Which Comes First?

[Ryft]

Well that's sort of what I mean, but it seems as though you are perhaps trying to demean it—or think it is already demeaned, rather—by phrasing it that way.

Demean it? You cannot be serious. There is no demeaning here at all. I am portraying your view with frank and honest accuracy, for that is exactly what your view is asserting (further underscored by your reductionist view of the mind). No need to be coy, Evie. All this noise about 'know' versus 'believe' is distracting obfuscation, for it does not matter whether you claim to know your position or merely believe it, because epistemology is not the issue here. Morality is. Namely, the very meaning of moral terms themselves, on your view. For example, you claim that everyone has what he believes to be wrong, which should immediately raise the question, "What does Evie mean by the term 'wrong' here?" And if we are thinking critically when evaluating your view, we will indeed raise such questions and examine what the logical conclusion turns out to be—which you should do, too, if you are a critical thinker. So let's do so.

When you say that "rape is wrong," on your view that means rape (Y) produces an emotional response (Q) in Evie (S). First, on your view an emotional response is a biochemical state organized in the limbic system of the mammalian brain. Second, on the evolutionary view, rape exists within a species as a form of sexual reproduction that evolved by selective forces as an advantageous behavioral adaptation. Therefore, when Evie says that rape is wrong, it turns out that he actually means, "Some forms of sexual reproduction produce a certain biochemical state in some mammals." That is not demeaning. It is unabashed accuracy, stated frankly and honestly. (If your intuitive sense tells you that it's demeaning, my friend, perhaps you should give that some attention.)

So given your current view, it is blatant prevarication for you to say that "rape is wrong" and utterly dishonest, for such a statement by its very structure and meaning is ascribing an objective moral predicate to the subject rape (Y is X; says something moral about rape), when the truth is that your view does not account for anything of the sort. On your view, "wrong" is a neurobiological term describing a biochemical state of a mammalian brain, while the term "is" predicates that state of the subject "rape"—which is complete illogical nonsense because rape is not a mammalian brain. The truth is that on your view a descriptive biochemical state is predicated of the subject Evie (Y causes Q in S; says something empirical about Evie), a very different thing altogether. Think about it. "Y is X" says something utterly and completely different from "Y causes Q in S."

Which is why I said that on your view morality does not exist at all—subjectively or otherwise. It simply does not exist. Period. Morality is prescriptive, dealing with what "ought" (morally correct) and what "ought not" (morally wrong). But your view is descriptive, dealing with what "is" (empirically correct) and "is not" (empirically wrong). Descriptive and prescriptive are categorically different things; by accounting for what is the case, descriptive, one has not thereby accounted for what ought to be the case, prescriptive. Your view is a classic demonstration of the Naturalistic Fallacy—defining an ought from an is (q.v. George Moore)—which would be incapable of resolving Hume's Dilemma at any rate—deriving an ought from an is (q.v. David Hume). At best, your view when left alone fails to account for morality, moral terms, and moral statements. That makes it flawed. At worse, your view when critically examined actually denies that morality exists or that moral terms and statements are meaningful. That makes it false. In both cases, your view has no explanation for the existence of morality and the intelligibility of moral terms and statements, and is therefore a failure.

Given these carefully explained problems, here is a question for you: When a theory fails in several different ways to explain real phenomena, do scientists ignore the problems and maintain the theory anyway, or do they take the problems seriously and revise or replace the theory accordingly?

What about your belief that morals are objective, though? I know of no evidence for that, you see.

There is a difference between morals (ethics) and morality (metaethics). I have expressed a belief in the objective nature of the latter, morality or metaethics. I have not said morals are objective.

I hold that morality and moral statements are objective, the evidence for which can be found (i) in the very definition of the term 'objective' and (ii) the inherent meaning of moral statements. First, 'objective' means independent of the claimant; if I say P is objectively true, what I mean is that the truth value of P has nothing to do with me, that the facts and implications of my existence have no bearing on its truth. Second, "rape is wrong" ascribes an objective moral predicate to the subject rape by the very structure and meaning of the statement and its terms: the clause "rape is" asserts something true about rape in itself, by the very meaning of the term "is" and its function in predicating a moral value to rape (wrongness). In other words, the statement "rape is wrong" asserts nothing about me, it asserts something about rape; i.e., objective moral statement. I may believe the statement or reject it, but that is a seperate matter from the statement itself and what it asserts.

It seems to me that the burden of proof is on you, and not me.

Then you are badly confused. The burden of proof is on both of us, for we are both making claims. My claims hold that moral statements are intelligible and correspond to reality, while your claims hold that they are unintelligible and don't correspond to reality (when we examine your claims closely). We must both meet the burden of proof that each of our claims shoulder.

What I mean by subjective morality [is that] we all have our own personal beliefs and feelings on the matter, of what is right and wrong, what is moral and immoral.

The issue is not about the fact that we all have views. Of course we do. The issue is about the truth value of the views we have, whether this view or that view corresponds to reality. Everyone has their own personal beliefs; some successfully correspond to and explain reality, while others fail to do so—such as yours in this discussion.

The issue is not about what is known or understood, but about what is true. You persistently draw ontological conclusions from epistemological arguments, which is a brutal category fallacy. You need to stop doing that (if you want to be rational).

As I said, I'm not doing that. I am not claiming that my claims are absolute. When I say "X is true," you can take that as a belief or an absolutist statement, but when I'm coming back telling you I'm not being absolutist, why do you persist in saying that I am and saying that I'm fallacious?

You completely missed the point. This has utterly nothing to do with whether your statements are absolutist or not. The fallacy is that you are forming conclusions about whether or not morality exists (ontology) from reasoning about what is believed or known thereof (epistemology). Drawing ontological conclusions from epistemological arguments is a brutal category fallacy.

Calling it an assumption does not make it so. And it was not an assumption made, but a conclusion drawn from such statements of yours as, "Morality does not exist objectively," a statement that would not come from a person who concedes that objective morality might exist.

So when you say right here that it is "a statement that would not come from a person who concedes that morality might exist," should I believe that you are claiming to know that, or that you merely are claiming to believe it due to your own reasoning? Because if I am to assume the former, like you do of me, then I am to now ask how you know that this is necessarily a case. And I am also to point out that your claim is illogical because someone could make a statement, when that statement was just a belief supported by what they believed to be their own reasoning and evidence, and not an absolutist statement.

As were my claims. They were not absolutist ones; I just didn't say, "I believe X" or "I think X." And since you haven't done the same now, am I to draw the conclusion, by that same logic, that you wouldn't make the statement that I 'wouldn't make the statement if there was a possibly to concede'? And accept that I might be wrong, if there was any possibility that you would concede and accept that you might be wrong in your statement?

...wtf?

Dude, a person who concedes that objective morality might exist would not say, "[I believe] morality does not exist objectively." Why? Because the latter contradicts the former!

It is not an assumption! Stop being so bloody disingenuous, Evie!

I'm not being disingenuous.

Yes, you are. When I present a conclusion drawn from a careful argument (i.e., I take the time to show you how I reached it), it is disingenuous for you to call that an assumption. Reasoning validly from premises to their logical end is an argument whose product is a conclusion, not an assumption.

"X is true" can mean "I know X is true" but it can also mean "I believe X is true."

Incorrect. "X is true" is an ontological statement about reality, while "I believe/know X is true" is an epistemological statement about you. If what you mean is the latter but you say the former, then at best you conflate important categories and confuse the discussion. In the worst case, doing so on purpose is the intellectual dishonesty of prevarication.

Hopefully it is clear now that my position does not require the burden of proof until you have provided evidence for yours, because I am not claiming to know that objective morality doesn't exist. It is merely my assertion that it doesn't exist, which is an expression of my belief that it doesn't (or rather my lack of belief that it does).

First, understand that the burden of proof is not somehow restricted to empirical evidence (although such can be called into service if categorically relevant). The burden of proof has a far wider scope than that, for it is nothing more than the imperative to demonstrate the reasoning by which you reached some conclusion, which may not necessarily be an empirical one. For example, your conclusion that an argument is invalid is proven with logical analysis, or your conclusion that a formula is incorrect is proven with mathematical equations, and so forth. In other words, just because someone asks you to meet your burden of proof, that does not necessarily mean they want you to produce strong physical evidence. They are simply interested in your conclusion and want to see how it was reached.

Second, whether or not your statements shoulder the burden of proof is determined by the very nature of your statements in and of themselves. If they assert something about the real world—whether absolutely or relatively, whether known or believed—then they shoulder the burden of proof. Plain and simple. Classifying your assertions under mere belief does not immunize them from the burden of proof, when we recognize what it means to believe a thing. Even if what you're asserting is a belief, Evie, it shoulders the burden of proof because it asserts something about the real world—by definition! Belief is defined as intellectual assent that some proposition P is true, and true is defined as corresponding to reality. So to assert a belief that P (e.g., "I believe morality does not exist objectively") is to assert that you agree P is true, that P says something about the real world. Whether or not it actually is true isn't relevant here. Important, but not relevant on this point. You believe it is true, which is a conclusion you reached through some reasoning process. When someone indicates your burden of proof, they are simply asking that you demonstrate the reasoning by which you reached your conclusion, the belief that P.

Third, your reasoning above therefore commits the fallacy of argumentum ad ignorantiam. You said that your position, expressed as a belief, does not require the burden of proof until I have provided evidence for mine. Since belief is the intellectual assent that some proposition is true (in this case, "Morality does not exist objectively"), you are asserting that it is true until it is proven false. And remember, you expressed that same proposition in several different ways in a few different posts, to others and myself, so I am not making this up. If you are uncomfortable with either the burden of proof or this fallacy, I would encourage you to stop claiming that morality does not exist objectively. Every time you make a truth claim—i.e., "I believe that P" (intellectual assent that it is true)—a person might indicate your burden of proof.

Apparently the Bible is evidence of objective morality. Oh dear. I guess you're not going to quote the magic page or pages that proves it (or at least evidences it) then?

Your gratuitous invective notwithstanding, the Bible does not have any magic pages. But if you want a scriptural study on what the Bible says about the nature of morality, I would certainly be willing.

I'm saying that [rape] is "wrong" relative to whoever believes it is wrong. We each have our own subjective views on morality, however much they are shared, and however much they differ.

First, "rape is wrong" is a proposition that is either true or false (the Law of Excluded Middle). Second, true is defined as corresponding to reality; i.e., reality makes propositions true. Unless you are a Solipsist, beliefs do not determine reality; i.e., beliefs do not make propositions true. Therefore, whether or not P is true has nothing to do with what this or that person believes about it.

So, is P true or false in itself? If I believe it is true, does that make it true? If so, then Smith's believing it is not true makes it not true. Consequently, P is true (because my beliefs made it so) and not true (because Smith's beliefs made it so) at the same time and in the same respect (in itself)—a logical contradiction. This is why relativism does not work.

When you say that my view is a "God-forsaken unintelligible mess," is that an absolutist statement or an opinion?

I have no idea what you mean by "absolutist." However, that your view is a God-forsaken unintelligible mess is a fact which this discussion continues to demonstrate. I wish that you would abandon it for something that doesn't collapse so easily under scrutiny.

That moral order is grounded in the very nature of God and expressed prescriptively in his commands.

What are the crux of his commands, in your view? (And if you'd rather answer elsewhere, feel free to do so. I am interested in hearing more about what you precisely believe.)

The most crucial commands of God are to repent of your sins and believe in Christ as both Lord and Savior. The reason why these are "the crux of his commands" is because the only way to avoid condemnation is to keep all of God's commands entirely and perfectly—which everyone refuses to do. So the crux of his commands are found in those which provide a means of right standing before God, the final judge of all the earth.