Freethought & Rationalism Archive

theophilus · 06-26-2003, 05:49 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Normal
a) Man can live without society, man predated society.

b) The transcendent argument does not mean that killing is wrong is "written in the atoms", if it was, there would be materialistic explaination for it. The transcedent argument denies the existence of a materialistic explaination for morality.

b) is great.

a) is not.

Philosoft · 06-26-2003, 05:59 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Normal
Show me the rational basis for believing it is wrong for another person to kill someone.

Wyz covered the major points, but I'll add (or perhaps modify) one. I can make an argument that orderly society is largely responsible for the success of humanity. As murder is arguably detrimental to the stability of society for a variety of reasons, I judge murder wrong thusly.

theophilus · 06-26-2003, 05:59 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Thomas Metcalf
Originally posted by theophilus :

Who said this morality is subjective? I'm saying it's objective, insofar as it applies equally to everyone. It's not independent of humans' minds, however. Now, if I'm correct, then moral obligations can exist in a materialist world.

I'm not sure what you're responding to here.
I never said moral concepts are "independent" of human minds. I assert just the opposite. I can account for that as a feature of being created in the image of God, i.e., that we reflect God's nature in our moral concepts even if specific standards are corrupted by sin.
If you want to assert this, however, you'll have to explain "mind" as existing independent of sensory perception, i.e., materialistic/empiricism.

You've still failed to justify that these values would be compelling, i.e., obligatory; mere universality does not entail obligation. There is a universal urge to procreate but that does not entail an obligation to do so.

Suppose you were to assert that moral obligation exist independently of people's minds. That would be a positive claim, and requiring of some support. So I'll let you do that now.

I don't assert that the "sense" of obligation exists apart from man's mind; I assert that the obligation arises from the fact that there is an authority behind the values which does not derive from men's minds. That authority is, of course, the creator himself..

The reason I have to believe they exist within people's minds is that there's quite a lot of disagreement upon ethical rules, and no one (in my experience) can think of a plausible place for them to exist elsewhere.

Again, you're confusing specific standards with "values" as a concept.

This was a good post. Thanks.

theophilus · 06-26-2003, 06:15 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Philosoft
Wyz covered the major points, but I'll add (or perhaps modify) one. I can make an argument that orderly society is largely responsible for the success of humanity. As murder is arguably detrimental to the stability of society for a variety of reasons, I judge murder wrong thusly.

There you go again, importing words; "success" implies achievement of a goal. Materially, there is no such goal, and you still haven't explained why, materially, man should care about the survival of the race, beyond his own survival.

Murder would only be wrong "thusly" if the stability of society is an absolute value. Trying to explain morality by some reference to pre-existing values just begs the question (I guess I could be a little more humble and say "or so it seems to me).

theophilus · 06-26-2003, 06:30 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Normal
How does someone else killing a person contribute self-destruction? What if it was to expand their fortunes? Why should anyone care about society?

So what's the rational basis for empathy?

Better yet, what is the empirical basis for empathy?

theophilus · 06-26-2003, 06:34 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Philosoft

Actually, the materialist might want to provide the answers, but he doesn't need to use materialism to do it.[/b]

Please explain. I'm running into this suggestion that there is some unspecified alternative to materialism for ahtiests and have challenge (requested) those who hold such to explain, but no one has.

Hold on. There may not be a metaphysical basis for morality, but that's a far cry from no rational basis.

I think he was just asking for an "explanation" but he can answer for himself.

theophilus · 06-26-2003, 06:42 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Philosoft
I'm going to pre-empt this line of questioning, not because Thomas couldn't provide an acceptable answer, but because it's not relevant to the topic, much less the forum. Suffice to say, for our purposes, that you appear to misunderstand the nature of evolution and the ways in which behaviors emerge. This topic, if you are indeed curious, would be better approached in our Evolution & Creation forum.

You're the boss, but how is it irrelevant?
This thread is about the UPD and, therefore about issues relating to values as a componenet of human experience.

My argument is that materialism cannot explain the existence of any values as abstract, immaterial entities. Empathy woudl certainly be included in this category; not just as a physical reaction but as a "good" thing.

theophilus · 06-26-2003, 07:21 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Thomas Metcalf
Originally posted by theophilus :

You seem to be unfamiliar with roughly the past five decades of philosophy of religion. All professional apologists accept that "evil" can stand in for intense suffering and premature death. So this response will get you nowhere.

I might say that you are too impressed with the past five decades of philosophy of religion

I'm not attempting to speak for "moral philosophy." Truth does not "develoop" as consensus among moral philosophers, particularly when most of them have abandoned the historic tenets of Christianity (if they ever held them).

"All professional apologists,etc." is simply false. All apologists who attempt to justify God to man may follow this procedure; there is a large, and growing group who, in the Van Tilian tradition, challenge such "givens" in apologetics.

Even those who "accept" your claim do so (unconsciously, perhaps) from their Christian worldview, not as an intellectually neutrral concept.

No one thinks the argument from evil is "If God exists, evil does not exist." You're attacking a straw person. The evidential argument from evil is summarizable as any of, but not limited to:

You have a madening way of misstating my positions which gives the impression that you are saying something when you're not.
I never described the argument that way. The thrust of the argument is certainly that "if evil exists (the qualifier "unnecessary" is irrelevant here) then an "omni-max" god does not." It is agains this approach and this only that I have written.

(A) If God existed, there would probably be less evil. (Drange.)
(B) Some evil is probably gratuitous, and God's existence is inconsistent with gratuitous evil. (Rowe.)
(C) The facts of the roles of pain and pleasure in the universe are more surprising on the hypothesis of God than they are on a nontheistic hypothesis. (Draper.)

I understand the approach of the argument and have challenged the underlying assumptions as unsupportable both as to the subjective assertions about the relation of God to evil and the more significant issues of evil as a concept in a material world.

I know you are more intelligent than to have missed this and I'm troubled at your regular misrepresentation of my position.

These three are (relative) "giants" in the field of atheology, and it would be almost inexcusable that you would not be familiar with their work, if you had done any research into the subject.

Well, I may not be familiar with them, but I am familiar with the fallacy of apeal to authority. If I can't appeal to the Word of God as authority, then I'm certainly not going to let you get away with applealing to fallible men as authority.

There is also a logical argument from evil that avoids Plantinga's celebrated Free Will Defense (see The Nature of Necessity). See David O'Connor, God and Inscrutable Evil: A Defense of Theism and Atheism.

More appeal to authority.

How is 2 question begging? What do you mean by "the argument from evil as contradicting God's character"? Is that different from the well-known arguments from evil?

I don't have the quote here, so can't respond here. I'll try to track it down and respond in another post.

Another straw person. Again, I suggest you do some research. The inference in question is closer to, "No one can think of why God would permit evil, and God would have good reasons to tell us why evil exists if he existed, so some evil probably is gratuitous."

Again, no quote for "straw" it.
As to "the inference," it still begs the question that God having or not having adequate reason is based on whether human intellect is the standard by which possibility is judged. God either has or doesn't have a reason and it cannot be "infered" by any process of pure reason. As I said before, the PoE devolves to a tautology, nothing more.

Affirming the Consequent fallacy: If God then the nature of human experience is the way God has (would have) described it; the nature of human experience is the way God has (would have) described it; therefore, God. This is a well-known logical fallacy that all beginning philosophy students are taught to avoid. Once again, I urge you to do some research into the topic.

I'm aware of the fallacy and find it amusing that you woudl assert it, since it is the foundation of all modern science on which, I'm sure, you base your claim to knowledge - I didn't say that, Bertrand Russell did.

Again, you're rebutting nothing that I ever said.

You insist that I must "prove" God. I have attempted to do this by showing that atheistic systems cannot account for/explain the primary features of human experience and that atheists can only function by secretly importing the worldview based on Christian theism.

Now, I'll accept meaningful arguments against that, as I've attempted to support it from my side, but you have consistently begged the question, misrepresented my position and been gratuitously insulting.
If you think that proves anything or wins arguments, you need to think again.

The way you describe it makes it seem as if there is some evidence for the existence of this being, but atheists and plenty of apologists seem to agree that there isn't.

I'm making an argument which you're either incapable of understanding or are deliberately distorting (or both).
More appeal to authority - maybe you need to do some research on fallacies.

Here's an argument from evil for you:

(1) If God exists, then gratuitous evil does not exist.
(2) Gratuitous evil probably exists.
(3) Therefore, God probably does not exist.

Let me restate that:
1. If God exists, then gratuitous evil does not exist.
2. God exists.
3. Therefore, gratuitous evil does not exist.

You see, your premises are unsupported by any evidence you can provide without begging the question of 1) the existence of evil ontologically and 2) that your inability to understand the purpose of evil means some of it is gratuitous.

The support for (2) is that there is no evidence that all the suffering in the world is justified, and because most concepts are not instantiated (most possibilities are not actual), we know inductively that there probably isn't a purpose to all the suffering in the world.

This is rubbish. You have yet to demonstrate that you have the capacity to judge whether all the suffering is justified and your induction is based on ignorance.

You can try to deny (1), the way Hasker and van Inwagen have, but you will fail. The only way to deny (2), in my view, is to attempt to formulate a theodicy (which will most likely fail as well), or to deny induction.

I don't have to deny them, I just have to show, which I've done, that they are meaningless.

You seem to have a great fund of knowledge on these matters, but you have no independent basis for asserting any of this. You have not considered the real implications of any of this, which is a shame.

Thomas Metcalf · 06-26-2003, 07:24 PM

Originally posted by theophilus :

Quote:

I assert that the obligation arises from the fact that there is an authority behind the values which does not derive from men's minds.

So you think moral obligations do exist independent of humans' minds. I understand why you think that -- you believe in God -- but that doesn't tell me why I should think that.

theophilus · 06-26-2003, 07:29 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Thomas Metcalf
Originally posted by theophilus :

So you think moral obligations do exist independent of humans' minds. I understand why you think that -- you believe in God -- but that doesn't tell me why I should think that.

Because you can't explain it any other way.
Consensus does not imply obligation.

The heliocentric theory does not imply any obligation.

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