acronos

Hi Kent,
Obviously I have not. That is not the intention of the statement, "all knowledge comes from observation?" You chose that wording. It should be worded, "all that we know comes from observation." No one is claiming that they have all knowledge.

I do not see anything logically wrong with the pure empiricist position. I personally do not hold a pure empiricist position. Since we are discussing world-views, let me explain mine.

A baby does not learn to be afraid of loud noises. They are born with that fear. Sugar tastes good from as far back as I can remember. I am told that I thought it tasted good before I could talk. This knowledge is not observed, it is inherited.

People have two sources of knowledge that I can see. One is inheritance, and the other is observation. Culture is a significant knowledge that is observed. Since inheritance is just there and unlikely to change, the only source of knowledge that matters in conversation is observation.

The terms good and evil gain meaning through both sources. Most of the universal knowledge comes from inheritance. That sugar tastes good is an inherited universal knowledge. That it is good to shave your legs is observed cultural knowledge.

I consider several morals to be universal knowledge and as such, they are probably inherited. These include aversion against incest, the attraction to sex, and the need for approval and to cooperate with other human beings. Love, friendship, and family are related to the need for approval and are probably inherited.

Morals that are probably cultural include: the wrongness of murder, the wrongness of rape, equal rights for women and men, stealing, etc.

I suspect that you do not believe that we evolve or that evolution is a part of our history. Evolution is NOT an irrational proposition, as Duane Gish would have you believe. However, this is not the place to begin a discussion of evolution. The reason I bring it up is because I think this is the fundamental problem in your understanding of my position. I believe the same thing that created finger tips created morals. You probably agree with that statement. The difference is that I attribute this creation to evolution and you attribute it to God. It is unlikely we will find any common ground.

On a completely different note, I have enjoyed reading your ideas. You are by far one of the more thoughtful Christians on this board. However, I agree with Buffman that your knowledge of the history of Christianity is not as strong as you probably would like. You might try these Christian web sites to understand what Buffman was writing.

<a href="http://debate.org.uk/topics/apolog/contrads.htm" target="_blank">100 Cleared up Biblical contridictions</a>
and
<a href="http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/" target="_blank">Early Christian Writings</a>

The second site is by liberal Christians who may be offensive to a fundamentalist, but I cannot find such information on a fundamentalist web site.

[ August 12, 2002: Message edited by: acronos ]</p>

sir drinks-a-lot

Kent Symanzik,

Congratulations on having a complete and consistent worldview! But you do realize that complete and consistent worldviews are trivial to construct. If I were to expose you to other complete and consistent worldviews, how would you decide between them?

Does this suggest that there is more to a worldview than being complete and consistent?

Kent Symanzik

Hi Kind Bud,

I appreciate the fact that you have tried to produce a code of ethics here and you have even tried to give it a foundation (Empathy, experience, and reason). But, each one of these things also need a foundation in order to hold one obligated to your ethical code. The way I understand the relationship of these things is that empathy is the source of the ethics while experience and reason help us to empathize in the same way. (Correct me if I'm not understanding you) But, empathy itself needs a foundation. Why ought anyone empathize with you? Even if they have the same experiences why are they obligated to show you any pity? Why would you assume that people are going to reason in the same way as you?

The crucial thing about ethics is to have an unchanging standard which everyone is obligated to adhere to. Without this ethical codes are arbitrary and it is irrational to expect anyone to be obligated to adhere to them.

No one can completely satisfy God's ethical standard. That is why Christians are only saved by God's grace and mercy which he is able to give us because Jesus Christ bore the punishment we deserve for violating God's law. Sometimes we violate God's law egregiously and other times in ignorance. In both cases the Christian is forgiven by God's grace.

Because God's law cannot be improved upon. It is the standard of what is good and right.

If I reach inside myself I will only come up with arbitrary codes that no one will be obligated to follow. I am not asking why is survival good because I do not know. I am asking because I do not think atheists can provide a rational answer.

Thanks for the good discussion.

Kent

[ August 12, 2002: Message edited by: Kent Symanzik ]</p>

Kent Symanzik

Hi Vorkosigan, and thanks for the welcome.

I've been trying to consistently say atheistic worldviews because I understand that atheists hold to many different views. And my critique has been addressing all worldviews that are atheistic.

I will keep that link in mind to look into. Thanks.

This makes logic subjective. Can it really be useful that way? Is that the way you really use logic? Since most atheists hold that people can have their own values doesn't that mean there can be that many different conventions of logic? As I'm sure you can understand this view would render all discussion meaningless. Is that what you really find in your experience?

It seems that many atheist say that logic is conventional, etc. but then they use the same universal invariant laws of logic that we all know. Can you provide other laws of logic that people find useful?

I guess I will have to take your for it for now. Thanks for maintain such a good discussion board.

Kent

Kent Symanzik

Hi sir drinks-a-lot,

No, I did not realize that complete and consistent worldviews are trivial to construct. I'm not sure exactly what you are getting at here. Maybe you can provide some other worldviews that are complete and consistent as an example.

Kent

Kent Symanzik

Hi Buffman,

I don't know what you want me to discuss here. You seem to be just waving me off as one of those radical supernaturalist terrorists. I would be much happier if we could discuss these issues rationally.

Kent

Synaesthesia

Hey Kent, good to see a free-thinking theist!

I wouldn't say that it's irrational, and everybody is inconsistent to various degrees.

However, I do hold that magical explanation is fundamentally problematic. I disbelieve in the existence of God for very similar to the reasons that I disblieve in Descarte's demon.

The basic idea is Quine's statement "Any systement can be held to be true, come what may, if sufficient changes are made elsewhere in the system".

Since God is of infinite complexity, these 'changes' are built in. We can say anything we like about God without any fear of being contradictory because we can simply postulate consistency.

This is a very fundamental violation of occam's razor. So much so that it is absolutely impossible to concieve of a more unparsimonious agency.

Due to these properties, any explanation that involves God is utterly vacuous, since all ad hoc explanation can be subsumed under the divine agency without any addition of content.

You can't explain the existence of existence by God. You have postulated that God created the universe. You can't explain logic or morality. You postulate a 'source'.

In all these cases, you can give your answer (or any other abritrary answer!) without ever being more or less consistent.

Morality is not arbitrary. The point of morality is to optimize the attainment of our value-systems. In that sense there is objective superiority in certain moral systems.

In your case, you suggest that God is the ultimate value. So, provided that it's Godly ,(as in the case of the merciless slaughter of the philistines) you would be morally permitted, indeed, obliged to kill innocent men women and little children.

There are positive reasons to support humanist morality above a biblical one, because it is explicitly aimed at optimizing human success and happiness, not obeying what tradition say that a book says that prophets say God wants.

Not so for the humanist. We value human life far more than we value invisible friends. Such savagry could never be acceptable. Of course we, like Christians, Hindus and Muslims, are not always totally certain what the best, most moral course of action is.

Our morality can always be improved: That's a consequence of the human condition and is not unique to atheists. You and I are in the same boat.

Regards,
Synaesthesia

Buffman

Kent

Since you are using the Bible as the basis of your worldview, and since you are unwilling to examine that basis in light of modern scholarship, and since you do not appear to be motivated to learn anything new about the origins of your worship system, there is little more that we can discuss of a worthwhile and meaningful nature.

I have found that rationality is better based on fact than fiction. Thank you for attempting to make your conditioned faith beliefs clearer. I have found nothing new in any of your personal belief (worldview) system. The God that you worship in the Old Testament is a vicious, brutal, vengeful murderer. If you find those moral codes to your liking, that is your choice...sad though it may be. Should you think that I exaggerate, then you may not have read your Bible as closely as I have; or you are in a state of denial as a means of rationalizing your worldview.

Unfortunately I have arrived at that point in life where I have little patience with those who rather hear themselves talk than learn anything new.

tronvillain

Kent Symanzik:
They just do, because that is the way people work. It is as simple as that. Saying that empathy requires a foundation is like saying taste requires a foundation, and so your questions are analagous to "Why ought anyone find lemons sour?" Now, both empathy and taste do have a foundation, but it is found in biology and evolutionary theory, and you apparently wish to ignore that.

Vorkosigan

Kent observes:
I appreciate the fact that you have tried to produce a code of ethics here and you have even tried to give it a foundation (Empathy, experience, and reason). But, each one of these things also need a foundation in order to hold one obligated to your ethical code.

I think the problem you are encountering here is your belief that some values are "foundational" to morals and ethics. The problem is that this critique applies equally to you -- what value enabled you to choose a deity as a foundation of your values? And what was foundational to that value? And to that one? Pretty soon one is lost in an infinite regress of values.

My personal way out of this problem is not to see any particular value as foundational, but to see all values as existing in networks -- networks of other values, beliefs, facts and emotions. There's no ground anywhere because values are supported by other values. After all, nothing can justify a value except another value....and nets have no bottom, just sides.

We have this conversation quite a bit.....

The way I understand the relationship of these things is that empathy is the source of the ethics while experience and reason help us to empathize in the same way. (Correct me if I'm not understanding you) But, empathy itself needs a foundation. Why ought anyone empathize with you? Even if they have the same experiences why are they obligated to show you any pity? Why would you assume that people are going to reason in the same way as you?

This question was explored at length in many earlier threads. The original poster, the redoubtable and engaging Luvluv, was posting in favor of the hopelessly shallow CS Lewis and some of his claims about morality that are similar to yours. The <a href="http://iidb.org/ubb/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic&f=52&t=000067&p=1" target="_blank">original thread began here</a> and is well worth reading, but I'm recopying a post of mine here to deal with this question at length. It is by no means the best post -- that honor goes to other posters on the thread, especially Pomp (that &gt;swak&lt; you just heard was me kissing up to the admins ). But it is the longest and deals with many of the issues and problems with "objective" or "foundational" moralities.

• Luvluv,
  
  Your discourse on morals is similar to CS Lewis', and fails for the same reasons his does. Others have addressed the problem of the objective existence of universal values so I will quickly go over that to pointing out another problem with your thesis.
  
  You are perfectly correct in stating that certain values are universal. Some for evolutionary reasons, others for structural reasons. Yet, because some values are universal, it does not follow that they themselves are (a) objective and (b) there is a universal morality. Clearly there is not; only one example is needed to falsify your thesis. And numerous examples have been provided.
  
  The major concern of my post is that your definition of objective is in fact relative. For some people, objective may well mean "universally known among humankind." For others, objective means "found in my Holy Book." For others, it might mean "whatever advances my interests." In other words, Luv, there is no objective definition of the very word objective. The definition itself is still a value that has to be negotiated with other humans.
  
  Note that even a set of values that is universal across humans would still be relative to them only. I doubt our values hold for dolphins, cockroaches or wildebeest, let alone Glorphs from the Planet Znork.
  
  You have also made the mistake Hobbs pointed out above; confusing the two senses of the word "objective." The "objective" existence of a moral behavior is not the same as saying it is an "objective morality." Most people, when they talk about "objective morality," actually hope to make that morality absolutely binding on everyone. They mean it in some absolute sense. What Lewis does is slide over the very different usages of those words, hoping his readers won't notice.
  
  Another issue: your "objective morality" is stunningly incomplete. It has to constantly evolve to meet new social, political and technical challenges. Unfortunately New Guinea tribesmen do not have to deal with cloning, Jones Act subsidies, infant industry protection, nuclear waste disposal, flood plain management, and a hundred other urgent questions of public policy. Objectively, those values exist only in industrialized societies, and each one has its own response (China is building dams whilst the US is tearing them down). So Luv, your "objective" values are actually hugely incomplete.
  
  Let's look at some of the comments from your posts.
  
  To be an objective moralist means that we believe that everyone can and does analyze extenuating circumstances from about the same moral framework.
  
  This is simply your personal definition. Most of the advocates of objective morality here have a biblically-based system. They are easier to rip to shreds, however.
  
  ...but I feel it is also objective, in that in nearly all cases most of humanity comes to a similar conclusion.
  
  You may feel that way, but my experience of living and traveling in over 20 countries leads me to conclude that you are very wrong. As I said above, it only takes one case to refute you, and many have been provided. In the US, widows can remarry and women can own property. In traditional India, widows are burnt and women cannot own property. In Saudi Arabia and Taiwan, the husband's permission is needed to divorce, in England and France it is not. In San Francisco homosexuals are celebrated, in northern Kenya they are killed. In Thailand young men typically cross-dress, in Kenya they hold hands, in the US young men consider it immoral to do those things. How many examples do I need?
  
  ..but Lewis is arguing that when we do analyze these situations, most of us, in the end, agree.
  
  Yes, but Lewis is wrong, for many reasons. BTW, brother-sister marriage occurs here in Taiwan. Look up shimpua marriages in the anthro databases some day.
  
  ...most men at most times have totally agreed on morality.
  
  Luv, what you have just said actually means "At all times some men have not agreed on morality. Most does not mean all. And as I have said above, universal agreement at the cultural level (certainly not the individual level) does not necessarily constitute a basis for an objective morality. Even if we could derive such a morality, it would be incomplete.
  
  ...that where humans disagree it is usually on matters of custom or religion (i.e. whether or not to eat pork or cattle, circumcission, etc).
  
  I'm afraid that Lewis simply has never bothered to do any fieldwork or study in this area, or he would not have written anything this uninformed. I suggest, Luv, that you reflect on the status of women in China, India, Saudi Arabia, Italy and the US. Can you say that those cultures are in broad agreement? In Taiwan in divorce, the kids go to the father, in the US, to the mother.
  
  As for the Nazi's, I know that they know right and wrong as well as I do, and there is no use in pretending that they don't. But again, here is where I feel the position of absolute morality is morally superior to the doctrine of morality as being purely subjective. If morality is purely subjective, and men really do not share some basic values, then all negotion and peace efforts would be as fruitful as going outside and talking to a tree.
  
  I am glad you wrote that last sentence. Luv, it is an objective fact of history that negotiating with the Nazis was as fruitful as going outside and talking to a tree. Less so, talking to trees is relaxing, you know. . It was because negotiations failed that war occurred. But that was Hitler's goal from the get-go. Hitler and the Nazis did not share our basic values, and so we had to fight them.
  
  Objective morality at least holds out the prospect of peace, but a society in which there were no shared basic values, people could only fight for their own advantage.
  
  Ah, Luv, this is not the case. For moral subjectivists hold that we cannot force others to accept our viewpoints, we can only seek common ground to have mutually beneficial negotiations. Subjectivists emphasize empathy and tolerance.
  
  Moral objectivists, however, are authoritarian in nature. Look at the various systems of "objective" values, Christianity, Communism, Islam, Nationalism, Facism and so on. What do they all have in common? They are damned bloody. They are the opposite of peace. For the objectivist starts with the basis that his values really ought to be universalized, and always ends up attempting to universalize them at swordpoint. While the subjectivist starts out with the notion that there are no objective values, and so does not have a basis to enforce her moral will universally at gunpoint. The claim of "objective" values is actually a sort of rhetorical aggrandizement designed to get the listener to submit her mind and body to the authority of the claimant.
  
  It occurs to me that perhaps I am not understanding your argument and am not responding effectively to it. Maybe it would help me if you condensed it a little into your main points.
  
  Read the little passage above. That does it for me. Since, as a subjectivist, I cannot speak for others, you will have to roust them out on your own.
  
  ...and I believe he was a great thinker, probably greater than any of us on this board.
  
  I do not believe he was a great thinker at all, though an effective apologist. Lewis was fond of making uniformed pronouncements, did not bother to master the philosophical basis of his arguments, did not consult major figures/texts in the fields he was writing on.....the list is endless. This ignorant, supercilious approach made him an effective apologist, but not a good thinker.
  
  As for the issue of brains, I prefer to deal with arguments, and not people. I don't accept another intelligent person as an authority because she is smart. I examine her data and arguments. As you should Lewis'.
  
  This passage below shows some of the core problems with your thinking:
  
  A corallary to Lewis point, was that those people who had left societies with bad morals usually can be made to see that their societies had bad morals once they come to a society with better ones.
  
  On what grounds do you say that societies have "bad morals?" If your grounds are indeed universal in nature, note that practically all cultures in human history have practiced polygamy. Should we in the US change to polygamous marriages? Also, should we start beating our wives, since that is universally practiced outside western cultures?
  
  Additionally, how do you deal with widespread accepted practices, such as prostitution, that are also illegal everywhere they are practiced, though ignored (like here in Taiwan)?
  
  Finally, if something is ubiquitous, does it qualify as an imperative? For example, if the most common language grammar form is subject-verb-object, should everyone be forced to speak an SVO language?
  
  Also, what about new things, like human rights, found only in the west? How do we treat them?
  
  They can see that the morality that is present in this new and better society is not simply different, it is superior to the society of their old country.
  
  Really? Or do they follow the "when in Rome" principle? Here in Taiwan I live like a Taiwanese whenever possible, less friction that way.
  
  My own country of America is one of the best examples of this phenomenon, amost all people who have entered this country from less than liberal democratic traditions have come to embrace pluralistic democracy.
  
  Yes, Luv, as you admit, many do not embrace pluralistic democracy.
  
  They can see it is not just a different, but a better way to live.
  
  Some do. You are probably not aware of groups such as fundamentalist Christians, militias, muslims, Hassidic Jews, Amish, corporate elites, and other groups that reject pluralistic democracy (whatever that is -- is it your claim that everyone has the same idea of it?)
  
  If there was no such thing as a "real" right, society could not morally advance.
  
  Luv, it can "advance" only relative to some value or goal. "Advanced" is relative.
  
  And I'm sorry, people will have to accept at least one value in order to negotiate: the value that it is better to negotiate than to war. And what if they do not share that value? But again, all men do share this value, because it is an objective moral.
  
  They DO NOT have to accept this as a shared value. They merely have to believe that it is in their interest to negotiate at a given moment.
  
  This seems to suggest that all men everywhere have looked at human sacrifice in light of a standard and abolished it. If half the world were constantly engaged in tossing babes into the flames, you would have a formidable point. That there are a few reluctant stragglers who have yet to abandon what the entire world considers to be an immoral tradition is harldy proof that morality is totally subjective.
  
  You do not understand what it means to say that morality is "subjective." It simply means that there is no point of view that lies outside our conversation that is the ultimate arbiter of our conversation. There is nothing you can point to that would compel me to adopt your standards, except force. Instead, values must be negotiated using tolerance, empathy, reason, patience, civility and other values that encourage, rather than discourage, interaction and communication.
  
  More practically, human sacrifice has been stopped in many cultures by the intervention of colonial authorities at gunpoint. Not because some "saw the error of their ways." What error? Your thesis is exceedingly naive.
  
  I'd like you to name a society which currently exists in which it is morally acceptable to marry your brother and sister.
  
  Like I said, check out the phenomenon of shimpua marriages, where a brother marries a sister, specifically adopted as a toddler, for that very purpose. There are several cultures with such systems. I believe there is a discussion of it in Guests in the Dragon by Gallatin, and Brown covers this issue in Human Universals from a different perspective.
  
  In a nutshell, the existence of a single universal value does not mean that all values are universal, nor does it mean that if a value is "universal" it ought to be (is does not mean ought, another Lewis error), nor does it mean that it is "objective" in both of the common usages of the word.

Hope you've enjoyed the references. Most advocates of objective morality, "justification" or "foundations" have serious trouble grasping how a subjective, ad hoc, flexible and constantly evolving moral system actually functions in reality, and make the kinds of errors you make above. Even if people don't share my morality, I can still negotiate with them, or disapprove of their actions. <a href="http://iidb.org/ubb/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic&f=52&t=000067&p=2" target="_blank">Pomp's first post on this page</a> deals quite effectively with that specific issue.

Vorkosigan

[ August 13, 2002: Message edited by: Vorkosigan ]</p>