most plausible metaethical theory, for the reasons I have given.
Given the implausibility of god - nuh-uh.
(July 1, 2013 at 5:31 pm)Inigo Wrote: I don't understand your question. Morality is unitary - that is a conceptual claim. It has nothing to do with what morality instructs us to do and be.
Even if (as seems conceptually incoherent) there are lots of moralities, they could each tell everyone to do the same thing. And if there is one morality it could instruct everyone to behave differently. The unity of morality and the content and scope of its instructions are totally different matters.
The existence of multiple moralities all with different instructions seems to belie your statement.
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RE: Atheism and morality
July 4, 2013 at 4:19 am
You can fix ignorance, you can't fix stupid.
Tinkety Tonk and down with the Nazis.
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RE: Atheism and morality
July 4, 2013 at 4:45 am
(This post was last modified: July 4, 2013 at 4:58 am by FallentoReason.)
(July 3, 2013 at 11:58 am)Rahul Wrote: (July 3, 2013 at 11:22 am)FallentoReason Wrote: Scratch that. My initial thought seems too abstract upon further reflection.
All I'll say is that "tangible" needs to be defined, because arguably, when you feel good about an altruistic action, those feel good chemicals in your brain are pretty damn *tangible* if you ask me.
Well I don't get some kind of emotional rush or anything.
I'm just a generally happy person and I would like to see most everyone else feel the same way. If I can do something to help someone out or make their day a little brighter, I'll usually do it.
I also like to see others benefit from my actions at no positive gain of my own. But technically speaking, I wouldn't say I'm altruistic, because seeing others happy *is* my reward, and thus, "altruism" as we know it in its purest form, doesn't apply to me (or others I'd argue, unless they're indifferent to the positive outcome their actions had).
Inigo Wrote:Apologies for ignoring your post - I must have missed it somehow. My claim that morality instructs/favours/commands is a conceptual claim. It is just (in part) what I mean by 'morality'. So any attempt to analyse morality that identifies moral properties with things that cannot instruct is going to fail. It won't be an analysis of the concept of morality. Like I say, we have to make assumptions and that's one of mine. Everyone else makes it too: the normativity of morality is not in question, what is in question is how to explain it.
You point to Hume's 'is/ought' claim, namely that you cannot get an 'ought' from an 'is'. This is ironic as Hume is essentially making precisely the point I am making: morality tells you what to do. Descriptions don't. Telling you that a certain act is altruistic just tells you it is altruistic. It doesn't direct you - it isn't an instruction.
However, a description of an instruction - pointing out to someone that they are, so far as you can see, being instructed not to do something, is different. That is a description. And when we say that an act is 'wrong' we are describing: we are saying that the act has wrongness (that's a description). But what we are describing is the fact the act is one that we are instructed not to do.
A description of an instruction is not itself an instruction. But it draws attention to the fact there is an instruction. And that's what we're doing when we say that an act is wrong. We are drawing attention to the fact - or recognising - that there exists (or seems to exist) an instruction not to do this thing.
There is no need to get into a discussion of altruism. For the existence of altruism (of various kinds) is not in dispute. What is in dispute is what it would for altruism to have moral goodness. We don't just judge altruism to be altruism. We judge it to have moral goodness. It is that feature that I am wondering about. It is that feature that seems to require the existence of a god.
I think all of this is undermined by what I initially posted on page 3:
Inigo Wrote:A similar account can be given of the development of a sense of god and belief in god - such dispositions have (or may well have) conferred some evolutionary advantage on those who have it. But you wouldn't for one moment accept that in this way one can show how evolution gives rise to a god. It shows only how evolutionary processes may give rise to creatures who have the impression there is a god. So too for morality.
FallentoReason Wrote:Firstly, I understand what you mean when you say morality and the notion of a theistic god are similar. What I find bizarre is that for one of those you're perfectly fine with saying that it's 100% fabricated with no basis in reality, but for the other, you're wanting to plant it on something solid in such a way that atheism is no longer a viable foundation. That's called special pleading, since from your own point of view you rationally have a defeater for believing either god or morality to be real (if I've correctly understood the above).
Secondly, I think something needs to be clarified before this thread can go any further. What is it for morality to "exist"? Let me explain. A similar example of morality would be money; it deals with physical objects made from trees and splatters of ink which we then call "money". But does it exist? Is currency actually a thing? No, I'd say that it's a concept which we've all agreed on. We have collectively decided to value these bits of paper and ink in such a way that it makes people give us things in return for this colourful paper. Likewise with morality, it deals with physical things (us) but the "value" which we assign actions with doesn't "exist" per se. Punching someone is nothing more than the molecules forming my fist coming into contact with the molecules forming someone's jaw. But we see this "transaction" as "morally bad", and just like the concept of money was something we realised would be integral for the functionality of society, so too did we realise that hurting your fellow human would be inversely integral for the functionality of society.
If my reasoning above is sound, then I'd say that your search for this place where morality "exists" is a lost cause. Furthermore, if morals were to exist independently of us, it would make them an objective truth which surely means we could a priori derive a list of do's and don't's. In the history of humanity, such a mythical set of morals has never been found which strongly suggests morality began with us i.e. evolution.
Your baseless claim that morality instructs (still not sure how you get to this point) relies on the assumption that morals *objectively exist*. Otherwise, the illusion of morals are no more "instructive" than pieces of paper with blotches of ink are "valuable". I.e. morals can't be instructive because you *say* they're instructive. Money can't be valuable because we *say* it's valuable. You're arguing that morals are intrinsically instructive, which would only begin to make sense if morals objectively existed, and that begs the question. Do they exist?
"It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it" ~ Aristotle
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RE: Atheism and morality
July 4, 2013 at 11:20 am
Figures, and typical.
The 'philosopher' can't, or won't, answer a simple, logical question.
So from this point forward, until my questions are answered, I'm going to sporadically post recipes for blueberries.
Because as annoying as it might be, at least it accomplishes something.
My presumption is that this 'philosophy' is one of those 'what is the sound of one hand clapping' ones. Which is easily dismissed as complete bullshit. So if the 'philosopher' wants to prove me wrong all he has to do is answer my simple, logical questions.
Original recipe makes 1 pie Change Servings
3/4 cup white sugar
3 tablespoons cornstarch
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
4 cups fresh blueberries
1 recipe pastry for a 9 inch double crust pie
1 tablespoon butter
Check All Add to Shopping List
Directions
Preheat oven to 425 degrees F (220 degrees C).
Mix sugar, cornstarch, salt, and cinnamon, and sprinkle over blueberries.
Line pie dish with one pie crust. Pour berry mixture into the crust, and dot with butter. Cut remaining pastry into 1/2 - 3/4 inch wide strips, and make lattice top. Crimp and flute edges.
Bake pie on lower shelf of oven for about 50 minutes, or until crust is golden brown.
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RE: Atheism and morality
July 4, 2013 at 12:01 pm
(July 4, 2013 at 11:20 am)LostLocke Wrote: Figures, and typical.
The 'philosopher' can't, or won't, answer a simple, logical question.
So from this point forward, until my questions are answered, I'm going to sporadically post recipes for blueberries.
Because as annoying as it might be, at least it accomplishes something.
My presumption is that this 'philosophy' is one of those 'what is the sound of one hand clapping' ones. Which is easily dismissed as complete bullshit. So if the 'philosopher' wants to prove me wrong all he has to do is answer my simple, logical questions.
Original recipe makes 1 pie Change Servings
3/4 cup white sugar
3 tablespoons cornstarch
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
4 cups fresh blueberries
1 recipe pastry for a 9 inch double crust pie
1 tablespoon butter
Check All Add to Shopping List
Directions
Preheat oven to 425 degrees F (220 degrees C).
Mix sugar, cornstarch, salt, and cinnamon, and sprinkle over blueberries.
Line pie dish with one pie crust. Pour berry mixture into the crust, and dot with butter. Cut remaining pastry into 1/2 - 3/4 inch wide strips, and make lattice top. Crimp and flute edges.
Bake pie on lower shelf of oven for about 50 minutes, or until crust is golden brown.
My oven only goes up to 180C.... will it just take longer, or it just won't bake properly?
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RE: Atheism and morality
July 4, 2013 at 12:05 pm
(July 4, 2013 at 12:33 am)max-greece Wrote: (July 3, 2013 at 9:05 pm)Inigo Wrote: No, the reverse is true. My belief that Xing is wrong contradicts your belief that Xing is right if and only if we are talking about the same morality. So, my belief that Xing is wrong is the belief that morality instructs us not to X. Your belief that Xing is right is the belief that morality instructs us to X. These beliefs contradict. But they are beliefs about one morality.
If my belief was that morality1 instructs us not to X, and your belief was that morality2 instructs us to X then our beliefs do not contradict.
Xing in your example is confusing. Can we use a real example?
Abortion. Essentially 2 sides of the argument. The first is that the rights of the unborn child trump everything else. the second that the woman's right to choose trumps all.
If that is a dispute over the same moral issue then the role of your God is merely to flag up that abortion is a moral issue and then the individual comes down on one side or the other.
Doesn't seem like much of a role - seems far more like a decision to be made by an intelligence, us, independently. That decision would be made on the basis of upbringing probably more than anything else.
No, it is better to use 'Xing' as if one mentions a real case someone will dispute the normative issue of the rightness/wrongness of abortion rather than focussing on what the fact of disagreement tells us about our concept of morality.
I am entirely unclear how you arrive at the view that the role of the god is just to highlight that it is a moral issue. This is clearly not what my view is. A god's instructions determine the rightness or wrongness of a deed as wrongness in an action just consists in the fact it is an act a god instructs us not to perform. Moral disagreement is simply disagreement about what, exactly, morality instructs us to do.
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RE: Atheism and morality
July 4, 2013 at 12:24 pm
(This post was last modified: July 4, 2013 at 12:24 pm by simplexity.)
(July 4, 2013 at 12:05 pm)Inigo Wrote: Moral disagreement is simply disagreement about what, exactly, morality instructs us to do. More of the same baseless assertions. Morality as you define it, is not a 'thing' as proven very clearly by Reason on the first page. It is a concept made up by us to try and suffer a little less.
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RE: Atheism and morality
July 4, 2013 at 12:39 pm
(This post was last modified: July 4, 2013 at 12:40 pm by Inigo.)
[quote]Atheism's credibility would remain unchanged by any reflections on morality.[\quote]
No, that's false. If morality presupposes a god then our moral sense data is defeasible evidence for the god morality presupposes. At some level most of you realise this which is why you're keen to show the compatibility of morality and atheism.
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RE: Atheism and morality
July 4, 2013 at 12:42 pm
(July 4, 2013 at 12:01 pm)pocaracas Wrote: My oven only goes up to 180C.... will it just take longer, or it just won't bake properly? Wow, only 180? That's kinda unusual.
But, I'm not sure what will happen.
It's like the..... You can bake a turkey for 4 hours at 400F, but you can't bake it for 2 hours at 800F scenario.
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