RE: The difference between ethical atheism and nihlism is that ethical atheists have more faith
March 9, 2013 at 1:51 pm
(March 9, 2013 at 1:13 pm)jstrodel Wrote: How do you define a tree as being a separate system from the many other physical systems involved in the life of a tree. You could appeal to a biology book, but this is just an argument from authority. What actually grounds the unity of a tree as being separate from light and water and the ground?
Are you being serious? The separation is indicated by the physical boundary of where the tree starts. And if citing a biology book is argument from authority, then in this case the argument from authority is justified and valid.
(March 9, 2013 at 1:13 pm)jstrodel Wrote: You are probably going to define that a tree is a complex biological organism, but how do you infer teleology from this? You appreciation of the goal of a tree is a cultural construction, from things that you know about. The tree is no more a goal than the mass of molecules that results from a dead seed and the water that produces nothing.
That's the point. Any teleology indicated anywhere is a human construction - therefore it can apply to trees as it can apply to evolution,
(March 9, 2013 at 1:13 pm)jstrodel Wrote: All of your metaphysics traces back to phenomenological categories. You are just making them up. There is no reason to suppose that there is any design to anything if naturalism exists. Trees are no more designed than failed evolutionary experiments and no more designed than broken up rocks or water molecules.
Precisely. All categories are made up by humans and there is no reason to even suspect any design.
(March 9, 2013 at 1:13 pm)jstrodel Wrote: It is not the angle that you look at it. People are not free to interpret human nature for instance as ending in sexuality and define sexuality to be the prime reason that people exist, the goal of human life and therefore declare that rape is ok. There are moral absolutes and there are teleological absolutes, and the two go together. A human being is a human being, it has a definite unity that is more real than than simply saying that a human being is a scientific model that can be understood any way and the goal of human life thought to have any character, even if there is an element of truth to the biological organization.
That's where you are wrong. Given that all teleological considerations come from humans, there can't be any teleological absolutes and therefore no moral absolutes. And you are not free to interpret human nature arbitrarily - but you are free to interpret it based on what it is. If you want to define sexuality as the prime goal for human existence then you better have the evidence and reasoning to back it up.
