Tom Piper

tronvillain,

You said, My claim that the argument is sound is a claim that the premises are true-- I have said that having only true premises is part of what I mean by 'sound argument'. A consequence of the soundness of the argument is that there is a legitimate standard beyond what the individual who is acting happens to believe. This is so with respect to argument dealing with non-moral 'material' and it is true of arguments dealing moral 'material' as well.
It sounds as if you are now asking for a demonstration of one of the premises in my argument; I acknowledge that I have not provided such a demonstration. But let me mention again (I mentioned it in my last post to Hans). If I have to demonstrate that the premises are true in order to show that the argument is sound (showing that a sound argument is sound is not the same as producing a sound argument), if you want to show that the argument is unsound, you must show either that one or more of the premises are false or that the argument is invalid.

I mention the last point here because, in your next response to my argument you say, (I assume you meant to say that premises 1 and 3 are not objectively true) Surely your mere claim that premises 1 and 3 are not true is no better than my claim that the are true. Let us be fair now!

You go on and say, I am puzzled by your suggestion that 'to be sound my argument should be' the above argument. This is not the argument that I have made, nor is it an agument that I have any interest in making.

You may be a proponent of what has been called 'subjectivism' in some of these threads. I am not. As far as I can tell, no non-question-begging argument has been made for this 'position' anywhere in any of these threads. If my argument is sound, then subjectivism is untenable. But one cannot argue that subjectivism is true because one cannot demonstrate the truth of any moral claim unless and until one shows that my argument is unsound. To argue from a subjectivist stance to the unsoundness of my argument is to, as it were, read a theory into the data rather than to formulate a theory based on the data, and to do this in a context such as this one is to beg the question against the objectivist.

Tom

[ April 09, 2002: Message edited by: Tom Piper ]</p>

Hans

Tom Piper

I simply can't help notice that you have chosen to assume, as a premise, what I have asked to be shown.

The crux of the challenge is to show why or how it is wrong to do harm to others, even when that harm is extremely brutal. You have done nothing more than to assume it is so. I fail to see how that validates your argument.

[ April 09, 2002: Message edited by: Hans ]</p>

Tom Piper

Hans,

the following is your entire first post
In your most recent post you say There is no place in your first post where you ask to be show that it is wrong to harm other people. If you disagree, where does it ask this. My first premise does not assume what you asked to be shown.


You go one to say, The challenge to show that it is wrong to harm is not even implicit in what you have asked. You have asked how the raping, the sodomizing, the torturing, etc. is wrong, and the argument I offered says that it is harmful and hence an instance of something that is,in general, wrong. If you want to be shown that harming others is wrong then ask for a demonstration for that.

This may seem to be nit-pciking, but I think it is not. Let me explain why. If I turn to a demonstration, a sound argument with the following conclusion,

1. It is wrong to harm another human being unless one has good reason for doing so,

I would like to avoid going through the same misunderstandings.

You don't seem to have a clear idea of what a demonstration, or a proof, amounts to, or you haven't made it clear what you want. Others have pointed this out to you in this thread. IF sound arguments are offered, and you continue to respond by wrongly saying that the conclusion is assumed, or to count as restatements of the conclusion you wanted demonstrated propositions that are different from the conclusion you initially said you wanted demonstrated, we will get nowhere.

Do you think the first premise of the argument that I have offered is false? (If so, I would like to know why.) DO you think the second premise is false? (If so, I would like to know why.) DO you think the argument is invalid? Are there limitations that you want to put on the kinds of premises that can be used?

I'll close by repeating some things I said (I think) to tronvillain.

If you allow that a sound argument is a demonstration, a proof, you don't show that what I have produced is not a demonstration by simply calling for a demonstration of one of the premises. As things stand, my characterization of sound argument does not include 'demonstration of the truth of the premises'.

It may very well be that my argument doesn't convince you, hat you don't believe that one or more of the premises is true. But that doesn't show that the argument isn't sound.

You may call for an argument that, in addition to being sound, is one that convinces you that the conclusion is true. I am not sure that I can produce such an argument; but I assume you will agree that a failure to convince Hans is not obviously of any philosophical interest or importance.

Tom

Sojourner553

What is morally wrong in almost all social cultures arises from empathy:

Definition of empathy: Picturing yourself in the other person (victim's) shoes, would you want that done to YOU!

This is sometimes called the SILVER rule--don't do to others what you wouldn't want done to you.

The SECULAR logic in this is found in most advanced cultures (where it is often intertwined with religious meaning):

Examples:
* Ancient Hindu verse, MAHABHARATA:

"This is the true rule of life and the sum of duty: do
nothing unto others which might cause you pain if it
were done to you. Guard and do by the things of others
as they do by their own."

* Confucious (c 500 BC in China), ANELECTS,12,1):

"Is there one word of counsel by which one should act
throughout his whole life? It is indeed loving-kindness;
do not unto others what you would not have then do unto you."

* Socrates (c 5th century BC in Greece, Plato's CRITO)--

"...we ought neither to requite wrong with wrong nor to do evil to
anyone, no matter what he may have done to us."

* Isocrates (c 370 BC in Greece, NICOLES 71):

"Do not do to others that which angers you when they do
it to you. Practice nothing in your deeds for which you
condemn others in your words"

* Ancient Zorastrian verse. (Note how the second statement is really
a form of the Golden rule):

"Only that nature can be considered good which refuses
to do unto another what is not good for itself. Do as
you would be done by."

* Buddha (c 6th century BC),
"Let no one deceive another, let him not despise another
in any place, let him not out of anger or resentment with
harm to another.

"As a mother at the risk of her life watches over her own
child, her only child, so also let every one cultivate a
boundless friendly mind towards all beings.


**************
My point Tom, was that both you AND Hans appear to ignore any evidence that ABSOLUTE morality only correlates with religion.

But I have shown you examples where religion can override morality laws (inherent in the SILVER RULE) where it is assumed that obedience to the DEITY has higher priority.

That is, religious adherents do not agree which has higher priority:

*Obedience to God; actions for eternity

*Obeying the Silver Rule

For secular humanists, the second rule always wins out!

Sojourner

[ April 09, 2002: Message edited by: Sojourner553 ]</p>

bd-from-kg

Hans:

This thread continues to wander aimlessly because you have yet to make a serious attempt to define your terms. In fact, it appears that you have little if any idea of what it means to define your terms.

Your response to my question of what you mean by “wrong” was “Wrong as in immoral. As in it shouldn't be done.” I had a pocket dictionary long ago that defined “heathen” as “pagan” and “pagan” as “heathen”. Your “definition” is pretty much like those. If I asked you what you meant by “immoral” you’d probably say “it shouldn’t be done”, and if I asked you what you meant by that I suspect that you’d say “ it would be morally wrong”. This gets us nowhere.

In fact, I believe that only two attempts to define “wrong” have been made on this thread so far. DRFseven suggested:

Note: The phrase “ascertained to be” here seems superfluous; it would seem to be trivial to ascertain whether something is contrary to one’s views, so we might just as well rephrase this as: “'Wrong' means 'contrary to one's views' “.

Tronvillain offered:

To be sure, this was not given as his definition, but as what he thinks (erroneously) must be what britinusa (and Tom Piper) mean by it. But no matter.

Remarkably, both of these formulations seem to involve the same elementary error. To see the problem, suppose that S is a statement that you don’t understand and suspect may be meaningless. (For example, S might be “The number ‘four’ is green”, or “The Absolute is glomulous” or “God is three Persons in one Essence”.) Now imagine that someone “explains” that when a person asserts S, what he really means is “I believe that S.” Is this really helpful? If you are in doubt as to what could be meant by “Four is green” are you enlightened by being told that it means “I (the speaker) believe that four is green”? This kind of “analysis” leads nowhere.

Similarly, it is completely unhelpful to say that when someone says “It would be wrong for X to do Y” what he means is “I believe that it would be wrong for X to do Y”. If you don’t understand what the first statement means, you won’t understand the second either. Thus the statement that “wrong” means “contrary to one’s views” is worthless as a definition. If the “views” in question are opinions as to what’s wrong, we have exactly the situation described above. But if it refers to something else, the definition should spell out what that “something else” is. In other words, in saying that an act is “wrong”, what exactly is it that that one is saying it is “contrary to”?

Tronvillain’s suggestion is no better. If by “consider” he means “believe”, we have the elementary error described earlier; if he means something else, he needs to spell out that “something else”.

Most people who are inclined to a subjectivist view of ethics, once they understand this problem, will say something like: “It is wrong for X to do Y” means “I (the speaker) disapprove of X doing Y”. Others might substitute “have a certain feeling toward” for “disapprove”, or say that it refers to some other aspect of the speaker’s mental state.

The first step toward thinking clearly about moral statements is to understand that all such interpretations are completely untenable.

Now since we are talking about what certain words (or phrases, or statements mean, we are ultimately talking about definitions. And of course anyone is free to define anything to mean whatever he likes. Definitions are not propositions; they to not have the property of being true or false. However, if you intend to use language to communicate it is essential to use words to mean (at least roughly) what most people mean by them. So when I say that the kinds of interpretations of moral statements described above are untenable, obviously I don’t mean that they are false in the sense that the statement “There are no bodies larger than the Earth orbiting the Sun” is false. I mean that they are plainly and radically inconsistent with the way such language is used by the great majority of people.

So why do I say that the kinds of subjectivist interpretations mentioned above are inconsistent with the way such language is commonly used? Well, let’s look at some simple examples.

For starters, consider this statement:

(*) At one time I thought that using marijuana is wrong, but later I decided that using it is right – in fact, everyone (other than children) should use it now and then.

I think I can safely say that we all recognize it as being a perfectly meaningful statement; we all understand, in a general way at least, what the speaker is saying. And I think that we all understand that he is not saying merely that he thought at one time that using marijuana then was wrong but now thinks that using it now is right; he is saying that he once thought that using it at any time – past, present, or future – would be wrong, but now thinks that using it at any time would be right.

Now let’s “try out” one of the subjectivist interpretations above, say the one involving approval and disapproval. According to this, to say that using marijuana is right is to say that I approve of using it, so the correct interpretation of (*) is: “At one time I thought that I disapproved of anyone’s using marijuana, but later I decided that I was wrong and that in fact I really approved of it.” But this is absurd. In the first place, one is rarely under the mistaken impression that one disapproves of something that one actually approves of. In the second place, anyone at all familiar with the way moral language is actually used knows that this is not what the speaker meant. He is not saying that after careful introspection he realized that he had never had an attitude of disapproval toward using marijuana, but had all along had an attitude of approval. So this interpretation of the original statement is flat-out wrong; it is certainly not what was meant.

Now at this point you might object that the speaker meant that at one time he really did had an attitude of disapproval toward using marijuana but now has an attitude of approval. And this seem plausible at first glance because it is no doubt true that he did have an attitude of disapproval in the past but now has an attitude of approval. But this cannot be what he meant. If this were what he meant, he would agree with this statement: “At one time using marijuana (at any time, past, present, or future) - was wrong, but it is now right.” But this would imply that, for example, at one time it would have been right for Jones to smoke marijuana at 8 PM on April 14, 2003, but it now would be wrong for him to do it. Or similarly, that at one time it really was wrong for Jones to have smoked marijuana at 8 PM on April 14, 1971, but now it really was right for him to have done so. And it is virtually certain that the speaker would not agree with any of these statements. Almost no one uses moral language in such a way that he would agree that at time A it is true that a specific action by a specific person at a specific time was (or will be) right, but at time B this very same action was or will be wrong. But under the interpretation we are considering such things are quite often true. So we can safely conclude that this is not a correct interpretation of moral language as it is actually used by the vast majority of people.

The same objection applies to any interpretation of the sort we are considering, whether it refers to the speaker’s feelings toward the act in question or any other aspect of his mental state. Moreover, it applies to any interpretation of moral statements in terms of the attitude or feeling or whatever of most people toward the act, no matter what exactly we mean by “most people”.

Now for a second example, consider the following exchange:

Smith: Capital punishment should be abolished.
Jones: On the contrary, capital punishment is the just punishment for some crimes.

Obviously Smith and Jones are disagreeing. But under any subjectivist interpretation of the sort described earlier, oddly enough, they are not disagreeing at all. For example, under the “approval” interpretation, Smith means only that he has an attitude of disapproval toward capital punishment, whereas Jones is saying only that he has an attitude of approval toward it. Moreover, it is highly unlikely that Smith understands Jones to be denying that Smith really has the attitude of disapproval that he claims to have, or that Jones does in fact mean to deny this. So if they understand themselves to be merely describing their attitudes toward capital punishment, they are no more likely to be under the mistaken impression that they are disagreeing than if Smith had said “I prefer strawberry shakes to chocolate” and Jones had replied “I prefer chocolate ones myself”. But clearly they do understand themselves to be disagreeing. So this cannot be a correct interpretation of what they mean.

Considerations of this sort make it clear that subjectivist theories of morality, whatever they are, are not correct interpretations of what the vast majority of people mean by moral statements. In fact, I think that practically all subjectivists are well aware of this.

At this point you may be tempted to say that you never had in mind what the “vast majority” of people mean by “wrong” – that you weren’t asking anyone to demonstrate that the actions you described in the OP are “wrong” in that sense – but that you had a personal, private sense of “wrong” in mind. but in that case you’ve been wasting our time, since you haven’t told us what this personal, private sense is.

Besides, when one uses language in a sense other than the generally accepted one (e.g., if you say “You ought to do Y” when what you really mean is “I would approve of your doing Y”) you are not even intending to use language to communicate; the intent is rather to mislead and confuse the listener. Quite often the real intent is to manipulate the listener into doing something that you want him to do by giving him the mistaken impression that you think it is his moral duty, in the sense in which most people use such language.

So far we have only ruled out one possible type of interpretation of moral statements. It’s possible that some other type of subjectivist interpretation is correct (although I have yet to see one that cannot be rather easily shown to be an incorrect interpretation of what most people mean by such statements). Or it’s possible that moral statements actually express propositions – i.e., that they are true or false, and their truth or falsity does not depend on who makes them. Or it’s possible that they do not express propositions at all. I hope to have time to discuss these possibilities later.

At any rate, at this point is should be clear why I asked you to explain what you mean by “wrong”, and what I mean by this request. If you subscribe to a subjectivist interpretation (in spite of the criticisms above) it is trivially possible to demonstrate to you that the actions you described in the OP are “wrong” (or “right” if you happen to have some very unusual attitudes or feelings about such acts). If you think that moral statements do not express propositions, the request to “demonstrate” that such a statement is true is absurd. And it seems clear that you do not believe that there is any reasonable objective interpretation.

So in any case you’re asking the wrong question. The only interesting question is whether moral statements can be reasonably interpreted as expressing propositions, and if so, what kind of propositions (subjective or objective), and more specifically, just what propositions. If we can arrive at some agreement about what a statement like “It would be wrong for X to do Y” means, and what would count as “evidence” or an “argument” or at least “reasons” for saying that it’s true, we have the basis for a discussion about your original question. Otherwise there’s really nothing to say.

[ April 09, 2002: Message edited by: bd-from-kg ]</p>

tronvillain

So, your premises are true unless someone can show that they are false? In other words, you want us to simply assume the existence of an obective morality without it being demonstrated.

1. It is wrong to harm another human being unless one has good reason for doing so.

Now, this is an extremely vague premise. Are any reasons that lead someone to harm another human being "good reasons"? Perhaps from the perspective of that one, but perhaps not from the perspective of others. In the absence of objective criteria, what is a "good reason" seems to be a matter of opinion. Can you demonstrate the existence of such criteria?

3. There can be no good reason for doing these things to a six year-old child.

In the absence of a demonstrated objective morality, this is nothing more than your subjective opinion. That it is also the subjective opinion of most other people does not make it objective. Now, unless you can demonstrate that there is something objective about this statement, your argument is a subjective one.

[ April 09, 2002: Message edited by: tronvillain ]</p>

Hans

bd-from-kg

If you can provide a non subjective and non theistic reason(s) why the actions are immoral I'm all ears.

DRFseven

1. I used "ascertained to be contrary to one's views" as a meaning for "wrong" because of the statement made by Hans. He said something like "Someone only thinks it's wrong because it's contrary to their views, not because it's really wrong." I was saying, "Well, but that's what wrong is", not whatever else he was thinking might make something really wrong.

2. I put "ascertained to be" in there because something (let's say sanctioning abortion) might or might not be contrary to someone's views, but that person might have to figure out and decide whether it was contrary or not. And that person might be wrong, nevertheless will go by what is ascertained to be the case.

bd-from-kg

Hans:

You still don't get it. You're putting the cart before the horse. The first task is to define what you mean by "wrong" or "immoral".

Assuming that you're unwilling or unable to do this, tomorrow or the next day I'll give an outline of one reasonable, nonsubjective, nontheistic interpretation of moral statements. I can give fairly convincing reasons for believing that the actions you described in the OP are "wrong" or "immoral" in terms of this interpretation. But as I said earlier, there's nothing forcing you to accept this interpretation. It's not possible to "prove" that a definition is "correct", because it's meaningless even to ask whether a definition is "correct".

Sojourner553

Bd-from-Kg -- Hans has a religious agenda to PROVE --

PERIOD! He's not looking for any real answers that upset his "pet" theories.

He couldn't answer my posts for example -- so he just ignored them!

Typical fundie!

Sojourner