Theli

Eh... let's test this.
P1. Moral laws cannot exist without a moral law giver/author.
P2. The moral law giver/author is god.
P3. Moral laws exist.
C. God exists.

Problems at P2. You must accept the conclution before you can accept the second premise - therefore naturally the argument is not sound.
The "moral code" is just a diversion to the real workings of this so-called argument. Try again Robert.

doubtingt

Objective moral law does not exist whether there is a law giver or not. Moral questions (i.e., Is murder wrong.") are not questions of fact (i.e., Did he murder that person"). Thus, moral questions
do not have objective answers. "Right" and "wrong" are notions that are meaningless outside of the existence of a human like mind that has subjective preferences and a "will".

Your real argument is "Without the will of a diety, their is no moral basis beyond mere human preference." However, the moral laws of a God reflect nothing more than the subjective preference of that God and his will. Since nearly all theologans assert that God's will is unknowable, then his "beyond human" moral basis
is unknowable and the only available moral basis
is human preference.

St. Robert

Where does morally originate for the atheist?

Koyaanisqatsi

Same place it does for the theist; in the human mind.

Kenny, I'll try this one more time.

Only in mathematical calculations can it be said that .99999 repeating is equivalent to 1.

1 is finite.

.99999 repeating is infinite due to the necessary recurrence of the decimal point, but fuck it.

Who cares?

Kenny

Automaton,

I said I was done with the OA on this thread and I meant it, but I also said I might be back to mop up some side issues…

This is simply the fallacy of equivocation as you are merely changing the definition of “God” as originally given. To say that God exists necessarily where “God” is defined by a certain set of properties, G, is to say that G is instantiated in all possible worlds. If you wish to define the terms differently such that Gx1 and Gx2 are considered distinct from one another, that’s fine, but as long as Gx1 and Gx2 both share G in common between their respective possible worlds, that is no refutation of the idea “God,” as originally defined, exists in all possible worlds.

How does the fact that people disagree with one another on certain issues refute this claim exactly? Everyone (or nearly everyone) has a certain basic number sense; most people believe in the existence of other minds and the principle of induction (and even those that claim not to probably really do on some level) whether they think they have a convincing argument for those beliefs or not -- even the most hardened skeptic looks both ways before she crosses the street. More controversially, I think everyone has a basic moral sense (even though it may be repressed or distorted) and a basic intuitive knowledge of God (though, again, one that is repressed and distorted due to the falleness of humanity). These are just a few possible examples.

The mathematical skeptic could indeed reject such reasoning. Basically all you’ve done is provide a particular illustration of the universal assertion that 1+1=2, the same sort of illustration that a first grade teacher might create with a pair of apples, only with “|” symbols instead. But, “1+1=2” asserts that this is true of all objects (so long as they remain distinguishable from one another) everywhere and that it cannot fail to be true (something that can not be supported by a single illustration). The only way to deny that “1+1=2” receives its warrant from intuition would be to assert either that “1+1=2” is nothing more than a strongly held inductive generalization (in which case, it would actually be a potentially fallible truth subject to empirical falsification thus betraying our intuitive belief that it is a certainty) or (more plausibly, though I do not accept this) that it is true merely by definition (in which case there is no real relationship between the proposition “1+1=2” and the actual world).

This “proof” of induction is deeply problematic so long as any intuitive postulates are rejected. 1 seems fine, but we already run into problems when we get to 2. Even if the universe is ordered and no arbitrary states arise in the future which were not present in the past, there is still the logical possibility that the universe is described by <a href="http://www.rci.rutgers.edu/~cfs/305_html/Induction/Grue.html" target="_blank">grue-like predicates</a> (Goodman’s paradox) which would be empirically equivalent to the failure of induction. Second, I don’t see how to get notions like “causal interaction” without an appeal to certain basic intuitions or to some form of inductive reasoning. 3 makes no sense to me at all. First of all, it is difficult how any justification could be conferred to 3 without some sort of appeal to inductive reasoning (which would render the argument circular). Second, in a world where induction fails, any logically consistent state of affairs might arise at anytime. In a world where induction fails, for instance, I see no reason why a conscious entity could not arise, complete with false memories, last for five minutes, and then vanish. Furthermore, a world where induction fails could very well be ordered for a certain period of time and then cease to be ordered (in fact, that’s what the problem of induction is all about).

It’s only a contradiction if you reject the idea that intuition can function as a source of warrant, which is mere question begging. Again, if every belief has to be backed up by some other warranted belief and there are no beliefs which can be accepted in some sort of basic non-inferential manner, then it seems one is stuck in an infinite regress.

I didn’t say that memory and imagination were hard to distinguish (we easily distinguish between them all the time); it’s just difficult to describe in a phenomenological manner, what the difference between them is. Both often have vague or vivid mental images associated with them; both can involve voluntary or involuntary actions on our part; both can, under certain circumstances, be hard to distinguish from one another (ever wonder if something really happened or you merely dreamed it?). etc.

Anyway, that’s just a little random commentary on some of the side issue that have come up. I doubt I’ll be keeping this up much longer.

God Bless,
Kenny

[ August 25, 2002: Message edited by: Kenny ]</p>

Theli

Kenny...

This is a good point. Not all belies can be based on prior warranted facts. But I would think that we should base all our beleifs on likehood (atleast as many we can). Intuition seems too emotionally to be a base for a belief. You can also "know intuitively" that a proposition is true but lack proper knowledge on the subject. I would think that intuition is partly the cause for superstition.

Theli

I would say, from the same place it does for any other person. You didn't learn all your morallity and social skills from the church, did you?

joedad

Sounds like someone's been reading Van Til or his disciple Bahnsen again.

Lets see. Atheists can be moral but have no foundation for their morality. The evidence that god exists is that atheists can be moral. God has no choice but to be god and is required to recognize that it is god by its very nature. That existence exists is proof of god.

It is evident that such an argument is sound because soundness exists...

Next argument please.

joe

[ August 26, 2002: Message edited by: joedad ]</p>

bd-from-kg

Kenny:

Sorry to be getting into this so late, but you might want to answer this post since it gets into issues that go beyond the OA you presented.

1. Begging the question.

You’re quite right that the fact that a conclusion is “contained” in the premises in the sense that it follows logically from the premises doesn’t mean that the argument begs the question; if this were so, all valid arguments would be “question-begging” arguments. So the question of whether an argument begs the question isn’t cut and dried. But most people would agree that certain arguments beg the question in a sense in which others do not. For example, the classic proof that there are infinitely many primes would not generally be called a “question-begging” argument. On the other hand, consider the following argument:

P1. The cardinality of the set of primes is greater than any natural number.
P2. Any set whose cardinality is greater than any natural number is infinite.
C1. The set of primes is infinite.

This argument is both sound and valid, but it obviously begs the question, even though the conclusion is not identical to any of the premises. The reason (so far as I can see) is that the conclusion follows from the premises in such an obvious, transparent way that no one who understands the premises can fail to see immediately that if they are true, the conclusion is true. So it is impossible, even for a moment, to believe the premises and doubt the conclusion.

With this in mind, let’s consider your (or rather Plantinga’s) argument. The only parts that matter are the first premise and the definition of maximal greatness:

(1) There is a possible world in which maximal greatness is instantiated.

Def: Maximal greatness - the property of having maximal excellence in every possible world.

If we substitute the definition of maximal greatness into (1) we have:

(1') There is a possible world in which the property of having maximal excellence in every possible world is instantiated.

At this point the problem should be obvious: the property of having a certain property in every possible world cannot be instantiated in one possible world. Thus this axiom is incoherent as it stands.

The only way to salvage any intelligible meaning is to drop the phrase “there is a possible world in which”. This gives us:

(1'') The property of having maximal excellence in every possible world is instantiated.

To repeat: this is the only intelligible interpretation of (1).

But (1'') is just another way of saying that a maximally excellent being (i.e., God) exists necessarily.

So the argument as a whole boils down to:

P1. God exists necessarily.

Therefore:

C1: God exists.

Although it is true that the conclusion here is not identical to the premise, I think it’s clear that most people would call this a “question-begging” argument. No one who understands the premise can believe it and yet doubt the conclusion, even for a moment.

By the way, this illustrates why a premise of the form “Possibly, necessarily X” is always out of place in modal logic. Such a premise means “There is a possible world in which it is true in all possible worlds that X,” which can only be intelligibly interpreted as “It is true in all possible worlds that X” or “Necessarily, X”. Expressions that begin “Possibly, necessarily” (or the formal equivalent) sometimes arise in the course of a formal proof in modal logic, which is why the “clearing” operation “possibly, necessarily =&gt; necessarily” is useful. But there is no excuse for starting with such an expression as a premise.

2. Intuitive warrant

I agree with you entirely that ultimately, in the course of making an argument as rigorous and self-evident as possible, one reaches a point where the premises cannot be justified by even more self-evident premises. And since any logical argument must start from some premises, the warrant for these “ultimate” premises cannot be an argument or “public” evidence. Two of the most important kinds of warrant for “ultimate” premises are:

(1) Direct experience: “I see the tree right there in front of me, so there is a tree in
front of me”

(2) Memory: I remember that I was coming home from a class when I heard that Kennedy had been shot, so I was coming home from a class when I heard about it.”

But these warrants themselves rest on intuitions. (Or if you prefer, they are properly basic assumptions about the “nature or things”.) The first is based on the intuition or assumption that our senses are actually conveying reasonably reliable information about the “real world”; the second, that our memories give reasonably reliable information about the past. So in this sense, it is justifiable to use intuition as a warrant for “ultimate” premises.

However, we do not have an intuition (nor is it a properly basic assumption) that the senses of all sentient beings provide reasonably reliable information about the “real world” in all possible worlds, or that memories provide reasonably reliable information about the past in all possible worlds. On reflection, it seems clear that this is true of all intuitions and properly basic assumptions: they are intuitions or assumptions about how things are in this world, not about how they are in all possible worlds. We simply do not have intuitions about how things are in “all possible worlds,” and any assumption about how things are in all possible worlds is not “properly basic” because it is completely unnecessary to hypothesize about other possible worlds.

Thus no “ultimate” premise of the form “Necessarily, X” can be justified on the basis of intuition or its being “properly basic”. In fact, it seems to me to that there is no way to justify using such a statement as an “ultimate premise” in a modal argument. The reason for this is that such a statement amounts to a claim that “not-X” is self-contradictory. But to say that a statement is self-contradictory is to say that it yields a statement of the form “A and not-A”. If this is so, it is possible to exhibit a proof of “A and not-A” from not-X, which of course is a proof of X. But if a premise can be proved, it cannot be an ultimate premise, and it is illegitimate to justify it as “intuitively plausible”. Such a claim is a claim that it is intuitively plausible (to you) that its denial leads to a self-contradiction, and if you make such a claim (by using it as a premise) you must be prepared to exhibit a proof of the self-contradiction.

It’s even clearer that it is never legitimate to justify using a statement of the form “Necessarily, X exists” as an “ultimate” premise on the basis of intuition. In the first place, it is intuitively crystal clear that no statement of the form “X exists” can be a tautology. The basic tautologies (the axioms of logic) do not contain existence claims, and it’s perfectly clear that modus ponens cannot yield existence claims from statements that do not make existence claims. But the only statements that are necessarily true in a logical sense are tautologies. Thus it is at least as intuitively self-evident that “Necessarily, X exists” is false for all X as it could possibly be intuitively clear that it is true for some specific X.

[ August 27, 2002: Message edited by: bd-from-kg ]

[ August 28, 2002: Message edited by: bd-from-kg ]</p>

Kenny

Bd-from-Kg,

You raise some interesting points, but it may be a while (if at all) that I am able to work up a full response. My wife and I are moving from Missouri to California within the next two weeks so things are about to get crazy. In the mean time, I would like to offer some preliminary commentary on the quote below.

It is not clear to me that all necessary truths are tautologies. Suppose X is some proposition such that X, by itself, could be affirmed without logical contradiction or ~X, by itself, could be affirmed without logical contradiction (thus, X is not a tautology). Suppose also that there is some proposition Y such that Y is logically incompatible with ~X and suppose Y is a necessary truth. Since Y is true in every possible world, there is no possible world where ~X is also true, making X a necessary truth, even though X, by itself, can be denied without contradiction.

Anyway, that’s it for now. I may type up a more detailed response if I get a chance (and I would like to), but I can’t make any promises.

God Bless,
Kenny

[ August 27, 2002: Message edited by: Kenny ]</p>