RE: The difference between ethical atheism and nihlism is that ethical atheists have more faith
March 3, 2013 at 11:28 am
(This post was last modified: March 3, 2013 at 11:29 am by Mystic.)
I think it's definitely true a naturalist can value human life. But I don't think he can rational justify his properly basic beliefs of human value. I think this is why most societies resorted to belief in myth or supernatural.
Saying you value life because of your experience of it is partially true. It's part of the equation, but it's not the sole factor. The other factor is self-love and self-appreciation that by logic should be extended to other humans.
But the concept of the "self" relies on belief in "value" "praise" and "perpetual identity". What I mean by the latter, is that despite changing over time, that you are the same person as you were once a baby.
None of these are justified from a naturalistic perspective.
More over, even if there was some explanation rationally about them, most of humanity has never justified them on that basis.
Most of humanity believes in these things in a properly basic manner.
Yet we praise those who act on good morals and moral beliefs even if they haven't justified morality philosophically or scientifically.
This tells you there is something we all acknowledge here, whether we admit or not, or realize it or not.
Saying you value life because of your experience of it is partially true. It's part of the equation, but it's not the sole factor. The other factor is self-love and self-appreciation that by logic should be extended to other humans.
But the concept of the "self" relies on belief in "value" "praise" and "perpetual identity". What I mean by the latter, is that despite changing over time, that you are the same person as you were once a baby.
None of these are justified from a naturalistic perspective.
More over, even if there was some explanation rationally about them, most of humanity has never justified them on that basis.
Most of humanity believes in these things in a properly basic manner.
Yet we praise those who act on good morals and moral beliefs even if they haven't justified morality philosophically or scientifically.
This tells you there is something we all acknowledge here, whether we admit or not, or realize it or not.
