No, Darwin even said he can’t account for instinct or morality. But I was responding to another commenter above who said that the evolutionary process could explain morality.
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How so? I’ve always thought that Darwin’s theory was dependant on the idea that “complex organs” “…are formed by numerous, successive, slight” and obviously, beneficial “modifications”? Given that his attempt was to find a naturalistic explanation for the origin of species, man included, wouldn’t the advent of personality have to arrive on the scene after one of these non-deleterious mutations? Like I said, mud doesn’t spring a personality from nowhere. (See Chapter 6 of Darwin’s The Origin of Species.)
Have you never read Mein Kampf?
I really do forgive you. Perhaps you could offer some honest arguments instead of bald denials and insults…none of which I take personally.
Chaos is not irrational. You brought up entropy earlier, do you understand what it means? God is not a prerequisite for a deterministic universe. What you say about absolute knowledge is ultimately true, hence why there are normative rules of thumb such as Occam’s Razor which people use to discern most likely explanations, requiring the least number of assumptions.
Because you don’t grasp that the 2LoT is a statistical rule SOLELY about usable energy in a closed system, i.e. the total amount of usable energy in a closed system will always decrease. That’s all. Period. Should you disagree, I can point you to numerous high school and college level physics texts to disabuse you of your erroneous notion. Please do not bring such humiliation upon yourself.
So you’re still going to lie. Fine. Do recall that nowhere in Mein Kampf does Hitler mention Darwin, evolution-as-explained-by-Darwin, or natual selection.
So, since you’re just wrong about the whole thing–why not actually try learning about that which you’re discussing. Might make you not look so stupid.
It is true that “altruistic” acts are, in a manner of speaking, not selfless, because all urges that impel action come from the self. Also, I believe many people are often guilty of moral vanity, which is not true morality (for example charitable actions which are only done to raise one’s standing in society). But what I think deserves special study, and a special category, is a certain distinct class of action. Like all actions, these actions are for the sake of relieving some felt uneasiness (see Mises); and the satisfaction of that uneasiness is, in a manner of speaking, selfish. But the felt uneasiness itself is related to some other being that is perceived to be outside of the self (whether real or imagined): a child, a drowning man, a god, etc. This is what I mean when I say “selfless”. And this kind of uneasiness is what I mean when I say “moral urge”.
Let’s say I write a poem. I am its author, I therefore have authority over its meaning; it means what I say it means. If someone else says it means something other than that, that person is wrong. Or, let’s say I’m an inventor and I make a tool; I say what it is designed for, I define its purpose for being. If someone else comes along and says “the proper use of that item is X”, and it’s not what I designed it for, then he is wrong. If I exist as the author of the poem, then its meaning depends upon me - I have authority over it. If I exist as the inventor of a tool, then its proper use depends on my purpose. If I mean the poem a certain way, then it ought to be read that way, or it is misread. If I purpose the tool for a certain use, then it ought to be used in that way, or it is misused. “Ought” is dependant on “is”.
If there is no author, there is no authority, the poem doesn’t just mean anything, it means nothing. Only persons mean something. If there is no creator of an object, there is no purpose for it, because only persons purpose. Is is not dependant on ought, but involves an ought. (If I wrote it unclearly above, this is what I meant, sorry.) This is also why there can only be meaning and purpose to life if there is an absolute and personal Creator. If we are the result of something impersonal, then not only are we not personal, we have no purpose, and no meaning.
So, to perhaps more directly answer your question. “ought” is determined by our Creator who is there, and is not silent. He is the ultimate “is” and communicates the ultimate “oughts” to us. Without him as the ultimate “is”, there is no ultimate “ought.”
And without usable energy, what happens? The system degrades. The universe is a system of systems, and they are all subject to this law, therefore they all – even human reproduction — tend toward degradation. Try as you might, you can’t get Darwin’s theory to play nice with the 2Lot.
I forgive you for accusing me of lying, rather than for simply assuming I was misinformed (though I wasn’t). Can’t we be a bit more charitable here, though we disagree?
How nice that you’re going to try a red herring. Too bad for you that it won’t work. Go read Physics: Principles and Problems by Paul Zitzewitz. Or read Fundamentals of Physics, 7th Edition, by Halliday and Resnick.
You are. For you implicitly claim that you’ve read Mein Kampf. Therefore, you should know what you’re talking about. Therefore, since you stated that Hitler was Darwinian (even though he wasn’t), and since you MUST have known that he wasn’t, you clearly MUST be lying. QED.
Hint: if you don’t want to be accused of lying, don’t try to sound like you know what you’re talking about. It will get you into a load of trouble with someone who DOES know what he’s talking about.
Perhaps, but let me unpack it for you since I think quite literally in terms of what certain ideas can lead. Imagine the fact that moral subjectivity prevents a person to bridge the standards by which one and other(s) forms their values upon. The difference between any given pair of people in terms of morality would be so broad that to say there’s any commonality wouldn’t be possible. In essence, it is like blinding everyone that happens to be in Grand Central Station then asking them walk to their destination with ease. The absence of any measure of objectivity that defines the human condition with regard to morality, there can be no prescription that is shared (other than those by pure chance) among anyone. Objectivity here need not mean sameness in content of morality, it merely means one can point out reasons (even emotional ones) that are shared universally among all possible human beings (and maybe even non-humans that are roughly similar in nature). You bridge it with Evolution. I bridge it with rationality (which includes emotion in the Randian sense). Our difference may be of degree rather than kind in this debate, but I think the difference is enough to raise it.
But I will state that this does not change the nature of is/ought. I think we’re in agreement there so far. Perhaps there should be another thread discussion the framework of ethics that can be raised in absence of [traditional] natural rights?
I have to say I think you’re being rather uncharitable with my non-technical language. Can we agree that the universe tends toward disorder? That’s what I mean by the term ‘entropy’ though I didn’t technically use it correctly. I do think I would’ve been understood by most other non-specialist common-folk. I also think you knew what I was aiming at, but hey, I’m willing to give you the benefit of the doubt.
Now hold on; I never claimed to have read the book from cover to cover, but I have read excerpts and have read articles by those who have studied his books and diaries, etc. (Did you discover entropy personally, or did you read about it from what you deem as reliable sources?) I think anyone familiar with the basics of Darwin’s theory would recognize his ideas – in Hitler’s writings. Vol 1, Chapter 9 “On Nation and Race”, might provide an example. I suppose I could’ve asked, “Have you never read [portions of] Mein Kampf?” If you knew the general them of Paradise Lost (which I’m sure you do) and you’d read a few relevant passages (as I’m sure you have), would you really consider yourself lying if, when someone claimed that Milton was a satanist, you asked, “haven’t you read Paradise Lost, his definitive work?”
I may still be uninformed, or simply remain unconvinced. But lying? Surely you’re better than that. (Do all newbies get the “Are we clear?” flexing around here? Seriously, that’s awesome.)
Ok, well I’ve offered my answer to the thread topic. Thanks for the dialogue, everyone.
Fine. You still don’t grasp the 2LoT. And it would behoove you to not spout off on something you clearly have zero knowledge of.
No, you don’t get to attempt to backpedal. You made a claim, I rebutted it, and then you had the gall to ask if I’d ever read the book, all the while you haven’t even read what you think you have in context? That takes a lot of chutzpah.
Someone at somepoint obviously convinced you that to be religious means you must be anti-science. They have done you a great disservice, and you are vastly intellectually poorer for it.
You’re the type of person who would be surprised to learn that for centuries many lead scientists were clergy.
Sorry to wade in here but Jon you’ve made one of the most blatant category errors I’ve seen: what does the advancement of empirical science have to do with morality? That deals with is statements rather than ought ones (quite apt for this thread). Now even if you explain the origin of someone’s moral beliefs, via evolution for example, that doesn’t justify the truth value of such a belief.
You forgot “0. God exists.” As I implied earlier, the statement, “nature is good,” may be defensible in terms of religion (for believers). However, those that believe in God (Christian God at least) do not need to cross the is/ought divide. It’s still not logically defensible from first principles (no problem for a religious person, but problematic for others), and anyway you still didn’t define what you mean by “good.” Logical deduction can’t work in any case unless all the terms are clearly defined.