kctan

KJ1,

It did clarify one thing for sure.

God given moralities will never be good enough to be considered a choice for basing our morality on.

Too much limitation & constraints not to mention contradictory.

jlowder

Metaethics in general (and moral ontology in particular) doesn't specify exactly which normative ethical theory is correct. So what? You seem to believe that if a metaethical position (e.g., "Moral realism is true") doesn't entail a particular normative theory (e.g., "Act utilitarianism is true") that is because there is no plausible normative theory available (given one's ontological commitments). If that really is your position, then that is fallacious.

To understand why, consider the following dialogue between an atheist defending <strong>scientific realism</strong> and a theist who believes there is no 'ontological room' for scientific realism:

atheist: Scientific realism is compatible with atheism; there is an objective fact of the matter regarding which specific cosmological theory is correct.

theist: Okay, which cosmological theory is correct?

atheist: I don't know. I'm not a cosmologist. But whatever the answer is, there is only one correct answer.

theist: Aha! Your commitment to scientific realism doesn't enable you to know (in advance) which specific theory of cosmology is true, so that must be because there isn't any 'ontological room' for scientific realism if atheism is true.

... and that's just as fallacious as the argument you seem to be making in our dialogue.

In answer to your question, my previous response to you listed three books by naturalistic moral philosophers, as well as their answers on where objective moral facts are located. I wrote:

This paragraph contains three ideas on where naturalistic moral realists believe that moral properties "go." You have yet to respond to that.

I have not begged the question; I gave you three possible candidates in my previous reply. You have failed to reply to those candidates.

For purposes of this discussion, think of a natural property as a physical property.

Jeffery Jay Lowder

[ October 28, 2002: Message edited by: jlowder ]

[ October 28, 2002: Message edited by: jlowder ]</p>

kingjames1

So Post is a reductionist, if in fact he believes value judgements can be reduced to the laws of physics. This is a nice assertion, but where is the argument?

Where is it? Post offers no answer to this question in the quote you gave -- he presupposes that moral properties exist in the first place, then that they can be determined by natural facts. He certainly asserts this, yes, but he does not demonstrate it.

Regarding how natural facts determine moral values, you write:


Okay, but this is no argument for your reductionism -- it is merely an articulation of Post's beliefs. Please demonstrate that moral properties supervene on natural properties at all!

What is a moral property? How do you know they exist?

I think I understand the source of our mutual misunderstandings: you are presuming the existence of moral properties. I am not claiming that, given moral properties, ethical realism is logically incompatible with metaphysical naturalism (of course it is, given the 'brute' existence of moral properties). Rather, I am claiming that naturalism can provide no clear basis for moral properties in the first place -- even abstract objects cannot provide moral grounds (I know am asserting this, but you're apparently asserting just the opposite).

Again, I ask you, how does fact determine ought?
Give me some examples...what natural facts determine which moral properties?

J.

[ October 27, 2002: Message edited by: kingjames1 ]</p>

Plump-DJ

JJL.

Well my argument is saying that if physical properties are to be the basis for an ontologicaly meaningful or binding ethic then i think the arugment is over before it started. It's somewhat like telling me you can squeeze an aeroplane into a house. I mean I suppose we *could* do it but i don't think that is really the point i'm making. (In otherwords i smell a rat) I'm aware that a room may exist. If you suggest the room is reducible to physical things then i would ask is there a way we can connect the dots from physical things to an ontologicaly meaningful or binding ethic? (can we squeeze our aeroplane into the house?) Given that you have offered three people who say "Yes we can" I shall pursuse those.

I note that you and King James are at the same point in your discussion so perhaps i'll simply "hand it over to KJ1" and make my exit here. I mean there is no point in me asking you the same questions that he is, when i can simply follow your discussion with him and make up my own mind myself.


Cheers
Plump-DJ

[ October 27, 2002: Message edited by: Plump-DJ ]</p>

jlowder

and again:

LOL, just becuase I didn't quote the argument doesn't mean Post didn't give the argument. I will very briefly summarize the argument and then refer you to <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0801419689/internetinfidelsA/" target="_blank">his book</a>, where he formulates the argument in detail. The argument, in a nutshell, is that any statement that says some action A is morally wrong points towards a belief in moral realism. In other words, ordinary language points against the view that morality is subjective, where some action like murder could be "wrong for you" but "okay for me."

LOL! Nice try, but I am not presuming the existence of moral properties. My reason for believing that moral properties exist is the argument defended by Post and summarized above.

The bottom line is that you are still asserting the logical incompatibility of moral realsm with metaphysical naturalism. The distinction you make doesn't change this fact, since the truth of moral realism logically entails the existence of moral properties. So we have come full circle and we are right back where we started. I still do not find any basis for your assumption that moral realism and metaphysical naturalism are logically incompatible. Again, the premise, "metaphysical naturalism and moral properties are logically incompatible," would be true if and only if some version of the divine command theory of ethics were true and hence moral properties were supernatural properties. (If the divine command theory were false, then moral properties could be nonnatural or natural properties, both of which are compatible with atheism.) But to assume the truth of the divine command theory is to beg the question. Indeed, it reflects an a priori bias against naturalism in general and naturalistic approaches to ethics in particular.

I have already answered this question. You have yet to respond to that.

I have also already answered that question in reply to Plump-DJ. I wrote:

and

To that list I would also add Michael Martin's new book, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1573929875/internetinfidelsA/" target="_blank">Atheism, Morality, and Meaning</a>. (I should mention that I am still waiting for my copy to arrive, but it appears from the Table of Contents that Martin defends moral realism generally and Ideal Observer Theory specifically.)

Jeffery Jay Lowder

P.S. You still have not given me the courtesy of a reply to my 21 Oct post where I stated that <a href="http://stripe.colorado.edu/~morristo/goodness.html" target="_blank">Wes Morriston's paper</a> demolishes the claim that moral realism requires theism.

[ October 28, 2002: Message edited by: jlowder ]

[ October 28, 2002: Message edited by: jlowder ]</p>

galiel

I hod an atheist friend who hod a moral on his woll.

Big woll. Big moral. Sistine Chopel-esque. Cherobs and everything. I kid you not.

So, I would hove to say,

YOS!!!

Atheists can have morals!!

Plump-DJ

If i may jump in here. I for one was not merely *assuming* that MetNat was logicaly incompatable with moral realism. I've asked how we get from natural (physical) properties (whatever they might be) to an *ontologicaly binding* ethic and i'm having a lot of trouble seeing how (i have been reading more papers on this) and where you squeeze *ontologicaly binding* out of 'physical stuff', since everything about us (our experience and reason) seems to be reducible to that. If not, it hardly sounds like naturalism any more.

I suppose what i have a problem with is the suggestion that physical things can lead to an ontologicaly 'dutiful' or binding morality once one takes the logic where it leads. And of course there is the issue of determinism and the effects that that has on any meaningful ethic.

To Quote Russ Manion in his article "Metaphysics and Meaning"...

-=-=-=-=-
In the natural world we find no properties to which moral concepts correspond. In fact we cannot even imagine what such a natural phenomena would look like. We can describe an event, such as 'A' kills 'B,' as a set of physical movements. We can even describe our feelings on that event. But, though these feelings may say something about our own biochemical states, they say nothing about the event itself."

He continued, "I will agree that if the behavior of 'A' killing 'B' becomes normative, it will have a negative effect on social order. I will also agree that if the demise of society is immoral, then 'A's' behavior is immoral. But, just as we had to look at the consequences of 'A's' behavior to determine its morality, so we will have to look at the consequences of the demised society to determine its morality, and so on. No matter how many steps we take, we will not find in nature any property that corresponds to a moral concept. Therefore, moral concepts are grounded either outside nature or not at all."
-=-=-=-=-=-=-

[ October 28, 2002: Message edited by: Plump-DJ ]</p>

jlowder

That comment was directed at Kingjames1, not you. (I thought you had switched to a read-only mode.)

Jeffery Jay Lowder

Plump-DJ

JJL

Well I recanted.

No It was just that I was reading over the thread again and i realised that you had accused me a number of times of the genetic fallacy, etc. I thought it fair to mention that my argument was based around the idea that i had considered the alternative that MetNat can house an ontologicaly dutiful and objective ethic (reducible to physical things) and found it made no sense at all to me. That's all. I'll pop out again now and leave KJ too it.

KnightWhoSaysNi

According to your theology, "whatever God wills" is "good." So if God commanded you to torture children to death, that would make the action "good". That would be "absurdity."

Chopping the hand off a woman simply because she touched the genitalia of a man while trying to stop a fight (along with "showing her no pity") is indeed barbaric and cruel. I'm sorry you don't see that. And it would still be barbaric and cruel if a judge, king, president,.. or deity commanded it.

Was that performed with or without Zyklon B? After all, what's the difference between herding women and children into gas chambers, like in the Holocaust, compared to hacking them to death with swords and spears? You may say that the nations the Israelites destroyed were depraved and evil, but based on the Israelite actions, they appear to be just as bad. Also, if the child sacrifices had been commanded by Yahweh instead of Molech, that would make it "good" wouldn't it?

Now I don't have a PhD in moral philosophy and nor can I debate moral philosophy at the same level as Jeff Lowder, but I base 'goodness' on what is harmful or beneficial to human beings. Something is good or bad depending on the action itself, not on who does it or "might makes right." I do not require a deity to tell me that murder and child molestation is wrong. There are obvious harmful consequences of murder and child molestation and it's still wrong no matter how mighty the perpetrator happens to be.

I'm sorry that you could find genocide, cruelty to women, and extreme religious intolerance "good". No offence intended, but I just find that scary and it probably touches on why I can never become a conservative/evangelical Christian. As Blaise Pascal wrote, "Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction."

[ October 29, 2002: Message edited by: Nightshade ]</p>