RE: Atheism and morality
July 9, 2013 at 11:28 pm
(This post was last modified: July 9, 2013 at 11:55 pm by Inigo.)
You didn't read what I said, did you? I said that you tried to eat your cake and have it. You quoted numbers and then you said 'of course, the numbers don't count'. THat's like a newspaper printing pictures of a nude woman and saying 'isn't it outrageous that our rival newspapers printed this dirty picture'. You wanted the numbers to be seen as counting for something, while not being guilty of the fallacy of thinking the numbers count. YOu are guilty of what Sartre would call 'bad faith'.
I detect the same 'bad faith' in the rest of what you say. Why don't you just tell me about these supposed flaws in my kind of position and we'll see if they really are flaws. Or perhaps you'd prefer just to tell me that lots of eminent people think there are huge flaws and leave it at that.
You point out that there are rival metaethical views. I then explain that I think they are all false and briefly explain what kind of problems I think attend to each. You then point out that this doesn't matter as what matters is whether there's a fault in my view. Er, wrong. it does matter as if there is a rival view that can account for morality's features as well or better than my own then clearly it should be preferred. So showing that each rival view has serious flaws is significant. That clearly does not, in and of itself, show my view to be correct and I have never, ever suggested that it does. Indeed, it is you who just keeps implying such things by informing me (as if I was unaware) that there are rival views and that these rival views have lots of defenders. I know!
Now, kindly point to one of these supposed flaws in my kind of view. Don't just tell me that someone thinks there's a flaw. Tell me what it is and explain just why it is a flaw, and we'll see if it is. For I am eager to have the flaws in my view highlighted as it is not a view I wish to be true.
Just to be clear: my view is that moral instructions are the instructions of a god who has total control over our interests in an afterlife. In claiming this I do not claim that the god exists. Merely that the god would need to exist if our moral sense data and moral beliefs are to have anything answering to them in reality.
What's the problem?
I detect the same 'bad faith' in the rest of what you say. Why don't you just tell me about these supposed flaws in my kind of position and we'll see if they really are flaws. Or perhaps you'd prefer just to tell me that lots of eminent people think there are huge flaws and leave it at that.
You point out that there are rival metaethical views. I then explain that I think they are all false and briefly explain what kind of problems I think attend to each. You then point out that this doesn't matter as what matters is whether there's a fault in my view. Er, wrong. it does matter as if there is a rival view that can account for morality's features as well or better than my own then clearly it should be preferred. So showing that each rival view has serious flaws is significant. That clearly does not, in and of itself, show my view to be correct and I have never, ever suggested that it does. Indeed, it is you who just keeps implying such things by informing me (as if I was unaware) that there are rival views and that these rival views have lots of defenders. I know!
Now, kindly point to one of these supposed flaws in my kind of view. Don't just tell me that someone thinks there's a flaw. Tell me what it is and explain just why it is a flaw, and we'll see if it is. For I am eager to have the flaws in my view highlighted as it is not a view I wish to be true.
Just to be clear: my view is that moral instructions are the instructions of a god who has total control over our interests in an afterlife. In claiming this I do not claim that the god exists. Merely that the god would need to exist if our moral sense data and moral beliefs are to have anything answering to them in reality.
What's the problem?
