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Objective morality as a proper basic belief
RE: Objective morality as a proper basic belief
(July 2, 2017 at 1:30 pm)Jörmungandr Wrote:
(June 30, 2017 at 8:45 am)Jörmungandr Wrote: "Is God's nature good because it is God's, or is God's nature good because it is morally good (i.e. it conforms to an independent standard of good)?"  You see, playing the ontology card has gained you nothing.  Just as the Euthyphro dilemma applies to Divine Command Theory, it also applies to the argument that morality is derived from God's nature.  Either God's nature is arbitrarily good simply because it is God's, which results in an arbitrary set of morals which by definition is not moral.  Or God's nature is good in that it conforms to a standard of goodness that is independent of God, making God's nature superfluous to the question of morals.  You have accomplished nothing by your detour into ontology except to confuse the issue.  God is still an unsatisfactory source of morality, and you're left empty handed, claiming the existence of objective morals that you can't explain.

(July 2, 2017 at 2:07 am)Little Henry Wrote: Gods nature is not arbitrarily good. It is necessary.

I never said God's nature is arbitrarily good.  What I did say was that the standard of goodness which God's nature meets must come from himself, or it must come from somewhere else.  Those are the two horns of the dilemma, and they are inescapable.  Saying that God's nature is "necessary" adds nothing to the question.  It is a non-answer.  Either the standard of goodness comes from God himself, in which case it's arbitrary, or it comes from somewhere else, obviating God.  It's irrelevant whether it "necessarily" comes from God or not.  Contingency and necessity have nothing to do with it.

By saying it can come from somewhere then you are saying that it is contingent.  That is to say it is a property that he could have lacked. This is incorrect. Gods moral character is ESSENTIAL to him. That is why i said it is a part of his nature. That is, there is no possible world in which God could have existed without those attributes. God didn't come to being loving, holy etc by accident or by luck.

Also his nature doesnt come from himself. He didnt decide his own nature.


(July 2, 2017 at 2:07 am)Little Henry Wrote: Again, your version is based on an incorrect assumption that his nature of goodness is arbitrary.

I did no such thing.  I posed a dilemma with two horns.  Either God's nature is good because the standard of goodness comes from himself, or because the standard of goodness comes from somewhere else.  There is no third option.  Claiming I assumed something I didn't assume is just more waffling on your part.  You can't refute the dilemma, so you're just throwing out arbitrary answers.

Both horns have been refuted.

(July 2, 2017 at 2:07 am)Little Henry Wrote: Again, your version is based on an incorrect assumption that his nature of goodness is arbitrary.

This is false.  I did no such thing.

You did.

(July 2, 2017 at 8:03 am)JackRussell Wrote:
(July 2, 2017 at 6:49 am)Little Henry Wrote: Ok, so you subscribe to objective morality?

Well, it's kind of semantics to me. If you can agree that morality is about wellbeing, then I guess anything that goes against the wellbeing of another is wrong. I am not arguing necessarily of the absoluteness of it: is it wrong to kill or is it wrong to murder? I am saying morality is situational, but you can make moral pronouncements from the point of view of wellbeing.
Situational, that is why i am arguing for objective morality, not moral absolutes.

(July 2, 2017 at 2:29 pm)JackRussell Wrote: I this debate I am a bit of a simpleton.

I do not know of a god.

I agree, i also do not know of a god.

I have developed a morality through my upbringing, education and interaction with other social beings of my species.

We are not arguing how you came about or developed your morality. That is a question for epistemology. We are arguing about ONTOLOGY.

I have been wrong.

About what?

I have been right.

About what?

I understand and empathise with others and do not have a diagnosis of a brain condition that inhibits this.

Ok.

I am a social creature, that seems to be evidenced by simian evolution and is evidenced in other species too.

Just a social creature?

I understand what the amagdyla does to a limited extent in human  responses

Ok.

I have an incomplete understanding of how the human mind works, others know more, but nobody has the problem solved.

Ok

I don't want to be a dick.

Cool

I don't need the supernatural to help me do that.

Ok

God doesn't seem to resolve anything, moral problems can be difficult. The world's writings that claim to be fro gods include things that I find very immoral. If humans are flawed by either theistic or natural reasoning, how could they understand gods or aliens or supercomputers with advanced AI?

mmm

Why does this pint of Kronenbourg taste sooo good?

???

Experience is weird sometimes, but a god that wanted to let me know his objective moral commands certainly could. He hasn't.

Is it a fact that raping a child for fun is wrong?

Cue up pre-supp bullshit, but this whole argument from theists is soooooo tedious.

(July 3, 2017 at 11:37 am)Mister Agenda Wrote:
Little Henry Wrote:Ok, so you subscribe to objective morality?

Many of us do. But you'll find that won't stop us from picking at flawed arguments for OM. 'OM must be true or I can't call Nazis bad' is an appeal to emotion, and fallacious on at least two levels.

What are these 2 levels?

(July 3, 2017 at 11:23 pm)Astreja Wrote:
(July 2, 2017 at 5:10 am)Little Henry Wrote: Please explain to me how if something is deemed SUBJECTIVE, it can be deemed wrong...in this case...rape.

Right and wrong are value judgementsAll value judgements depend on the point of view of the person making it, and are therefore subjective -- but this is not where it ends.  Rape is wrong in the eyes of the victim, and in the view of the average person, and according to the the laws of the country where I live.  We therefore have a social contract established to punish rapists.

Laws exist to protect us from people who do not respect our desire to be free from harm.  Is this really too hard for you to understand, Henry?
Good and bad are value judgements. Not right and wrong.

By denying an objective standard exist, you are declaring right and wrong dont exist in regards to the issue you are discussing.

Good and bad are value judgements. Again, if OM doesnt exist, then there is no such thing as objective good or bad.

Your problem my friend is that you like everyone else absolutely realises objective morality exists, but you are trying to ground it in something else other than God.

You cannot ground it in things like the victim. By doing so and being adamant that OM does not exist just really means that you are sufferring from a delusion. But it is obvious to you that you are not sufferring from a delusion because our moral experience indicates so strongly to us that certain acts are factually right and wrong. 

You are going around in circles. Your argument which i dont even think you believe to be true would result in a scenario where the victim thinks the rape is wrong while the rapist thinks its right.

I want you to think carefully now, how can something like rape be both right and wrong at the same time without the violating the law of non contradiction?

Its like saying the earth is both flat and spherical in shape. 

If you really DENY OM existing which i know you dont, at best you can only say, the victim finds it undesirable, but not wrong.

You really dont want to bring the country's laws into this discussion because at one stage it was legal to gas Jews and homosexuals in a particular country. Does that make it right?

(July 3, 2017 at 11:55 pm)Tizheruk Wrote: lol of course something subjective can be wrong . This fools continuing to not get that subjective does not mean arbitrary. Nor relative  nor does relative  mean subjective.  Ultimately the whole dichotomy  is less important then it's made out to be.

Show me how.

Just to show how incoherent this notion is. Lets pick something that IS subjective and lets pretend it is asked in an exam.

Q. Chocolate ice cream ITSELF tastes better than vanilla ice cream.

Is the answer right or wrong?

Suppose you answer yes. The marker gives you a cross. 

Unless there is an external standard OUTSIDE both of you, ie the fact itself to decipher, then NO ONE IS RIGHT OR WRONG.

Please REFUTE THIS.
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Messages In This Thread
RE: Objective morality as a proper basic belief - by Little Henry - July 4, 2017 at 10:10 pm

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