K

luvluv:

Why is it not a rational justification to say that I am genetically programmed for self-preservation and am absolutely incapable of doing anything counter to my programming?

My justification is that I am COMPLETELY DETERMINED by my genetic makeup and the total sum of the inputs to my senses. EVERY SINGLE action I perform is rationally justified by the fact that I physically have no choice but to behave as I do for each and every situation in which I find myself. There is nothing arbitrary about it.

Jamie_L

Hmmm... My original intent seems to have been side-tracked and swallowed. Oh well, I'd still ike to respond to ManM (who is hopefully still lurking):

Not exactly. I define "morally wrong" as "causing harm". As mentioned previously, all morality eventually reduces to some assertion of value. Seeking to minimize harm to one's self seems to be an acceptible assertion, since most human beings (most living things for that matter) seek to avoid harm to themselves.

The possible scenarios for avoiding harm are infinite and immensely complex. Morality is a short-hand for avoiding as much harm as possible without risking additional harm by being paralyzed from over-analysis of all the potential options. As humanity has grown from largely independent tribes and clans into one big inter-dependent community, I would argue that the short-hand works better when applied to all humans instead of trying to stick to independent groups that aren't really independent anymore.

Ethno-centric morality may make short-term sense, but did it really help reduce the harm in, say, Yugoslavia?

Although said in jest, I want to point out this is an unfounded assumption. It's an illusion that bad guys always finish first. This illusion exists because the bad guy can gain short-term benefit by circumventing the moral short-hand. However, how many bad guys really finish first? I'm talking years down the line. How many "good guys" end up happy and healthy in old age surrounded by a caring support network compared to the guys who trample people and step on them and hurt others.

Statistically, I think nice guys do finish first.

Great, now I've side-tracked the thread.

Jamie

SRB

luvluv
I did not say that any moral system was incompatible with atheism, I said that no moral system can be rationally justified within atheism.

SRB
You did imply that atheism is incompatible with moral objectivism, by claiming that atheists are "inconsistent" on the matter. You even admit you said this yourself later in your post. Given your retraction below, my argument is now this:

(a) To give a reason to believe a claim one needs to give some sort of argument for it.
(b) Luvluv has given no argument whatever for the claim that no objective moral theory can be rationally justified if atheism is true.
(c) Thus, Luvluv has given no reason whatever to believe that no objective moral theory can be rationally justified if atheism is true.

SRB
As a semantic theory, the truth of an objective theory of ethics is determined by how well it captures what people mean by certain moral terms.

Luvluv
To my unlearned ears, it sounds like what you are describing is a metaethical discussion in which someone might be trying to explain what they mean by phrases like utilitarianism or secular humanism. But surely defining what one means by these terms is not the same as giving a rational justification for holding them?

SRB
What is the referent of your final word, "them"? Ethical theories such a utilitarianism, ideal observer theory and divine command theory are theories about what words mean (i.e. about how people use words). To decide which theory is correct we need to carefully observe which theory best captures what people are trying to communicate when they use the term "morally good."

Luvluv
I hereby withdraw my claim (yet again) that moral objectivism is incompatible with atheism and formally restate my claim (yet again) that no moral system can be rationally justified within atheism.

SRB
What we need is some argument. You keep begging the question. Repeating something doesn’t make it so.

SRB

ManM

Jamie_L,

Why? Correct me if I'm wrong, but I am taking your position to be that causing harm eventually causes harm to yourself, and is therefore undesirable. Yet this idea fails in the scenario where causing harm will not lead to adverse consequences. I suspect we both would agree that we should not cause harm even if we could get away with it. However, a moral theory based on self-interest does not reach that conclusion. This tension between what I believe is moral and what self-interest predicts should be moral leads me to reject self-interest. Furthermore, you have made mention that morality is a set of short hand rules which generally minimizes harm. Still, in the scenario where it is to your benefit to break those rules, a moral theory based on self-interest is mute.

The counter-argument is that there never is a case where breaking the rules is in a person's self-interest. I suspect the truth of the matter falls somewhere in between the extremes of "nice guys finish last" and "nice guys finish first". Nice people have been tortured to death. Nice people have lived out their lives in oppression. And so I'm not so sure you can support the claim that breaking the rules is never in a person's self-interest. To tie this in with your original subject, a person who believes in a God of some sort has a metaphysical foundation to make the claim that breaking the rules is never in a person's self-interest. I'm not sure how a naturalist can make the same claim.

Another counter-argument could be that following the rules minimizes the probability of causing harm to yourself. We can never know if we can get away with it, so we should never do it. While this is a practical outlook, it does not make the hypothetical situation any less powerful. If it ever was the case a person could get away with breaking the rules, the moral theory provides no reason for not doing so. Moral theories are supposed to have answers to hypothetical situations such as that.

jlowder

The problem is that if God just is the Good, then the statement "If God is all good" becomes "If God is God." You have emptied "goodness" of its content.

If God exists, God has a certain nature which means (among other things) that there are just certain acts he will perform and other acts he will not perform. I think that much is uncontroversial. The question is about the relationship between God's nature and moral standards. I wrote:

In other words, I'm not denying that, if God exists, God is by definition a morally good being. Rather, my point is that God's nature is not the standard for moral goodness. (Or, in other words, if God exists, the STANDARD for moral goodness is not part of God's nature.) If God exists, God's nature is morally good precisely because there is an ontologically independent (i.e., existing independently) moral standard according to which God's nature can be evaluated.

Jeffery Jay Lowder

[ November 07, 2002: Message edited by: jlowder ]

[ November 07, 2002: Message edited by: jlowder ]</p>

jlowder

Luvluv,

I want to make sure you understand why I am frustrated with you. I wrote:

My impression is that you expect others to do your research for you. For example, if you want to comment on the arguments of Quentin Smith or John Post, you need to get copies of their books via interlibrary loan for yourself. I am willing to post very brief summaries of their arguments, but those summaries are no substitutes for their detailed and nuanced arguments. I don't have the time or patience to respond to cheap shots, when you haven't even bothered to acquaint yourself with the source material. But if you can promise me that you are not simply trying to score cheap debating points and instead have a genuine interest in learning what atheists like Smith, Post, and myself have to say, then I'm willing to discuss these issues with you.

Jeffery Jay Lowder

[ November 07, 2002: Message edited by: jlowder ]</p>

jlowder

Plump-DJ,

Let me say at the outset that I completely agree with you about one thing: if God exists, his will is not arbitrary but is instead in accordance with his eternal, unchanging, and loving nature. (That is to say, if God exists, I would not view God as a chemically imbalanced, unstable personality who could be loving one minute and abusive the next.) That isn't the problem.

Rather, the problem is ethical: what *makes* some acts morally right and other acts morally wrong? Christian philosopher Robert Adams has defended what he calls a "modified divine command theory," where moral goodness is defined in terms of the commands of a *loving* God. I think that is a perfectly acceptable view for theists to hold. My only concern, relative to moral arguments for the existence of God, is that Adams' view does absolutely nothing to support the claim that the STANDARD for moral goodness depends on God's existence. At the end of the day, Adams' ethical theory reduces to a secular ethics of love. Even if God does not exist, we can still (morally) evaluate actions according to an ethical system based on love. From the perspective of moral theory, the fact (if it is a fact) that love is perfectly instantiated in God doesn't really add anything. As Wes Morriston writes:

Jeffery Jay Lowder

[ November 07, 2002: Message edited by: jlowder ]</p>

jlowder

Luvluv,

The following is an example of a post that I think indicated you are unwilling to do your own research:

Yes, it is.

I'm at work so I don't have the book handy. I'll see if I can summarize it from home at a later time. But you really need to read the relevant chapter of his book for yourself.

This is a silly question. Since non-human animals can't have beliefs, there cannot be disagreements between humans and other animals.

I think you need to read Post's book for yourself.

That is NOT a value statement. I think you are terribly confused about what it means for something to be a "value."

I recommend actually reading what an author has written before making such judgments.

Jeffery Jay Lowder

luvluv

K:

Okay, what if I told you my justification for my belief in God was that I was determined to do so. Would that, for you, be a rational justification even of my belief, much less of the existence of God?

That is why your claim to having come into self-preservation sheerly from determinism is not a rational justification for your sense of self-determination anymore than it is a rational justification of your right arm. It's simply a description of the process by which you acquirred something. It doesn't mean that that thing you acquirred in any way corresponds to anything TRUE, or that you are within your epistemic rights to hold such beliefs.

A person who lived before Copernicus was determined to believe that the sun revolved around the earth, everything to date had convinced him of such and he had no means to dispute it. That belief, however, was totally wrong. So why couldn't your valuing of self-preservation as a basis for morality wrong. We all know of situations where it does not hold (9-11, for instance, or suicide bombers) who not only do not think self-preservation is a basis for morality, the believe it is IMMORAL. I think even you would agree, under some circumstances, that self-preservation at all costs (to the point of betraying your loved ones) would be immoral. So it would seem that self-preservation is not simple, automatic value that applies in all instances. That would seem to suggest, in some circumstances, it should be rationally justified in order to hold sway. Now how would you go about doing that?

SRB:

Here, I would dispute b, though in fairness to you my argument has not been clearly put forth. Here I go (unformally):

My contention is that, within atheism, all moral decisions, as Pomp says, boil down to statements of value (ex: self-preservation) which cannot be rationally justified. There is no rational justification that can be argued in favor of self-preservation for a person who does not value self-preservation. You either have that value or you do not. Since, within atheism, there is no way of determining which values are correct, then all moral systems reside on non-rational preferences.

On the other hand the theist has a source which can define proper values, so his moral rules which proceed from these values can have rational justification within his system of thought.

Therefore, an atheist who disbelieves in God because there is no rational justification for that belief, and yet who adheres to a moral code for which there is also no rational justification, is being inconsistent.

a) What do you mean, "correct"?

b) Wouldn't you get a different answer for every person you asked?

jlowder:

I assure you, my interests are sincere. I apologize if you thought I was taking cheap shots at you, but if you read your posts to me, you were coming of as a little bit condescending. My pet peeve is when people refer to me in a dicussion by the third person in a discussion I am participating in, so that probably set me off. But that gave me no right to smart off to you. If I did, again, I apologize. It was a knee-jerk reaction.

I am sincere and I am really interested in the arguments presented. In my experience on this board, however, most of the people I argue with are willing to give brief descriptions of the arguments they are promoting and they generally don't refuse to converse with me until I've read the book they are discussing. I, myself, have painstakingly typed 10's of pages onto this board of books I wanted to discuss. So, your standards are a bit higher than most of the people I argue with. I don't want you to do my homework for me, if the book seems like it would be informative to me of course I'll read it, but you can see how I might be more inclined to do so if you were to summarize it's ideas? This is a well read group of people and it would be difficult for me to read all of the books that were reccomended to me. I do my own homework, and have been doing so, but that doesn't mean I'll have read every book that anyone on this board mentions.

But again, I ensure you, my interest is sincere. Chances are I disagree with some of the books conclusions, based on what you have said so far, but please don't mistake that as me being dismissive.

jlowder

When I say, "moral properties exist," I mean that physical properties exist, and moral properties supervene on physical properties. My argument for that supervenience relationship would be John Post's argument for the determination of values by physical facts.

Yes.

What would it mean for an ethical theory to be "rationally justified by atheism"?

You are making incredibly sweeping claims. It seems to me that before one makes sweeping claims about what can and cannot be justified within an atheist framework, one should be very familiar with moral philosophy in general, and secular approaches in particular. I do not believe you have that background knowledge, and therefore you are in no position to make such sweeping claims.

I wrote:

What "fact" remains? You haven't yet presented an argument for the conclusion that no moral theory can be justified within an atheist framework. Moreover, you haven't refuted Quentin Smith's argument for the truth of moral realism.

Jeffery Jay Lowder