Moral Argument for God's Existence

[bennyboy]

In the end, I think it comes down to this: morality is about "right" behavior, and establishing rightness of action requires a goal for that action.

And determining if the goal is right requires a pre-existing moral code.

That's right.

If the goal is happiness, the cannibal is right to eat the child. If the goal is preservation of the world, removing people probably doesn't hurt. If the goal is to maintain the social contract, extending mutual safety to all, then the cannibal is wrong to eat the child.

And without a some form of morality, it is not possible to pick which of these goals should be chosen to follow up on and which should be disregarded.

That's right.

Is something not getting through?

Apparently not. Right now, I'm seeing a circle: if there's some common function or mechanism among humans which leads to moral ideas or behavior, then that is the objective foundation of morality. We must determine what mechanism does this by first knowing what people normally call "moral behavior." But in that case, it's merely an exercise in detective semantics, rather than the revelation of any real property of humanity.

Also, you seem to be equating moral agency with morality. Morality is doing what is right, or a system or ideology determining what is right, and moral agency is the capacity to do what is right. They are not the same.

Only if you can find a fault in the argument I just gave. Otherwise, there is an objective way to make that choice.

Okay, let's take the orange example, or the cannibal example, or any other. Tell me by what objective way the individuals involved will make their choices.

[genkaus]

Apparently not. Right now, I'm seeing a circle: if there's some common function or mechanism among humans which leads to moral ideas or behavior, then that is the objective foundation of morality.

Wrong. There is a common function or mechanism - namely, the capacity to reflect and choose your actions - that makes you capable of moral ideas and behavior, but does not necessarily lead to it. However, assuming that common function to result in an inherent desire, it would serve as the objective foundation of morality.

We must determine what mechanism does this by first knowing what people normally call "moral behavior." But in that case, it's merely an exercise in detective semantics, rather than the revelation of any real property of humanity.

If you look at my argument carefully, you'll see that I'm looking past what people usually call moral behavior and figuring out the basis on which it is regarded as moral.

Also, you seem to be equating moral agency with morality. Morality is doing what is right, or a system or ideology determining what is right, and moral agency is the capacity to do what is right. They are not the same.

Yeah, I'm not doing any such thing. I've made the distinction clear and adhered to it.

Okay, let's take the orange example, or the cannibal example, or any other. Tell me by what objective way the individuals involved will make their choices.

I've already given you those answers. You just ignored them.

[bennyboy]

Wrong. There is a common function or mechanism - namely, the capacity to reflect and choose your actions - that makes you capable of moral ideas and behavior, but does not necessarily lead to it. However, assuming that common function to result in an inherent desire, it would serve as the objective foundation of morality.

Yes, but an equivocation has to be resolved here: there's morality, as in the tendency act morally, and there's morality, as in the body of ideas or world view which determines what is considered moral and immoral.

The tendency to adhere to a known moral code is probably an evolutionary trait-- strong in some, weak in some, but basically identical in all where it's present. I think that's the morality you're talking about, and since each person has no control over his own genetics, that trait (or motivation) is certainly an objective basis for morality from that person's perspective.

However, there are still two issues:
1) there IS a feedback loop between moral ideas and genetics, in the form of mate selection of females, which select for reliablility and a willingness to sacrifice the self (i.e. the self of the husband) for other (i.e. the women and their offspring). So even that genetic impulse is mediated by ideas that women ancestors have had about what behaviors were desirable. At best, we're talking about a moral chicken-and-egg.

2) the kind of objective morality you're talking about has nothing to do with a shareable moral code or a standard by which all people are intrinsically (and therefore objectively) bound. I'd go so far as to say that a mythological God, with a list of rules some dude thought up 2000 years ago, is still more useful than self-justified motivations predicated on instinct and desire: at least it's a try at a common behavioral system, rather than an "I'm okay, you're okay, pass the A1 sauce."


I find your argument similar to theist arguments: you are talking vaguely about something but can't demonstrate it, and saying it exists without showing that it does. Give me any example of objective morality-- a specific, real, example of a human behavior that can sensibly be defined as objectively moral in the way that you are defining it-- and we can talk. Otherwise, we're talking about invisible pink unicorns.

[genkaus]

Yes, but an equivocation has to be resolved here: there's morality, as in the tendency act morally, and there's morality, as in the body of ideas or world view which determines what is considered moral and immoral.

And we've been talking about the latter from the very beginning - as indicated by the definition of morality I provided at the outset. I haven't once talked about any tendency to act according to any moral code.

The tendency to adhere to a known moral code is probably an evolutionary trait-- strong in some, weak in some, but basically identical in all where it's present. I think that's the morality you're talking about, and since each person has no control over his own genetics, that trait (or motivation) is certainly an objective basis for morality from that person's perspective.

First of all, no, that is not the morality I'm talking about.
Second of all, if you have to add from that person's perspective in front of objective, then what you are talking about is not objective at all.
Third of all, I have not given the slightest indication nor presented any evidence to show that there is any such "tendency to adhere to a known moral code". Don't go about creating strawmen.

However, there are still two issues:
1) there IS a feedback loop between moral ideas and genetics, in the form of mate selection of females, which select for reliablility and a willingness to sacrifice the self (i.e. the self of the husband) for other (i.e. the women and their offspring). So even that genetic impulse is mediated by ideas that women ancestors have had about what behaviors were desirable. At best, we're talking about a moral chicken-and-egg.

2) the kind of objective morality you're talking about has nothing to do with a shareable moral code or a standard by which all people are intrinsically (and therefore objectively) bound. I'd go so far as to say that a mythological God, with a list of rules some dude thought up 2000 years ago, is still more useful than self-justified motivations predicated on instinct and desire: at least it's a try at a common behavioral system, rather than an "I'm okay, you're okay, pass the A1 sauce."

Given that these issues are about the strawman you've created and not applicable to my actual position in the least - I see no point in addressing them at all.

I find your argument similar to theist arguments: you are talking vaguely about something but can't demonstrate it, and saying it exists without showing that it does. Give me any example of objective morality-- a specific, real, example of a human behavior that can sensibly be defined as objectively moral in the way that you are defining it-- and we can talk. Otherwise, we're talking about invisible pink unicorns.

You mean you find the strawman you've created to be similar to theist argument - and I agree. And I've already given you the examples in replying to the moral dilemmas you presented.

[bennyboy]

Yes, but an equivocation has to be resolved here: there's morality, as in the tendency act morally, and there's morality, as in the body of ideas or world view which determines what is considered moral and immoral.

And we've been talking about the latter from the very beginning - as indicated by the definition of morality I provided at the outset. I haven't once talked about any tendency to act according to any moral code.

Okay, I was confused by your definition of an experience-less version of Moral Man, and interpreted "motivations" and "objective" in that condition to refer only to things like reflexes and instincts, as opposed to ideas.

Since I obviously didn't understand what you were trying to say at that point, I'll have to look at it again.

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Third of all, I have not given the slightest indication nor presented any evidence to show that there is any such "tendency to adhere to a known moral code". Don't go about creating strawmen.

It's only a strawman if I'm trying to use it as a trick to defeat you in debate. I think that since this tendency seems the most likely to be presented as a genetic traits, it seems the most likely definition of "morality" to be objectively founded. So whatever moral code is defined as in a particular culture, some will follow it very closely, some looser, and some not at all-- at least in part to genetic influences. But I'm glad to drop this, since the moral code is what the thread is more about.

Now, I have to go back to the confusing task of understanding how a moral code can be objective, when the process of arriving at it involves arbitration between competing views of rightness of behavior.