jlowder

No, that is definitely NOT Post's argument. The possible worlds language was simply an attempt on Post's part to formally describe the supervenience relationship. The basic idea of supervenience is that moral properties cannot change without the natural properties changing. Suppose, just for the sake of providing a simple example, that it is morally wrong to take another person's wallet if the owner of the wallet has not consented to your taking it. If moral properties supervene on non-moral (physical) properties, then the property of "moral wrongness" would supervene on ANY situation where one person took another's wallet with the consent of the other person's wallet. This is a very simplified example of what it could mean for moral properties to supervene on natural properties.

Jeffery Jay Lowder

luvluv

SRB:

My view is that different groups of people mean different things by the word "good", and that most of them are WRONG, and that makes me a moral objectivist.

Gadzooks, friend! No matter what WORD they used to describe good there is a quality behind it that they are all attempting to describe. If good is a real thing, then no matter what we call it it continues to exist. What you are essentially arguing is that there is no such thing as good except what people agree on, and my central point to you is that THERE IS WIDE DISAGREEMENT AS TO WHAT IS GOOD! The semantic theory solves those disagreements not one wit, so therefore, as I originally stated, atheist morality comes down to value judgements which cannot be rationally justified.

With all due respect, sir or madam, you seem to be the only one here who is concerned with the defintion of words. We are trying here to determine what goodness REALLY IS independant of what anyone THINKS it is, because people THINK DIFFERENTLY about it! The question is who is right and how do we determine that?

How would you solve the abortion controversy with the semantic theory? By that theory, you would simply conclude that both sides were right. Well they could have told you that before your little investigation got started! It doesn't solve anything! They can't both be right, so how do you decide who is?

If there is one more anti-abortionist than abortionist in the world, does that make anti-abortion morally correct? And if so, what happens if two of the anti-abortionists die? Would that then make abortion right?

People use the language which, in their opinion, most accurately describes what they are talking about. But this does not objectively establish anything. As I said, whether we called green blue or black, it would still have the same wavelength. And whether we called good good or "who shot john" it would still have the same "wavelength" as well.

Because I have described a MEANS by which a theist's beliefs could be rationally justified (God's omniscience). You haven't.

No, you haven't. You've explained how someone could look good up in a dictionary or do a pie chart of how people use the word. You've done nothing to explain how people who truly operate from two different value systems could resolve a moral dilema. Further, you are presupposing a moral law: a person must agree with the definition of good given by the reportive definiton of the word good. Why should the person who loses that argument agree that goodness can be established this way. The semantic reportive theory merely introduces another moral law it cannot justify and then propses to be a means by which moral theories can be justified?!?!

No, I don't. In the claim above you said that atheists can rationally justify their beliefs. Well, rationally justify utilitariansim and social darwinism for both participants using your semantic theory (you said you didn't need opinions for this, why are you asking for mine?) and show how they would resolve their conflict.

Excuse me, but that is not what social darwinists believe. Social darwinists do not factor in the overall happiness of others into their equation at all. Only the overall progress of the race matters, not the happiness of it's individual members. You're trying to define your way out of the dilema with false definitions, that won't help between a real Dickensian social darwinist and a thorough utilitarian.

jlowder:

I'm wanting to understand you clearly, I assume you mean the property of moral wrongness would supervene on ANY situation where one person took another's wallet withOUT the consent of the other PERSON? (and not their wallet, or else Post is on whacky time here).

How does this differ from the categorical imperative?

It my be simple to you, but it's clear as mud to me. I still don't see how this possibly establishes anything objectively. Who decides whether that act has the property of moral wrongness in the initial case or any of the other possible cases?

That's my point. Therefore, since the goodness of neither of them can be established without begging the question, they are both as unjustified as a belief in God.

No one has described a way to resolve the matter on this board, they simply insist that in can be done. I'm from Missouri pal, you're gonna have to show me.

Because his definition of "moral superiority" would flow from his values, ditto another opposing view, so it would end at a stalemate.

Again, theists escape for two reasons. One, theists don't claim that beliefs have to be fully rationally justified to be held. Two, God's omniscience is sufficent ground for them to hold that their definition of goodness is true insofar as they allign with God's knowledge of goodness. Since God cannot hold a false belief, anyone who agrees with God about goodness must have a true definition of goodness.

Note, this does not mean that two theists cannot disagree, but it does mean that they have grounds for believing the other to be right or wrong and have grounds for believing that a right or wrong actually exists independant of what they believe.

[ November 11, 2002: Message edited by: luvluv ]</p>

luvluv

Pomp and jlowder:

I have reconsidered my beliefs about God's knowleddge of the truth making it so that goodness must be ontologically prior to God's existence. It is not necessarily true that because God knows good to be good, that goodness is ontologically prior to Him. It could be that He knows good to be good because He made it so, or it could be that goodness is ontologically prior to Him. But in establishing his belief that his good is the true good, the theist need progress no further than the fact that an Omniscient God knows it to be true. That is enough to establish the veracity of his beliefs. The theist can answer "I don't know" as to HOW God knows this and it would have no bearing on the fact that BECAUSE God knows it, it is therefore true.

Therefore, the theist and the atheist would be on totally different ground when making the claim, because the theist could justify his definition of goodness using God's knowledge without having to admit that this knowledge of good makes it so that goodness has to exist "seperately" from God.

Amen-Moses

Which god? Last time I looked they couldn't even decide amongst them how many there were let alone what their/her/its/his "knowledge" consisted of.

Amen-Moses

luvluv

My point was never that theists have a better moral system than atheists, but that atheists are being hypocritical for accepting morals they can't prove and not accepting a God whose existence they can't prove. I didn't specify any God. The fact that there are a lot of concepts of God is a good reason not to believe in any one of those concepts, but not a good reason not to believe there is not a God.

Jagged

I don't believe in God.

I do have morals.

Why? Because I respect life itself, including my fellow humans. I know that ultimately actions which support life, like helping others, will help me connect with the "flow" of life myself. Also I feel connected to my physical environment and to other people. We are all in this together. I care about people. I don't need god to do that, it's just how I feel.

Where do you get off calling me hypocritical?

[ November 11, 2002: Message edited by: Jagged Little Pill ]</p>

luvluv

Why don't you believe in God?

Jagged

Because I don't think he exists.

luvluv

Why don't you think he exists?

Jagged

Irrelevant. It's what I believe, deal with it.

Please tell me how I am a hypocrite.