No more snarky than the below comment. I was merely pointing out that not only do you not know what the hell you’re talking about, but you feel free to post things like:
I find it fascinating, shocking, and intellectually dishonest. But I’m not here to spoon feed materials–there’s heaps of it online.
My intellectual masturbation comment was based on how such arguments aren’t based on observable facts, but simply strange philosophy. Maybe I consider it because of the (I suppose) basic stuff I’ve read. Who knows. That’s why I asked for some detailed materials.
Be back when I have a better handle on it, I suppose.
Very briefly I will, Kant’s philosophy is known to be one of the more difficult to understand so it is very hard to some up his philosophy as a whole in a breif section but I’ll try. Kant realized there are two sets of “oughts”… there is the nonmoral ought ( If you want to do A then you ought to do B) which he called hypothetical imperatives. and there are moral oughts (you ought to do A, period) , which he called categorial imperatives. More importantly he expressed that categorial imperatives are defined as follows: Act only according to that maxim by which you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law. This principal allows us to define what is morally permissible according to the Kant framework. Kant also claimed that reason or rationality is to accept the principal of categorial imperatives. For example, when you are thinking about doing something, ask what rule you would be following if you actually did it. This rule will be the “maxim” of your act. Then ask whether you would be willing for your maxim to become a universal law. In other words, would you allow your rule to be followed by all people at all times? If so, then your maxim is sound, and your act is acceptable. But if not, then your act is forbidden. Therefore by reason, and reason alone, we can identify what is moral and what isn’t according to Kantian philosophy.
No, Christian philosophers do not say that morality is objective because the alternative is too horrific to consider. They say that because it is the objective truth. People really do think morality is objective; things truly are right and wrong.
It does not matter if someone values God’s divine commands. They are objective because it is not dependent on human thought or reason. You are kindof getting at the Euthyphro Dilemma; however, this is a false dilemma. God’s commands come from His nature and His nature is good. God cannot act outside of His nature to will that something evil be good.
I look forward to engaging in those items
I don’t think you are aware but you proved my point in your exmaple. It is geared towards survival of the fittest and does not actually seek truth.
First, morality tells you nothing about the nature of reality itself. It tells you only what individuals value.
Second, I was getting at the naturalistic fallacy. No matter what God supposedly does, you still have to choose to assign value to his commands. Nothing says you should value X on the basis that X exists. That aside, who decided that God’s nature is good? You did. It’s possible that God is actually generally evil but allows a little bit of good to occur in the world. You are exercising your own judgment in making that declaration by using criteria independent of God.
Third, it’s well worth your time.
Fourth, you missed my point entirely. You are being far, far too simplistic. First of all, your claim is much too broad and generalized. Even if I accept your argument, it still is not the case that evolution has nothing to do with the nature of reality. Evolution working through genes must capture some truth about the nature of reality or else it would not work as a mechanism. Second, evolution does not transmit specific beliefs through genes; it transmits generalized adaptive faculties with great degrees of adaptive flexibility. These generalized faculties must be capable of adapting to changes in the environment and changing circumstances or else the organism dies. This is how we can be quite sure that evolution gives us senses that accurately perceive reality. The only way your argument works is if you can show that evolution has endowed these generalized adaptive faculties with a mechanism for the probable selection of specifically false yet adaptive beliefs. No such mechanism has ever been proposed.
Mr Schnapps responded pretty effectively to the things you said. I really do not mean this condescendingly but based on what you’ve said you really haven’t engaged with any of the three arguments. Instead of trying to point out multiple small things let me provide you some links: http://www.youtube.com/user/drcraigvideos is the biggest collection of videos about this subject. You’ll have to navigate your way through but it’ll be easy. Of course you don’t have to do this. But it’s irresponsible to go around bashing arguments you have not engaged enough with. By “not engaged enough with” I mean there are sound rebuttals or responses to your perceived problems.
@“Izzy”
I admit that I do not know enough about Kant, I really only have an introductory knowledge about him which just isn’t enough to fully engage with his work. Just from what you said it still seems that human reasoning/logic and what humans will accept should be what is objective. But that doesn’t really take us anywhere. It is still dependent on human thought/reasoning, etc. and not objective but subjective. Indeed, if it depends on human thought and rationality it is nothing but subjective. Of course, I am only dealing with what you wrote. Maybe some day in the not to distant future I can read his works.
It does not mean good can be isolated. It doesn’t mean that at all. It is just saying it is part of His nature. It is part of what makes God, God. No, it does not fall back on the claim that morality is subjective if there is no God. Christian theists say that morality without God is subjective because it is dependent on humans, either through their reasoning or arbitrary picking of what is good. God’s thoughts and actions are not dependent on humans; therefore, it is objective. There are tons of resources on sites like reasonablefaith.org or from Alvin Plantinga to show why the Euthyphro is a false dilemma.
Sam Harris’ claim that morality is dependent on human flourishing is arbitrary. What constitutes human flourishing? Who gets to decide? It has to many problems to be considered a good candidate for objective morality.
No. If morality is objective than it does not matter how individuals value morality. It is not like Austrian theory of value of money or something like that.
Humans do not have to assign value to what God says. My point is they would still be objective. Your ‘what if God is really bad’ isn’t really getting us anywhere, at least not with Christians.
I do not think I missed the point, that I am being far too simplistic, or being too broad or generalized. I agree with you that if evolution is true it acts on nature and the external world, completely agreed. You cannot make the leap, however, that because our bodies evolved better in some fashion that therefore we accurately perceive reality. Indeed, if human morality is only a product of socio-biological evolution then it tells us nothing whatsoever about the truth value of morals. It only tells us what helps the herd mentality. On this view rape (forced copulation actually; rape is a moral wrong) may not be socially advantageous but there is nothing wrong with it. It is acting like a social outcast but again, nothing objectively wrong about it.
Some links about some of the things I have been saying:
Euthyphro: http://www.reasonablefaith.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=6063
http://www.reasonablefaith.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=6087
http://forums.carm.org/vbb/entry.php?126-William-Lane-Craig-s-Moral-Argument-for-God-Part-6-The-Euthyphro-Dilemma (a decent outline of what Dr. Craig typically says)
http://www.closertotruth.com/participant/Alvin-Plantinga/77 (Several really good videos and an all around great site, has athesits as well, some of which have been mentioned above by others.)
http://www.closertotruth.com/participant/William-Lane-Craig/24 (same site as above but Dr. Craig’s videos, someone had problems with some of the Kalam, this would be good.)
http://rfforum.websitetoolbox.com/post?id=2703927 (Dr. Craig exhaustive debate list, very amazing compilation.)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=me21or9T7vI (brief q & a about Euthyphro)
Hope these help. Of course there a bunch of books but I doubt ya’ll are actually interested in those.
A timelss being cannot act upon the physical plain. It is an impossibility. A timelss being exists at all times (entropy does not apply to him); past, present, and future all at once. Anything else is merely an immortal, not timeless. For a timeless being to act, he has to step into the temporal plain (a simple, observable fact of nature), is now subject to entropy, and has therefore negated his timelessness.
Furthermore, timelessness explicitly rejects YHWH as God, as YHWH has repeatedly been shown to have “changed his plans”; throwing Adam from Eden, the Noah story, and even the Jesus story.
Our very concept of deciding implies a temporal process in which another temporal process, contemplation, precedes a decision. Indeed, it is extraordinarily difficult to conceive of how any ‘timeless’ thing–personal or not–could produce (yet another temporal process) anything. Craig seems to deny the temporal nature of deciding when he says that we needn’t suppose that God changed his mind, but he offers no alternative analysis which construes deciding in nontemporal terms. In an online article[29] Craig adds that “only a libertarian agent could interrupt the static reign of being of the First Cause sans the universe,” but even a genuinely libertarian agent would seem to need time in order to freely choose. The fundamental problem here is completely independent of whether the cause of the universe is personal or not; it is whether the cause of the universe is timeless or not. For if a perfectly static timeless state or being ‘preceded’ the universe, how could that perfect stasis be interrupted? This appears to be one of those perennial questions, like why there is something rather than nothing, for which no conceivable answer–other than that there never was any such timeless state or being–is available whether one assumes that God or exists or that he does not. Craig often appeals to the intuitive assumption ‘from nothing, nothing comes.’ We might say here that ‘from timelessness, only timelessness comes.’ So we are back to square one: Craig offers no convincing reason to prefer a timeless creator to an uncaused universe, and the latter may even face fewer conceptual difficulties than the former
The only way around this fallacy is to;
a) say God is actually just an immortal, who can act upon the universe but can’t die. This is far different than a being that exists in all times at all times. Well, now this immortal is also subject to the causation theory as well. Where did he come from? He can’t be timeless, because as we have seen, a timeless being cannot act.
b)attribute some untestable incoherent property to God that “he can do anything because he is God.” That’s fine. If you want to view God as that, it is your business. But it also is absolutely worthless as a tool for understanding the nature of the universe.
c)take the traditional religous route and just dismiss the argument because you don’t like it.
- No. If morality is objective than it does not matter how individuals value morality. It is not like Austrian theory of value of money or something like that.
You are clearly falling into the naturalistic fallacy, or the appeal to nature as some call it. Your argument is that God’s nature determines morality, making it a part of nature itself. You cannot conclude on the basis of that alone that God’s dictates are good. That judgment has to be independent from the mere nature of things. It’s a fallacy. Look up appeal to nature fallacy.
- Humans do not have to assign value to what God says. My point is they would still be objective. Your ‘what if God is really bad’ isn’t really getting us anywhere, at least not with Christians.
And therein lies the problem. It’s not getting us anywhere because you are not recognizing the point in the idea that God could be evil. The only way you can conclude that he is good is to exercise your own judgment. Even if we assume that God’s nature determines morality and hence makes a moral code objective, you still cannot get to the conclusion that said moral code is good. This is related to the point above.
- I do not think I missed the point, that I am being far too simplistic, or being too broad or generalized. I agree with you that if evolution is true it acts on nature and the external world, completely agreed. You cannot make the leap, however, that because our bodies evolved better in some fashion that therefore we accurately perceive reality. Indeed, if human morality is only a product of socio-biological evolution then it tells us nothing whatsoever about the truth value of morals. It only tells us what helps the herd mentality. On this view rape (forced copulation actually; rape is a moral wrong) may not be socially advantageous but there is nothing wrong with it. It is acting like a social outcast but again, nothing objectively wrong about it.
You are missing the point, as this response shows. I said that your argument cannot be true in the broad, generalized way that you stated it, because it would render evolution inoperable. That is, it assumes something that is false about evolution in the first place. Evolution must allow us to perceive the nature of reality at least to some extent. What we get into at that point is a quibble about probability. That is, how accurate is our depiction of the world given evolution. It certainly isn’t 100% accurate. In fact, the guy who came up with the argument you’re making stated it in terms of probablity, not in the sweeping way that you did. I brought up the point about evolution not transmitting specific beliefs through genes because it severaly undercuts your argument. Evolution gives us general adaptive faculties, not specific belief systems. This statement by you evidences your conflation in this regard:
You cannot make the leap, however, that because our bodies evolved better in some fashion that therefore we accurately perceive reality. Indeed, if human morality is only a product of socio-biological evolution then it tells us nothing whatsoever about the truth value of morals.
You go from (a) talking about our ability to perceive reality [general adaptive faculty] to (b) talking about the truth value of morals [specific belief]. Evolution builds a brain with the potential to understand claims about truth and morality, but it does not “tell us” specific beliefs. However, I would not argue that evolution gives us a completely accurate view of reality. Our senses can be fooled. So, I state again, the only way your argument works is if you can show that evolution has endowed these generalized adaptive faculties with a mechanism for the probable selection of specifically false yet adaptive beliefs.
I should also point out that hinging our accurate perception of reality on God gets you no where. That very idea renders us unable to even examine our perception of reality because it puts it outside the realm of nature. God could be fooling us for all we know, if that was the case. On this view, we could not even estimate how probable it is that a supposed God gave us an accurate perception of reality because it slings it into the realm of the supernatural, rendering probability inoperable.
First things first, “subjectivity” is not “arbitrary”. You are interacting in nature with a certain psychological wiring, so some things will be fulfilling to you regardless if you want them to be. In light of this, there is actually substance; it’s not picking what is good to you randomly. As a human, I have an aversion to violence and harm, as most people do (thank you, evolved mirror neurons!).
And you say it’s “objective” since it is not dependent on human judgment, but you’re still depending on the judgment of a mind’s perspective on things. It doesn’t matter that he’s not human, the point he is a mind (supposedly something that humans have) and interacts in a very anthropomorphic way. You can define this disembodied mind as omni-whatever, but you can only do that by assuming he is all those things. Let’s assume that Hell strikes me as psychotic. Yahweh is telling me it isn’t. Do I support the idea anyway even though I have a visceral reaction to the concept? I don’t know if I have that within me. How can I know that he isn’t a celestial dictator that would put Adolf Hitler to shame? There’s no way to bridge this epistemic gap unless you assume, against your own feelings, that Yahweh knows better in this case.
This is also another reason that the Christian version of theistic objective morality fails miserably because, as St. Paul says, this is supposedly “written on our hearts,” yet it is obvious that it is the case that many people believe that torturing people, for anything that would not protect innocents, is a bad thing. In order for Paul’s reasoning to work, it should be easily accessible to people through their intuition. Even a lot of Christians, in today’s modern age, have redefined Hell as a “state within people”, accepted annihilationism, or become a Unitarian. The obvious way around this, as Craig has said in the past as well, is to assign psychological motives to those who disbelieve or find the idea abhorrent. “They ‘have no excuse’ and are suppressing knowledge of Yahweh’s righteousness so they can sin.”
The central issue with the moral argument is providing a “foundation” for “grounding” moral beliefs. This, as I stated earlier, stems back to the theist’s acceptance of the premise of Hume’s guillotine. You have a descriptive fact (“God issues commands”). So, using your own standards, it follows that you ought to follow these commands? Why? Says who?
The quote feature is not working for me for some odd reason anymore. It worked several posts ago but no longer working. Anyone know why? I could type out the commands but… I don’t wanna 
@ Epicurs ibn Kalhoun:
I see no reason to think He cannot enter His creation. Entering His creation does not negate his timelessness. God has not changed His plans as you put it by throwing Adam out etc. For understanding providence, foreknowledge, etc. you need to look into Molinism aka Middle knowledge.
I do not know of a definition or understanding of the Appeal to Nature fallacy that supports what you are saying; I know of the Appeal to Nature fallacy but not as you describe it. Can you link me to a source that shows how you are using it?
I said it is not getting us anywhere because you said ‘well God could be evil.’ That isn’t even an argument!
Well we are talking past each other with regard to evolution and morality. I clearly stated why evolution does njot give us objective morality; I just don’t know what point you are trying to make.
You are comitting the fallacy of equivocation with regard to mind, God, and humans. If humans pick what is good and what is bad then they are not picking things that are objective, these things are indeed subjective and arbitrary. Humans saying something is wrong is definitely different than God saying something is in fact wrong.
Your objection about Romans 1:18-20 shows you do not understand the argument at anything above a pop-atheist level. I am not saying this as ‘put-down’. I encounter this entirely all too frequently by people that are not engaging the other side and thereby ignoring substantive discussion and just sitting back pointing fingers and no progress is made. The clear teaching is that people willingly ignore the moral law; hate for instance is easly learned/taught.
Humans saying something is wrong is definitely different than God saying something is in fact wrong.
How?
The chapter from Romans:
The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse. For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened (Rom. 1. 18-21).
Craig’s take:
In Paul’s view God’s properties, His eternal power and deity, are clearly revealed in creation, so that people who fail to believe in an eternal, powerful Creator of the world are without excuse. Indeed, Paul says that they actually do know that God exists, but they suppress this truth because of their unrighteousness. As result they become so clouded in their thinking that they may actually deceive themselves into thinking that they are open-minded inquirers honestly pursuing the truth. The human capacity for rationalization and self-deception, I’m sure we’ve all observed, is very great, indeed, and in the biblical view atheists are prey to it.
The chapter refers to the “moral law” for sure, but Paul is still in essence telling me what I know. I secretly know Yahweh exists, but I suppress this information because I want to sin. You’re going to have to be more explicit in telling me where I went wrong here, because you’d also be disagreeing with Mr. Craig on this score.
I’m not sure how I qualify as a pop-atheist as well. I appreciate the New Atheism for what they do best (Hitchens’ rhetorical skills, Harris’ background in neuroscience, Dawkins is only good at debunking creationists, and Dennett’s work on philosophy of mind is worthwile). I don’t look to them for philosophy in particular (sans Dennett), although I will listen to what they have to say. I have studied the arguments being presented and I used to be a Christian who took the religion very seriously, as well as participating in a Pentecostal Bible quizzing organization. So my understanding of the New Testament is not as superficial as, say, a Dawkins-esque figure.
Finite knowledge, for starters.
Can you refute the Kalam, Leibniz, or Moral arguments? If you do not have objections stronger than the positive arguments of those then you are irrational for denying them and deceiving yourself.
Well if finite knowledge is the problem, then the issue is epistemic and not ontic.
I also don’t think people should be tortured for being irrational. That strikes me as an odd proposition. I don’t even think people should be tortured for eternity for being “wicked”, as Paul, Craig, and virtually every Christian believes they should. Also, something I don’t hear from Christians enough is that you should tell me that you want me to go to Hell if I die before recognizing the error of my ways. To not want it would impugn God’s authority.
This is a total aside/rant on my part, but I don’t see how such a worldview could have such contempt for fellow humans.
I said finite knowledge for starters. Isn’t this a big criticism of centralization, too? Further, men are not inherently good nor is there some inherently good out in reality separate from God. If there is no God then men could reason one way or another. This is exaclty what I keep repeating but don’t get any responses to. How could men make morality objective?
About your “rant”. I wouldn’t really call that a rant, btw. People are not tortured in Hell by some outside force nor are they sent there by God. People send themselves there and their ill-desired separation from God is what ‘tortures’ them.
I do not know of a definition or understanding of the Appeal to Nature fallacy that supports what you are saying; I know of the Appeal to Nature fallacy but not as you describe it. Can you link me to a source that shows how you are using it?
The argument was pretty straightforward. It goes, simply, like this: God creates morality; morality is therefore “objective”; morality is part of reality, i.e. the natural world, the universe. You cannot get notions of “good” or “evil” out of this. To say that you have an “objective” moral code from God is one thing; to say you have a GOOD objective moral code is quite another. To imply “goodness” is to commit the appeal to nature fallacy.
I said it is not getting us anywhere because you said ‘well God could be evil.’ That isn’t even an argument!
Evidently you failed to see the other sentences associated with that point.
Well we are talking past each other with regard to evolution and morality. I clearly stated why evolution does njot give us objective morality; I just don’t know what point you are trying to make.
You clearly stated a mistaken claim. Evolution does not transmit specific beliefs through genes. It builds brains that, instead of giving one specifc beliefs, are functionally adaptive and capable of adopting all sorts of different beliefs based on the circumstances. Furthermore, the guy who came up with this argument claimed that it was improbable that evolution would equip brains to select for true adaptive beliefs instead of false adaptive beliefs. This is simply not the case. If you have organisms competing for survival and reproduction, true adaptive beliefs, on the aggregate, win out, i.e. are more probable. The reason is that true adaptive beliefs are modular, i.e. more functional in noval and varying situations, and false adaptive beliefs are not. I recommend you read criticisms of this argument because you’re clearly not familiar with them.
So what if I suffer from buyer’s remorse? With the smiley guy aside, that is a serious question. So do you subscribe to the more traditonal “fire and brimstone” interpretation or the annihilationist / inner-state concept of Hell?
It is a Hayekian criticism of centralization to be sure, but that has to do with a select few imposing their will on the spontaneous order. This argument against centralization has to do with the conflict between top-down governance vs. emergence. The order arises out of an evolutionary/memetic process of genes and implanted ideas shifting and getting weeded out. If somebody imposes something from the top down without all the information, it won’t generate the desired results. When moral philosophers talk about normative ethics, they are suggesting systems to the public, and the public then decide for themselves. If they tried to impose it legally somehow, yeah, there may be chaos. But taking that level of skepticism to the extreme, you would have to consciously doubt every thought you’d ever had since you don’t have “perfect knowledge.” You can have degrees of certainty and some beliefs are more accurate than others. This is actually the whole point of Harris’ book on morality. Even if you acknowledged something along the lines of Nietzsche’s perspectivism, it doesn’t rule out that some views are more valid than others.
Well if you accept the objective/subjective distinction, it could be the same way men “make” facts objective. You use your reasoning that nature endowed you, and you have no other choice. Even if you got to a point where you consciously accepted moral error theory, something like “murder is wrong” could be valid in a human context. I think the philosopher Richard Joyce summed up this concept fairly well:
The option of carrying on as if nothing has changed—of continuing to assert moral propositions and to hold moral beliefs even while maintaining moral error theoretic commitments—is surely a non-starter, for the kind of doxastic schizophrenia involved in such a life not only violates epistemic norms, but can be expected to lead to various kinds of pragmatic handicap. But there is a third option: The error theorist may consider taking a fictionalist attitude towards morality. The fictionalist’s point of departure is summed up nicely by Hans Vaihinger:
An ideal whose theoretical untruth or incorrectness, and therefore its falsity, is admitted, is not for that reason practically valueless and useless; for such an idea, in spite of its theoretical nullity, may have great practical importance. (1935: viii)
To adopt a fictionalist stance towards morality is to continue to make moral utterances and have moral thoughts, but withhold assertoric force from the utterances and withhold doxastic assent from the thoughts. The fictionalist can be seen as an error theorist who attends to both epistemic and pragmatic norms.22 His respect for epistemic norms means that he steadfastly refuses to believe any moral claim; his sensitivity to pragmatic norms means that he seeks and embraces the expedient option.23 On the assumption that morality is in various respects useful when it is asserted and believed, eliminativism will (ceteris paribus) constitute a practical cost; and if morality is very useful then eliminativism will constitute a big cost. The fictionalist option, therefore, becomes attractive if (and only if) it promises to recoup some of these costs. The advocate of fictionalism holds that some of these losses may be recovered by adopting a policy of employing moral language, engaging in moral deliberation, and being moved by moral emotions, but throughout it all remaining disposed to deny the truth of any moral proposition if pressed in an appropriately serious manner (e.g., when in the philosophy classroom), thus not really believing any of it (thus not violating any epistemic norms), and thus deflating a host of well-thumbed philosophical problems concerning the ontology of moral facts and our access to them. Regarding actual moral discourse the fictionalist remains an error theorist: He thinks that this discourse does aim at the truth but systematically fails to secure it. On the grounds of expediency he advocates a revolution in our attitudes towards morality, and regarding the (imaginary) post-revolution moral discourse the fictionalist is no error theorist, for, come the revolution, moral discourse will no longer aim at the truth.24 The tricky part of expounding fictionalism is to make out a kind of attitudinal acceptance other than belief that can play a central role in serious intellectual inquiry and serious practical deliberation.
So basically what he is saying is that moral discourse will go on, although be it in a different context than the one we have today (I think our moral discourse is highlighted by a lot of Kantian and Christian influence). A quick example would be like saying you are “standing still” when really you are moving at the speed of the rotation of the Earth. You’re not going to account for the truth in this instance because it’s easier to assume you are motionless.
Likewise, even if God didn’t exist and morality was thought by 100% of humanity to be subjective, for the sake of our own livelihood and well-being, we will act as if it is true. Which is why I see the Moral Argument as a completely fruitless argument. It’s not that powerful on this account and it’s not a good evidential account for the existence of God because, if you accept the parameters of the argument, you’ve narrowed it down to two possibilities: Either morality is objective, or it’s socio-biological spinoffs of evolution; whether our social-behaviorial intuitions are objectively verified or not, granting the theists’ assumptions, would rest on whether or not God endowed us with this moral behavior. We know most of humanity has moral intuitions, but we can’t tell the difference between the “objective” and the “biological spinoff” theories in application.
Sorry for the tl;dr
People are not tortured in Hell by some outside force nor are they sent there by God. People send themselves there and their ill-desired separation from God is what ‘tortures’ them.
That’s equivilant to this scenario: A man points a gun at me and says, “Agree with me or die.” If I disagree, I have killed myself.
It seems that every atheism vs. religion thread boils down to God vs. no God. I’m sure there’s more to morality than what atheists and the Abrahamic religions have to offer.