RE: Religion is a poor source of morality
October 7, 2015 at 4:35 pm
(This post was last modified: October 7, 2015 at 5:46 pm by Mudhammam.)
(October 7, 2015 at 3:28 pm)Evie Wrote: Then you missed the point:For Harris to claim that he is *only* pursuing the epistemic content of moral claims is nonsense if at the same time he denies that there is anything to know about the ontology of moral values. It's like saying there is no "what-ness" to be known, but yet one can objectively know "it." Know what? What is conducive to well-being? Well, maybe that's a clue to the ontological status of moral values that he (or you) avoids delineating, but to just throw out such a blanket term and declare it be the locus of moral worth requires more thoughtful consideration if it is to deserve anything other than the charge of begging the question.
Sam Harris from the Moral Landscape Wrote:As philosopher John Searle once pointed out, there are two very different senses of the terms “objective” and “subjective”. The first sense relates to how we know (i.e., epistemology), the second to what there is to know (i.e., ontology). When we say that we are reasoning or speaking “objectively”, we generally mean that we are free of obvious bias, open to counterarguments, cognizant of the relevant facts, and so on. This to make a claim about how we are thinking. In this sense, there is no impediment to our studying the subjective (I.e. first-person) facts “objectively. (Harris, 2010, p. 29)
Source: https://zaknafein81.wordpress.com/2013/0...jectivity/
Quote:His point is never to ground objective moral values ontologically, that would be ridiculous (That is what William Lame Craig repeatedly bangs on about as a misrepresentation of Sam's position).Why would that be ridiculous? I don't think Craig misrepresented Harris' position at all. I think he exposed one of its weaknesses, or at least the superficial treatment Harris gives.
Quote:His point is to scientifically measure subjective values objectively in an epistemic way.Right, but that's after merely assuming the premise that the attainment or avoidance of his conceptions of the "good life" and absolute misery is a moral duty shared by each person, not only as it relates to their own being but to others as well. Again, equally important to asking the question of "how we know" is "what there is to know," as the former presumes the latter, and it is the latter that Harris doesn't really seriously consider. That we might have a moral obligation, for example, to risk suffering in order to save the life of a stranger, does not appear to follow on his version of consequentalism. Nor should it unless moral values involve more than the sheer happiness or well-being of one's self.
Quote:But of course if good and evil exists at all it is not seperate subjectively. For good and evil boils down to well being and the outside world that has no affect on well being cannot be deemed good and evil at all.Of course, just because moral values as such do not exist independent of minds with some capacity to discover them by way of reason does not mean that there is nothing objective in whatever ontological status they possess. After all, we may have true or false conceptions of them. The statement "raping children is wrong" may be meaningless absent of beings who can formulate the notion of right and wrong, but that doesn't address the "what-ness" or the question of why there is an objective value that, in such an instance, would be violated.
Of course good and evil can't exist separately ontologically from us, that would be as ridiculous as claiming there was a God.
He who loves God cannot endeavour that God should love him in return - Baruch Spinoza