RE: Atheism and morality
July 6, 2013 at 8:00 pm
(This post was last modified: July 6, 2013 at 8:12 pm by Inigo.)
For some reason I never seem able to quote from your replies. I do not know why this is. So I will quote in traditional fashion. YOu say this:
"As my amended post noted, the fact that we are not aware of the source of karmic law does not in and of itself imply that there isn't one, so that is an argument from ignorance and/or silence. And again, as noted previously, your account has not provided an account of moral desert either, so requiring the karmic law scenario to provide one is special pleading; matter of fact, your account seems to vacate the whole concept of moral desert. By your account, we obey the instructions of this god, not because his instructions are worth obeying, but simply because the consequences of doing otherwise would be unpleasant. (I noticed in your thread about Mary and "Immoral atheists" that you appear stuck in the rut of consequentialist ethics. While you seem to imply you are widely read in ethics, when the rubber hits the road, you seem utterly incapable of seeing anything but a consequentialist ethics, your inescapably evil god scenario being a case in point.)"
It is unclear to me why you think I am a consequentialist. I am not, or at least not exclusively. Anyway, consequentialism is a normative moral view, not a metaethical one. My metaethical position is consistent with any normative view. It is a theory about what morality is, not what it instructs us to do and be.
I have pointed out in an earlier reply to Frodo that generating instructions with inescapable rational authority could be achieved without positing a vengeful god but by positing laws of supernature according to which we will come to harm if we act in certain ways and positing in addition a 'catcher in the rye' god who's only concern is to protect our interests and so is instructing us in ways that, should we comply, will mean we do not come to harm.
But I also noted problems with this. First, it over-complicates the picture for no reason. If we can account for the inescapable rational authority of moral instructions in a simpler way, that is the reasonable explanation to go for. Second, it would not capture moral desert. I pointed out that when we do wrong it seems clear to most of us that we now 'deserve' harm. If we identify moral instructions with the instructions of a vengeful god then when someone fails to comply with her instructions we will sense (those with reliable moral senses, anyway) that the instructor now wants that person to come to harm. So positing a vengeful god actually enables us to predict moral desert. Finally when we ssense that an act is wrong it seems the existence of the instruction has somehow brought it about that we now have reason to comply with it. This is not properly captured if the reason we have to comply is independent of the instructor.
Together these amount, in my view, to decisive reason to reject the Karmic view and a Karmic view with a god added to it.
You also say this:
"Moreover, it occurred to me that while an agent may be required for issuing the instruction, it does not necessarily follow that the agent issuing the instruction is at all responsible for the consequences that make the instruction itself inescapably compelling. If we were on a forum which censored swear words and automatically banned upon reaching a certain quotient, and you had repeatedly violated the prohibition, I might warn you that if you continue such behavior then you would be banned. In that case, I am an agent, I am issuing an instruction, the instruction is inescapably rationally compelling, and yet I am not in control of whether you do or do not experience the consequences. And before you point out that the content of the instructions themselves had to originally issue from an agent, which I could dispute, that is not the specific problem here. The problem is in inferring from an instruction the existence of an agent responsible for that instruction. My mother used to advise me all the time, occasionally with threats of the consequences of my actions. Sometimes my mother would be the agent responsible for the consequences, sometimes not. She passed away in 2002 and so the inescapably rationally compelling nature of her threats is no longer real, but I still recall her instructions. What in your syllogism a) requires that the agent in question be the one responsible for creating the consequences of your actions, and b) even if I were to accept that these instructions require an agent who can offer rationally compelling reasons for obeying, what in your syllogism implies, if at all, that this agent is currently existent? In other words, your syllogism suggests that morality at one time had a real substance, but it doesn't demonstrate that it still retains that substance, and has not in the passing of time become merely hallucinatory."
Our concept of a moral instruction is of an instruction that has inescapable rational authority. The inescapability requires that the agent exist and exist for an incredibly long time. If she is about to die tomorrow then her instructions lack inescapable rational authority. I do not have reason to obey them. She'll be dead tomorrow. So the positing of a god who is going to die soon will not account for the inescapable rational authority of moral instructions.
So, you accept that in a world with no god and an afterlife Jack has no reason to refrain from disembowelling a prostitute.
Now, does he do anything wrong if he disembowels a prostitute?
Note what I am asking you. I am asking you if HE did anything wrong. Don't tell me he doesn't believe himself to be doing anything wrong. I am not asking you that. I am asking you if he did anything wrong.
"As my amended post noted, the fact that we are not aware of the source of karmic law does not in and of itself imply that there isn't one, so that is an argument from ignorance and/or silence. And again, as noted previously, your account has not provided an account of moral desert either, so requiring the karmic law scenario to provide one is special pleading; matter of fact, your account seems to vacate the whole concept of moral desert. By your account, we obey the instructions of this god, not because his instructions are worth obeying, but simply because the consequences of doing otherwise would be unpleasant. (I noticed in your thread about Mary and "Immoral atheists" that you appear stuck in the rut of consequentialist ethics. While you seem to imply you are widely read in ethics, when the rubber hits the road, you seem utterly incapable of seeing anything but a consequentialist ethics, your inescapably evil god scenario being a case in point.)"
It is unclear to me why you think I am a consequentialist. I am not, or at least not exclusively. Anyway, consequentialism is a normative moral view, not a metaethical one. My metaethical position is consistent with any normative view. It is a theory about what morality is, not what it instructs us to do and be.
I have pointed out in an earlier reply to Frodo that generating instructions with inescapable rational authority could be achieved without positing a vengeful god but by positing laws of supernature according to which we will come to harm if we act in certain ways and positing in addition a 'catcher in the rye' god who's only concern is to protect our interests and so is instructing us in ways that, should we comply, will mean we do not come to harm.
But I also noted problems with this. First, it over-complicates the picture for no reason. If we can account for the inescapable rational authority of moral instructions in a simpler way, that is the reasonable explanation to go for. Second, it would not capture moral desert. I pointed out that when we do wrong it seems clear to most of us that we now 'deserve' harm. If we identify moral instructions with the instructions of a vengeful god then when someone fails to comply with her instructions we will sense (those with reliable moral senses, anyway) that the instructor now wants that person to come to harm. So positing a vengeful god actually enables us to predict moral desert. Finally when we ssense that an act is wrong it seems the existence of the instruction has somehow brought it about that we now have reason to comply with it. This is not properly captured if the reason we have to comply is independent of the instructor.
Together these amount, in my view, to decisive reason to reject the Karmic view and a Karmic view with a god added to it.
You also say this:
"Moreover, it occurred to me that while an agent may be required for issuing the instruction, it does not necessarily follow that the agent issuing the instruction is at all responsible for the consequences that make the instruction itself inescapably compelling. If we were on a forum which censored swear words and automatically banned upon reaching a certain quotient, and you had repeatedly violated the prohibition, I might warn you that if you continue such behavior then you would be banned. In that case, I am an agent, I am issuing an instruction, the instruction is inescapably rationally compelling, and yet I am not in control of whether you do or do not experience the consequences. And before you point out that the content of the instructions themselves had to originally issue from an agent, which I could dispute, that is not the specific problem here. The problem is in inferring from an instruction the existence of an agent responsible for that instruction. My mother used to advise me all the time, occasionally with threats of the consequences of my actions. Sometimes my mother would be the agent responsible for the consequences, sometimes not. She passed away in 2002 and so the inescapably rationally compelling nature of her threats is no longer real, but I still recall her instructions. What in your syllogism a) requires that the agent in question be the one responsible for creating the consequences of your actions, and b) even if I were to accept that these instructions require an agent who can offer rationally compelling reasons for obeying, what in your syllogism implies, if at all, that this agent is currently existent? In other words, your syllogism suggests that morality at one time had a real substance, but it doesn't demonstrate that it still retains that substance, and has not in the passing of time become merely hallucinatory."
Our concept of a moral instruction is of an instruction that has inescapable rational authority. The inescapability requires that the agent exist and exist for an incredibly long time. If she is about to die tomorrow then her instructions lack inescapable rational authority. I do not have reason to obey them. She'll be dead tomorrow. So the positing of a god who is going to die soon will not account for the inescapable rational authority of moral instructions.
(July 6, 2013 at 6:47 pm)NoahsFarce Wrote:(July 6, 2013 at 4:44 pm)Inigo Wrote: Jack really loves disembowelling prostitutes. He bloody loves it! He's got terminal cancer and is going to die next week. He decides he'll disembowel one last prostitute for old time's sake.
If you think he has reason not to disembowel a prostitute but do not believe there is any god or afterlife kindly explain.
Did you just read parts of my post, or did you actually take some time to read it? My comment addresses your current question.
But here:
Jack doesn't have a reason not to disembowel a prostitute. That's his prerogative. There will always be outliers like Jack in this world. They are not the norm, they are the exception. If people like Jack were the norm, it would be detrimental to the survival of our species.
Jack's brain is wired differently. To him, there is no moral issue at hand. Well, maybe there is and he ignores it because of some demented condition. To the average human being, what Jack is doing is immoral. But we aren't all going to agree on the exact reasons why it's immoral. This is what I meant when I said that there seems to be a universal set of morals that we all follow different paths to reach.
The evolutionary reason for the norm to find Jack's action immoral is because we are a social species. We survive because of our numbers and our collective intelligence.
Anyone else hearing that broken record? I sure hope you actually read my comment thoroughly this time.
So, you accept that in a world with no god and an afterlife Jack has no reason to refrain from disembowelling a prostitute.
Now, does he do anything wrong if he disembowels a prostitute?
Note what I am asking you. I am asking you if HE did anything wrong. Don't tell me he doesn't believe himself to be doing anything wrong. I am not asking you that. I am asking you if he did anything wrong.
