RE: Moral Argument for God's Existence
October 24, 2013 at 7:21 pm
(This post was last modified: October 24, 2013 at 7:27 pm by genkaus.)
(October 24, 2013 at 6:42 pm)bennyboy Wrote: You'll have to specifiy what you think this "fundamental drive" characteristic of being a moral agent is. It seems to me that you'll have to (arbitrarily) look for whatever you think is moral behavior, and then define the processes that arrive at it. For example, you'll have to define morality as "the willingness to serve the greater good even at the expense of the self," or whatever, and then look for the behavioral mechanism that arrives at that kind of behavior. But this is really just subjective morality with access to a microscope.
How would you discover this fundamental drive without first subjectively defining morality, throwing yourself into a vicious circle?
Look to the given example of a "moral man".
I'd start with the most generic definition of morality - "a conceptual guide regarding what a moral agent should do" - which is applicable to and descriptive of all the views regarding morality out there. Similarly, I'd look to the qualities essential to all beings we regard as a moral agents. For example, "the capacity to reflect rationally upon one's thoughts, desires and motivations and act accordingly" - unless the entity has this quality, we do not regard it as a moral agent.
Now, if we find out a particular drive or motivation to be the automatic result of that quality - and therefore, the automatic result of being a moral agent - then that would not be a subjective desire or motivation based on the unique experiences and biology of that moral agent, but objective, as in, inherent in the nature of a moral agent.
One way to look for it is to consider the hypothetical "moral man" - stripped of all subjective experiences to see what motivations he displays. Second would be to look for evidence in human population - hypothetically, any such drive would be evident in all existing moral agents. However, this isn't foolproof, because moral agency is not the only thing that defines humans and other motivations resulting from subjective experiences may overcome this drive of moral agency. Third way would be creation of a rational intelligence and seeing if it displays any such drive.
Right now, given that the desire to live and to be happy is the most common feature seen in humans - the only examples of moral agents available to us - I'm assuming that that is the fundamental drive resulting from being a moral agent. So far as psychology has been able to determine the fundamental needs present in humans - it seems to agree to this. However, I do accept that it is not an established fact and am open to alternatives.
Given this methodology, I don't see any subjective definition with the specific purpose of concluding a moral code according to my arbitrary desires. Which means, your criticisms here fall flat.
(October 24, 2013 at 6:42 pm)bennyboy Wrote: Because where there are variations in mores among the individuals in a group, then situations like food shortages lead to moral conflict. There must be some non-subjective "standard measure" of morality, so everyone can refer to it and say, "Okay, the cripple gets the orange" or whatever.
Except, there is no reason why god's morality would be non-subjective or non-arbitrary.
(October 24, 2013 at 6:42 pm)bennyboy Wrote: The God idea, or more specifically a social institution based on the God idea, provides priests, whose job is (among others) to reconcile moral tensions by pronouncing God's will. Therefore, it has been established that the various individuals in the community will treat the subjective morality of the priest as an objective measure for everyone else.
That people would regard it as objective does not make it so.
(October 24, 2013 at 6:42 pm)bennyboy Wrote: Not necessarily. That mechanism may be a device for taking experience and forming a world view, including ideas of what's "right." So even though the moral mechanism is objective (for example if you could exactly clone your brain and body and drop a million genkauses all over the world), the moral ideas that mediate behavior will still vary, and therefore be subjective.
If that mechanism varies from individual to individual, then it is dependent on the individual and therefore subjective. If there is a standard to which it must conform, only then it can be regarded as objective and in which case the results of that mechanism would not vary.
