| hatsoff |
| Posted 04/15/11 at 08:30 PM | Reply with quote #16 |
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Quote: Originally Posted by silentmatt
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. It is obvious that the thing and the obligation which attaches to the thing are not identical.
Wherever moral statements aim to express facts, then the is-ought problem has an easy resolution: verify the factual content of moral statements. Theism does not help us in this regard.
Quote: 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. I don't think it's obvious that morality is prescriptive. |
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| hatsoff |
| Posted 04/15/11 at 08:43 PM | Reply with quote #17 |
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Quote: Originally Posted by silentmatt
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.
I actually don't think it's particularly clever, except perhaps in terms of debate strategy. The argument does, I think, show an inconsistency in Harris's position as expressed in the book. However, it can easily be resolved by amending it to deny that his hypothetical (and highly implausible, I should add) scenario would not provide a moral landscape. On the contrary, I think it would be a moral landscape. It would just be totally foreign to us, given our expectations for social operations.
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| silentmatt |
| Posted 04/15/11 at 08:44 PM | Reply with quote #18 |
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Quote: Wherever moral statements aim to express facts, then the is-ought problem has an easy resolution: verify the factual content of moral statements. Theism does not help us in this regard.
I'm not sure what you mean by this. When a moral statement aims to express facts, it aims to show that a particular value judgement on a given set of circumstances is true. How does one derive such a judgement logically, simply by being presented by the set of circumstances to be judged? Theism makes sense of moral statements by grounding the prescriptive and authoritative elements of morality.
Quote: I don't think it's obvious that morality is prescriptive.
A moral law with no prescriptive element is just a method towards an end. Where one disaffirms that the law is prescriptive, and that the end is the object of some prescription, it seems to me that one cannot affirm that anyone is obligated to adopt the end or follow the method. How can one be obligated to follow a law that makes no demands of you? |
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| Jarrett_Cooper |
| Posted 04/15/11 at 08:47 PM | Reply with quote #19 |
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Sure, theists value human flourishing and well-being. However, where theists differ (at least Judeo-Christians) is that a they will not (should not) commit a sin (evil) to bring about human flourishing. I don't know if this is the case on Harris' view. |
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| hatsoff |
| Posted 04/15/11 at 08:53 PM | Reply with quote #20 |
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Quote: Originally Posted by Jarrett_CooperSure, theists value human flourishing and well-being. However, where theists differ (at least Judeo-Christians) is that a they will not (should not) commit a sin (evil) to bring about human flourishing. I don't know if this is the case on Harris' view.
What sin would a Christian ever admit improves the aggregate of the well-being of conscious creatures (not just humans)?
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| Jarrett_Cooper |
| Posted 04/15/11 at 09:02 PM | Reply with quote #21 |
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| Hatsoff,
I don't think I Christian should lie even if it were to help someone in need. I don't think I Christian should murder someone and harvest their organs to save live five lives. I don't think a Christian should blaspheme the name of God, even if millions of dollars would be donated to cancer research.
However, on Harris' view these things that a Christian would call sinful would actually be the right things to do because they would bring about human flourishing. |
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| hatsoff |
| Posted 04/15/11 at 09:09 PM | Reply with quote #22 |
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Quote: Originally Posted by Jarrett_CooperHatsoff,
I don't think I Christian should lie even if it were to help someone in need. I don't think I Christian should murder someone and harvest their organs to save live five lives. I don't think a Christian should blaspheme the name of God, even if millions of dollars would be donated to cancer research.
However, on Harris' view these things that a Christian would call sinful would actually be the right things to do because they would bring about human flourishing.
Well I think it's fairly obvious that even if in the short-run a murder could save, say, five lives, this would hinder advancement of the well-being of conscious creatures, since murder devalues life and contributes to a callousness towards that well-being. And I have no idea how you think blaspheming would help cancer research.
But as for lying, I think it's terrible that a Christian would not lie to help others---say, to convince an abductor to release his captive.
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| Wes |
| Posted 04/15/11 at 09:18 PM | Reply with quote #23 |
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Quote: I actually don't think it's particularly clever, except perhaps in terms of debate strategy. The argument does, I think, show an inconsistency in Harris's position as expressed in the book. However, it can easily be resolved by amending it to deny that his hypothetical (and highly implausible, I should add) scenario would not provide a moral landscape. On the contrary, I think it would be a moral landscape. It would just be totally foreign to us, given our expectations for social operations.
Can I get an interpertation of this? So Harris would resolve the contradiction by replacing the phrase "moral landscape" with what? Craig pointed this out during the debate, that Harris position was not a moral landscape at all, rather it was simply a continuim of human flourishing, and nothing more.
Then you say, that you do think it would suffice as a moral landscape, but that it would be foreign to us? How is such a position any different from relativism? If one can imagine a world with a different moral landscape, then morals are not objective in the sense that is currently understood. Harris however is embracing objective morality. The only way for him to affirm your position, is to change his position to relativism; via possible worlds where our current moral framework, is not identical to the metaphysical framework. And from that, it logically follows that objective morality as we know it, is illusory.
But even still, granting a new framework, you still have not given good grounds to affirm anything as being objectively evil, or objectively good in the absence of God. In fact, you can probably imagine many worlds, with many different moral landscapes as you point out, but why think that any of them, are any more "moral" or "right" then the next one?
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| Jarrett_Cooper |
| Posted 04/15/11 at 09:26 PM | Reply with quote #24 |
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| Hatsoff,
I was just throwing out things. I don't actually think blaspheming the name of God would allow money to be donated to cancer research. The point was that even given some hypothetical situation, such a thing would still be wrong (for a Christian).
With regards to lying. I don't believe you have a proper understanding of sin. If so you would understand why a Christian would not commit the sin of lying--even to help someone in need. If the Christian worldview is true, then sin is so detestable that it caused the fall of man, and made Christ suffer, along with separating us from God. Given these factors I say yes, lying is wrong, even if it were to help one in need. I think a Christian would be correct to say that I love God more than to commit a sin, no matter how much flourishing would arise from that sin.
"Why not say--as we are being slanderously reported as saying and as some claim that we say--"Let us do evil that good may result"? Their condemnation is deserved." (Romans 3:8)
Also, one can make the case that lying thwarts a successful society. It breaches trust and installs uncertainty with regards to commitments. |
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| silentmatt |
| Posted 04/15/11 at 09:37 PM | Reply with quote #25 |
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| I dunno. Just because the result of a given lie in the deep past may have been horrific, doesn't mean that all lies are similarly detestable.
Consider killing. Sometimes, killing is one of the most horrible crimes accomplishable, like killing the Son of God. Others, it's someone's deserved fate. I think that context is part of the identity of each moral rule, and that codes only codify general trends in the fabric of the moral law. That is, for all the laws prohibiting lies in most circumstances, there may still be a law that prescribes lying as the right thing to do in a given circumstance. |
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| Jarrett_Cooper |
| Posted 04/15/11 at 09:42 PM | Reply with quote #26 |
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| Silentmatt,
I believe there are certainly degrees in the severity of sin. (Some sins are more grave than others, and even given certain circumstances such sins may be less severe than otherwise.) Nonetheless, such sins, such as lying, are still forbidden. |
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| hatsoff |
| Posted 04/15/11 at 10:43 PM | Reply with quote #27 |
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Quote: Originally Posted by Wes
Can I get an interpertation of this? So Harris would resolve the contradiction by replacing the phrase "moral landscape" with what? Craig pointed this out during the debate, that Harris position was not a moral landscape at all, rather it was simply a continuim of human flourishing, and nothing more.
Then you say, that you do think it would suffice as a moral landscape, but that it would be foreign to us? How is such a position any different from relativism? If one can imagine a world with a different moral landscape, then morals are not objective in the sense that is currently understood. Harris however is embracing objective morality. The only way for him to affirm your position, is to change his position to relativism; via possible worlds where our current moral framework, is not identical to the metaphysical framework. And from that, it logically follows that objective morality as we know it, is illusory.
But even still, granting a new framework, you still have not given good grounds to affirm anything as being objectively evil, or objectively good in the absence of God. In fact, you can probably imagine many worlds, with many different moral landscapes as you point out, but why think that any of them, are any more "moral" or "right" then the next one?
It sounds like I wasn't fully understood. Allow me to clarify.
According to Craig, the following are both tenets of Harris's view:
(1) Goodness is identical to the aggregate improvement of the well-being of conscious creatures.
(2) In an epistemically possible (though highly implausible) world, the aggregate improvement of the well-being of conscious creatures would not be identical to goodness.
Craig asserts that identity is a necessary relation. This comes from Kripke, and though he was talking about metaphysical possibility as I recall, I think it works just as well for epistemic possibility. So (1) and (2) are inconsistent on this view, and one of them has to go.
But why discard (1)? Why not reject (2) instead? If we reject (2) instead of (1), then Craig's argument does nothing to hurt Harris's case for having objective morality without God.
Notice that we can run the same argument against Craig:
(3) Goodness is identical to that which God commands.
(4) In an epistemically possible world, God's commands are not identical to goodness.
The idea behind (4) is that it is epistemically possible that an amoral God exists. Craig might want to defend against this by denying (3) in favor of
(5) Goodness is identical to that which the Biblical God commands.
But in that case, Craig would leave himself vulnerable to some very good arguments that (5) is false.
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| silentmatt |
| Posted 04/15/11 at 10:59 PM | Reply with quote #28 |
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| Rejecting
2) In an epistemically possible (though highly implausible) world, the aggregate improvement of the well-being of conscious creatures would not be identical to goodness.
lends itself to one confirming one or both of two very counter-intuitive notions:
i) The counter-intuitive notion that, in a world where psychopaths who, say, were extremely perverse masochists as well as sadists, outnumbered non-psychopaths, then the psychopathic behaviour, the killing of the weaker for their own extreme and sublime pleasure, and the like, would be moral. This conflicts with our moral intuitions.
ii) Psycho World is not a possible world.
I don't think a parallel case can be applied to God. God defines the moral rules the same in all possible worlds, since they stem from his nature. If there was a possible world where torture was good, then torture is good in all possible worlds. However, we have a moral intuition that torture is bad, and don't have one that torture is good. Therefore, we can say that, in all possible worlds, torture is bad, and therefore God cannot have commanded in any possible world that torture is bad. |
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| Shiloh |
| Posted 04/16/11 at 03:04 AM | Reply with quote #29 |
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According to Craige - what is 'moral goodness?' If a 'moral' is right conduct then the phrase 'moral goodness' is unnecessary - a moral is good by definition - hence immoral.
It would seem that Craige did win this point. But all Harris had to do is say there is not objective moral goodness in the Atheist world. Why is Harris trying to hold to that I do not know.
There is nothing objective that says it is good that humans have well being or something similar - that is just the property or mindset of humanity as opposed to pain or uneasiness - that is just the way we interact with the external world. It is subjective and in the mind of persons - it is not out there prescriptively granting us the right to have a pleasant life. To pursue this and to act in ways that promote this state of being is good and to not is bad. The right conduct for this sate is the moral and that which hinders is immoral conduct. Experience and reason have guided us to these principles and rules that best approach these ends.
That's all.
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| Sandspirit |
| Posted 04/16/11 at 05:48 AM | Reply with quote #30 |
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I think what's most interesting about this discussion is that as far as being able to say what is a right act and what is a wrong act theists, atheists, deists, agnostics (and any other category you can come up with) are all in the same boat. Somewhere up a creek without a paddle.
Take the example of torture. Can we honestly and absolutely say that torture is always wrong? Take the kind of situation shown in the TV series "24". The evil terrorists are about to release a deadly virus into the population threatening the lives of tens of thousands. Our security services have in their power a member of the terrorist group who can provide vital information to help us eliminate the threat. There's very little time left and the terrorist won't talk. Even if we are opposed to using torture under these or any other circumstances it's impossible to argue that a plausible moral case can't be made for using abhorrent methods to extract the information - what's the suffering of one person when weighed against the possible deaths of many, including children?
Whether we like it or not, in practise, our morals are ad hoc, adapted to circumstance, and there is no holy book or scientific treatise that we can consult that can tell us what's right and wrong.
The irony for me in the Craig/Harris debate was that both men only have a fairly foggy notion of what constitutes good and evil (in common with the rest of us). I think a more useful discussion would be to address what actually constitutes good rather than whether our vague notions are objective or not. I think this can only be done concretely, by looking at real events and trying to unpick them, instead of trotting out ill-defined formulas like "the flourishing of conscious creatures" - what on earth is it supposed to mean?
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