RE: On theism, why do humans have moral duties even if there are objective moral values?
May 24, 2022 at 11:49 am
(This post was last modified: May 24, 2022 at 11:53 am by The Grand Nudger.)
In short, he's contended that life without a god would be ultimately meaningless - employing a novel idea of ultimate meaning roughly translating to...god. Life without god would be godless. He's been pretty clear in what compels him to assert as much. The specter of death and his inability to cope with it. We die, worlds can die, the universe may even die. If we're all going to die and that's just that - what's the moral significance of shuffling off a few of our fellow mans mortal coils a little ahead of schedule?
Laying right on the surface of all of this is an interesting, if implicit, admission. That it's the asserted necessity or utility of some great narrative...not it's factual accuracy...that allows human beings to function in this apparent void. Gods are an antidote to nihilism. Quixotically, one that insists that nihilism is true, that meaning is nowhere to be found in life ,but..instead, is produced by some agent.
It backfired hilariously in a debate with shelly kagan once. Like kagan, I'm perfectly happy to concede that my life has no god-meaning and that I will one day die, but that doesn't change my moral appraisal of murder.
Laying right on the surface of all of this is an interesting, if implicit, admission. That it's the asserted necessity or utility of some great narrative...not it's factual accuracy...that allows human beings to function in this apparent void. Gods are an antidote to nihilism. Quixotically, one that insists that nihilism is true, that meaning is nowhere to be found in life ,but..instead, is produced by some agent.
It backfired hilariously in a debate with shelly kagan once. Like kagan, I'm perfectly happy to concede that my life has no god-meaning and that I will one day die, but that doesn't change my moral appraisal of murder.
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