God & Objective Morals

[FallentoReason]

No, please, tell me these things; I'm here to learn

I thought "a priori" meant that we could literally sit on a couch and come to the conclusion that something must be true? Seems to me we can do that with morality and moral problems.

That's basically what it means. You can do the same with math problems without actually ever seeing 2 apples removed from the basket of 5. However, if you're on the couch trying to figure out why birds can fly, you're using the concept "bird" achieved from knowing what a bird is, so the logic takes place posterior to the experience, rather than prior.

Agreed.

I'll try and explain myself some more: could it have been possible for a world to exist where burning puppies is the morally right thing to do? If yes, then apparently morality is arbitrary because although we can say that's horrible, our feelings toward that action mean nothing whatsoever. It also means God's nature is arbitrary. If you say no, it was necessary for God to be the way he is, then that begs the question.

I used the example of my car. The engine is necessary to the car *only* when I want to drive. It's not necessary if I want to jump up and down on my car. It's not necessary when I want to vacuum my car. Therefore, it means that for something to be *necessary*, there must be an external condition. Well, then, if God's nature is necessarily the way it is, then what's the *external* thing controlling this necessity?

I'll leave it there and wait for your response.

No possible world exists where burning puppies is ok[/quote]

...why?

I'll address the second objection, "...it was necessary for God to be the way he is...".

The response to this is the relationship between those weird transcendentals I bring up sometimes (if you look, you may use the morality version of this and replace it with existence very easily). Basically, if God is not internally infinitely Good, he doesn't exist in the first place. Good and Being can't be split, since you need a person to first exist to do Good and once the person is Existing, he/she has the ability to be moral. So, the reason he must exist as infinitely Good is because he exists.

Yes.. I agree that a being necessarily has to exist for that being to have any attributes... that's just intuitive. The problem is these attributes it actually holds, why, because I don't see any reason for God being this way instead of another. Could God have been internally infinitely Evil? If no, then what made it *necessary* for him to be infinitely Good?

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I wouldn’t call it my project to find a physical basis for morality. I contend that the attempt to do so is futile. And most of the responses, here and elsewhere indicate that atheists, as a general rule, accept this fact. The problem I have is that these same atheists then turn around and deny that this leads to moral nihilism.

Their response to what happens afterwards is irrelevant. All of us here are wondering whether morals are objective or subjective, and once one of those options has been knocked down, then all that's left to do is embrace that reality. How you decide to deal with that truth is a trivial detail.

I do not believe that an objective basis for morality is possible. I say that because I understand ‘objective’ to mean folk notions, such as ‘right’ and ‘wrong’, could be directly translated into the language of physics. If physicalism is true this would be at least theoretically possible, even it were practically incalculable.

It just occurred to me that before, in your explanation of how this method would work, you were in fact subjectively coming to conclusions (as is always the case) about what the hypothetical data meant; in this case, choosing utilitarianism as a means of concluding what is 'right' and 'wrong'. So it still wouldn't truly be "objective" in the way that we mean it.

The lack of an objective morality does not mean that divine commands must be arbitrary or capricious. All that is required is a perfect moral standard by which the actions and intentions of people can be compared.

Could this perfect moral standard have been any other way, such that burning puppies could have been a possible "good moral" to have? If yes, then the choice of this perfect standard was arbitrary. If no, then something exterior to God made it necessary for God (the perfect moral standard) to be the way he is, in which case it would be appropriate of me to ask what it was. Take your pick!