The Objective Moral Values Argument AGAINST The Existence Of God

[robvalue]

Yeah, I was thinking along those lines. God could be using it as a system in his scoring card. Then god does stuff to you after you die based on your score. Even then, the rule itself isn't doing anything, and has no impact whatsoever until you die. 

Maybe there is an actual law of morality in heaven that physically stops people doing bad things to each other.

Yeah, it's weird thinking of a 'law' with no effect.  Although maybe, there is an effect.  I think tossing God aside, we think 'immoral' behavior has personal consequences.  And I don't mean physical.  Changes to who you are on a more basic level.  I'd use people who fight in wars who are haunted for the rest of their lives over some of the things that happen.  This is the first time I've put those ideas together in this context, so I'm just going to go wander off and think about it now.

Sure, we become shaped by our past actions and experiences. We don't necessary have to even do anything ourselves to become traumatized though, just seeing it can be enough; so calling that morality would be a stretch.

We have a conscience, which provides negative consequences to us if we run contrary to it. That's really part of evolution, it's a practical trait that got selected and reinforced. The study of this is where the idea of "morality" came from in the first place. It's certainly no kind of universal law, as obviously our consciences tell us different things to each other, and some people don't have one at all (psycopaths etc). That kind of makes psycopaths "immune" to the law of morality.

This is kind of what I'm saying about "objective morality" being so nonsensical, since the feedback loop from the conscience is entirely individual. Ultimately that's what morality is about, even though we can rationalize it in other ways.

[Edwardo Piet]

@Hammy: I agree, adding "and God" on the end makes the proposition less likely, especially since it has nothing to do with it. Religious people sometimes however define morality just in terms of god's scorecard, see below. In such a case, the scorer is then required. I was pointing out that they're trying to defend something that makes no sense in the first place, so yeah, adding a huge bum splat of a God and all the nonsense that brings along with it just makes it worse.

Yeah so that was all my argument was trying to demonstrate. Namely: Even if we accept one of their crazy premises their crazy premise + God still makes less sense than their crazy premise alone.

@Whoever: The idea that there are any sort of "moral truths" out there still makes no sense to me. Morality is so utterly poorly defined that not even the goals of it are agreed on. You'd have to first narrow it down to some particular subset of morality, or else saying true things about it is just impossible.

I agree as it sounds like you're talking some sort of platonic existence of objective moral truths where some sort of moral values exist "out there" in the real world, as entities. That makes no sense to me.

To me objective moral truths are more like truths of mathematics: 2+2= 4 because 2 things and 2 things in the real world is the exact same thing as 4 things in the real world. The mathematical truth of 2+2=4 doesn't exist "out there" in the real world (I'm not a mathematical Platonist), but mathematical and logical truths can describe things in the real world, as can objective scientific truths. 2+2=4 means that two objects + another two objects in the real world is identical to four objects in the real world. In the same way "Someone suffering needlessly is objectively wrong" just means "When someone out there is suffering needlessly it's morally important that we alleviate their suffering." You may say that it's a tautology and not objective to define things that way... because what really makes that true. But you could say the same thing about 2+2=4.... the only reason 2+2= 4 is because we literally define 2 as half of 4 and 1 as half of 2. And the only reason that bachelors are unmarried is because we literally define bachelors as unmarried. And the only reason that the word "health" refers to what we think of as healthy is because that we choose to word the mean to refer to that.

So the point, for me, is that you don't need to have some objective reason to choose definitions. For something to be objective their merely has to be an objective correct and incorrect answer after you choose the definition. So, some moves in Chess are objectively better after the rules of Chess are defined. Eating McDonalds every day is objectively unhealthy after the word "healthy" and it's opposite "unhealthy" are defined. 2+2=4 after[/] we come up with the concept of numbers.

Harming someone needlessly is immoral [i]after we define that as immoral.

So I'm saying that I think that is how it should be defined... many people may disagree with me but I think they only do that because they're confused about what they actually care about. They care about their own well-being and the well-being of other people they care about. They care about their possessions because if brings them happiness. And Christians want to please God because they want an eternal bliss of Heaven and very much don't want an eternal hellfire of Hell.

I think it's the best possible definition... but I would never argue that morality is objective before it is defined. I wouldn't argue that anything is objective before it is defined.

Well, like I said, these things would be objectively true even if we didn't exist at all... so perhaps what I should really say is: I would expect you to react as if I'm not making any sense if you think that objective morality requires proving that one definition is better than another.

All definitions are equal besides pragmatics. The question is which definition is most useful.... but whatever label is used that label either points to something in the real world or it doesn't.

Look at the idea of morality being "whatever God wants"... if that's what morality means then that refers to something that doesn't even exist. So it would be pointless to use that definition. But if we refer to morality is " at the very least avoiding harming living beings needlessly" at least that points to something real. And I can't think of a better minimum moral rule than that. Perhaps one day in an enlightened future everyone will realize that's the best possible definition of morality and agree to it. We couldn't objectively prove that it was the right definition.... but as Massimo says... Proving things isn't the point of definitions:

http://rationallyspeaking.blogspot.co.uk...nt-of.html

Yeah, I was thinking along those lines. God could be using it as a system in his scoring card. Then god does stuff to you after you die based on your score. Even then, the rule itself isn't doing anything, and has no impact whatsoever until you die.

And my view the reason why that would be wrong of God to do is because he was causing you to suffer despite being too perfect to suffer himself. So he can't be morally perfect because a morally perfect being wouldn't need to cause others to suffer. In fact, would a perfect being need to do anything at all?!

Maybe there is an actual law of morality in heaven that physically stops people doing bad things to each other.

If there is I don't know why God didn't just create the world like that in the first place instead of that tree of temptation and talking snake bullshit!

[robvalue]

Sure, causing/seeing needless harm is something that makes most people feel bad. That's as universal/objective as you're going to get, and it's just a direct result of our evolution. If we'd instead evolved as solitary creatures with no benefit to cooperating, morality would never have emerged as an idea.

Even if it was considered universal to all humans, which it demonstrably isn't, it would still only be the point of view of how humans feel about things. Other life forms may feel entirely differently, and it obviously had no meaning before humans evolved. It's a construct we came up with to examine our own evolutionary tendencies.

(We do see it in some other life forms on Earth of course.)

[henryp]

@henryp... I am not going to reply to that until you actually respond to me using the quote feature correctly. Quoting my entire response and inserting your own comments inside my quoteboxes in bold is not how to use the quote feature. I am not interested in clearing up your mess when I already said I think that you and Khem are only worth minimum effort as neither of you seem to be able to grasp the most basic of points and both have you have repeatedly ignored the exact same question before... one about the distinction between noumena and phenomena, which leads me to believe that you're both too dishonest to ask about something you don't understand... or even tell me why you don't think it's relevant. You just ignore it altogether... which is pathetic (I guess if you said you don't think it's relevant then you wouldn't be able to explain why if you don't even understand it).

That's fine.  Khem and I are pretty much the only people who even attempt to respond to your daffy bullshit.  And Khem is mostly just fucking with you.  Good luck in all your future endeavors!

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Yeah, it's weird thinking of a 'law' with no effect.  Although maybe, there is an effect.  I think tossing God aside, we think 'immoral' behavior has personal consequences.  And I don't mean physical.  Changes to who you are on a more basic level.  I'd use people who fight in wars who are haunted for the rest of their lives over some of the things that happen.  This is the first time I've put those ideas together in this context, so I'm just going to go wander off and think about it now.

Sure, we become shaped by our past actions and experiences. We don't necessary have to even do anything ourselves to become traumatized though, just seeing it can be enough; so calling that morality would be a stretch.

We have a conscience, which provides negative consequences to us if we run contrary to it. That's really part of evolution, it's a practical trait that got selected and reinforced. The study of this is where the idea of "morality" came from in the first place. It's certainly no kind of universal law, as obviously our consciences tell us different things to each other, and some people don't have one at all (psycopaths etc). That kind of makes psycopaths "immune" to the law of morality.

This is kind of what I'm saying about "objective morality" being so nonsensical, since the feedback loop from the conscience is entirely individual. Ultimately that's what morality is about, even though we can rationalize it in other ways.

I think I don't like the term objective.  It's has too many applications.  Like I'm objectively X inches tall.  But humans don't have an objective (universal) height.  Even though everyone has an objective height.  That lack of clarity in definition always makes objective/subjective discussions wonky.  

Like everyone has a height.  Height is the measurement of ground to top of the head.  Those ideas are universal.  The value of the height changes from person to person and over time.  So is height objective or subjective?  If morality were defined as some universal physical response of various brain processes to various actions, and we were able to apply that measurement to every person, is that objective or subjective?

[The Grand Nudger]

Again, you're taking my argument out of context. Yes, it has nothing to do with God at all, like I said, I don't even believe in the existence of objective moral values with or without God. That is not the point of the argument. The point of the argument is that if objective moral values exist they're more likely to exist without God. (Surely you can accept that simply due to the fact that in all likelihood this universe wasn't made by God?).

A ridiculous point from the outset.  Moral realism being true is not more or less likely with or without a god.  There is no existential relationship between the two.  One does not inform us of the probability of the other, Hammys Law of Just The One Thing™ is not parsimony, and no one has any reason to accept the tortured premises you require in order to make all of these little contortions.

Personally, I chalk your continued remarks up to pigheadedness and the unfailing belief that your own propositions are not subject to Hammy's Law. What are the odds that Hammys Law, tortured propositions, and contortions-as-logic are all simultaneously true? Let's see some math.

Meanwhile, a far more concise and accurate counterargument to claims of divine contingency can certainly be offered. Piling further ridiculous shit on top of the misapprehensions a person must already possess in order to make such a claim is misguided, imo. I get that you want to reach a certain conclusion. I'm strongly suggesting that you can't get there from here..and have no need to go, anyway. So why bother? Why multiply entities beyond necessity in an argument that explicitly invokes parsimony? You only need a single premise in order to completely erode the divine contingency proposition. Are you being more or less rational by adding all of the additional, unnecessary......and, even more perplexingly, untrue shit?

[robvalue]

@The voices in my head

It's not that I don't believe in objective morality as such; it's that I've never heard a definition of it that makes any sense to me. It's a bit like God in that regard, ironically enough. But of an in-thread joke there. Fuck off. I thought it was funny and also relevant. Leave me alone.

[Catholic_Lady]

The way I see it, for there to be universal moral laws, there needs to be a law giver.

That's why I don't think it would make sense for an atheist to say they think morality is objective. But most don't.

[The Grand Nudger]

Legality and morality are not the same subject. Moral realism depends on the existence of moral facts..not a moral fact giver. Laws, in some ethical sense, may depend on a lawgiver..but the contents of those laws are not an example of moral realism unless they refer to moral facts, and those moral facts would still be facts even if no one ever chiseled some bullshit on a couple of rocks.

Moral realism makes as much (or as little) sense as it does regardless of the status of ones belief in god..and regardless of the existence of a god. The truth (or falsity) of one is completely uninformative as to the existence of the other.

If a person believes in gods and accepts that there are moral facts, they are a moral realist and a deist.
If a person does not believe in god and accepts that there are moral facts, they are a moral realist and an atheist.
If a person believes in gods and does not accept that there are moral facts, they are deists but not moral realists.
If a person does not believe in gods and does not accept that there are moral facts, they are atheists but not a moral realists.

The divine command theory of morality, that the moral laws are such and such because god commanded them to be so as lawgiver...that an actions moral status is an effect of it's concordance with divine commands....is in the third category. Ironically, what makes sense to you, as at least as described above....is an instance of moral realism -not- making any sense. Morality, in that category, is about god facts..not moral facts. It's subjective, meaningfully arbitrary, and....frankly..capricious.

[Amarok]

The way I see it, for there to be universal moral laws, there needs to be a law giver.

That's why I don't think it would make sense for an atheist to say they think morality is objective. But most don't.

Legality is not the same as morality And their are tons of atheist moral realists

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Legality and morality are not the same subject.  Moral realism depends on the existence of moral facts..not a moral fact giver.  Referencing laws as having a requirement of lawgivers in an ethical context isn't entirely wrong (deontology), but those laws don't have to be examples of moral realism.....and often, aren't.  Gods Law™ is not objective morality.  It's just gods law.  Moral realism isn't about whether or not some schmuck chisels things into stone, though schmucks -do- chisel things into stone and people commonly mistake that for moral realism.

Yup an arbitrary set of commands does not moral facts make

[vulcanlogician]

Late to the party, but I gotta say, I don't like your argument, Hams. I get that it is meant to push a theist's own illogic back in his/her face, and it's good for that purpose. But so many false premises, man. Wowza!