On Moral Authorities

[Ignorant]

Sure. Well, I'd say there is no universal goal. You won't get everyone to agree on a goal. [1] But you could hopefully get the majority to agree on some vague principles. The way society works, this happens naturally anyway. But different societies go in different directions. The civilises West would mostly be concerned with human wellbeing. The extremist Islamic areas in the East are more concerned with what Allah wants, than human wellbeing. Clearly, since they're willing to kill people and blow themselves up to please their God.

So morality is just culture dependent, and further than that, it's different for each individual. Judging others as moral or immoral isn't helpful ultimately. Persuading them why this is the case is what matters. [2] This is why it's the reasons why you act a certain way that are important, not the act itself. [3]

1) Does disagreement mean that there is no universal goal?

2) Persuade them how? If morality is culturally dependent, then the only way to persuade a different culture or people from a different culture is to persuade them that your cultural goal is better. But better for what? Your culture?

3) What if the acts themselves poorly bring about the reasons for which we act? Can't we say those are "good/bad" acts? Hitting a nail with a feather is bad for efficient home-building. Hitting a nail with a hammer is better. The reason is the same. The acts are different. <= This is a morally neutral example to illustrate the idea.

[robvalue]

1) Does disagreement mean that there is no universal goal?

Pretty much, yes. Beside circular statements like "try to do good things", I feel I have nothing in common with someone who blows themselves up, killing other people, because Allah wants them to. What would you suggest?

2) Persuade them how? If morality is culturally dependent, then the only way to persuade a different culture or people from a different culture is to persuade them that your cultural goal is better. But better for what? Your culture?

Well yes, I'm not suggesting I just walk into another culture and expect them to all agree with me. People act certain ways for reasons. I don't subscribe to my culture, I have my own morality. I try and influence everyone, in my culture or not, towards my way of thinking. And I do this by making reasoned arguments as to (a) why my goals are important, and (b) how I go about things are a good way of achieving them. Sometimes I change peoples' minds, I have done in the past. Sometimes I fail. But it's all anyone can do, make their case.

3) What if the acts themselves poorly bring about the reasons for which we act? Can't we say those are "good/bad" acts? Hitting a nail with a feather is bad for efficient home-building. Hitting a nail with a hammer is better. The reason is the same. The acts are different. <= This is a morally neutral example to illustrate the idea.

I don't understand what you're getting at. The reasons for which we act? Yes, there are good/bad acts with respect to certain goals. But until we've agreed the goals, we can't say what is good and what isn't. I do a lot of wanking, because I consider it's harmless. Some people think it's immoral, because it runs contrary to some goal or other they have for their morality. I think shooting innocent people is immoral, but an Islamic extremist thinks it's extremely moral. We act the way we do due to our emotions, ultimately. They guide us. But our emotions depend on what we believe, and what we consider important, which can be heavily influence by culture.

If you're talking about some sort of circular "act the way we are designed to act" business, then I reject this as nothing to do with deciding and improving morality, although it is very important in explaining why we act morally in the first place. Studying it and developing it on an individual level are totally different.

[Edwardo Piet]

Disagreement means there is no universal goal but not no absolute goal.

Semantics, I know. But I think the confusion is regarding the word "universal" being able to mean both "true in all universes" as in, absolute but also universal in the sense of "universal accord" or universal agreement.

So I think the problem is an equivocal one: a problem of ambiguity and equivocation.

I think "absolute" is a better word here. For its meaning is a little more specific.

There can be an absolute goal in some sense without there being a universal goal in all senses.

[Ignorant]

Pretty much, yes. Beside circular statements like "try to do good things", I feel I have nothing in common with someone who blows themselves up, killing other people, because Allah wants them to. What would you suggest? [1]

Well yes, I'm not suggesting I just walk into another culture and expect them to all agree with me. People act certain ways for reasons. I don't subscribe to my culture, I have my own morality. I try and influence everyone, in my culture or not, towards my way of thinking. And I do this by making reasoned arguments as to (a) why my goals are important, and (b) how I go about things are a good way of achieving them. [2] Sometimes I change peoples' minds, I have done in the past. Sometimes I fail. But it's all anyone can do, make their case. 

I don't understand what you're getting at. The reasons for which we act? Yes, there are good/bad acts with respect to certain goals. But until we've agreed the goals, we can't say what is good and what isn't. [3] I do a lot of wanking, because I consider it's harmless. Some people think it's immoral, because it runs contrary to some goal or other they have for their morality. I think shooting innocent people is immoral, but an Islamic extremist thinks it's extremely moral. We act the way we do due to our emotions, ultimately. They guide us. [4] But our emotions depend on what we believe, and what we consider important, which can be heavily influence by culture.

If you're talking about some sort of circular "act the way we are designed to act" business, then I reject this as nothing to do with deciding and improving morality, although it is very important in explaining why we act morally in the first place. [5] Studying it and developing it on an individual level are totally different.

1) I think Alasdair's response clears this up. Clearly you have disagreements with other people's goals. Your disagreement does not necessarily mean that there is no absolute goal which would be desirable by both of you based on rationality.

2) But if you are arguing that they are important, must it not be done in such a way that it is also important to the person you are trying to persuade? How else can you do that if not be appealing to some rationally shared aspect of human life? And how else can it be appealing to a different culture if not described as MORE important or more real than whatever goal x that culture holds?

My point is that rational persuasion is pointless unless you hold that you and the other person share something real to which the goal you value appeals. If that is the case, then THAT is the object of your own objective morality... and therefore, your moral authority. If there is no real object, then there can be no rational persuasion, but only clever coercion. Some people use violence to coerce people to share their cultural/personal goals. Some use reason. I am saying that reason is only available in persuasion when there is an actual object about which reason can apply.

I don't think you try and coerce people, so you must have some real goal/object about which you think your judgments are closer to reality than other judgments. You think this because of reasoned arguments which correspond to reality, and you appeal to those reasons and argument when you seek to persuade people. I just don't think you have been able to articulate exactly what that goal/object is.

3) Precisely. You need to agree on the goal before you can evaluate the acts which might be good or bad for achieving that goal. The goal, then, is the reality which provides the criteria by which action is judged.

But then, how do you judge one goal better/worse than another (say one cultural goal of doing Allah's will) vs. robvalue's goal)? My position is that you can't judge between them without some "higher" or more successive goal in mind to provide the criteria by which action is judged. Short of a common goal to serve as the criteria, like you said, there is no better or worse. So short of a common goal between you and those who kill for the sake of Allah's will, you are not able to rationally call killing for Allah's will, bad.

You do call it bad (and rightly so), and you call it bad with good reason. That reason is part of your own goal, the object by which you judge morality, and I think it includes something about the humanity common to you and those who kill in the name of Allah.

4) I thought we act they way we do because of our reason? I thought reasons guided our action?

5) No. My intent in responding was purely on the reason why people defend "objective morality". If there is no "goal" common to humanity to which rational discourse can appeal, then there is no rational/human reason for denouncing the atrocities of the 20th century (or any atrocity) as "bad". The "reasons" are purely cultural (mostly our own), and have nothing to do with the goals and actions of the atrocities themselves. The goals and actions would only be considered bad in reference to our own goals common to our own culture. 

I don't think you or anyone here actually believes that is the case. I think everyone here thinks that there are real things about those events that are bad for reasons common to every human being (even the human beings who did the bad things for bad reasons). For example, I think that everyone here thinks that the tenets and goals of German National Socialism in the early-mid 20th century would be bad for every human culture, including the one holding to that German National Socialism. I think everyone here (both atheist and theist alike) has a rational leg to stand on when it comes to that judgment, and it isn't god. Maybe there is something there that is more than mere human emotion.

[theologian]

Okay, interesting.

Well, I'm interested too with what you can say with the Five Ways.

(my emphasis) Such a way of thinking means you wouldn't be able to save someone from a murderer looking for that person. If they asked you where they are, and you know the answer, you wouldn't be able to lie to save their lives.

It is not a lying to prevent persons know the things they don't have the right to know, right?

Further, do we want to excuse lying with murder? I think that is not only a not very good excuse, but a very evil excuse.

Hmm, well, I don't feel compelled to argue against a strawman of Jewish belief. There isn't just YHWH, there's a whole pantheon of gods:

When the Most High gave the nations their inheritance, when he divided all mankind, he set up boundaries for the peoples according to the number of the sons of Israel. For the Lord's portion is his people, Jacob his allotted inheritance.

When Elyon gave the nations as an inheritance, when he separated the sons of man, he set the boundaries of the peoples accoring to the number of the sons of God. For Yahweh's portion was his people; Jacob was the lot of his inheritance."

When monotheism became mainstream, there was the need to correct such passages, and obscure monotheistic tones.

By the use of reason, many gods is false, for God, Whom is Pure Act, must be One.

Further, the quoted passages doesn't prove multiple gods. Can you give more passage that Elyon is God?

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[FallentoReason]

Well, I'm interested too with what you can say with the Five Ways.

I'm going to have to brush up on them. Aquinas can be a good read!

It is not a lying to prevent persons know the things they don't have the right to know, right?

Surely you're preventing them from knowing *by* lying? How else would you describe your action?

Further, do we want to excuse lying with murder? I think that is not only a not very good excuse, but a very evil excuse.

Excuse lying with murder? What do you mean?

By the use of reason, many gods is false, for God, Whom is Pure Act, must be One.

This would be supporting Deism and not theism if the Bible happens to include a pantheon of gods. Just a friendly FYI.

Further, the quoted passages doesn't prove multiple gods. Can you give more passage that Elyon is God?

Well, Elyon isn't a person is he? I think the context of the passage is enough to know Elyon is divine, since in its place they put the "Most High". If Elyon was never divine, then the correction wouldn't make sense, since not only you're changing the identity but now also the fact that whoever this new person (Most High) is must also be divine, and not just a person.

[theologian]

I'm going to have to brush up on them. Aquinas can be a good read!

I agree. Maybe reading Dr. Edward Feser's "The Last Superstition" and "Aquinas" book can help you understand the underlying background in Aquinas writings which is very important in savoring his beautiful philosophy.

It is not a lying to prevent persons know the things they don't have the right to know, right?

Surely you're preventing them from knowing *by* lying? How else would you describe your action?

It's like self-defense. Self-defense is not murder, as it is just protecting one's life against an unjust aggressor which in the process kills the latter. So with preventing to know the truth is not lying by not giving the accurate information to those who don't have the right to know it such as murderers. Both in that case we are not free to exercise the normal thing to do, because there is a prior abnormal thing already.

Further, do we want to excuse lying with murder? I think that is not only a not very good excuse, but a very evil excuse.

Excuse lying with murder? What do you mean?

Well, I think can make myself understood by asking the following question. If the one looking for a person has the right to know the location of a person such as the police, do we need to withheld the information such that it can be like a lie externally? If no, it seems that we need to frame a situation where lying is not only that is possible, but also murder in order to excuse an act which is like lying.

By the use of reason, many gods is false, for God, Whom is Pure Act, must be One.

This would be supporting Deism and not theism if the Bible happens to include a pantheon of gods. Just a friendly FYI.

I agree.

Further, the quoted passages doesn't prove multiple gods. Can you give more passage that Elyon is God?

Well, Elyon isn't a person is he? I think the context of the passage is enough to know Elyon is divine, since in its place they put the "Most High". If Elyon was never divine, then the correction wouldn't make sense, since not only you're changing the identity but now also the fact that whoever this new person (Most High) is must also be divine, and not just a person.

I tried to search for Elyon and I found at it is not a mistranslation, but indeed a translation of the "Most Hight", per Wikipedia. Further, since Old Testament is indeed a forceful revelation of Monotheism, it is very unlikely that in one place, it will introduce multiple true gods. After all, that is God's plan so that in revelation of the Most Holy Trinity, they might not have been tempted to affirm that there are 3 gods just as there are multiple gods for the other nation.

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