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drcraigvideos
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Posted 04/14/11
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#1
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This is the knock-down argument against Sam Harris (this is probably my favorite part of the debate):
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setemstraight
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Posted 04/14/11
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#2
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Not a knock down argument at all.
It is an argument against himself.
Let (M) be morality.
Let (~M) be amorality.
For if it is possible that amorality derives from God® by the real actions of real people, then A cannot be identically equal to B.
So tell us pray tell, is the existence of the Bible moral or amoral? I say it is amoral, rendering the existence of the written word of god amoral.
Therefore morality (A) is not equal to the word of god (B), and hence not grounded in it. (M) vs (~M). It doesn't even matter if (A) and (B) are negations of each other. It is possible they are not identically equal.
Therefore your precious Craig knocked himself down.
You are nothing but a drone.
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mepatri
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Posted 04/14/11
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#3
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What if amorality does not derive from God - and furthermore it is not possible for it to derive from God?
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mepatri
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Posted 04/14/11
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#4
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I would say the the existence of the Bible is neither moral, nor amoral. It simply is. However, the message of the Bible can be a moral message, if it is derived from a moral source, or "giver" of morality that has (as the giver) defined it to be so. Morality need not be equal to the word of God in the way you describe it to be, but is rather a condition that has been defined by the creator. You cannot explain it away by redefining it.
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Digitalos
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Posted 04/15/11
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#5
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Quote: Originally Posted by setemstraightNot a knock down argument at all. It is an argument against himself. Let (M) be morality. Let (~M) be amorality. For if it is possible that amorality derives from God® by the real actions of real people, then A cannot be identically equal to B. So tell us pray tell, is the existence of the Bible moral or amoral? I say it is amoral, rendering the existence of the written word of god amoral. Therefore morality (A) is not equal to the word of god (B), and hence not grounded in it. (M) vs (~M). It doesn't even matter if (A) and (B) are negations of each other. It is possible they are not identically equal. Therefore your precious Craig knocked himself down. You are nothing but a drone. The existance of the Bible as moral or amoral... what? That's just gibberish! Is the existence of a rock a moral statement, of course not. Is the existance of a piece of paper moral or amoral? Is ANYTHING'S existence a moral statement. Clearly not. There are moral values which determine if something is morally good, or morally bad, and moral duties derive and 'ought' from the values. Clearly something merely existing applies to neither, so your argument is just borderline gibberish, and perhaps not even borderline at that.
WLC's argument is quite easy to follow.
He says, there is no conceivable world where A is !A. With this, we examine Harris's moral landscape. Harris says the property of being good is identical to the creaturely flourishing. Harris also says that if people like rapists and murderers could be just as happy, as morally good people, then his landscape would no longer be a moral landscape - since the peaks could be occupied by both good and evil people. However Harris also said in his book that around 3 million US citizens are psychopathic, and their welbeing is derived from watching others suffer. Therefore we can conceive of a possible world in which the peaks of the moral landscape, are occupied by beings both morally good, and morally evil. Now it is no longer a moral landscape, merely a continuum of welbeing. Then WLC goes on to show that identity is a necessary relation in that, there is no possible world in which an entity A, is not identical to A. If we transpose this over the moral landscape Harris offered, we can see in the actual world that the continuum of welbeing and the moral landscape are not identical. Therefore, they are necessarily not identical - meaning they are in fact not indential.
KO! 
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majinrevan
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Posted 04/15/11
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#6
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This was a pretty meaningless argument.
All Harris did was define good as prosperity of sentient beings etc.
Craig then goes on to use this argument to prove that in Harris's on words, there can be a possible word in which this definition doesn't apply, therefore the definition is wrong in the first place.
Even though the argument works, all Harris needed to do was say that clearly what he meant to say in his book, and what was implied in the words that Craig had refered to, was that prosperity of sentient beings etc=good if and only if those sentient beings don't derive pleasure from inflicting harm.
There.
Objection nulified by arbitrarily redifining what was already arbitrarily defined.
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expsredemption
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Posted 04/15/11
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#7
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Quote: Originally Posted by majinrevan
This was a pretty meaningless argument.
All Harris did was define good as prosperity of sentient beings etc.
Craig then goes on to use this argument to prove that in Harris's on words, there can be a possible word in which this definition doesn't apply, therefore the definition is wrong in the first place.
Even though the argument works, all Harris needed to do was say that clearly what he meant to say in his book, and what was implied in the words that Craig had refered to, was that prosperity of sentient beings etc=good if and only if those sentient beings don't derive pleasure from inflicting harm.
There.
Objection nulified by arbitrarily redifining what was already arbitrarily defined.
Don't you feel some semblance sense of uncomfortableness with the fact that the definition was arbitrary to begin with and then the supposed response to the objection was arbitrary? Is there not some irony that such arbitrary responses are rendered in a debate about the foundation or grounding of morality?
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Wes
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Posted 04/15/11
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#8
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Quote: Even though the argument works, all Harris needed to do was say that clearly what he meant to say in his book, and what was implied in the words that Craig had refered to, was that prosperity of sentient beings etc=good if and only if those sentient beings don't derive pleasure from inflicting harm.
There.
Objection nulified by arbitrarily redifining what was already arbitrarily defined.
And as you stated above, your argument here is meaningless.
Why?
First off you can't use counterfactuals to redefine what terms mean. We could redefine evil to mean = The destruction of human beings is evil if and only if it promotes flourishing. But of course if it did promote flourishing, then it no longer would be evil, and then we would refer to such an act as good.
With your argument, you say that flourishing is good; if and only if it promotes harm. Well of course if it did promote harm, then such an act would be evil!
You have done nothing with your argument, except define good and evil in the same sentence via a counterfactual.
Here is the argument from Craig:
On the next to last page of his book, Harris makes the telling admission that if people like rapists, liars, and thieves could be just as happy as good people, then his moral landscape would no longer be a moral landscape; rather it would just be a continuum of well-being, whose peaks are occupied by good and evil people alike (p. 190). What’s interesting about this is that earlier in the book Harris observed that about three million Americans are psychopathic, that is to say, they don’t care about the mental states of others. On the contrary, they enjoy inflicting pain on other people (pp. 97-99). That implies that there is a possible world which we can conceive in which the continuum of human well-being is not a moral landscape. The peaks of well-being could be occupied by evil people. But that entails that in the actual world the continuum of well-being and the moral landscape are not identical either. For identity is a necessary relation. There is no possible world in which some entity A is not identical to A. So if there is any possible world in which A is not identical to B, it follows that A is not in fact identical to B. Since it’s possible that human well-being and moral goodness are not identical, it follows necessarily that human well-being and moral goodness are not the same, as Harris has asserted. |
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Wes
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Posted 04/15/11
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#9
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Quote: Don't you feel some semblance sense of uncomfortableness with the fact that the definition was arbitrary to begin with and then the supposed response to the objection was arbitrary? Is there not some irony that such arbitrary responses are rendered in a debate about the foundation or grounding of morality?
The definitions are obviously going to be different since Craig believes the nature of morality to be grounded in the Existence of God, who's moral commands are for us moral duties, while Harris believes there is no God, and morality is that which basically promotes the good.
The problem with Harris view is that he cannot answer why the good is, in fact good. Why is it good to promote the flourishing of the human species, why is it good to lay your life down to save others, why is it evil to torture babies, why is it evil to blow buildings up full of innocent people??
Harris has no response whatsoever. His entire argument rests in the premise: "The good is equivalent to the flourishing of sentient beings." But the question remains, why think that the flourishing of human beings is "objectively" good, if God does not exist. And as Craig pointed out we may like to flourish, but that doesn't make it objectively good.
Further, once you show that Evil people can be happy and flourish under Harris's moral framework, then you effectively demolish his "moral landscape". In order for Harris's view to hold, he would have to show that, the Evil actions, or those who do evil cannot actually do evil and remain on a moral peak of well being. But I don't think its possible to show such and such to be true.
Finally, I have heard nothing in response to the "ought implies can" argument". If one is simply a electro-chemical machine, then one has no ability to choose A over B, or to choose a good action over an evil one. Once determinism is embraced, moralality is wiped out, and on Harris's view he has no choice but to embrace determinism, or reject naturalism/physicalism. And to embrace determinism is self-defeating.
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majinrevan
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Posted 04/15/11
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#10
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Quote: Originally Posted by expsredemption
[
Don't you feel some semblance sense of uncomfortableness with the fact that the definition was arbitrary to begin with and then the supposed response to the objection was arbitrary?
I do.
Thatis why Craig should have pressed that point more instead.
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majinrevan
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Posted 04/15/11
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#11
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Quote: Originally Posted by Wes
First off you can't use counterfactuals to redefine what terms mean. We could redefine evil to mean = The destruction of human beings is evil if and only if it promotes flourishing. But of course if it did promote flourishing, then it no longer would be evil, and then we would refer to such an act as good.
With your argument, you say that flourishing is good; if and only if it promotes harm. Well of course if it did promote harm, then such an act would be evil!
You have done nothing with your argument, except define good and evil in the same sentence via a counterfactual.
Can't use counterfactuals to change definitions?
Person A:The definition of a key is an object that's particularly shaped to fit a keyhole and which can be inserted into that keyhole.
Person B:But wait, a key could be fashioned without a keyhole already being in existence.
A:Hmm, that's true. I guess I'll have to revise my defintion.
I'm not sure what you were trying to say in the rest of your post.
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Wes
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Posted 04/15/11
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#12
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Quote: Can't use counterfactuals to change definitions?
Person A:The definition of a key is an object that's particularly shaped to fit a keyhole and which can be inserted into that keyhole.
Well here again, your just playing with words.
If you re-define the word "key" to mean something other than "a particular object shaped to fit a keyhole and which can be inserted into that keyhole", to something other than that, then such an object is no longer a key at all.
It's not the definition that needs to be changed, rather you are in need of a new word to describe your new definition.
If we reacted as you do, in regards to words, then we would have to become blatant relativists, and reject the actual linguistic "meaning" of every word that exists, simply because there may be a counterfactual that exists that is somehow related to the word in question.
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Zschlichting
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Posted 04/15/11
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#13
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Quote: Originally Posted by setemstraight
Not a knock down argument at all.
It is an argument against himself.
Let (M) be morality.
Let (~M) be amorality.
For if it is possible that amorality derives from God® by the real actions of real people, then A cannot be identically equal to B.
So tell us pray tell, is the existence of the Bible moral or amoral? I say it is amoral, rendering the existence of the written word of god amoral.
Therefore morality (A) is not equal to the word of god (B), and hence not grounded in it. (M) vs (~M). It doesn't even matter if (A) and (B) are negations of each other. It is possible they are not identically equal.
Therefore your precious Craig knocked himself down.
You are nothing but a drone.
By "amoral", did you mean "immoral"?
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hatsoff
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Posted 04/15/11
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#14
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Quote: Originally Posted by expsredemption
Don't you feel some semblance sense of uncomfortableness with the fact that the definition was arbitrary to begin with and then the supposed response to the objection was arbitrary? Is there not some irony that such arbitrary responses are rendered in a debate about the foundation or grounding of morality?
I don't know why you would think that definition to be arbitrary. We use our moral terms, all of us, in everyday life, and we are in a search of a formalized characterization of those terms which fits that usage. Indeed, what do we mean by our moral terms, if not care for the well-being of conscious creatures? It seems to me that Harris's definition does the job a lot better than Craig's. I can tell you first hand that I am not referring to some creator-deity when I say that rape is evil, and neither does anyone else who doesn't believe in God. So Craig's definition won't do.
In contrast, theists seem to use moral terms in at least a similar way to what Harris describes. I mean, you guys do take caring for the well-being of conscious creatures to be moral, right? Why do you insist that we should care for the well-being of one particular conscious creature above all others? That seems a whole lot more arbitrary than what Harris has suggested!
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silentmatt
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Posted 04/15/11
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#15
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The is/ought distinction is why all non-theistic meta-ethics will fail. You just can't logically infer an ought from an is. You can't infer, logically, at least, from the fact that an action does result in the care of conscious creatures, that it is true that one ought to care for conscious creatures- that is, that one somehow has an obligation or duty to do so. If we do infer such obligations, it is a function of our moral faculties, not our logical ones, so one can't simply present something like "wellbeing of conscious creatures," and assume that to be the end of the question, as if the obligation were logically entailed by the properties of the thing. It is obvious that the thing and the obligation which attaches to the thing are not identical.
I think that it's the prescriptive-ness of moral law which leads people to attribute morality to God. It's hard to see how one can have an obligation to do anything that's not being prescribed in some sense by a being capable of imbuing that prescription with authority.
Also, Craig's "knock-down" argument is an ingenious appropriation of the form of Kripke's modal argument for the distinction of body and mind. I find it pretty compelling. |
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