Objective Morality?

[Statler Waldorf]

Nah I do follow you but don’t agree. Why does it need an ’authority’ to be objective? I think this is the mistake you’re making. To have abosulte morality you need authority but I don’t accept that exists, for objective moral truth authority figures exist. To move from an IS to an OUGHT one simpley does the following transformation (I have already explained why I think its objective).

Morality without authority is no longer morality because a person cannot make an ought or should statement without any authority behind it (well they can but it is utterly meaningless). I still don’t quite follow what you mean by these objective relationships you keep referring to, what are they?

DESIRE – To stay alive and flourish as an individual
FACT/IS - My metabolism naturally requires dead organisms to be ingested to work and prevent my death
OUGHT – I ought to eat dead organisms.. and by extension if that includes omnivorous habits (which in the case of homo sapiens it does), organisms can include other animals
OBJECTIVELY - therefore ‘meat is NOT murder’.

Ok, now we are getting somewhere, I am understanding your position a bit better. I do see some logical misteps you have made here though. SO would the following example also be valid?

DESIRE – To reproduce and pass ones genes on
FACT/IS – Reproducing and passing ones genes on requires sexual intercourse with females of the same species.
OUGHT – This person ought to have sexual intercourse with females of the same species.
OBJECTIVELY - therefore ‘sexual intercourse for reproductive purposes is never wrong even if it is not consensual.

That appears to take the exact same form as the example you gave even though it appears that desirism can therefore condone rape for reproductive purposes.

Not interesting but factual. I admire your grasping of the horns, but objective morality disappears on the will of a sovereign, unaccountable being. As such they are subjective.

Subjectivism only occurs if the individual is whimsical or prone to error, God is neither so this is a form of objective morality.

Well again you’re overplaying this. I demonstrated moving from IS to OUGHT without invoking a god.

I do not believe the way you did it was logically valid though, so the mere fact you did it does not prove anything.

I stand by all I’ve said. Your enthusiasm for justifying the unjustifiable in these horrific passages is exactly why I can lay claim to the ‘objective moral high ground’ and you cannot. What difference does it make whether it has happened, will happen, or is happening.

It makes a huge difference. Saying an event will happen is not condoning that event, you have yet to provide a verse that condones anything like rape, you have only pointed to a verse that predicts that rape and violence will occur, and it did.

Do you condone the justification of rape in the bible in the past, present or future event?

You have not provided any passage that condones rape, so this is a completely irrelevant question.

Using your example would you advise those who may (but haven’t) committed sexual assaults in Detroit that it is OK, because the bible indicates so?

The Bible never indicates it is ok, that’s the whole point.

The bible says what it says,

So then why do you keep asserting it says something it doesn’t? Since you claim it says what it says, show me the verse that clearly says “Rape is good Mmmk?” rather than engaging in mental gymnastics to prove something that is not there. You have not presented any verse that condones rape.

To be fair to the Marcionites at least they advised starting again, even though their theology was equally bonkers to orthodoxy.

I smell Christopher Hitchens! Do you really think he is the best source to use for church history?

[Captain Scarlet]

Morality without authority is no longer morality because a person cannot make an ought or should statement without any authority behind it (well they can but it is utterly meaningless). I still don’t quite follow what you mean by these objective relationships you keep referring to, what are they?

Then that is your assertion and an argument from incredulity, ie I just do see how….morality can be objective without an authority… When I have already demonstrated it.

Ok, now we are getting somewhere, I am understanding your position a bit better. I do see some logical misteps you have made here though.

Ah no you don't get away with this one so easily by just glossing over it. You have been regurgitating the same line here that you cant get an IS from an OUGHT on naturalistic grounds. I have showed you how, thus you need to concede this point, then we can move on.

SO would the following example also be valid?
DESIRE – To reproduce and pass ones genes on
FACT/IS – Reproducing and passing ones genes on requires sexual intercourse with females of the same species.
OUGHT – This person ought to have sexual intercourse with females of the same species.
OBJECTIVELY - therefore ‘sexual intercourse for reproductive purposes is never wrong even if it is not consensual.
That appears to take the exact same form as the example you gave even though it appears that desirism can therefore condone rape for reproductive purposes.

No invalid. It is a caricature of Desirism, you would need to read up on it for yourself. A coarse grained view of my understanding of it is that we have to maximize desires across the population. It may be the desire of certain individuals to rape (perhaps they were reading the bible at the time?). But unfortunately the relationship between those desires and the part of reality under evaluation, are at a distance from each other, ie lest examine a cartoon population of 100 people to make the maths easy. Person Xs personal desire meter registers a high score on the subject of rape say 99/100. The other 99 people feel rape is abhorrent given their desires to promote the emotional and sexual well being of themselves and those nearest to them. They also feel empathy with those who are not close relations. Thus on the remainder of the population, their personal desire meters on rape are 1/100. If this is the case then (given in reality these things are objectively true for homo sapiens that we do want to preserve our well being, our families well being well being and we do have empathy), then 99 people x 99 metered score = 9801 wins out over, 1 rapist x 99 metered points = 99. Therefore rape is objectively bad, and in all likelihood rape will be condemned and punished, whereas actions that thwart rape would be praised and rewarded. The ways in which this could be overturned is if natural morality is suppressed by some meme that gets injected externally (eg theology), that appears to condone rape and renders excuses to sick individuals who escape punishment and are to some degree rewarded by say some theistic demagogue.

Subjectivism only occurs if the individual is whimsical or prone to error, God is neither so this is a form of objective morality.

Which is something you cannot know and is an appeal to belief. You ascribe these attributes to a god but the very term god does not get off the ground because it is meaningless and lacks a positive definition.

It makes a huge difference. Saying an event will happen is not condoning that event, you have yet to provide a verse that condones anything like rape [snip]

So we’ll have to disagree. You are gonna think from your learned bible readings that the bible doesn’t really say that, and I’m gonna think it does. Your gonna think you have disproved it, and I think your dissembling. But I will not concede you any ground on this, I'm sure you wont either.

I smell Christopher Hitchens! Do you really think he is the best source to use for church history?

Its great that you trust to your senses and empiricism, you are developing. You are right in a narrow respect as I’ve heard Hitchens make several arguments about early xtian groups. Hitchens is rhetorically gifted and well read individual, but an average philosopher, scientist and historian. My source (as is the case here) for most of these matters is the now reformed x-fundie Ehrman.

[orogenicman]

Morality without authority is no longer morality because a person cannot make an ought or should statement without any authority behind it (well they can but it is utterly meaningless). I still don’t quite follow what you mean by these objective relationships you keep referring to, what are they?

Horse hockey.

"In the great classic, near eastern religions, man's life on earth is conceived as pain and suffering, and an inheritance of man's fall from grace (or Paradise Lost). According to these traditions, after man's expulsion from paradise, because of his disobedience to his "God", man alone could not recover his erstwhile innocence, even by striving to become a superhuman of humility, submission, and kindness, etc., but only by an intercession of a god, or God-man sacrifice, could man ever hope to regain paradise, in another world, a spirit world. This "New Jerusalem" is a concept which it contrary to the universal order of things which man's science has inductively gleaned from the study of nature, and as such, man's concept of morality is a product of his vision of the world and his hope to regain lost innocence.

Man's concept of morality has most recently been connected with what he conceived to be good (moral) and to be bad (immoral). Man's immorality has been equated with "sin" in his apriori understanding: this idea of morality has changed tremendously during his short tenure on earth. But contrarily, what is moral in Nature? And has this natural morality altered through time? "Truth" and "falsehood" are important ingredients in man's consideration of morality, but truth may be defined, in the sense of subjective truth with its definitions and criteria, differing from person to person, institution to institution, place to place, and time to time. Man is essentially incapable of committing "sin" beyond the magnitude of the individual and collective sins, for the universe is independent of mankind's hopes, fears, aspirations, and indeed, complete understanding, past, present, and future. We may, however, admit a possible transient misdemeanor in that man's efforts have had some deleterious effects on the earth, and even possibly on parts of the solar system, but certainly this can have little or no effect on the galaxy or the universe at large. Further, the earth and sister planets and their satellites are almost insignificant parts of our almost insignificant star system in an almost insignificant galaxy, and in an almost infinitesimal speck in our universe (be it cosmos or chaos matters not).

Man's paradigm of morality is religion based on axiomatic reasoning, not subject to objective proof, personified as God, omnipotent throughout time and space. According to this paradigm, Man need not strive to obtain knowledge from any source other than religion for all is given by God; submission to his God will make all known which man needs in his life, and the rest on a "need to know basis" will be revealed to him in the after world. This is a lazy system for man need not strive to find truth, but it is handed down from above: All things are known to God and all man needs to do is apply and follow these laws which are made known by individual revelation from God to man.

Man's concept, and Nature's concept of reality and harmony differ in the highest order. Man has accused his a priori deities of duplicity, for men have always asked the question, "Why should good men suffer", and very often the misery of good men is far greater than that of those who do not conform to the highest criteria for goodness as defined by man's totemic customs and religions. This question has been asked and answers have been attempted ever since man realized his "selfness" and became an introspective creature.

In the last analysis of the morality of Nature, we see no evidence of mercy in the cosmos; its indifference extends to the lowest forms of life to that of man. The cries of humanity, whether the suffering is imposed by man upon himself or upon other men, or by natural laws operating independently of man, echo down the corridors of time and space and evoke no response from indifferent Nature.

These anguished cries and pitiful prayers for help are merely cosmic background "noise" to which Nature must (not out of evil intent, spite, revenge, or punishment, but by necessity) turn a "deaf ear"; for were it not so, Nature itself would be destroyed by these same laws which nature had ordained "in the beginning" (if there was one) and must continue to operate in perpetuity (if time and the universe are truly eternal), or there would be and ending to the cosmic laws: a true "twilight of the gods", and of cosmic harmony, Chaos never returning to Cosmos."
- James E. Conkin, Professor Emeritus, University of Louisville, 2002

[mayor of simpleton]

@ well, whoever...

If I'm not mistaken, morality is a perceived condition of value theory. This valuation is contingent upon events/actions within a given circumstance/context.

We live and experience life in terms of a spacetime experience. All that we have is, well all that we have and it is within our perception of reality within spacetime. We simply cannot experience something that is not within this spacetime (aka spaceless space or timeless time)

Sticking to Einstein's concept of relativity (made easy)... As there are no fixed points (aka static points) within spacetime, circumstance/context is an ever changing point of reference. In other words, what one experiences depends greatly upon location and time of the experience. Points of reference are relative to the origin from which the assumption uis being made.

On top of this, the experience of this perception of spacetime is an individual perception. Meaning... I cannot experience exactly what is is to be another person other than myself. This is part of what makes each individual unique (some like to say "special").

This would imply (if not state), that all experiences are contingent upon a combination of space/time/context/circumstance/individual... thus all expeience is RELATIVE to these ever changing properties... why changing? Simply... accumulation/adaptation is not a static thing, but rather a continual dynamic process. All perceptions made can indeed only be from an individual perspective in context to limited circumstances. All perceptions made by an individual are subjective and not objective.

To make an objective moral value assessment (assumption), one would be in need of all possible context (past present, future), within all possible circumstances (past, present, future), from all individual perspectives (past, present, future) and make a statement that can somehow be immune to the accumulation and adaptive process of future influences and determining factors...

WTF?

In other words... does any "objective morality" exist in a coherent form or is this simply a hasty generalization founded upon a very very limited perspective; thus placing an anthropomorphic contingency upon the universe/cosmos? (the anthropomorphic error here is the assumption that the universe must somehow have a moral agenda/intention/desire/wish... why limit the universe to our personal very human perspective? sounds like someone wishes to try on "god's shoes" and kick everyone in the ass - then blame it on (justify it with) god).

I fear that "objective morality" is nothing more that "god's teeth".

To make claim of such is to play master of the universe justified via a proxy of ego one might choose to call "god".

What I really don't get here is that many a theist makes such a claim of 'this or that' is an "objective morality". Isn't that a declaration of defining god? Isn't that (if you believe in a god) not a form of blasphemy?

Debates on morality according to the mayor of simpleton:

Moral Debate: "the art of nailing jello to the wall and bitching about which flavour is the 'bestest of them all', without noticing the absurdity of the act of NAILING JELLO TO THE WALL in the first place".

Moral is as moral does and as moral wishes it to be.
Meow!

GREG