From atheism to tentative agnosticism

[Inigo]

'apophenia', you say "Graham Priest suggests that our seeing the chair is reason in and of itself to believe in the existence of the chair. Perhaps not grossly compelling reason, but reason nonetheless. And there is a difference here in that other's subjectivity and other means can be used to corroborate the objective existence of a chair. Whereas intangibles, such as objective morality, or free will, or consciousness, are not seen in the first place, and there is essentially no way to independently verify their contents, or have someone else corroborate their existence and content. The perception of a thing counts as evidence for the existence of a thing, but not conclusive evidence. And the fact that we have well meaning and rational people who disagree as to whether the perception that there is a moral reality is justified, or that free will exists, or that consciousness is 'real' leave us with good cause for skepticism as there is nowhere near uniform agreement on their existence. Furthermore, there are great differences as to the content of objective morality, both across individuals and across time which leaves us with considerable cause for skepticism as to whether a stable, objective moral reality even in fact exists. Notably, different people's perceptions about what is and is not moral differ, and, seemingly equivalent scenarios can evoke moral feelings in one but not the other instance. Additionally, while a chair may or may not exist by itself, it belongs to a class of visual perceptions whose reliability is well attested; the existence of objective morality is in no such class and therefore cannot lean upon the evidence of other classes of sensations for support as to its existence. Also, moral sensations only occur when "provoked" by the thought of an act; if a chair appeared only when I thought of the taste of chocolate ice cream, I'd have a lot of extraordinary questions about the nature of the existence of that chair. So, even if I agreed with you that we should proceed on the basis of how things appear lacking other reasons, we both have those other reasons, as well as an absence of an appearance of the phenomena in question. (And I notice you ducking Rhythm's requests that you produce the subject; consider this your writ of habeas corpus."

I'm entirely unclear what your point is here. I said, quite clearly, that if my view is correct, then our moral sensations are defeasible evidence for a god. All you have done here is point out that sensations are defeasible evidence. I know! I said that!!

You then say 'absence of the phenomena in question'. Er, are you denying the existence of a moral sense? Are you denying the existence of moral beliefs? That's absurd. MOral sensations certainly exist and the evidence for it is millennia of humans trying to make sense of such reports.

YOu then point out that there may be reasons to think a god does not exist. I know!! The point is that if no god exists then the reports of our moral sense constitute a hallucination just as if no chair exists my visual sensation that there is a chair in front of me is a hallucination.

you point out that different people sense different acts to be right/wrong. Yes, so? Where in any of my premises to I assume that everyone's substantial moral views (their views about which acts are right etc) will agree?

You point out that when it comes to our moral sense we have no other sense to corroborate its reports. Well, that's partly question begging as if morality is composed of the instructions of an agent then it is in principle possible that one could have corroborative evidence. But anyway, I'm entirely unclear what your point is. My sense of sight can only corroborate the reports of my sense of touch if my sense of sight is allowed to have some probative force all of its own. For instance, if two people just guess who is guilty of a crime - say they just randomly put their finger into a phonebook - and independently point at the same person one is not corroborating the other. For neither person's evidence that this person is guilty is worth anything. So for one sense report to be allowed to corroborate another one has to assume them to have independent clout. And thus the reports of one's moral sense have clout. But note, I do not claim - and I have been explicit about this - that the reports of our moral sense establish the existence of a god, rather they constitute some evidence - defeasible evidence - for the existence of a god.