James Hamlin

I've never taken a class on logic, so I'm having trouble reducing a couple of arguments to basic logical statements.

The first is the argument that if god says it is moral, it is.
Here's what I have:
If a superhuman, omniscient being exists and coercively declares that action X is moral, then action X is moral. God, a superhuman, omniscient being exists and coercively declares that action X is moral. Therefore, action X is moral.

The second is Glaucon's argument from Plato's republic. He claims that all humans find pleasure in exploiting others, but do not wish to be exploited themselves. Therefore, the best course of action is to outlaw such exploitations in order to protect oneself. How can this be simplified, and the god argument be improved?

xorbie

This is part of a more interesting question, which is "what is the source of good"? This question, I believe, gave rise to humanism. The basic idea was that the answer for centuries was basically just "God said X, therefore X is good because good is just defined as what God says." However, people started to answer this, and said "maybe God says X is good because X is good." Thus, a rational quest for understanding what exactly makes things good began.

This quest basically assumes that morality is not necessarily sepereate from God, but does not stem from God, that is to say that God might be part of "goodness" or even all of "goodness" but that the two are not one and the same per se (hope this all makes sense, I am finding it somewhat hard to articulate).

The part about humans finding pleasure in exploiting others I find to be dubious at the least, but this is basically an argument that is amoral. That is to say, it does not stem from any argument that "X is morally wrong, so it should be illegal" but rather "I would not want X done to me, so let us make it illegal." This form of thought is interesting and I believe powerful in that it provides a very objective basis for rationalizing certain, although not all, laws.

It does suffer many of the flaws of the Golden Rule, but basically it stems from the same idea - don't do (as in make illegal) that which you would not want done to you.

Hope this helps.

James Hamlin

Thank you, xorbie. But, concerning the golden rule, what flaws does it suffer, besides being overly subjective/self-centered?

Gothic_J

not everyone wants to be treated the way a masochist would.

Alonzo Fyfe

Try these:

Golden Rule Thread 1

Golden Rule Thread 2

Golden Rule Thread 3

James Hamlin

Can this problem be remedied by using more specific language? I asked about the flaws because I began thinking that they may not be as large as they seem. A masochist enjoys pain, but not against his will. So, applying the golden rule, he will not inflict pain on anyone against their will just as he would not like pain inflicted upon him against his will.

Alonzo Fyfe

This actually identifies my problem with the Golden Rule. It is so ambigous that it does not actually permit or prohibit anything. You already have to know what is right and wrong in order to test different interpretations to determine which is correct. But, if you already know which is right and wrong, then why do you need the rule?

xorbie

Yeah, actually my objection to the Golden Rule is not as radical as the masochist example... but it is simply that we cannot know what everyone likes. In may not be so major as whipping someone, it can be more subtle. Some people take offense to the term "queer" being used in a deragotory manner. But I might not know that. Some people are very touchy, some people have thick skin. You really can't know.

Moreover, as Alonzo was saying, you really don't know what to do. It just says what not to do, and morality is hardly this simple. It is a good general rule, but not even close to a be-all end-all or even a great mantra.

Wiploc

I'm not sure what you are after here, or even which side you're on. But I'll help if I can.

You start with If god says it is moral, it is.

Do you want to prove that? Or do you just want to state that in logical form. Because it's already a statement, clear enough, in logical form.

Are you after a syllogism? You could try this:

1. If god says X is good, then X is good.
2. God says X is good.
3. Therefore, X is good.

But note that if there is no reason to believe the premises, they do not tend to prove the conclusion.

I don't see any reason to complicate it by adding the characteristics of god, unless you think those characteristics make a difference. That is, for instance, if you don't think a non-omniscient god, or a non-coercive god, or a non-supernatural god could dictate morality, then maybe you should put those in. But you might want to explain why you think they help justify a belief that god can dictate morality.



Based on what you've got there, the opposite conclusion (that the best course of action is to require such exploitations) is just as good. If you added a premise that people dislike being exploited more than they like exploiting people, then you'd be on the right track. You'd still have to come up with a reason to think one univeral rule should apply to everybody, the exploiters and the exploited alike.
crc

James Hamlin

I'm an atheist trying to figure out the theist's argument for morality for a paper I turned in today.

Because an appeal to God is an appeal to authority, I feel that stating His Glorious Nature would be necessary to establish his authority. I am simply trying to state the religous conception of morality. To be honest, I do not think that any moral stance claiming morality is dictated by God is logical - Euthyphro's dilemma comes to mind.

I fully understand that the premises must be met for the argument to be considered true (IMO, they are not).

Realized that after and came up with this:
If people naturally detest having an action performed against them more than they enjoy performing it, then that action should not be permitted. People naturally detest having action X performed against them more than they enjoy performing it. Therefore, action X should not be permitted (is immoral).

Of course, the premise, "people naturally detest having an action performed against them more than they enjoy performing it" must be established for the argument to be valid.

These aren't my arguments - I'm just trying to put hem into more condensed language.