Snowflake: “But, this is ironic because it is you who adopted the convention of changes=becomes. I’m perfectly happy if you choose to use language this way, as it doesn’t harm my understanding of the things you write.”
No. It wasn’t only me. It was, as I had stated in that initial post you responded that deals with change=becomes, of the Aristotelian tradition. I gave a quote explaining the differences from Plato, etc… And if you noticed I never even brought up ontological creation (as in the beginning of all time) other than I gave specific Astronomical references and then pointed out some other general mentions to I. Ryan. I have not been directly arguing about “creation of all time” other than the Astronomy caveats I introduced to you, and about the “not necessarily-so” pertaining to the black hole. I’m glad you are honest enough and trustworthy enough to come out and say what you did above. That goes a long way in this world to come across somebody with honor. Thank you!
I’ll get back to the rest of the post later. I really got to run.
Of course saying that something is immoral is of course a normative statement but the question is whether such statements can be agent neutral or mere statements of preferences. Now since we can use normative statements as propositions it follows that they are more than statements of preference and have agent neutral content. All I have done is made a positive description of a normative statement to conclude that there must be agent neutral ethics.
I’m finding difficult to understand your ethical position. Do you believe that there is nothing that God should not do and man not to do? If so there is place for natural law. Nowhere did I say that God’s actions ought to serve as a guideline for our actions just that they did since God is the GOOD. Do agree that God is the GOOD? If you do then my conclusion follows.
I find natural law appealing since it allows the use of independently ascertainable methods of finding truth and doesn’t require any appeals to authority. Now I do think that belief is basic and that one can never use “neutral” methods. I need to think more of how to integrate basic belief and logic.
Of course saying that something is immoral is of course a normative statement but the question is whether such statements can be agent neutral or mere statements of preferences. Now since we can use normative statements as propositions it follows that they are more than statements of preference and have agent neutral content. All I have done is made a positive description of a normative statement to conclude that there must be agent neutral ethics.
I’m finding difficult to understand your ethical position. Do you believe that there is nothing that God should not do and man not to do? If so there is place for natural law. Nowhere did I say that God’s actions ought to serve as a guideline for our actions just that they did since God is the GOOD. Do agree that God is the GOOD? If you do then my conclusion follows.
I find natural law appealing since it allows the use of independently ascertainable methods of finding truth and doesn’t require any appeals to authority. Now I do think that belief is basic and that one can never use “neutral” methods. I need to think more of how to integrate basic belief and logic.
God is a purely noumenal concept and can’t be approached rationally, except insofar as recognizing this fact. Also, I think Mises said something about how God could not act given he is supposedly a perfect being with omniscience, since action presupposes felt unease. I’m not sure what this has to do with the topic anymore though.
Has anyone read Reinach’s Kant’s Understanding of the Humean Problem ? I have a paper analyzing it but haven’t got a hard copy of the real thing yet.
Astronomy isn’t psychology. Of course there’s thought put into astronomy, and philosophy of natural sciences is a good course/discipline, but I’m a realist also when it comes to there being stars outside of my head.
I don’t know how “creationists use the word”. I wonder if any creationists exist in the forum that may speak on behalf of creationism.
oh. I wonder if that’s how Esuric sees it or Physiocrat.
That’s interesting. I see it possibly is that way, or I think that matter/energy has always been here and God is immanent in matter/energy and God is also what expands and contracts the matter/energy. My theory of God is always in accord with science. What I mean is, if it is good science then I’ll figure out a way to include God.
I don’t know the detailed theology behind explaining God. It appears you do, and I know Esuric does. If theology is the correct name of what I’m thinking here in regards to the type of thinking you two are partaking of.
I don’t know how matter/energy is created out of nothing. But as I noted there are scientific theories that include ‘this universe’ was created out of nothing, but then other dimensional universes are what transfer the energy/matter from that one to this one. So technically that’s not ‘out of nothing’. I may venture to go to the point that God involves some form of energy and gives it, meaning, creates this universe. Yet I don’t know about that either.
I’ve always simply put it that creation is a mystery and everything in this universe has some mystery embedded within all the particulars. There gets to be a point where I can know all there is possibly can be known about a tree, but there is a limit. The existential knowledge of what it is to be a tree I’ll never know as a human being. I’m not necessarily saying that ‘mystery’ is God either. I think God is the phenomena tree too. I think God is immanent.
I know when I am referring to theology, philosophy, astronomy, or baking, I mean, I employ logical implications to the best of my ability to maintain philosophical categorization. I think the university set-up with all the different fields is a good mirror image of the genus and specie catagorization of the different types of knowledge there is in this world.
I agree with the suggestion, and, de Jasay is a moral non-cognitivist. His view is that morality and justice are different ventures (similar to Lon L. Fuller); and that ‘rightsism’ is nonsense detrimental to liberalism.
I don’t think that we disagree as much as it seem. I’m fine with agent neutral ethics, but this isn’t the fundamental question. The question is a meta-ethical one; where do these ethics (agent neutral or otherwise) come from? Natural law is one possibility, and divine command theory is another. We are essentially debateing the merits of these two views.
There is nothing that God should not do, correct. He is accountable to none other than himself; there is no higher moral standard by which he can be judged. God’s actions, whatever they are, are just and good because he defines them that way. However, these facts are by no means applicable to us. There is a creator/creature distinction. We are accountable to someone other than ourselves; there is a higher moral standard by which we will be judged. I do agree that God is good, but I also maintain that unless he tells us what this means for us, it is ethically useless. How am I supposed to figure out that I shouldn’t kill people? God does it all the time. Moreover, the only way that we can really even know who God is, is by appealing to scripture. Otherwise, we are left with a vague, Aristotelian-ish God. Aristotle was not foolish to try to derive his ethics from this.
Whatever its merits are, the fact remains that it is fallacious and incompatible with scripture. Show me a single verse that claims that man can arrive at ethical knowledge independent of God’s revelation. I can show you myriad verses to the contrary, if you want. Can I also reccomend a book?
Why should I believe you? It’s your business if you simply don’t like it, but you have not demonstrated that it is fallicious. Actually you have negatively demonstrated peace, scarcity, and private property, ie natural law. And as long as you keep your paws off of me and my stuff, then I’m cool with that. We don’t need to discuss this any further.
That’s not a demonstration. It’s not even an axiom. And it sure doesn’t exist as a particular phenomena. What that is is simply putting two words together with a slash, and all the rest is your belief. It’s not even an enticing mathematical equation. Again, why should I believe you when you haven’t demonstrated that it is fallicious?
If this bothers you emotionally, then I think it would be best to stop. I haven’t turned this into an emotional quagmire, but you’re ‘sighing’. Let’s best leave this be.
nirgrahamUK is right. Rothbard is a dealer in “rightsism”. Rothbard doesn’t even provide an argument for natural rights, he merely asserts their existence (which is fine since many of his intellectual enemies believe in things such as “human rights” anyway, so he is simply showing what happens when you take such ideas to their logical conclusion).
Once people get used to being provided with something that others are legally obligated to provide them with, they start to see those provisions as natural. They then resist taking away such (state granted) “rights” in a kind of ratchet effect. In Germany and France this has gone past the point where people believe they have a “right” to be provided with a job that suits their skills and a “right” to a certain wage. In the past natural law theorists defended slave ownership as a “right” and a job in a certain profession a “right” for guildmembers.
Of course, this talk of “rights” is nonsense. If having a right means anything at all (besides something we think we deserve), it is something created by agreement (contract) and comes into existence as an obligation/right relationship between people. It isn’t a relationship between people and actions, but between people and other people. This should not be confused with liberty which is a relationship between people and feasible acts, not between people.
Edit: WTF is wrong with the quote formatting? Is anyone else having major problems with quotes?
“Once people get used to being provided with something that others are legally obligated to provide them with, they start to see those provisions as natural. They then resist taking away such (state granted) “rights” in a kind of ratchet effect. In Germany and France this has gone past the point where people believe they have a “right” to be provided with a job that suits their skills and a “right” to a certain wage. In the past natural law theorists defended slave ownership as a “right” and a job in a certain profession a “right” for guildmembers.”
Positive “rights” not negative, and have nothing to do with property - which is only when they make sense (ala Rothbard). What exactly is your point? What previous natural law theorists defended slave ownership? Name them. And what exactly does that have to do with Rothbard and a rationalist, axiomatic-deductive objective ethics?
“the same is true of Rothbard given how De Jasay uses that term.”
I’ve ask her about that previously, and it gets ignored… and they thus soldier on in wonderful ignorance. It’s far easier to just ignore the glaring anamoly, than admit your world view is flawed.
I agree but the context of my above quotation was in response to your claim I was smuggling in ought statements to build my system from which the quote refutes.
I’m now going to be in an odd situation and cite Euthyphro- So you say that things are good solely because God declares them to be so? I’ve never denied the creature/ creator distinction only to the very modeate view, which is rather incongrous for me, that you can arrive at SOME not all moral imperatives from natural law. The question of whether God in fact kills people all the time isn’t as clear cut as you seem to maintain as it depends on your views of the mechanics of the fall and since i’m OVT and you’re, seemingly, a monergist this would mean entering a rather long theological discourse which would be innappropriate at this juncture.
My point of bringing theism into the natural law discussion was to provide sufficient foundations from which to build the laws not that by directly positing a “natural” God would solve all problems. I agree we need the scriptures to know God but not to know about him.
You are phrasing it in a “when did you stop beating your wife?” question. Along with divine command vs natural law (which I think is a false dichotomy) I’m arguing that God reveals himself in the created order. I expect though you’re thinking of the quotes from Paul in Romans saying I would not have known sin apart from the law which is absolutising his statements the context- note well the start of Romans which I argued is a clear endorsement of natural law.
Thanks for the book link. I’ll admit it will take me a long time to get round to reading it, if ever, since my present interests lay else where such as educational theory. So I added Clark’s book on educational philosophy to me reading list.
I can’t see us getting beyond this impasse at present so unless you have anything else to add we may as well end the discussion for now.