Our server costs ~$56 per month to run. Please consider donating or becoming a Patron to help keep the site running. Help us gain new members by following us on Twitter and liking our page on Facebook!
Current time: August 2, 2025, 4:08 pm

Thread Rating:
  • 0 Vote(s) - 0 Average
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
Christians don't believe there's objective morality.
#47
RE: Christians don't believe there's objective morality.
(September 6, 2012 at 12:51 pm)discordianpope Wrote: You are avoiding the issue again, I'm pretty sure you realise that though. Surely nobody thinks that ethics can be grounded in political science or civil engineering.

Quite the reverse actually. Well - not civil engineering, but political science can have roots in ethics.

(September 6, 2012 at 12:51 pm)discordianpope Wrote: The economist can tell us what we ought to do to increase productivity but not whether we ought to want to increase productivity for moral ends. The what we ought to do to achieve such and such a goal in the economics case is an instrumental ought, it has nothing to do with morality. The question of whether we ought to want to increase productivity in order to make peoples lives better is a moral ought, but not one the economist can address without appeal to external moral commitments.

Medical science, likewise, can answer questions of what morally ought to be done only once the moral oughts have already crept back in. The premises are not purely factual. Once we agree that something like the limiting of suffering is a moral good, medical science can tell us what we ought to do to achieve it. It can not tell us whether we (morally) ought to limit suffering.

In short: Hume's Is-Ought problem applies to moral oughts, not instrumental oughts.

You are missing the point. The fact is sciences do prescribe "oughts" based on "is" regularly. These sciences do not prescribe moral oughts - nor are they required to do so - because they have little to do with morality.

If science of morality were to become advanced enough to be applied in practice, then there would be no difference between moral oughts and instrumental oughts within its scope. One of the purposes of that science woudl be the discovery and/or establishment of moral oughts.

(September 6, 2012 at 12:51 pm)discordianpope Wrote: Now, how can moral oughts (not instrumental oughts) be grounded in a value-free psychology?

Again, that'd depend on the science itself.
Reply



Messages In This Thread
RE: Christians don't believe there's objective morality. - by genkaus - September 6, 2012 at 1:06 pm

Possibly Related Threads...
Thread Author Replies Views Last Post
  Bibe Study 2: Questionable Morality Rhondazvous 30 5065 May 27, 2019 at 12:23 pm
Last Post: Vicki Q
  Christians worship Satan and don't even know it rado84 18 3292 April 15, 2019 at 8:29 pm
Last Post: brewer
  Are there any Christians here who believe in zombies? Jehanne 41 7803 February 1, 2019 at 9:30 am
Last Post: Jehanne
  Christians vs Christians (yec) Fake Messiah 52 13112 January 31, 2019 at 2:08 pm
Last Post: The Grand Nudger
  Christian morality delusions tackattack 87 15980 November 27, 2018 at 8:09 am
Last Post: The Grand Nudger
  Christians: Can you see why atheists don't buy this stuff? vulcanlogician 49 7070 August 19, 2018 at 8:03 pm
Last Post: vulcanlogician
  In the end, there's just what you personally believe Silver 31 7506 August 12, 2018 at 2:27 pm
Last Post: LadyForCamus
  Do christians believe in Witchcraft? Cecelia 55 18230 June 25, 2017 at 1:39 am
Last Post: Wyrd of Gawd
  There are ONLY two types of Christians! 21stCenturyIconoclast! 60 18665 June 22, 2017 at 9:28 pm
Last Post: The Valkyrie
  A quarter of British Christians do not believe in the resurection downbeatplumb 35 9216 April 14, 2017 at 11:54 am
Last Post: Brian37



Users browsing this thread: 2 Guest(s)