RE: Atheism and morality
July 6, 2013 at 5:37 pm
(This post was last modified: July 6, 2013 at 5:39 pm by Inigo.)
(July 6, 2013 at 5:15 pm)apophenia Wrote:(July 6, 2013 at 4:28 pm)Inigo Wrote: Why do you think I give rat's arse what the Stanford said? Some other twit decided to quote its definition of morality and I merely noted that it accorded with mine and then showed that twit why such a thing would require a god.You need to slow down a bit and actually read what is being said. I was actually in agreement with you and arguing the irrelevance of the SEP entry. But apparently your brain is only capable of seeing in black and white, and since I've opposed you before, that must mean that anything I say to you now is in opposition to you.
You can define morality how you want. Define it as a pad of butter if you want. You won't be addressing me. For I have defined it as that which instructs with inescapable rational authority. It seems to be something of this nature that moral philosophers are concerning themselves with. Would you like some big names? YOu seem to crave the need for an authority figure. How about Kant? That do you?
(July 6, 2013 at 4:28 pm)Inigo Wrote: But you say that this reason would be 'instrumental' and not 'moral'. That's question begging in this context. One cannot simply stipulate that moral reasons are not instrumental reasons: they may be. Granted, they do not appear to be.I was unclear. Let me restate. Things that I have a compelling moral reason to comply with are subjectively different from those that appeal to me because of their instrumental utility in combination with our compelling self interests, what you refer to as "moral phenomena." Now, I presume that, apart from your argument and its conclusions, you are not claiming to have direct knowledge of moral reality (what others refer to as objective morality), and if not, please state otherwise. So the only actual direct access we have is to moral sensations, or the phenomenal aspect of morality. Why do these reasons from a god, which have clear instrumental utility if known, appear as moral phenomena and not simply as compelling reasons of personal self-interest possessed of no palpable moral character?
(Waiting in the wings is the question of why these reasons are compelling if we don't actually believe in the existence of an afterlife, but I'll wait. Note however that your second syllogism doesn't seem to offer, in itself, any reason to prefer the formulation "a vengeful god who has control over your afterlife" to "an unforgiving and inflexible karmic law which will condemn you to an eternity of incarnations filled with suffering if you do not behave morally, as communicated by the uncreated and eternally existing Vedas.")
I have already addressed the point about a Karmic universe. But I'll do so again because I'm bloody nice and tolerant.
A karmic law of supernature is not an instruction. It is just a description of what is going to happen. Second, such a view would not be able to account for moral desert.
When it comes to what it is like to sense that one has a moral reason not to do a thing it seems to me that I have a reason not to do this thing even if I want to.
Normally when I sense that I have a reason to do something my having it seems conditional upon it serving some of my ends.
The difference between a moral reason and a non-moral one therefore seems to be that the former are inescapable - they seem unconditional - whereas the latter are conditional.
This, I take it, is the key piece of evidence that moral reasons are not instrumental reasons.
I have described a scenario in which we would have inescapable instrumental reasons to not behave in certain ways. And, as such, I take it that I have undercut that evidence and shown that moral reasons can be instrumental reasons.
YOu have the moral sense, I assume, that there is something wrong with disembowelling prostitutes for fun. So you sense, according to me anyway, that disembowelling prostitutes for fun is something that we - you, me, everyone - is instructed not to do (other things being equal - so putting aside strange scenarios in which disembowelling a prostitute for fun is the only way to save a billion lives or something) and that we thereby have reason not to do, even if we really want to. So you have the sense, I assume (or at least believe) that Jack has inescapable reason not to disembowel a prostitute (even if he doesn't realise this).
NOw imagine that the god I have posited really exists. Believe it for a mo. There is nothing hallucinatory about your moral impressions under such circumstances. She, this god, really is instructing us not to do such things, and we really do thereby come to have reason not to do such things even if we want to.