What is the appeal of "objective morality"

[Leumas]

No reasonable philosopher of religion claims that the Cosmological Argument entails that everything in the Bible is true. It merely entails that there is a being which created the universe.

I'm not saying whether William Lane Craig is a reasonable philosopher, since I don't know him.

I'm also emphatically not saying that the Cosmological Argument is a good argument. Even if it works, and I don't think it does, we get some self-caused cause. That seems to me to be rather a long way from any of the usual qualities we associate with God.

It entails no such thing... it tries to trick people that it entails that... but it is nothing but linguistic legerdemain and sleight of tongue to give the illusion that it said something intelligent when in fact all that was happening was the shoving of a god through the trap door of illogic and sophistry.

 

[Leumas]

The same could be said about gravity. Humans, and humans alone, have voiced opinions about physical laws.

Yes... and theists use that too as "proof" for their sky daddies.

Theists argue that morality and gravity and all the "laws" of nature are ordained and set into play by a sky daddy.

 

[SpuriusMaximus]

Well, indeed, technically the cosmological argument would posit some original cause. Not only it doesn't say it's YHWH, it doesn't even really say it's necessarily a deity at all.

Turns out that most things are caused by rather inanimate and unintelligent causes. E.g., the sun was caused basically by gravity, rather than some intelligent god wanting people to see during the day.

 

[Leumas]

The funny thing about that argument is that according to Genesis, Adam and Eve and presumably all their descendants got to instinctively know the difference between good and evil when they ate from the tree of knowledge.....

Someone who trips on a stone did not "instinctively" fall down... the fall was caused by a stone which has nothing to do with instinct.

How does a knowledge induced by the consumption of a magical fruit from a magical tree imply "instinctively"?

I think you are misunderstanding what the word "instinctively" means.

 

[phiwum]

Could you hilite in my post you quoted where I said that "the Cosmological Argument entails that everything in the Bible is true. "?

Well, since you post in fairly opaque sentences rather than full paragraphs, I had to draw some inferences. When you wrote, "therefore, Jesus," I inferred that you meant that Craig or others using the Cosmological Argument drew the conclusion that, since there was a first cause, Jesus came and died for our sins.

I've seen no such argument to that effect.

Perhaps I exaggerated when I wrote "everything in the Bible is true," but the point is that the Cosmological Argument supports literally nothing in the Bible, except (perhaps) the existence of a single deity.

 

[phiwum]

It doesn't seem odd to me. On what basis, other than our mutual agreement that something is so, are we to establish truth?

Surely, there is no contradiction in supposing that every person alive today is simply mistaken about some factual claim. Hence, truth is not determined by consensus.

 

[phiwum]

Original sin = being naked when you're born.



Surely if we inherited the penalty, we must have also inherited the perk. I think it's implied fairly clearly, but some may disagree -- dunno.

Maybe, but this is the first I've heard of it. If it's a common view, surely we could find it somewhere.

I'm not saying you're wrong, just that I'm not familiar with this notion.

 

[Leumas]

...I think Sam Harris is not a solution for the problem of objectivism. Maybe evolutionary theory could establish that some particular behaviour is good to preserve the species, but this is not to say that to preserve the species is the supreme moral good. Furthermore, there are a lot of particular behaviours that are irrelevant to the preservation of the species and we ought nevertheless to evaluate them ethically.

That is not how evolution works.

 

[phiwum]

Well, that's the problem right there. It's like saying you've taught Bayes to maths student, and people had no trouble with it. Now try going bayesian on the ass of someone who not only is ignorant enough to believe that homeopathy works, but WANTS to believe that, so whatever argument or counter-argument you present MUST be flawed in some way.

Same thing with going Socrates or Plato on people's ass, really. Sure, whoever was smart enough to take a philosophy class gets it. Try convincing the bible-thumping neighbour with it, though, and may Hermes be with you.

I'm at a fairly unusual school, a business school where introduction to philosophy is a required course. I know that sounds bizarre, but it's true.

So, self-selection is a bit less of an issue than you think.

I got my undergrad at Oklahoma State, on the other hand, which is chock full of Bible thumpers, and it's been rather a while but I don't recall the attitude you describe there either. That probably doesn't mean much, memory being as fallible as it is.

For a start, the original Euthypro dilemma involves more than one god, with different morals. So if two gods are in favour of two different things, can you say one is right and the other wrong? It doesn't work all that well in an exclusive monotheism.

The disagreement of gods is irrelevant, since prior to the proper dilemma, they agree on the definition that piety is what all the gods love. No issue with disagreement there.

No, really, I actually tried to pull that argument on a couple of believers, and the obvious (and tbh expected) way out was simply, "yeah, but our God is the right one, theirs doesn't even exist." Dilemma resolved right there.

"Ah, but how do you know your God is the right one?" you might go. Turns out most people have no problem closing the logic circle at this point. They know their religion is the right one, because their God condones the things that are moral. E.g., actual answer from a believer, "Our god doesn't tell people to fly into buildings." (Well, neither does the Quran, but hey...)

Well, ok, so instead you decide to take a more modernized version of Euthypro, and go, "But what if god did something immoral? Could you still say morals come from god?" or "How do you know that God is moral?" or some such. Well, they have an answer for that too. Namely, some version that God is by his very nature incapable of being anything but perfectly and infinitely good and moral. You get about as far with that as asking someone "how do you know a square doesn't have three sides?" It's by definition so, duh.

Essentially never underestimate how strong the force cognitive dissonance is in some people. Not only they aren't philosophy students, they don't want to have anything to do with any philosophy that contradicts their TRUTH.

They should turn to Kant. My text is not at hand, and I'm not sure the context of the quote, but he quite rightly points out that, for God to be judged good (and hence an authority on good) we must first have a notion of good. Hence, good does not depend on God's authority.

But, I suppose, some folk don't actually think on these matters. I doubt anyone who does think on these matters would fail to see the logic of Kant's position.

 

[phiwum]

You mean claptrap and sophistic trickery and linguistic legerdemain... no?

I mean arguments intended to establish the existence of God. I did not intend to suggest that these arguments are sound.

It is not unusual to refer to an unsound argument as a proof, though of course it can be misleading to do so.

 

[phiwum]

It entails no such thing... it tries to trick people that it entails that... but it is nothing but linguistic legerdemain and slight of tongue to give the illusion that it said something intelligent when in fact all that was happening was the shoving of a god through the trap door of illogic and sophistry.

I'm not defending the Cosmological Argument, but merely pointing out its conclusion

(Aside: if you're going to use such fine terms as legerdemain, you might want to learn to spell "sleight".)

 

[phiwum]

Yes... and theists use that too as "proof" for their sky daddies.

Theists argue that morality and gravity and all the "laws" of nature are ordained and set into play by a sky daddy.

Er, right. Good point. Completely relevant and everything.

 

[SpuriusMaximus]

They should turn to Kant. My text is not at hand, and I'm not sure the context of the quote, but he quite rightly points out that, for God to be judged good (and hence an authority on good) we must first have a notion of good. Hence, good does not depend on God's authority.

But, I suppose, some folk don't actually think on these matters. I doubt anyone who does think on these matters would fail to see the logic of Kant's position.

Well, in a nutshell my point is that some people don't really want to think much about these things, and I'm under the impression that a lot don't wan't OTHERS to think about it too much.

 

[Leumas]

...

I'm not saying whether William Lane Craig is a reasonable philosopher, since I don't know him.

....

 

[phiwum]

Again, do you have anything to say?

I won't try to guess the meaning of those oh, so cute little smiley faces. I prefer to use words rather than hieroglyphics when I converse.

 

[Beelzebuddy]

Any discussion of objective morality should at least touch on the pantheon of Dungeons and Dragons, in part because it divorces the conversation from real-world theological issues but mostly because in D&D, objective morality is simple fact.

In D&D, there are numerous godlike beings. Maybe real gods, maybe not, but we know at least one got his start as a mortal wizard before ascending, so they're not unreachable or ineffable.

These gods have agreed on a simple system of morality with two axes: Good/Evil, and Lawful/Chaotic. These are objective and arbitrary. Good/Evil are ultimately whatever the gods say they are, although they mostly line up with "helpful/harmful" in practice. There are spells: Detect Evil and Detect Good, which can be used to determine alignment. Those spells can be blocked or tricked in various ways, but they are never themselves wrong.

The appeal of this objectiveness of morality is clear, at least in these circumstances: it absolves the player of moral responsibility for their actions. Orcs are Evil, thus you can kill them. The whole orc village, why not, who cares. If it pings on Detect Evil, smite away.

 

[phiwum]

Perhaps I should be explicit here.

The fact that Leumas misspelled "sleight" has absolutely no bearing on the soundness of his arguments.

Neither does the fact that Leumas tends to use flowery language.

His arguments stand or fall on their merits, and not on the merits of his expression of same.

So, there we go. Any hint of ad hom is thereby discharged, and we can carry on to the substance of the disagreement. Right, Leumas?

 

[tsig]

Well, that's the problem right there. It's like saying you've taught Bayes to maths student, and people had no trouble with it. Now try going bayesian on the ass of someone who not only is ignorant enough to believe that homeopathy works, but WANTS to believe that, so whatever argument or counter-argument you present MUST be flawed in some way.

Same thing with going Socrates or Plato on people's ass, really. Sure, whoever was smart enough to take a philosophy class gets it. Try convincing the bible-thumping neighbour with it, though, and may Hermes be with you.

For a start, the original Euthypro dilemma involves more than one god, with different morals. So if two gods are in favour of two different things, can you say one is right and the other wrong? It doesn't work all that well in an exclusive monotheism.

No, really, I actually tried to pull that argument on a couple of believers, and the obvious (and tbh expected) way out was simply, "yeah, but our God is the right one, theirs doesn't even exist." Dilemma resolved right there.

"Ah, but how do you know your God is the right one?" you might go. Turns out most people have no problem closing the logic circle at this point. They know their religion is the right one, because their God condones the things that are moral. E.g., actual answer from a believer, "Our god doesn't tell people to fly into buildings." (Well, neither does the Quran, but hey...)

Well, ok, so instead you decide to take a more modernized version of Euthypro, and go, "But what if god did something immoral? Could you still say morals come from god?" or "How do you know that God is moral?" or some such. Well, they have an answer for that too. Namely, some version that God is by his very nature incapable of being anything but perfectly and infinitely good and moral. You get about as far with that as asking someone "how do you know a square doesn't have three sides?" It's by definition so, duh.

Essentially never underestimate how strong the force cognitive dissonance is in some people. Not only they aren't philosophy students, they don't want to have anything to do with any philosophy that contradicts their TRUTH.

"My god could not condone evil because he is goodness itself", checkmate atheist, I'll pray a special prayer for you.

 

[IanS]

The same could be said about gravity. Humans, and humans alone, have voiced opinions about physical laws.

That's not a valid comparison though, is it. Gravity is the name we give to a physical effect that we can measure, detect, demonstrate, and explain to astonishing mathematical accuracy inc. via relativity theory. We "know" why gravity exists.

WLC, is (afaik) claiming that something called "objective morality" exists and that it was planted in humans by an invisible heavenly God. Can you give a similarly reproducible measured demonstration and mathematical theory of explanation for the existence of a heavenly God infusing humans with "objective morality"?

When did the God put the objective morality into the earliest humans? Was that a sudden change, or not?

And what was the mechanism by which the invisible God placed objective morality in certain ancient apes?

 

[IanS]

I've spent a decent amount of time over the last few years learning about religious argumentation through debates, lectures, and other formats and there's something on my mind at present which I can't wrap my head around: objective morality.

Now, what's most commonly done (in my experience) is that when someone's religious moral views are challenged, the theist will exclaim that without religion (or some belief system) you can't have Objective Moral Values (OMV). They will then attack moral relativism as if it's the only alternative since they see it as entirely subjective (I'm not sure, tbh).

Ofc, I see their religious views as subjective even if the morals themselves are supposed to be objective (after all, it's based on interpretation or emotion, both of which are considered to be NOT objective at least under WLC's definition)...

I'm fine with all of this but I wonder what the appeal is in the first place for a system of objectivity when it comes to morality. I know we like to have simple answers to complicated questions but I wonder if that's not only unrealistic but is it even desirable outside of convenience?

I honestly don't know and am just rambling a bit. Feel free to share your thoughts.

I suppose the answer to the above original question asking "what is the appeal of objective morality", at least in respect of WLC claiming that humans have "objective" morality, is that (rather obviously) if he (WLC) can claim that morality is specially inherent only in humans and not in any other living things, then that makes humans fundamentally different to any other animals/plants/birds etc. ... it's an attempt to separate humans from evolution by claiming that they have an important feature which is not something slowly acquired by evolution or by homo sapiens gradually adapting their behaviour to social living amongst one-another.